The Energon Pub

I bet Hasbro is desperate to try to hype the whole brand and not have to keep missing things out - Like Rescue Bots or even RID to some extent.

There is also the issue that there is a perception that Transformers fans don't like the Live Action Movies - often even vehemently hate them.

So since there is a TF Movie out every year for 3 years and talk of Animated features as well; then I can see them wanting to hype them - and they can't as the Fandom is a bit "eh" about them.

So if they have a more corporate event they can hype the Gi Joe Movie Universe (despite Gi Joe fans being a bit Vanilla to that too) and Hype the Live Action Movies over the next 3 years to the General Audience who isn't aware they are "supposed" to hate them by default.

They are sort of addressing the T-shirt Buying Micheal Bay Fans a bit here.
Heck they might even make 'explicitly' Movie toy Universe exclusives now (for good or ill).


So if that is what they are thinking that they can mention all those things - that is great and all but - isn't that what SDCC is for ?

But such a convention is a good place to launch a new line that they might have been working on like M.A.S.K, Micronauts or a Gi Joe Re-launch or whatever else.

They might change the timing of the convention in future to be in the holiday period to get more visitors - or they might be thinking about the things they want to reveal and where and how - and time it accordingly.

For example it would be pretty shoddy if Prime Wars 3.0 debued at SDCC and not at the Convention (It's supposed to start early 2018 I think).
September is so close to Prime Wars 3.0's release date that they'd likely have packaging by then and as such perhaps other conventions might get some of those reveals for practical reasons. Like Trypticon should be finished way before then for example... so is likely to debut elsewhere.

Where as maybe it wouldn't be the end of the Universe if the Movie toy reveals or trailer reveals etc related to the Movies were held over for SDCC & NYCC as they will get more general press attention there for sure.

But Hasbro's own Convention might be Ok to show off any animated stuff.
I guess a lot of what works will depend on how big it turns out being and how much of it is actually focused on Transformers at all.

Not to mention the problems of panels potentially clashing with other events.

But if it's on for 3 full days I guess they will manage - but I hope that the rest of the fans will be given something to occupy their time during any panels on subjects they may not be interested in. I hope they don't do something silly like have two Boys Toys subjects on at the same time.

So other questions - VIPS - who ?
and also would they have a bar still - or would people have to hang about the hotel bar to avoid the crowds ?

It does raise a lot of questions - do I have confidence they can get it right - well the Chinese Conventions that are kinda prototypes for this were well received overall I guess.


But ultimately TFCon is going to benefit from this in someways even if it become more niche as if Hasbro does decide they only want to mainly hype The Movies then TFCON is going to be the antidote to that.

Delicon wrote:

ScottyP wrote:

xRotorstormx wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Pretty sure this means no dealer area right? Looks more like an expo.

Certainly seems that way to a lot of folks, which would be a total downer.

Am I missing something? I don't see any reason there wouldn't be.

Yeah, I was confused by that, too. Dealer room (or rooms) allows Hasbro to sell space to vendors which equals easy money. Why would Hasbro not want that revenue?

Thats a very simple way of looking at things, and the corporate world is not that simple.

Firstly, that revenue is small potatoes for all the hassle it brings. There is a reason Hasbro much preffers licensing their names to shows (expos, cons, ect), nothing falls back on them. Limited to no liability. But this isn't the case here, it's their event, their show. If xRotorstormx buys a complete G1 Liokaiser only to realize later that one of the components is a KO, Hasbro is liable. Plus the contacts are no longer internal or corporate, you are now dealing with individual sellers, and have to worry about how they bring their own merchandise in, if all your licenses are in check, run backgrounds on the vendors, you have to police it, ect. A lot of factors which you can simply eliminate by having all merchandise be internal. Oh the exclusive you bought is broken? No worries contact Hasbro customer service.

Now about the added revenue, it probably wouldnt help Hasbro in any positive way. By not leasing any space for outside vendors, they are maximizing the show floor with their own stuff, writing it all off as a marketting expense. The higher the expense is, the less taxes they have to pay at the end of the year. So in reality, that added revenue you speak of (which comes with significant liability) could augment their taxes 2 fold by 1) not using that space for something of their own that they could write off and 2) increasing revenue that will have to be taxed.

william-james88 wrote:

Delicon wrote:

ScottyP wrote:

xRotorstormx wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Pretty sure this means no dealer area right? Looks more like an expo.

Certainly seems that way to a lot of folks, which would be a total downer.

Am I missing something? I don't see any reason there wouldn't be.

Yeah, I was confused by that, too. Dealer room (or rooms) allows Hasbro to sell space to vendors which equals easy money. Why would Hasbro not want that revenue?

Thats a very simple way of looking at things, and the corporate world is not that simple.

