As someone who helped Rework last year, & Monoform this year. Yes!! Work something out w/ folks - I know that the other gent who "buys" a booth with these two, all 3 of his helpers met up w/ him AT the con. When I finally made it to the VA line, I had stuff signed for Monoform. Last year, after my initial run past David Kaye, Rework had me get stuff signed for him.

But as a helper - pls make sure you have either a list, or things tagged - nothing's more frustrating from that end (or for the buyer, I'm sure), than being asked "how much?" and having no clue.

I thought that 2007 was a bit better overall, but not by much. There are a lot of areas FP could tweak & improve on.

And I'll echo the list of food-places. Rework, me & part of our group went across the bridge into Newport-on-the-levee, KY - to get dinner & fun Fri nite - on the rec of my board-friend, who was from the area. Otherwise, w/ no car, you are a bit restricted in what you could get for cheap to eat, and UGH for something to do afterhours.

 

How do you think I feel about working downtown everyday like I do? The homeless all move to the baseball and football stadiums when a game is on.

Oh yea, we should have mentioned that Cincinnati is one of the few cities that requires a license to panhandle. If they don't show the license, you can call the cops on them. And they will run like mad.

I had the pleasure of the convention security guard telling me that the packaging for the exclusives was poor because the box looked like a meat container package!

I still feel decently safe downtown, but as with anyplace, going in groups of twos or threes always helps. Take this from someone who never went to Lexington or Providence/Seekonk before and who is planning for L.A., San Francisco, or Orlando for next year's BotCon.

 

damn i was outside smoking!! i thought it was fire works!!!

i loved everything about the con, my first one so i was overwhelmed by everything. got some really cool stuff, prices i didn't mind paying. the way i saw it it was $2 to uk's £1 so everything was like half price, well thats how i thought about it. plus if i told the girlfriend that she would be as mad at me.

food was a little scarce, skyline chilli is f-ing great, nearly as good as mine.lol.
still i ate well, ish. i had a great roomie. hotel could of been better, ramada. but at 69 buck a night i aint gonna complain, apart from the drive-by!
to top things off winning 2nd in the dioroma. first con, first customs and 2nd. wow! that really put the icing on the cake.

i met a bunch of great people from here and from the tcc. so i aint just going for the toys next year, i'm going to meet up with all the guys that made me feel so welcome.

 

The Good:
-Having it so close this year. 3 hours drive, no airfare FTW!!!
-Having Marty Isenberg already know about my "Punch of Kill Everything" fanname for Lugnut's punch and seriously considering putting it in the show. I was seriously geeking out for the rest of the day after that.
-The customization class. I've never done anything to a Transformer more complex than taking out a screw, it was really cool to make a TF I could (sorta) call my own. Plus, Rodimus isn't the only Evil Autobot in my collection to have a goatee now!
-Being able to pick up my stuff early because I was in the customization class and thus avoiding the long lines.
-I AM WRECK-GAR! I DARE TO BE STUPID!
-Finding 2/3rds of the Animated toys at a TRU on the way in.
-The panels. I luvs the panels.
-Seeing familiar faces every year, it's always surreal seeing so many of the TF heavy hitters like Aaron Archer, Ben Yee, David Kaye, etc. in the same place.
-25th Anniversary CHEETOR. 'Nuff said.
-MSTF. Best one yet, I almost didn't stop laughing the entire time.
-The beach ball at the auction.
-The Casino Night room actually wasn't horrifically crowded this time! Hooray!
-The exclusives. Evil Prime= love.
-FINALLY getting Black Arcee and Battle Damaged Voyager Prime.
-The hilarious voice actor reading at the Casino Night Dinner. ROCK.
-The Cadillac diner. Delicious food.
-Hangin' with my homies I meet at Botcon every year.

