Okay, I’ve put together some thoughts from this years Summer of Sonic hopefully I’ve covered all the important stuff.

Preparation

This year it was a minor miracle we managed to pull it off as everything seemed to be working against us on Friday, starting with the venue not being cleaned out, discovering holes in the floor, to suddenly having our people capacity number dropped less than 18 hours before the doors open, and I’m only scratching the surface here. We then had, a faulty Wii, a DS that couldn’t take a dev cart, a stolen laptop and camera, and the less said about the Pavilion staff the better. It is a true testament to the commitment of staff that we managed to overcome these problems.

Tails judges as the Pavilion staff dawdles.

So what did I end up doing? Well to start with not much, getting to the venue and finding it in the state it was, we had to just sit off the side lines and watch the Pavilion staff clean up very slowly. Once most of it was cleaned up it was a case of all hands on deck to get as much done as possible, setting up the stage, tables, pods, chairs, sound checks etc. A couple of hours later and we had something approaching a convention hall.

The next morning went a little more smoothly with everything falling into place, we ended up opening the doors half an hour late, but hey the year we we open the doors on time will be the year where everything goes to plan, and that is never going to happen.

Looks okay from where I am.

My Job

My duties this time round were a bit more varied than normal, starting out with my usual role of door man along with Urtheart, I think I must have got about 200 people through in that first half hour or so, all the time saying, “if you leave you may not be able to get back in,” over and over again, in the end though capacity wasn’t a problem.

Convention hall filling up nicely.

After about half an hour and a case of dry throat later it was to take on my next role… as Wentos… or so I thought, as it was all a clever ploy by AAUK to get me on stage to perform my forfeit for failing this years wrecks factor. Damn him for playing on my willingness to help out! As it turned out it wasn’t so bad as I had feared that I would be forced to sing something… which would have cleared the room faster than suddenly discovering it was really a Mario convention, no instead I had to do Caramelldancin.

I promise to never do a bad song again… at least until next time.

Once my humiliation was over with it was on with my third role of the day, Sonic’s helper. Which on it’s own doesn’t sound like much but when your in a convention hall filed with Sonic fans it suddenly turns into a real hassle. In the end it involved me (politely) asking people to move aside, a role my voice seems to be well suited to, and taking photos hopefully most of them didn’t come out too blurry.

The Event

I’ve talked a lot about what I was doing at the event but what about the rest of the event? What was actually going on? Well we had a lot more than last year, for a start the place was bigger which was a good thing however the ventilation wasn’t as good as last time some of those cos-players must have cooked.

The merch cabinet was back with the usual stock of Sonic curiosities old and new including some of mine, and a very special addition from First 4 Figures, after seeing Super Sonic light up for the first time I was glad I’d pre-ordered the special edition. peaking of merch this year we actually had a shop this time round where some of the staff flogged some of there merch and of course there was the magnificent Crush 40 merchandise.

This year we had two new games on show Sonic Colours for the Wii and DS which I didn’t get around to but it will be out soon enough, and the much anticipated Sonic 4 which I did take a few minutes to try out it was okay but I felt it’s a good thing they are taking the extra time to refine it a little more, and lets not forget the Allstars racing contest which was one by someone playing as Tails which pleased me no end.

Then there was the stage where we had me humiliating myself, the Wrecks Factor, Nevermind the Buzzbombers, Afternoon Tea with Jun Senoue, an amazingly busy cosplay contest that I still think Sally should have won, and of course the Crush 40 concert to round off the day (videos of which should be forthcoming soon on my end).

I’m sure I’m forgetting a pile of things but when your dashing around the place it’s hard to keep track of everything that’s going on.

In the End

Overall it was once again an experience that left me mentally and physically drained, with barely enough energy to find the after party, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it, I love helping out where I can making the day the best it can be for you guys. Now I hope everyone will join me in thanking Svend ‘Dreadknux’ Joscelyne for creating the event, Kevin ‘AaUK’ Eva for doing his SEGA magic, Adam ‘T-Bird’ Tuff for all his work organising the stage and the rest of the staff who helped to make this the best Summer of Sonic ever!