The Energon Pub

Has anyone done the General Admission for BotCon?

It's not my first choice but moving to a new house has left me looking at this as an option for still being able to attend at all.

As I understand from BotCon.com and the FAQ, General Admission is sold only at the boxoffice (not online in advance) and is per day and includes only the dealer room + whatever panels you can squeeze in to.

Assuming a person got to the box office at the buttcrack of dawn how likely is it even to get in on general admission? Does it sell out extreamly quick? Are there people camping over night?

Thanks for any advice guys, right now I'm just weighing my options and budget for going. Maybe some other fans here are looking at the same thing too?

General Admission doesn't sell out unless they are doing something different this year. There may be a short line at the "box office" when the dealer room opens but don't expect there to be droves of people waiting, just a short line. No reason to camp out.

The majority of the people you see at Botcon will be the people that have pre-registered.

With General Admission are people able to see at least some of the fun stuff like the fan video contest?

General Admission only gets you in on Saturday and Sunday if I'm recalling correctly. So you'll miss any Panels, interviews, autograph events that take place on Friday. Also, I'm not sure if General Admission gets you into Saturday Panels or not. It seems to be geared more for the locals who take a passing interest and want to check out the dealer room, parents with kids that live in the area and like TFs. I'm no official source, but that's based on a bit of heresay plus what I've observed at 2 BotCons. The vast majority of people present will be pre-registrants. Honestly, I don't think I've actually seen a General Admission guest there, but I could have just missed them.

it sucks i wont be able to go this year...im sad

I am planning on attending botcon this year, and this would be my first one. I was planning on driving down from nor cal to pasadena and just get the general admission pass. But based on what Im seeing here it sounds like the only thing I will be able to to is visit the dealers area and walk around. Can anyone confirm that general admission is only available for saturday and sunday? Also if you can get in with general admission on the first two days, is it pretty much impossible to get in for the panels and siminars? Btw isnt the at the door general admission like $15.00?


Considering the amount of scratch that I would need to drop just to get to the convention, I would hate to think that I really wont be able to do anything besides shop and look at people cos play.

The lines for general admin are always long.

Last year we kind of walked around them before they were allowed into the dealer room acting like we were going to cut someone in line...

Then moonwalked through the dealer room door. It was pretty rad.

So can anyone confirm that general admission is only available for the last two days of the convention?

Thank Primus for General Admission. I'm sending my mom in my place to get me stuff since I'll be graduating & then going to Guatemala. To bad it won't be back here next year.....but if came back to CA once, it'll be sure to do so again.

Starscreams bad comedy wrote:I am planning on attending botcon this year, and this would be my first one. I was planning on driving down from nor cal to pasadena and just get the general admission pass. But based on what Im seeing here it sounds like the only thing I will be able to to is visit the dealers area and walk around. Can anyone confirm that general admission is only available for saturday and sunday? Also if you can get in with general admission on the first two days, is it pretty much impossible to get in for the panels and siminars? Btw isnt the at the door general admission like $15.00?


Considering the amount of scratch that I would need to drop just to get to the convention, I would hate to think that I really wont be able to do anything besides shop and look at people cos play.

That was what I was planning too, me and my husband will be driving down from San Jose, CA. From the post here though and what I've read on the botcon.com yeah it will just be like an all TF related toy show and only for Saturday and Sunday admission.

The toyshow though, I'm torn between saving $$$ on admission so I can have more spending money for the dealer booths or spending more on the admission and getting to do Friday and all the other fun stuff. The addition of Weird Al and David Kaye are definitely points in favor of budgeting for a couple Protoform packages.

California wise - I'm skipping attending San Jose Supercon this year in favor of saving for Botcon.

A question on the dealer rooms... Is there a ton of non-toy things like lithographs, standees, housewares and other Transformers theamed things that are hard to track down elsewhere? I'm really looking for things like that too.

ponycorn wrote:

Starscreams bad comedy wrote:I am planning on attending botcon this year, and this would be my first one. I was planning on driving down from nor cal to pasadena and just get the general admission pass. But based on what Im seeing here it sounds like the only thing I will be able to to is visit the dealers area and walk around. Can anyone confirm that general admission is only available for saturday and sunday? Also if you can get in with general admission on the first two days, is it pretty much impossible to get in for the panels and siminars? Btw isnt the at the door general admission like $15.00?


Considering the amount of scratch that I would need to drop just to get to the convention, I would hate to think that I really wont be able to do anything besides shop and look at people cos play.

That was what I was planning too, me and my husband will be driving down from San Jose, CA. From the post here though and what I've read on the botcon.com yeah it will just be like an all TF related toy show and only for Saturday and Sunday admission.

The toyshow though, I'm torn between saving $$$ on admission so I can have more spending money for the dealer booths or spending more on the admission and getting to do Friday and all the other fun stuff. The addition of Weird Al and David Kaye are definitely points in favor of budgeting for a couple Protoform packages.

California wise - I'm skipping attending San Jose Supercon this year in favor of saving for Botcon.

A question on the dealer rooms... Is there a ton of non-toy things like lithographs, standees, housewares and other Transformers theamed things that are hard to track down elsewhere? I'm really looking for things like that too.

Ya I just found the link on the botcon site confirming it. Lame.

