I guess I'm wondering what the value of a Botcon will be without 1st party support from Hasbro. From the outside looking in, TFcon seems like the better run convention.

 

im not saying they should be a charity, not in the slightest. what i am saying is that they were overpriced compared to other cons

 

You also got a lot more than other cons. You could always pay the walk up price which is more on par with other cons and not get the extra stuff.

I wouldn’t say TFcon is a better run con. However without Hasbros involvement, Botcon is going to have to find some stuff that will set itself apart from the other fan conventions. The Botcon name will only take you so far, and as we have seen in this thread there are some fans for who the name is a detriment.

 

"Botcon" isnt the name people have problems with
"Pete Sinclair" is the name people have problems with.

 

Personally, my own best "other convention" to compare to BotCon is Gallifrey One. Its cost of admission is (broadly) comparable to the Protoform package (although you have to commit to it about 9 months before the convention starts, and until recently, usually within a window of only a day or so), but doesn't cover any autographs (which differ in price depending on the celebrity). I THINK you may be right about the price of autograph bands at BotCon (a separate charge from walk-in admission)... that price usually won't cover even a single autograph at Gallifrey One.

 

I’ll certainly second that. I go to TFCon every year, but it’s organization leaves a lot to be desired. It’s little more than a dealer room and the increasingly-disappointing 3P slideshow.

The BotCons that I’ve been to always had a lot more going on, even if you take away the Hasbro-driven elements. I hope they can afford to continue things like outings to local attractions and the dinners.

 

Will they still try to ban 3rd party stuff when Hasbro isn't involved? It'll be fun to watch that particular shitshow go down.

Even better, would they try to get a 3rd party exclusive since Hasbro is no-go?

 

there are some who didn’t like FP business model, but it’s true Pete is the focus of most of the complaints.

 

That's why I'm hoping they go back to the ala carte days before OTFCC/Fun Pub. I enjoyed those conventions a lot more and felt like I had more spending money in the dealers room rather than having it all tied up in exclusives.

 

I still feel like we really need to be speculating on the "shot-callers" here. Along with the name. You have Karl Hartman. One of the founders and in my opinion the full "face" of Botcon (no offense to Jon! Lol). Bret Lovell. A long time, well known dealer and podcaster. And Andrew Hall. Who. Honestly has a damn fine resume all to himself lol... On top of being very knowledgeable of the brand in general.
But I suspect Karl wants his legacy to thrive and become home to many more memories for old timers and new timers. I'm sure Bret doesn't want fans coming into the dealer room broke (which is beneficial for fans and dealers alike!), and Andrew; if I had to put my finger on it -- wants to provide some level of content for us as fans to enjoy. And not just the English speaking/reading fans if I were to guess at it. I still love reading Solar Requiem and Badlands. I'm unsure if he translated the final years of the ehobby stuff like Deadlock, Convobat, or Magna Convoy .... But if he did; I appreciate the hell out of that too lol!
So. In short. I think any comparisons (good and bad) we're drawing to the FunPub era are likely to be non-existent.

 

How about this folks: Let the people actually create the convention & then criticize it after? Pointless speculation before may in turn ruin the conceptual idea that is BotCon before it ever physically rematerializes....

 

How can you even say that when this new iteration of BotCon hasn’t even launched? Besides Karl, it’s an entirely new team. Glen Hallit, Brian Savage, and Pete Sinclair aren’t involved with the organization. Pete is a licensee for merchandise, but considering RoboCon will continue after 2020, his involvement might just be that and maybe a little help by providing some of his contacts. Karl was really only involved in TWO BotCons, the very first one and BotCon 2004... 1995 and 1996 were organized by Raksha and Men in Black, and then Glen came in in 1997 and pretty much ran the thing. The Hartmans acted more as advisers, but now it appears Karl is running this with some help of others never involved with BotCon before, and using Pete for merchandising... he’s not listed as an organizer.

So all this doomsday talk about BotCon is ridiculous... FunPub isn’t involved, and Hasbro won’t be (as far as we know at the moment) pulling any strings, so I’m unclear why we’re not ALL excited for a fresh start. Isn’t this what many of us have been hoping for? Not sure why people think this is going back to the FunPub days when that company liquidated and Brian retired, and Pete has his own convention...

 

What exclusives are included in the $304 cost of SDCC? A program guide and lanyard? Spiffy.

Again, as has been said many many times and ignored just as many, BotCon throughout the years ALWAYS had other (cheaper) options to attend. Nobody was forced to pay the highest tier, which included a boxset of exclusive figures, to attend the show. Yet, this seems to be the main thing EVERYONE is focusing on when they use it as an argument for how it was so overpriced.

 

If they ever wanted to possibly pursue getting Hasbro back, even in the same capacity as 3H days before being official, it would be beneficial for them to try and keep as much of the 3rd party stuff out of BotCon as possible.

 

I'm no fanboy of the Hartmans, Glen Hallit or Fun Publications. But some of fondest memories as a collector came at Botcons and Joecons.

Welcome back, Botcon. See you next year.

 

It was the "buy the boxset and get all the privileges with the show", "don't buy the boxset for over half the cost and get all the privileges" or "go general admission and sit in the back" pricing that ticked people off. Basically, you were still paying for a portion of the boxset with nothing to show for it if you opted out - or they were overpricing the convention benefits. Whatever that second option was, there was definitely less value in it because I don't know too many people who want to pay $150+ for a three day pass, an early bird pass, sitting toward the front, a pin and a brochure. I'd rather buy Omega Supreme with that money than go option 2 - and I bet most others felt that way too. either you ponied up for option 1 or went option 3 and spent your money in the dealers room (or in the hotel trade parties).

 

Point being there were still cheaper options if someone wanted to go just to enjoy the show. The option without the boxset with privileges still had to pay for the privileges it included so it wasn't going to be as cheap as walk-in, but it was still an option. Everyone had a choice which route to take if they really wanted to go, if they felt that spending that money on a more expensive figure and not go, then that was their choice to make and it shows that they didn't really want to go that badly.

It's all a case of "you get what you pay for", if you'd rather go to a cheaper con because of low cost of admission then you're going to get a cheaper con experience. Case in point, I've been to Robocon and I'll be going again this year, but it definitely has that cheaper con feel because it is a cheaper con when compared to BotCon (or what BotCon was, can't compare to new BotCon yet). When I say cheaper, it just means that it doesn't have the overhead of a big fancy hotel/convention center as most all the other BotCons did. It was small and run out of a hotel with smaller meeting/convention rooms so it didn't cost as much to reserve so they didn't have to charge as much to recoup a lot of the costs, again, when compared to BotCons of the past. I've never been to TFCon, but have read trip reports and all that and from I've seen it is pretty much the same thing just with more 3rd party involvement.

You want a big convention experience, you're gonna have to pay for a big convention experience. At least that big convention was willing to work with people knowing budgets are different and offered different choices for attending.

 

None of the above really addresses whether even the "without the boxset, but with privileges" option was a good deal, compared to other comparably-sized conventions, which I understood to be the main talking point.


Personally, I think the Protoform package was a far worse deal than just biting the bullet and getting the boxset, but the fact that the boxset did mean that especially-high cost-of-entry can't be ignored.

 

Good news, the new Botcon won't be run by the old company or the old systems  
But by fans like ourselves. So. Plenty of hope in that i think!