The Bad:
- Yeah, downtown Cincinnati has turned into bum central. Which is sad, as I lived in Cincinnati until I was 12 and the main downtown streets were thoroughly safe and bum-free back then. I guess after the riots downtown a few years ago everything just went downhill drastically. Very, very sad.
-Missing out on 1/3rd on the Animated toys because JUST as I was walking up to enter the TRU, out came a guy with literally 4 shopping carts full of Animated toys. At first I was peeved, until he explained that he was taking orders for the Club tour that day, so he wasn't a scalper or anything. I was fine with that, of course. Still sucked for me, though.
- Egads, things were expensive. Though I guess I should be used to that by now.
- The big jump in the prices of the exclusives, though I don't blame FP for this.
- Not finding Aveo Swerve for a reasonable price. Only 1 guy had 'em, and was selling 'em for $100 a pop. I really really wanted one and was willing to pay a reasonably high price (up to $60-ish), but considering he obviously ordered a lot of them and saved on shipping, selling them for that much was just nuts.
- Spending too much. Again. Ugh.
- The auction. Yeah, WAY too many "kids only" auctions. I understand leaving SOME aside for them, but when you're to the point where you've got only 2 kids bidding for something that would go for 5 times that high if everyone was allowed to bid, then you know you've got a problem. Plus, literally everything I wanted from the auctions were in the "kids only" auctions, too.

I also found it very funny that both of the guys who won free trips to next years' Botcon had goatees.

 

Agree with the following:

TOTALLY AGREED. Some things were better this year, but overall 2007 is the best yet and 2006 second.

TOTALLY AGREED! Mexican place was crap and my stomach was out of it on sunday night  

The Saturday night food was better than ever...despite the lack of bread! Nom Nom Nom!  

 

Bad:
-Yeah, the mall was a let down
-downtown was dead, save for the bums
-Allergy overdrive, sore throat= no drinking at he bar, hoarse the entirety of the trip
-Only liokaiser was gone before I even noticed it

Good
-Chili and Spagetti, better than it sounds
-Avoided VA panel, which from the sound of it was a very good idea
-Music Label Soundwave, once I figured how to make it work.
-Actually got to meet some of the board people

 

So yeah, here goes.

The good:
Meeting people again was awesome.
Drinking was generally awesome.
My time in Columbus after was great too. I met some really cool people.

The bad:
Botcon. I realised that I care not a fucking jot for Transformers anymore and that to me there's nothing at the convention that's actually worth the money. If I go again I'm not bothering with the packages. I didn't buy a single thing.
The food. American food kills the shit out of me.
Not being able to hang out with everyone as much as I wanted to. So many awesome people, not enough time.
Similarly, leaving Columbus sucked. I'd have loved to spend more time with people.

The ugly:
Stupid bums. I gave one guy like, five bucks because I'm rather sympathetic and I was half cut. He actually asked for more. I believe I told him to literally "jog the fuck on".
Me getting drunk. I entirely underestimated how badly jet lag and the lack of substantial food was fucking me up then went and drank far too much on the big night. I talk too much when I'm drunk. Unintelligibly at that.

 

OH OH OH OH MY TURN MY TURN!
Long-winded GOOOOO!

The GOOD:
-Meeting people who I've only known as text on a screen for years. Heck, the people in general. Ya'all rock something fierce!
-Me not being a total deer-in-the-headlights spastic like I was last year (Botcon '07 was my first real con, and my first reappearance in the TF fandom in about three years; I was a LITTLE frazzled/shy back then.)
-Lots of awesome stuff in the dealer room (especially for a trinket lover like me; the little rubber TF bracelets I got from the BBTS table are too cute), and getting good prices all around.
-Finding sweet scores OUTSIDE of the dealer room.
-Cheap cab rides.
-Champs' food. YEAH it was expensive, but good lord it was worth every cent.
-Champs' staff. Got to chatting with a bartender or two and they were real friendly, even geeked out with one of them about video games. (Yeah yeah, insert "Of course he was friendly, you were a CHICK talking about VIDEO GAMES" here.   )
-Gas station across from the Ramada, open 24 hours, sells beer, AND has a White Castle? OH MAN, SWEET! (So I thought anyway; please see "the ugly" for clarification.)
-Gambling at Casino Night. THAT part was fun.
-The Ramada staff. Absolutely lovely folks.
-Short walk from the Ramada to the "con zone"

The BAD:
-The neighborhood being so bad I didn't WANT to walk. Cincinnati's central area was so-so, but the area where the Ramada was? Bad parts of MANHATTAN aren't that bad; heck, the worst "don't walk the streets alone" ghettos on Long Island aren't even that bad - I'll take my chances in those parts... but Cincinnati? During the day was ok, but no WAY at night.
-The Ramada being a dump. I called to complain about the following: wallpaper peeling, cigarette burns in the blankets (IN OUR NON-SMOKING ROOM that we ended up smoking in anyway, and no the burns WEREN'T from us), dirty/STAINEDWUT towels, the RANDOM PEOPLE WALKING IN, keycards deactivating, giving us the wrong room, the friggin fire alarm interrupting our breakfast... it was just bad.
-The Casino Night. I was severely underwhelmed by the lack of any sort of decor or otherwise "FUN LOOK", and that PA system was awful. The ending of it was rushed, things got mixed up, tons of confusion... they need to work on that BIG time.
-The con itself seemed really "Blah" and underwhelming.

