Botcon 2016 to celebrate BW 20th Anniversary!

[Beastbot]

Botcon 2016-- taking place in Louisville, Kentucky, from April 7th-10th next year-- has officially announced they'll be doing a big celebration of the BW 20th Anniversary!

First, they've announced they've already got David Kaye as a guest, with more BW voice actors to be announced!

Second, the box set will feature Combiner Wars molds remolded into the "Predacus" combiner, in a continuation of their 2006 pre-BW "Dawn of Futures Past" that looks like it'll focus more on the Predacons this year. "Predacus" will undoubtedly be the Tripredacus council (Cicadacon, Ramhorn, & Sea Clamp) redone from current Combiner Wars with two-to-three other members so that it fits with the "minimum of five" Combiner Wars gestalts. One of the "extra" members has already been revealed to be Ravage, from Combiner Wars Breakdown:

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon2016/preview16-one.cfm


Anyone here making plans for Botcon '16?

[Nurann]

April, huh? You are tempting me to sneak away for some pre-wedding Transformers adventures... And that is a very dangerous thing!

[Beastbot]

Yes, Nurann! COME! I'm like the only one here who goes to Botcon anymore, it'd be nice to have some of the BWInt crew again!

ALEC WILLOWS also now announced as a guest, per the Botcon twitter feed.

And, fittingly enough... the next Boxset reveal is pre-BW Tarantulas, out of the Combiner Wars Rook mold:

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon2016/images ... REVEAL.jpg

[Beastbot]

3rd boxset reveal comes the Tripredacus Council proper!

First up, Ramhorn from the Combiner Wars Nosecone mold! (which we did not know existed until today...)

http://news.tfw2005.com/2015/10/15/botc ... orn-303245

[Wicked Woman]

LeSigh. Would've been awesome to go to Botcon to celebrate Beast Wars. Well, maybe I'll afford TFCon this year... maybe...

For those of you who are going, take lots of pictures, please.


WW

[Beastbot]

Will do!

Aaaand fourth reveal-- Cicadacon! (Or "Ciciadon", as the typos will have it.) CW Skydive redeco w/ no new head, meaning that Sea Clamp's the torso and both his head and the combiner head will be new.

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon2016/images ... REVEAL.jpg

Wish he had slightly less red in robot mode, but otherwise looking nice. LOVING those insect decos on the wings-- that's exactly what I hoped they'd do with him.

[Beastbot]

The fifth/final boxset reveal, Sea Clamp from the CW Scattershot mold:

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon2016/images ... REVEAL.jpg

And Botcon brochure is up! That usually means prereg will be within the next week or so:

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon2016/Lexington%202016.pdf

[Sapphire]

Cannot afford to go to this, and honestly haven't been interested in a Botcon for some years. But if I were to go to one, it would be this one. **sigh**

If you're up for it, Beastbot, you could write a Botcon Report like the old times. I know I would love to read it! And I could even add it to the BWINT website Botocon archives: http://www.bwint.net/botconreports.htm

Go forth and have huge amounts of fun on behalf of all of us!

-- Sapphire

[Beastbot]

Sure, I wouldn't mind writing it if you wouldn't mind posting it! It would probably be more about reveals/panels and the like than socializing, though, as like I said via PM, no one I know has gone to Botcon in the past few years. That said, this will be an unusual Botcon-- it appears (for reasons as yet unknown) that this will be the last one, and in addition to that, it's in Louisville, Kentucky, the city where my dad grew up and only about a 5-hour drive away! Because it's so close to where we live, one (possibly both) of my brothers will be attending for the first time! (You can blame my younger brother for being the one to introduce me to Beast Wars!)

Oh and a bit of Botcon news that I apparently forgot to report, looking at my earlier posts-- it's been confirmed that Scott McNeil will be attending this year, as well!

[Sapphire]

I am sure it will be an interesting report all the same. We will all live vicariously through you! You should say hi to the BW voice actors for us! Maybe pass on something from those of us who cannot attend (like a printed letter from the Bwint crew with all our praise and happy memories? Just an idea!). It's of course up to you what you're comfortable doing/writing up.

