You're just jealous you didn't think of it.

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Hey, I've already got two guys sharing a room with me...

Do you suppose any of the movie cast will attend the convention?

If that was an option, who would you like to meet?

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I highly doubt it, they'll be deep into production of the film at that time. I'd think the '09 convention would be much more likely for star visitation.

That being said, I'm not sure any of these actors are really folks I'd be interested in meeting...except maybe Sienna Miller...

Justin

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I wouldn't mind meeting Arnold Vosloo, I like his movies. And of course I could rescue Sienna Miller from a sexually-confused Hawk.


Remember Justin, you think girls are icky.

I wouldn't expect anything west of there for a while, due to the dismal failures every time the con has been in California. Poor attendance, small amount of dealers in San Fran, Irvine, and San Jose. I would probably go to Cali again, if the timing was right, but a lot of people won't. Plus the whole hippy culture is less than friendly to anything military. Just annoying.

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So why not got to southern Cali like San Deigo. SD is a big navy town and Camp pendleton (sp?) is near by too.

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From what I understand, getting dealers out there is the problem. Personally, I won't drive more than a day to do a convention. Once you start adding on 2 or more additional hotel stays, the cost and time lost become a pain in the butt.

Also, from a dealer standpoint, based on my own sales and observations thru the transactions on my site, most of the people I ship to are in the middle of the country, and the south. I rarely ship to CA, and being a CA native, I know there are plenty of toy shows every weekend and collectibles shops are a dime a dozen out there, unlike some of the less populated states.

I used to go to the DeSimone Joe shows in the 90s in CA, and those always seemed weak even back then.

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Yeah, I've been to both of those places, and it is definitely a different dynamic than the rest of Cali. But, the big problem is what ZombieGuide said, dealers don't want to haul their stuff all the way out there, and attendance is still poor. They're just a little friendlier to the military in San Diego.

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I hate when people bring up the San Francisco Con as a reason never to come back here. Ask anyone and they will tell you how bad of a Con that was and it had very little to do with it being here instead of Middletown USA. First, it wasn't in San Francisco. It was two towns over and by the airport. None, I repeat, none of the local toy shops I go to had any advertsing for the show. Gi Joe fans knew about it but the average toy collector didn't. They certainly weren't advertising in Toy magazines back then. There also weren't any picketers oustide the convention that I was aware of so I don't even know where that is coming from.

Having it on the west coast brings in people from Seattle, Las Vegas, Denver, Pheonix, Salt Lake City, and all of California, not to mention western Canada. Thems a lot of peeps. I just don't understand how all these small shows can go on regularly out here and even the mega huge conventions like Comic Con and Star Wars Celebration, yet Joe can't seem to find an audience in an entire region.

But this argument is old. The show is in Dallas and the entire western portion of the US will have to accept that it will never be out here again.

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Most of these are good points. The picketers were just down the street, but they were more anti-Bush than anything. But those picketers, as annoying as they were, weren't really what I was referring to. Like it or not, California, and Bay Area specifically, is well known as not being military friendly. This certainly does not encompass everyone, as these things never do, but it is definitely more prevalent than elsewhere in the country. It is just part of the culture out there. One rally of demonstrators isn't really going to change this, so I'm not basing it on that.

I'm also not basing the lack of attendance/dismal show on just San Fran. There were also cons in Irvine and San Jose that were equally disappointing. Based solely on what I've heard, and no real facts, I wouldn't expect it to be held in Minnesota again either, and they only got one shot. That probably ruined it for Michigan, Wisconsin, and many other locations in northern Mid-West states.

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The thing I've always wondered about the Minnesota show was, how much of the lack of attendance could be blamed on location, and how much could be blamed on Hasbro pulling the plug on the 3 3/4" and 12" line? They did come back with the DTC line before the show, but ever since then the 12" have trickled down to almost nothing, and in 2005 hard feelings against Hasbro were running high (Sigma 6).

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Bringing this back up to say that I just bought my airfare, so I'll be there.

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Over in the Club forums, they said that info on the Con sets will be in the April newsletter and that registration forms will be up by mid April.

Michael
Bulletman Big B
All Hail DOB!!

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