The UGLY:
-Our "team" losing 3/4 of our Casino Night earnings due to what amounted to a clerical screw-up, even though we'd been assured by con staff that everything was fine.
-Drive-by shooting at the gas station across from the Ramada. SO glad I hadn't gone for White Castle that night, because I'm pretty sure both my post-party craving for *delicious burgers* and the shooting happened at about the same time.
-THE BEGGARS. I'm in Manhattan all the time, I'm used to panhandlers. But these guys were just AGGRESSIVE about it, and it was EVERY TIME WE WALKED OUTSIDE THE HOTEL (not the Ramada amazingly enough, but the Hyatt.) The one that really blew my mind was a little kid, NOT OLDER THAN EIGHT, coming up to me while I was walking to the Hyatt from *somewhere* in town, "Ma'am can you help me?" "What's up little dude?" "See, I'm trying to get this cell phone, it's used and they have it in the shop down there, but I don't have enough money." I was completely flabbergasted. Told him I only had plastic and went on my way, hating Cincinnati THAT much more.

And now....

The COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOLs:
-Pete getting verbally drive-by'd: "DDRRAAVVVEEENNNN"   That was killer.
-Sitting outside smoking by myself before the Friday Champs party, two random dudes come sit on the curb next to me, "What's up? ... hey, aren't you Draven's girlfriend?! DUDE, c'mere, check it out - this is Draven's girlfriend!" (Although I can understand WHY, still - this happened on a number of occasions and got more LOLsome every time.) (Side note: they turned out to be real chill dudes when we got to drinking and talking.   )
-Getting on the mechanical bull - LOL enough. Doing so in a skirt... *face.palm.* I win at GOOD DECISIONS!
-Realizing I had spent too much time drinking in Champs when I walked in and the manager of the joint said, "Heeyyy, welcome back!" - on two seperate occasions. (One of them being BEFORE we all took over the place the first time.  )
-Spraining my ankle on a curb WHILE SOBER (rare occurance that weekend!), and there being witnesses. (First thought in my mind when it happened wasn't OUCH, or AM I HURT, it was - OH GOD DID I BREAK MY SHOE?!   )

 

AMEN.

I am so not in it for the toys, haven't been for some years now. I show up for the people and the party!   I do buy the Primus package and the exclusives though, and then promptly re-sell them. This usually pays for my trip and then some   Only thing I bought this year were Revoltech Megs and Starscream and only because I had $50 BotCon show dollars to spend.
And American food FTL. My digestive system does so not approve. I need vegetables and milk, dammit!  

Hope you'll still come and party with us dude, as long as the US dollar is so low to our currency, we are good to go  

 

Ya, I'll probably be back. Provided I can get decent flights, it took me close to 24 hours to finally get to Columbus. All that time in airports and planes isn't fun when you hate flying as much as me. I need more practice at drinking beforehand though.

 

Well, yes, with a dealer like that...

 

So wait, we do WHAT on 21?   Good God I'm sorry we didn't get pictures... well, both sorry and GLAD  

Oh and hey, speaking of pictures and the previously mentioned bad/ugly experiences:
Firetrucks outside the Ramada
Worried hotel patrons outside the Ramada

 

Was she the craziest dealer or what????

 

That must have been the same dealer who got 21 and said "Oops, I bust"

 

Makes me really wish I had sat down to play when there was still an open seat there.

 

I'm thinking not all tables were equal there... I think we were having more than our fair share of craziness... But we were getting rewarded for it in chips!

 

You know, rework, I think until now I didn't know the screenname with the face.   And more than our fair share is putting it mildly. Especially you, I think you had to get up the most.

 

Don't confuse me with the Big Guy... He was up every other hand... I think I was only up once or twice the whole game... I was almost busted out at one point!

 

Do I want to even go next year now?

...yes...muahahaha?
DN