The last time I saw Scott McNeil was in 2010 in England for Auto Assembly. After the con, we went to Thorpe Park, a huge amusement park in southern England. Boy, did Silver and I have a blast riding roller coasters with him! I'd love to see him again someday.

Hope you have an amazing time at the 'con, Brad!

[Blaze Raptor]

That said, this will be an unusual Botcon-- it appears (for reasons as yet unknown) that this will be the last one, and in addition to that, it's in Louisville, Kentucky, the city where my dad grew up and only about a 5-hour drive away!

Wait! The last one!?! Are you serious!? Gah! Botcon's finally on the East side again and around my birthday but it would take a miracle to go!

I may need your help on this one, Beastbot. One of my goals was to give as many of the BW voice actors a plushie of their character this year for the anniversary. If I send them to you (and finish them. oh, god, I've got work to do!), do you think you could give it to them? Or if not, how to contact them to send fan mail? Or something?

[Beastbot]

That said, this will be an unusual Botcon-- it appears (for reasons as yet unknown) that this will be the last one, and in addition to that, it's in Louisville, Kentucky, the city where my dad grew up and only about a 5-hour drive away!

Wait! The last one!?! Are you serious!? Gah! Botcon's finally on the East side again and around my birthday but it would take a miracle to go!

I may need your help on this one, Beastbot. One of my goals was to give as many of the BW voice actors a plushie of their character this year for the anniversary. If I send them to you (and finish them. oh, god, I've got work to do!), do you think you could give it to them? Or if not, how to contact them to send fan mail? Or something?

I will preface this by saying that the "last Botcon" part is not OFFICIALLY confirmed at this point-- likely due to NDAs being signed-- but it seems HIGHLY likely. People have noticed that the Club Store now says that all Transformers club memberships will terminate at the end of December 2016, regardless of when you renew this year. There is conspicuously absent from the Botcon brochure this year the "stay until 3:30 on Sunday to see if you win one of two free trips to next year's Botcon!" statement that has been in every other Botcon brochure so far. The people who work in the club are also being completely silent on the subject, despite the very public and rampant speculation-- whereas if there was no substance to this, they would've nipped the rumor in the bud by now. Add to that a couple of "nice working with you all these years" Facebook posts from some people who have written fiction or contributed in some minor way to the toys for the TF Club and Botcon in the past and the inability of Botcon to sell out of its exclusives in the past 4 years or so, and it looks very likely.

Blazemane, Sapphire-- I would be happy to give your gifts/letters to the BW voice actors there. Please contract me via PM if/when you have something concrete you want to send me. One bit of news, however-- unfortunately Alec Willows (Tarantulas) cannot attend this year because of some play scheduling conflict, but the Botcon people also announced a few days ago that Venus Terzo (Blackarachnia) will be attending. Which means the current guest list is:

David Kaye (Megatron)
Scott McNeil (Silverbolt, Waspinator, Rattrap, Dinobot)
and Venus Terzo (Blackarachnia)

So keep that in mind. Botcon says that they still have some guests to announce, but they aren't saying yet whether those guests are more BW voice actors or not.

Also, in case anyone reading this IS planning on going, preregistration is supposed to go up next week.

AND, one last thing: A picture of the combined form of the boxset toys this year, Predacus! (The Tripredacus Council with Ravage & Tarantulas.)
http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/ ... age/34552/

[Beastbot]

Preregistration is up-- I'm all signed up!

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon2016/register.cfm

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

Thank you for all of the updates, Beastbot!

[Beastbot]

A couple of notes since the last time I posted:

-Judd Nelson (voice of Hot Rod from the animated Transformers movie) is the "big VIP" guest this year, and will have a special VIP pass that registrars can purchase with signed print, personal pow-wow session, and the like, though everyone will be able to see him at his panel.
-There's, unfortunately, been another guest cancellation-- Scott McNeil can't attend for "personal reasons". Hope he's okay.
-To take Scott's place, Gregg Berger (voice of G1 Grimlock) has been confirmed as another guest.
-It has been confirmed by Fun Publications that this will be the last year of the Transformers Collectors' Club, and Botcon, at least as run by them: