Hacker's
'Official Transformers
Collector's Convention' (AKA BotCon)
Report
Day 1, Friday Morning
That's right, the day started early Friday morning. I was woken
up around six a.m. so I could finish packing for the day. Well,
I was ready to go at seven, but my dad worked the graveyard shift
so we got onto the road about nine in the morning. I drove for about
three hours and a half before lack of food and sleep caught up to
me. My mom took over the driving at one in the afternoon (My time)
and promptly got caught in the Chicago traffic jams...
At 3:30, we made it to the hotel, a very BIG hotel mind you. I preregistered
for BotCon, deserted my family and went exploring around the hotel.
On the second floor was group of people staring at the floor. I
meet Melissa driving around her Transmetal Tarry. She used
tape to stick a ZipZap car to Tarry, that's all. Everyone was like,
you are so freaking brilliant. She also had a custom made Rampage,
everyone thought it was a factory repaint. So she and I get along
really well, she tells me which site she's from and stuff and I
tell her I'm hovering around Sapph's site and The Realm of Insanity.
that was a conversation we had!
I also found out that she too had registered for the dinner so we
tagged along with each other till time for the food and meeting
of David Kaye.
I had my camera with me the entire night so I had a little fun with
her toys. We acted out "Bad Spark" and had Rampage trying
to tear Tarry apart. There was one guy walking around with an outfit
on and called himself the "Rouge Viper" I got a picture
of him trying to stomp Tarry, trying to make up with Tarry, and
Tarry taking his revenge on Mister Viper man. Someone also dropped
some pretzels on the floor, which I took advantage of and Tarry
can be seen eating pretzels and a toy autobot car.
Finally time to get ready for the dinner, at six-thirty people were
lining up and I took the advantage and took a photo of the loong
line, the full dining room too. We were served dinner around eightish
and at nineish, this announcer dude, introduced Gregg(Grimlock),
Gary(Optimus), and of course David(Megatron).
Then the dinner ended and I ran to get photos with all the voice
actors and to have a chat with David. It was really funny when Melissa
and myself got to talk to him one-on-one. She had a recorder with
her so we asked David to say something spontaneous in Megatron's
voice. He thinks for a moment before he says, "Alright, is
that thing ready?"
We hand him the recorder in which he says, "Where the devil
have I left my panties?" (ASA Melissa sends this
in, I'm sure Sapph will put it, along with the RubberDucky Song
(also sung by Megatron), up on the site for all to hear. We're walking
down this hallway with David, cracking up and listening to the recording
over, when a woman
comes up behind us and asks David if she could have an interview
with him and us. He gently pushes us down
the hallway to the staircase saying in his normal voice, "No!
My clients and myself have nothing to say!"
After that we went up to the first level floor to wait in line for
our hotel exclusives, we decided the line was too long, so we waited
and showed David the Moterized Tarry! He thought it was great, and
we made some small talk.
End Day One, 11:45pm
Day Two, Saturday Morning
The convention started at eight, so I planned ahead and set the
alarm for 6:30. I got up showered and got dressed and prepared to
leave the room. My dad wanted to have breakfast with me when he
saw I was leaving, so again I had to wait while he dressed and stuff.
7:30, I hopped into the line for the dealer room that would open
at eight. Met a really cool guy by the name of Jarred and we both
talked on about BW and stuff like that until it was eight. A little
announcer dude walked by shouting it would be another half hour
before the room opened, talk about unhappy. The line was soo huge
and everyone was so tired of waiting, they all booed the announcer
guy, who promptly ran off, back into the dealer room.
Finally they open the room and this place is huge!! It had
everything and Transformer fan could want! I
spotted my fave character in a box and promptly purchased my first
Depth Charge toy. Closely after that, I bought a Transmetal Megatron.
Rampage, Depth Charge, Tarry, and Megatron. You can imagine I had
a field day with my camera...
I was soon browsing in the huge assortment of t-shirts, when Melissa
found me. We went walking around together and bought some more items,
I got some Decepticon stickers of various sizes, and one was even
small enough I put it on Megatron's head and it looked like he was
respecting his ancestors! I also found a great hand drawn pic of
Megatron in his Transmetal form, firing a shot from his tail at
the viewer. Behind him, faded, was a pic of the original Megatron's
eyes. And in green lettering it said, "Evil Lives On..."
