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If you would be interested in compiling a report for TFArchive's Fandom section please can you send me a Private Message.

Thank you.

EDIT : Please only post in here if you have something constructive to add ie, you're actually attending.

Anyone?

I will be attending Cybercon with a digital camera. I will also be one of the people sitting in the fan panel for Peter Cullen's appearance.

Sorry for the double post, but for an update.

I just got back not too long ago and I have to admit that Cybercon ROCKED! I got tons of photos on my digital and voice recorded a TF:TM session with Sir Hitchins from the UK. I was trying to record the panel with Cullen but I wan't allowed to post on the internet whatever I recorded; therefore, to avoid tempting fate, I didn't record it but took a lot of notes...in really sloppy handwriting.

I will say that Mr. Cullen is freaking awesome as a person and he's even better with the voice of Optimus Prime now that he was back then. I like OP even more now since I know Cullen is just so awesome. I got his autograph, shook his hand, held a conversation with him during the autographing of my Masterpiece Convoy box, and during the fan panel, he came out on stage, picked me out of the crowd and we had a mini conversation together in front of approximately 200 people (some were really rabid Prime fans). He actually remembered me. There were also two proposals of marriage during the panel but that I'll go into detail later.

I'm a bit tired now, but I'll get some pics up tomorrow and see if I can get the voice recording uploaded to my computer.

Oh, I also got mini interviews with Joe Ng and Brandon Eastman. Though I missed the DW fan panels because of lunch. I'm sorry, I was hungry.

Cool dude, looking forward to getting more news from you soon.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/thread79303.html

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/thread79302.html

Yeah you probably missed cybercon, lucky you. If you didn't get out to the convention, don't worry you didn't miss much, seriously. What was the best part of the convention? Leaving! :-)

What was the worst part of the convention? (Ironically most would say it was the biggest/most exciting event there) The Peter Cullen Pannel-the super duper nerds would cheer for whatever/everything he said. Reminded me a lot of TRL when the preteeners would be cheering at everything the Boy Bands would utter. Here same thing, the way that these losers would be hanging on his every word, it was as if these weirdos were worshiping him. I can't count the number of times I heard "Hero" It was more than a bit disturbing. I don't know. I just don't get it/that.

I went both days, stayed in the Big Apple Hotel at Times Square, socialized with my friends/acquentences, but the convention was hard to find and quite pricey. One of my friends had been a volunteer and he didn't get all the bonus that had been promised to him. Another person I know had signed up to volunteer but was told they had enough and forced to pay regular price. I know another person that had shown up a half hour before they closed down and was forced to buy the two day pass despite plans of attending only that evening. From all of that my friends and I concluded that it wasn't organized as well as it could have been. The convention seemed like there was effort there but came across half assed and extremely lame.

It was in the basement of a church far from midtown (without any signs, banner or posters making it very hard to fine) where you heard the services over the load speaker. Very very strange. It would have been smarter to have it a convention center, hall or anywhere besides a church. Who would expect it to be there? My cabby definitely didn't which is how I got lost. There wasn't much in that area, just a few small grocery stores, nail salons, and a pizza place. It wasn't in a very populated area so there wasn't much to do in that vicinity when you left the convention. And yes you would need to take breaks from the stench of the fan boys and to help earse the imprint of their hideious looks from your memory. Not to mention how boring it would be where most of the time it was just one medium sized dealer room, not much else going on, one or two panels, and a little art contest for the whole weekend.

Yes, taking breaks and leaving there was definitely something neccessary to do. It was interesting watching the wedding attenders (from the church) come down to use the rest room-seeing the petrified looks on their faces when they would lay their eyes on the freaks was laughable. Extremely comical. So I guess that could be added to the good side of events-ha-ha-ha!!! Depending on how you look at it either comical or pathetic that transfans horrified wedding goers.

Overall, it was a lost a half decent convention, much better than when they started. I'll give them this-they did come a long way from the first convention (which seemed totally thrown together).

If you are a die hard transformer fan with the time and money to kill who doesn't mind the fanboy look/odor, then sure go ahead but if your not totally a sad pathetic loser with no life then you're better off elsewhere. :-)

Sassy, remind me to boot you in the tail if someone takes what you said literally and missed your winking smilie.

I just sent SCSW an abbreviated version of the TF:TM panel in 8 parts, the Joe Ng interview, and the Brandon Easton interview.

EDIT: I tried downloading the photos from my camera into my work PC with no luck since I don't have the CD with me with the drivers. I'll be going home tonight to the PC that does have it, so I'll be able to get pics up tomorrow night or Wednesday.

Originally posted by Civ
Sassy, remind me to boot you in the tail if someone takes what you said literally and missed your winking smilie.

I just sent SCSW an abbreviated version of the TF:TM panel in 8 parts, the Joe Ng interview, and the Brandon Easton interview.

EDIT: I tried downloading the photos from my camera into my work PC with no luck since I don't have the CD with me with the drivers. I'll be going home tonight to the PC that does have it, so I'll be able to get pics up tomorrow night or Wednesday.

Is that why you signed off of AIM so suddenly because you didn't like my review?


I'm not trying to be a harsh critic, I'm trying to be as genuenly honest as I can be for the sake of these posters who are potentially future cybercon conventioners.

Of course I could lie about how my time there went, emphasize, exhagerate, and focus on all of the positive aspects but I don't feel that would be fair to the readers who maybe looking at the reviews to figure out if it is worth attending in the future.

Yes it could be more fun for me personally if I were to rub everyones face in how I was there and they weren't and everything they missed out on. But that's now how I am. If they want an honest unbaised opinion on how it was without it being sugar coated then that is what they will get. If that means that I will face some back lash (by people who didn't attend but imagined it a certain way) then let the chips fall where they may.

Hopefully people will be able to appriciate a raw honest opinion from a lady who holds nothing back. You want the truth? A real review then I'll give it to you. If not, if you think I'm too harsh a critic then just skip my posts. If you don't like it then don't read it, but that won't stop me from writing what I feel is real.


Civ, if you enjoyed the convention maybe you are the type of fan boy I wrote about :-) Just kidding. Seriously though, good for you and I'm glad you had a fun time. You only wrote about the positive and that's fine but I like to have both sides of the story (everything that didn't go so smoothly as well) so they can see the whole picture. It may not be a big deal to people who live in the area and have off on the days of the convention but for those who will be taking off from work, traveling by plane, putting time and money into the weekend-unless they are truely die hard tranformer fans (the type I described previously) they may want to think twice.

Ah, I see. To be honest, I didn't talk to any of the volunteers and about the only things I can complain about are the following:

I traveled by train to and from the convention both days. I would get on the train for an hour, then walk about 8 or 9 blocks to the convention. The reverse for when going home. I didn't get much sleep and I walked a lot but I didn't mind. It was fun and I needed the exercise.

The toy selection was kind of scant. I believe the previous one in Mount Laurel had a wider selection.

We were in the basement of a church, which normally isn't a bad thing but when I came in on Saturday around 9:15 to 9:30 AM there was this Christian chanting on the speakers that was loud and annoying. Not just to me but it annoyed the Hell out of everyone there to the point where someone was about to get a shotgun to blow the speakers out. Thankfully, they got them shut off after about an hour.

There were activities there unlike previous year's Cybercons such as fan panels. An old favorite like the art contest was also there but the selection was really small this year compared to what I saw previously.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by the convention being hard to find since it was right where it said it would be from the website.

The organization did seem lacking at times though they did indeed try. I have a feeling the instances I saw were unexpected troubles that just popped up and had to be dealt with.

There were a lot of people that either left early or never showed up. They were doing those "lucky draw" tickets and they went through like 8 or 9 different tickets before someone finally came up. I have to admit that the prizes were a bit repetitive and some were of shelf warmers found in TRU (i.e. reissue Dirge and Red Alert). At the end, the shear number of tickets they went through were ridiculous and they finally had to improvise with a trivia contest to make the giveaways go more quickly.

There was also a problem with some coordinating with Peter Cullen and he did show up late. I don't know what the full story is there but I heard the coordinator, Ric, talking on the cell phone with Cullen (I think it was him since he did say, "Peter.") and that he was going to be late. The other problem with the Cullen panel was that they held it at 9 PM on Saturday but the dealers shut down at 5 PM. So we had 4 hours to kill. I'm guessing they needed the time to set-up the dealers room (removing the tables, toys, and getting a LOT of chairs) but I'm not quite sure of that. We only used about half of the chairs since the panel was held so late at night.

One gripe I did have was there were no Cybertron Prime's there. They sold out really quickly from what I was told. I even walked to the TRU in Times Square, the largest TRU in NYC and they had every Cybertron figure there save for Prime.

All of the people I talked to were mainly convention go'ers like myself and they enjoyed themselves. The volunteers may be a whole other story but I didn't hear them complain openly. If they want to improve the organization though, they should have had walkie talkies going the whole time. Some had cell phones but I didn't see them being used too often.

Given that though, I didn't let it dampen my spirits and s*** just happens with something this large and complex. I don't know about the volunteers getting screwed but from where I stood, it wasn't all that bad.

But to also focus on the positive:

No one was rude from what I saw. This includes dealers and fans and everyone seemed rather friendly. The fans really made the day and no one caused trouble from what I saw. A lot of guys from TFW2005 who loved to joke and be merry.

Dealers weren't hardasses and were willing to negotiate. Some were very friendly and didn't mind holding a conversation and tried to work with you if you were short on funds.

The fan panels I saw were entertaining and TF educational. I don't know about the Dreamwave or TF Art profile panels though since I missed them. Sir Hitchins was very well organized despite him obviously not being a professional public speaker.

They had plenty of Galaxy Force and other rare TFs there for reasonable prices.

The comic selection was rather good from what I saw and was rather cheap to buy. I mean $1 per comic is a good deal compared to the actual cover price.

The artists there (Joe Ng and company) did free sketches, friendly, and answered any questions thrown their way. Dunno about the panels but at the tables, they did so. They also signed anything thrown at them.

Brandon Easton was great to talk to and very cordial. Though I have to admit I'm disappointed I didn't see him on Saturday.

Peter Cullen is incredibly nice and funny. He had the audience in stitches when he wanted to. The panel got very emotional but he did try to joke when it was appropriate.