A little disappointed with TFCon dealer room this year

[Iacon]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one feeling the dealer room malaise... seems to become more and more of an afterthought with each 'Con I attend... I literally bought one toy on Saturday... *one*!

Granted, there are growing sectors of the toy world that I'm perfectly happy to pass altogether: 3rd party, most re-issues, Bayverse...

That said, there was a weird confluence of similar product around the room. Everybody had Combiner Wars, but nobody had earlier Generations like FoC mold Thundercracker or Gears (alright, Gears might be a lost cause). Everybody had a set of boxed G1 Predacons, but no one wanted to sell them individually... just a weird homogenized vibe, compared to '90s Botcons where it seemed like you could literally find at least one of anything (granted, there was just a lot less stuff to collect back then) and I'd be carting home dozens of new acquisitions...

As has been stated, there's nothing the organizers can actually do about this... maybe it's just a temporary phase... or maybe I'll just have to accept that I'm really not going to these things for the dealer room anymore... heck, if the entire weekend was just Flint Dille telling stories for 48 straight hours, I'd gladly have paid double the admission!

[Swalloweddark]

Personally, I thought this TF Con was the worst out of the five I have attended. Not just the dealers room but the whole events in itself. I actually ended up leaving the con most of the day to go out around the city.

The events were Bland and were kinda the same things they have every single year. I went for the early line up at the dealers room and only bought 3 things then went back later and got a 2 on Saturday. Only event I attended was the cosplay contest.

I didnt mind the 3P too much in the dealers room because , to be honest, they are built so much more better than Hasbros stuff and I probably wouldve bought all of the DJD, if they had it. :<

Lots of Combiner Wars stuff, but that is all thats out right now. It seems to be what is released of the year as one year it was all TF Animated and Another everyone had TF Prime stuff.

Even though I had the weekend pass, I didnt even stop in Sunday but went out to Playdium.

Just my opinion, I am still planing to attend next year and just have hopes they add more interest programing than talking panels.

[TRUCKvsGUN]

^ If you have ideas for panels or events, you could maybe post them for the organizers to see and consider. If you have time to volunteer, that would help them put those events on as well.

[Robimus]

I wasn't in attendance but stuff like 3rd Party panel and Flint Dille doing commentary for the audience while watching Transformers 1986 seem like really solid events.

You will see such programming at no other event in basically the whole world.

Nevermind that I imagine the Welker Q&A was mind blowing.

Everyone is going to have their own likes for sure, but I feel like what I mentioned above is like 4-5 hours of must see programming that one can't find very many places, if any.

[RageD]

The flint dille commentary on the movie was fantastic!

[freakx2001]

I really liked the guests this year. Love hearing about behind the scenes stuff an how everything came together back in the day.

The only thing I found disappointing was Sunday. Normally in previous years there seemed to be more of a turn over with new vendors coming in. Waking up Sunday and rushing down to get in line to find that there were only like a handful of new vendors was very disappointing.

While I do understand the need for places like this to sell 3P products, as someone who doesn't collect these items there seemed to be a bulk of it there. I mean there were a few sections of the room that I would just skip entirely on each walk through.

Maybe next year the organizers can put a call out for more people selling vintage stuff (maybe offer a discount for tables to people that have a wide variety of stuff).

I think this was my 5th TFcon and overall I give say it wasn't the worst, but not the best either.

[jtkv]

Do we normally have a proper TFCon feedback thread, or this this gonna be it... the title suggests this is more of a complaints thread...

[Dragon Knight]

I think my only complaint with this year is how the autograph prices did not match what was on the website at all.

Granted, the mark up wasn't to terrible but if something changes and the guests asks for more money it should definietly be known before the Convention.

Also wether or not the guests will have prints or something at their table avalaible for signing would help with preparations before hand.

[Marcotron]

The good deals were around the middle of the room. As usual, I never go in expecting to find anything specific but end up finding enough to fill a couple of bags. And this year, they actually gave out bags at the door!
As for having too many 3p tables, that's not a problem. TFcon is the only place you get to see all this stuff up close and decide if it's worth the extra dough to get it. Very hard to resist getting a Sphinx, and sadly, I didn't win the raffle.
If I had lots of money, I would buy all the toys, official and third party. But it's always cool to see what's out there and available.
There were still plenty of bins full of bagged toys to shuffle through.

[Sunstar]

I was more disappointed in the hotel quest restaurant prices - it was extremely high. I asked for menus to take home each sunday for the last few years so I will post this years and last to see if I saw any changes.

Its harder for me to find toys as I collect specific characters.

I was also disappointed in the female transformer fans (I am female) at how they lacked in a sense of humour and understanding of the nature of the comic that was provided. I found it hilarious.