Firstly, that revenue is small potatoes for all the hassle it brings. There is a reason Hasbro much preffers licensing their names to shows (expos, cons, ect), nothing falls back on them. Limited to no liability. But this isn't the case here, it's their event, their show. If xRotorstormx buys a complete G1 Liokaiser only to realize later that one of the components is a KO, Hasbro is liable. Plus the contacts are no longer internal or corporate, you are now dealing with individual sellers, and have to worry about how they bring their own merchandise in, if all your licenses are in check, run backgrounds on the vendors, you have to police it, ect. A lot of factors which you can simply eliminate by having all merchandise be internal. Oh the exclusive you bought is broken? No worries contact Hasbro customer service.

Now about the added revenue, it probably wouldnt help Hasbro in any positive way. By not leasing any space for outside vendors, they are maximizing the show floor with their own stuff, writing it all off as a marketting expense. The higher the expense is, the less taxes they have to pay at the end of the year. So in reality, that added revenue you speak of (which comes with significant liability) could augment their taxes 2 fold by 1) not using that space for something of their own that they could write off and 2) increasing revenue that will have to be taxed.

I guess we will see, but my bet is there is in fact a dealer room. It might end up being just official product sold by them. If they do use outside vendors I can see them posting disclaimers all over the place that they aren't liable.

PS - I know more about the business world than you think. I used to own one.

Delicon wrote:PS - I know more about the business world than you think. I used to own one.

I am sorry I didnt mean to offend, I was talking to everyone in general using your comment as a jumping on point to show a side of things that had not been adressed yet.

Well, if this turns out to be a thing that I am interested in, at least it isn't terribly far away for me

william-james88 wrote:

Emerje wrote:I'm also very concerned about this convention being a little too family and kid friendly at the risk of alienating the die hard adult fans and collectors that other conventions (especially BotCon) cater to. I don't know if as a single adult I'm going to feel comfortable sharing space with a bunch of kids and judgmental parents. How do you do a Transformers panel without talking over the kids heads and talking down to the adult fans?

We could ask the ton of adults who attend Star Wars celebration every year.

Here's the difference: When you have a specifically themed event like Star Wars Celebration there's an expectation that everyone, young and old, will be a Star Wars fan of some sort. Same goes for BotCon or JoeCon or even Bronycon. Even D23 Expo attracts a like-minded fan base. But the same isn't true for HASCON where they'll promote entirely different toy lines in one event. Let's face it, there's going to be a major culture clash between oblivious parents bringing their seven year old daughters to see some MLPs and maybe play with some Play-Doh, and, well, people like "us", adults (mostly guys) of varying ages, probably without kids, there to hear about Transformers, or play Magic the Gathering, or, better yet, also there for MLP. It already sounds like an uncomfortable situation and we don't even know what they have in store yet.

I do agree that I would be surprised if HASCON has a dealers room or even an artist alley. Let's not forget that Hasbro tried to dictate how those things were run at BotCon in the past only to have to back off after some backlash. Now that they're doing this themselves they can just brush that whole mess aside and not even worry about it. There'll most definitely be a physical Hasbro Toy Shop there, but I wouldn't expect anything else.

Emerje

Here's a piece of speculation for you all. As you might have noticed, Hasbro had a big presence at the New York Toy Fair this weekend, and brought several reveals for this year's lines of toys, from The Last Knight to Robots in Disguise to Titans Return (all of our coverage can be found here and the related galleries here!) - now, they have tweeted a general thank you message to close off the event, reminding fans that their next stop is Providence, Rhode Island in September 2017, for HASCON.

The odd part? San Diego Comic Con, a staple of the entertainment media industries, is taking place in July. Is the message just a slip of the fingers, or is Hasbro actually not going to be taking part at SDCC? We have no further information at the moment, and this post is merely rumouring and overthinking, but what you do make of the possibility? Do you think we're reading this correctly?

Hasbro runs on Dunkin!

Cobotron wrote:Hasbro runs on Dunkin!

Can we get a Dunkin Donuts themed repaint of Trypticon?

SureShot18 wrote:

Cobotron wrote:Hasbro runs on Dunkin!

Can we get a Dunkin Donuts themed repaint of Trypticon?

now i would like to see that

Seriously now... I'm not sure I see how this would imply that they would pull their presence from SDCC.

Cobotron wrote::lol:

Seriously now... I'm not sure I see how this would imply that they would pull their presence from SDCC.

The fact that they said: see you next at Hascon, rather than SDCC.
I dunno, we were intrigued.

Hasbro right now, "If only we had a place to reveal our upcoming Transformers before September..."

And Funpub is like, "Take us back!"

It Is Him wrote:Hasbro right now, "If only we had a place to reveal our upcoming Transformers before September..."

PR department, "Thats right, we have the Pulse!".

http://pulse.hasbro.com/en-us/news/arti ... _disguise_

SDCC has gotten overly bloated the last few years. I tried to watch some of the media coverage on SyFy last year and couldn't stomach it (which is sad because SDCC was such a big part of my life for a full decade during the 90's and early 200's). Big studios pulled out last year, which doesn't mean they wont be filled as there are a ton of smaller TV shows, movie producers, toys....oh yeah ...and comics to fill any empty spots by any company that chooses not to attend.

