Last night, our friend from Cali gave us a call and let us in on everything. He did well, got the things we needed–well, the ones that weren’t sold out–and got them shipped to us. Prime’s phone was on speaker and as we talked, I asked if I had missed anything.
DA said that I really hadn’t. That’s a little upsetting.
There weren’t any real dealers there–we told him as to why–and he said none of the familiar faces that we’ve gotten used to seeing weren’t there, either. That really bothers me, as I’ve come to see BotCon as a family reunion of sorts. The “FANmily” seemed to consist of all new faces. I’m more than a little torn.
He gave the trade show/convention a solid decent rating and compared it to SDCC, saying it felt rather similar. Again, that’s a bit upsetting; as much as I’d like heading to SDCC, I don’t think I want a Transformers convention that is on that large a scale. I mean, that’s a bit too much.
We also couldn’t help but wonder: why can’t BotCon and HasCon coexist? We could have both, as BotCon could fill a niche that HasCon couldn’t but we don’t. It’s puzzling to me.
We’re all hoping that next year, we can find a way of getting together. The way things are going right now, I may be inclined to hit JoeCon; there might be a tour and I might recognize a few faces. As of this moment, I can only hope for the best.
Iacon East 
I wonder what Hasbro would have to lose by letting BotCon and HasCon co-exist? Just from this first HasCon, it’s easy to see both conventions would cater to different audiences. BotCon under FunPub would have its core audience of older fans while HasCon would be for children and their parents. Too bad they’re so myopic to see they can still make money by licensing the con and products to FunPub, who was never doing it for free in the first place.
~daiAtlas
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