I of course bought the pic! Soon after that, Melissa followed me
to my autograph session, where I had David sign a picture of the
toy Transmetal Megatron (two of them side-by-side) Only one of them
had black lettering across the top. It was Megatron's new quote.
I got him to sign that one as Megatron!! and the other David Kaye.
I also meet Dawn and Lady D. at this time, they had wandered in
to the Art Contest room and I was like, If that's not Dawn, then
may I be cursed for life. It was nice to meet the both of them!
After that I stashed everything in my hotel room and ran to the
dealer room where they were having a voice
mimicking contest. the judges? None other than, Gregg, David, and
Gary! I entered to show off my Waspinator
voice and while I was waiting, I snapped a pic of Gary and David
getting ready. Gary saw me getting read and
made a face, but David was too busy talking to someone else.
You should have seen the reaction I got when I said Waspinator's
famous quote. Gary almost fell out of
his chair laughing and say "THAT'S WASPINATOR ALRIGHT!"
David was laughing loudly and Gregg was
smirking. The entire crowd was like whoa!
Sadly, I didn't win, but the reaction was more than enough for me!
As soon as the contest was over Gary
said to David and Gregg, "Alright gang, we've gotta run like
demons if we're going to make it to the autograph session. (there
were different times for different autographing sessions)
After that I stayed behind and bought a Decepticon symbol on a t-shirt
and one for my car. After that I had to run off for dinner in the
city and I came back just in time to catch the end of the Script
reading by all the actors.
It was ok cause Melissa recorded the entire thing for me and I listened
to it while we were waiting for the
AllSpark party on level 2. We meet some more people with walkie-talkies
who were also listening to the
recording and letting their friends (who were in line way away)
listen also. They didn't believe that we got David K. to say his
new quote, (Melissa made stickers with the quote on them and we
were currently wearing them) so we had to play the tape for that.
Everyone around us started laughing so hard, it was soo funny.
When we got into the AllSpark panel they were giving out raffle
tickets for free and they had all these Transformer prizes. They
get to the second prize and the person's number they called didn't
show up, so they drew another on, 305303. Guess who's number that
was. Yup, it was mine, so thanks to the twist of luck, I am now
the proud owner of a huge Galvatron action figure. So ends the best
weekend of my life!
End Day Two.
After that, I woke up early the next morning to leave BotCon. I
was unhappy because at this convention, everyone understood my ramblings
about Transformers and stuff like that. I hate reality....
I made the best of leaving, and took a picture of the outside of
the hotel, The Hyatt. It was awesome, I'd use other words, but this
report wouldn't be able to hold that many. It was just great, I
hope all of you get the chance to go cause it's something you'll
never forget.
Sounds
from the convention:
(You might
need Windows Media Player. If they don't work, right click
the link and select 'save target as'.)
This one is
of David K. and myself at the dinner!!
|
This
one is of Gary C. and myself, he was making funny noises
when the picture was taken and I couldn't help cracking
up!
|
This
one is Gregg B. and me! He's the voice of Grimlock!
|
This
pic is of the voice mimicking contest I took part in.
Gary spotted me before I took the picture and made a face,
while David didn't notice. hehehe
|
Click the
thumbnails to see the full version!
The
first pic is a remade scene from "Bad Spark"!
I had lots of fun with my camera and the BW Transformer
toys! hehehe...
|
The
second pic is the inside of the dealer room I waited an
hour and a half to get into. Very much worth the wait.
|
The
last on is Tarry taking his revenge on the Viper Dude.
The Viper dude tried to step on him, then tried to make
up for it! What'd ya think Tarry was going to do?!
|
Autographs!
David
Kaye and Megatron's autograph!
|
Gary
Chalk's autograph
|
Gregg's
autograph
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We
don't break rules, we bend them - a lot.
Starath
sent in this pic. "It's the official pic they used
on BotCon's site when they were advertising Chicago's
convention."
|
Many
thanks to Hacker for her fantastic report!!
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