I'm sure we will see something between now and September, just don't know where or in what form, after all I cant see Hasbro missing opportunities to promote TLK a whole lot more before it hits theaters.

But I do have a question, since BotCon no longer exists, is the idea to keep HasCon in Rhode Island, or will it move around? Heck I'd even be willing to attend one of the smaller fan conventions, but as of now there are none in California that I am aware of.

No real shock. Disney does the same thing when they have their D23 club event every other year. As a result you won't likely see much about the MCU appearing at SDCC this year either. Especially with them all being so close together.

That's not to say that both Disney and Hasbro won't be at NYCC in Nov.

YoungPrime wrote:No real shock. Disney does the same thing when they have their D23 club event every other year. As a result you won't likely see much about the MCU appearing at SDCC this year either. Especially with them all being so close together.

That's not to say that both Disney and Hasbro won't be at NYCC in Nov.

That leads to the interesting notion that Hasbro never intended Hascon to replace Botcon. They intended Hascon to replace SDCC, same as Disney and their convention. That made Botcon no longer needed either, but it wasnt the main event being targeted.

Of note is how there was no mention of any Transformers SDCC exclusives for this year.

Personally, I think that Hasbro pulling away from SDCC is a good move. They have plenty of tiles and new lines to hold their own convention. Internally, they just need to hire hot (cool, I mean) cosplay walking around taking free pictures. And there's nothing wrong with allowing random vendors selling other products that's not hasbro. Hasbro products just needs to be the main focus, not necessarily exclusive to that event. Sdcc has been sad the last few years and the exclusives end up not being exclusives, being sold all over their sifted fir months after. I stopped trying (even thinking about it) to go online to attempt to buy tickets to comic on. It's such s poor system. Dude, we fans are trying crazy to purchase tickets while kssfm got a bunch of tickets to give away. I thought you can only purchase one ticket and one for your friends. How the hell they got so many tickets to give away on the radio. Anyways, I'll be happy if my transformers products get moved away from sdcc

Izzat bad? No SDCC?

fenrir72 wrote:Izzat bad? No SDCC?

NOt reallly. All it really did in the past was push and promote the current line, especially the Titan Class, since they would always have a special edition titan sold there.

fenrir72 wrote:Izzat bad? No SDCC?

I think it would only impact Hasbro's ability to connect with casual fans (not people on this forum). A few years ago I didn't know anything about current TF toys, but I knew of SDCC. I mainly paid attention to see what was announced regarding the more mainstream comic book movies. That may have been the only opportunity for Hasbro to connect with me and other casual fans.

nycPrime wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:Izzat bad? No SDCC?

I think it would only impact Hasbro's ability to connect with casual fans (not people on this forum). A few years ago I didn't know anything about current TF toys, but I knew of SDCC. I mainly paid attention to see what was announced regarding the more mainstream comic book movies. That may have been the only opportunity for Hasbro to connect with me and other casual fans.

Wow, we seem to come from a similar fan background. From 2008 to 2013 I was deep into comics and would visit IGN, newsarama and whichever other website to know which creative teams would be on what books and especially to see if anyone scored an interview with Grant Morrison (good times). But with the ton of news coming from a single event, it was overwhelming so I would just focus on what I knew. I probably came across TF news in the past but I have no recollection of it because I was focusing on something else, not wanting to get sidetracked, because there was so much to cover in the fandom I was in.

Just to show how a company being present where there is an abundance of news from everywhere would make it counterintuitive to reach the casual fan when they are looking for news specific to their taste.

william-james88 wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:Izzat bad? No SDCC?

NOt reallly. All it really did in the past was push and promote the current line, especially the Titan Class, since they would always have a special edition titan sold there.

So, pretty standard convention involvement. Hasbro just decided that it would do the same thing it (potentially used to) do as SDCC at its own convention. As if Hascon or whatever they're going to call it won't be used to push and promote new product?

While it is still several months away, we have a new update concerning the upcoming convention involving the Hasbro properties. The Transformers Facebook page has shared a new video created to advertise the event, staring the new styled movie Optimus Prime. The video shows Optimus walking up to the Rhode Island Convention Center where the event will be held and placing the Hasbro flag beside the other flags preset. Equally important is the blurb hasbro wrote regarding the event and that it will have exclusives that will then be on Hasbro Toy Shop after the event. This is just like SDCC exclusives of yore, yet another hint that Hasbro will not be in attandance at SDCC this yeat and instead keep exclusives for this Hascon event instead. Check out the video, and remember to check out the Hascon website and get your tickets!

Bigger than Unicron? Yep. Join us this September at HASCON for 3 days of super fandom! This FANmily event will feature TRANSFORMERS toy reveals, talent appearances, HASCON exclusive product*, autograph sessions, dynamic panels with the TRANSFORMERS design team and much more. Stay tuned, tickets and more information coming soon!

*Limited quantities will be available at hasbrotoyshop.com following the convention.