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon09/genadm09.cfm

Looks like I may not be attending botcon after all. I dont understand the pricing aspect of this convention. I mean the cheapest package I can get is the protoform one at $200 dollars. Add on to that about another $200 for a rental car, hotel costs, food, etc. and youre looking at $500-$600 just to be able to attend/get to the convention. Then there is whatever you want to buy at the dealers room. Seems like they are really pricing a lot of people out of being able to attend the convention. Ya I can just drop a few hundered and go the general admission route, but all that basically ammounts to is a 6 hour drive just to go to a dealers room. Now unless, as you mentioned, there is a lot of hard to get items there, I dont see it being all that worth while as I already got most all of the universe/classics and animated lines and dont really care about the movie lines. At this point I would rather just keep that $500-$600 and use it to buy encore/reissue figures online. Which sucks because who knows when the next botcon will back out in my neck of the woods.

Starscreams bad comedy wrote:

ponycorn wrote:

Starscreams bad comedy wrote:I am planning on attending botcon this year, and this would be my first one. I was planning on driving down from nor cal to pasadena and just get the general admission pass. But based on what Im seeing here it sounds like the only thing I will be able to to is visit the dealers area and walk around. Can anyone confirm that general admission is only available for saturday and sunday? Also if you can get in with general admission on the first two days, is it pretty much impossible to get in for the panels and siminars? Btw isnt the at the door general admission like $15.00?


Considering the amount of scratch that I would need to drop just to get to the convention, I would hate to think that I really wont be able to do anything besides shop and look at people cos play.

That was what I was planning too, me and my husband will be driving down from San Jose, CA. From the post here though and what I've read on the botcon.com yeah it will just be like an all TF related toy show and only for Saturday and Sunday admission.

The toyshow though, I'm torn between saving $$$ on admission so I can have more spending money for the dealer booths or spending more on the admission and getting to do Friday and all the other fun stuff. The addition of Weird Al and David Kaye are definitely points in favor of budgeting for a couple Protoform packages.

California wise - I'm skipping attending San Jose Supercon this year in favor of saving for Botcon.

A question on the dealer rooms... Is there a ton of non-toy things like lithographs, standees, housewares and other Transformers theamed things that are hard to track down elsewhere? I'm really looking for things like that too.

Ya I just found the link on the botcon site confirming it. Lame.

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon09/genadm09.cfm

Looks like I may not be attending botcon after all. I dont understand the pricing aspect of this convention. I mean the cheapest package I can get is the protoform one at $200 dollars. Add on to that about another $200 for a rental car, hotel costs, food, etc. and youre looking at $500-$600 just to be able to attend/get to the convention. Then there is whatever you want to buy at the dealers room. Seems like they are really pricing a lot of people out of being able to attend the convention. Ya I can just drop a few hundered and go the general admission route, but all that basically ammounts to is a 6 hour drive just to go to a dealers room. Now unless, as you mentioned, there is a lot of hard to get items there, I dont see it being all that worth while as I already got most all of the universe/classics and animated lines and dont really care about the movie lines. At this point I would rather just keep that $500-$600 and use it to buy encore/reissue figures online. Which sucks because who knows when the next botcon will back out in my neck of the woods.

Now you understand why people buy extra sets in order to cover costs...

Starscreams bad comedy wrote:

ponycorn wrote:

Starscreams bad comedy wrote:I am planning on attending botcon this year, and this would be my first one. I was planning on driving down from nor cal to pasadena and just get the general admission pass. But based on what Im seeing here it sounds like the only thing I will be able to to is visit the dealers area and walk around. Can anyone confirm that general admission is only available for saturday and sunday? Also if you can get in with general admission on the first two days, is it pretty much impossible to get in for the panels and siminars? Btw isnt the at the door general admission like $15.00?


Considering the amount of scratch that I would need to drop just to get to the convention, I would hate to think that I really wont be able to do anything besides shop and look at people cos play.

That was what I was planning too, me and my husband will be driving down from San Jose, CA. From the post here though and what I've read on the botcon.com yeah it will just be like an all TF related toy show and only for Saturday and Sunday admission.

The toyshow though, I'm torn between saving $$$ on admission so I can have more spending money for the dealer booths or spending more on the admission and getting to do Friday and all the other fun stuff. The addition of Weird Al and David Kaye are definitely points in favor of budgeting for a couple Protoform packages.

California wise - I'm skipping attending San Jose Supercon this year in favor of saving for Botcon.

A question on the dealer rooms... Is there a ton of non-toy things like lithographs, standees, housewares and other Transformers theamed things that are hard to track down elsewhere? I'm really looking for things like that too.

Ya I just found the link on the botcon site confirming it. Lame.

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon09/genadm09.cfm

Looks like I may not be attending botcon after all. I dont understand the pricing aspect of this convention. I mean the cheapest package I can get is the protoform one at $200 dollars. Add on to that about another $200 for a rental car, hotel costs, food, etc. and youre looking at $500-$600 just to be able to attend/get to the convention. Then there is whatever you want to buy at the dealers room. Seems like they are really pricing a lot of people out of being able to attend the convention. Ya I can just drop a few hundered and go the general admission route, but all that basically ammounts to is a 6 hour drive just to go to a dealers room. Now unless, as you mentioned, there is a lot of hard to get items there, I dont see it being all that worth while as I already got most all of the universe/classics and animated lines and dont really care about the movie lines. At this point I would rather just keep that $500-$600 and use it to buy encore/reissue figures online. Which sucks because who knows when the next botcon will back out in my neck of the woods.

General Admission will in fact get you into panels if the rooms aren't overloaded with people who have preregistered packages.

As for the dealer's room, honestly it is pretty awesome. It isn't like stepping into a flea market, thrift shop or a local toy shop. They don't have EVERYTHING but they do have a heckuva lot.