Memph, TN TIMMYCON!

Amen, Brother!

We went from TC!2 to boobies in five posts. Not our record, mind you, but pretty close.

Problem with TC!1.5 is location. Where would we have it?

 

Triple Play?

 

The problem there is that it may discourage the participation of other comics dealers around the area. I'm sure they'd feel awkward setting up at a competitor's shop. I really want local toy and comic dealers to participate.

 

Maybe the Holiday Inn at Poplar and I-240? Or the Hampton Inn at Peabody Place. We'd probably only need a 1700 to 2200 sq. ft. ball room. Maybe one or two breakout rooms for changing, office, etc. If we get 10 out of towners (including the guests) the meeting (ball) room becomes more negotiable. With 75 guests in sleeping rooms, I usually manager to swing a ball room that is 1700 sq. ft. free.

Maybe the Marriott Convention Center downtown.

 

Triple Play would be nice- he's got enough tables, but don't think he'd be keen on other vendors. He may be up for a Star Wars day there around the time of Ep3's opening. Wouldn't be a bad idea to run it past him. The owner's name is Kevin, right? Wonder if we could get Dark Horse and some media folks interested..?

Didn't they tear down the Holiday Inn at Poplar and I-240- or was that something else? I wonder how many out of towners we could actually pull in? If we could get some of the 501st members to troop down for it that would be a good start.

Now back to 'boobies'...

 

Sorry for ignoring the "boobies" topic, Lin, but Rhonda, what kind of guests would we have to get?
...**Light comes on in the deep dark recesses of Jacob's brain**...
OH! You mean if we can get anyone to stay in the hotel--celebrity has no bearing--we get a deal. Sorry--kinda thick sometimes.
75 rooms is a lot.
How do we turn this into a real Con in order to draw that kind of attendance? It would be cool if we had the biggest SW con this side of Indy. If we could draw SW fans from AR, MO, KY, LA, MS, AL and the rest of TN, and maybe even some IN and GA folks, that would be an incredible con.

 

How do we get it to be a big con Jacob?
Practice! Seriously, most of the big cons started out small and grew over time.

As for the 1.5 in March, Leroy (the guy I mentioned previously who put on small shows in Memphis) said in his e-mail response about TimmyCon that he is hoping to put on another show in Memphis in the Spring (probably March). The last couple he did were at the Holiday Inn on Mt. Moriah @ 240. A nice sized room with a collection of tables from local shops (Comic Cellar), regional shops (Nashville and Cape Girardeau, MO), and independent collectors (comics, toys, videos), and a couple of small press indy comic creators hawking their wares.

So, if SMT wanted a presence at a show, without the major hassle of setting it up, we could probably pitch in to buy a couple of tables for his show.
I'll forward his most recent message to Tim and Lin and if nothing else, maybe he can give some tips. He would like for Memphis to be able to support a nice sized show with professional guests as well.

-Joe

 

As much as I'd love to see TC! get that big, I do want to stay realistic about this. For one, we have no operating budget. Second, we'd need to advertise to get folks from surrounding states, and that takes capital as well. And don't get me started on the fees involved in getting guests to appear.

Are we really ready to make such a bold move? My reasoning is this: Something of this magnitude could not be accomplished by three or four people. It would take a lot of dedication, which, to be honest, I've yet to see from a great deal of this club. I've seen plenty of "Oh-man,-that-sounds-so-awesome-I-can't-wait"'s turn into "Well,-I-can't-make-it-because/the-game-is-on/I-had-something-else-come-up/I-forgot,-was-that-today?"'s over the past two years to make me wonder if we have the manpower it would take to make TC! into something even greater. This is not something that a handful of people could throw together in a few weeks, nor is it something that could be financed by those same few individuals.

Like everything else, this is a team effort, and it will take the cooperation of every member of this group to grow it into a major Con. Honestly, I don't think we have what it takes yet to make this move. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

Joe: I agree with you about "growing" TC! And thanks for contacting the guy about his show. If we can get enough members interested, we should go and make our presence felt there. It would also be good advertisement for TC!2.

 

Uh, did I mention this all started out as a joke..?

I think it could be a fun annual event for the club, and could possibly grow into something big. It also has the potential to be the biggest pain in the behind and/or trainwreck we've ever seen!

Now, that having been said...what are our strengths and weaknesses, and what are the pros and cons of putting on a con/show?

I'd like to hook up with someone that either puts on a show, or has in the past. The guy who's putting on the show in the spring sounds promising, and Rhonda has LOTS of experience dealing with hotels and getting folks where they need to be. Ron at Comics and Collectibles who used to put on the FantasyCon and has offered to give advice (one bit of wisdom he shared was DON'T!)Then there's Henry and a few of our other members who have more plastic to push than they know what to do with, a few more excited SMT members, Tim's and my OCDs and some other sci-fi fans and groups around town and the mid-south.

I don't want to sound like I don't want this to happen, but I would like for it to grow slowly. I've done too many events that have gone small to huge in a short amount of time. They call them growing pains for a reason.

I've also delt with events where only a few people did the majority of the work and had no time to enjoy it.

Some homework for anyone interested-
Make a pros/con list, and think of as many reasons for both as you can.
Make a guest/events wish list, big/small list them all. Do seperate catagories if you want.
Make a list of all your possible contacts (media, comics, marketing, food/beverage, hotels/event centers, celebs, etc.)
Make a list of what you would be willing to do to help out at TC!2.
Make a list of what you liked and disliked about this past TC!.

And anyother lists you can think of that might help brainstorm, then we can get together after the holidays and compare notes.

In the meantime keep posting about TC! and we'll see where it takes us.

Oh, and TIMMY!

 

Well said, Lin. Well said.

I'm all for taking it slow.

 

I could post something about, "That's NOT what Traci said!",- but I won't...

 

I ain't saying nothin'....

(Cause it couldn't be said without me getting banned.)

 

for Lin - the wind beneath the wings of TC and author of very loaded sentences.....

 

Hey all. Sorry if I got carried away. I just had so much fun on Saturday! And DC04 was my first Con ever and it was a total blast! So I am just on that excitement wave about Cons.
With C3 and Mid-South Con (I am assuming) and Joe's friend's thing (does he or the event have a name?) all coming in the first half of the year, maybe we should just concentrate on making our presence at those events fantabulous and on growing TC2 on a realistic level for next fall.

 

Traci and Lin Hey! I don't have to take this abuse. There are plenty of folks out there just dying to abuse me.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to roll over and go to sleep.

Jacob: It's alright. If we keep dreaming big, and work hard to make that dream a reality, eventually it'll happen. If I win the lottery, then it will happen. Memphis is in dire need of a Con like DragonCon, or one of the other biggies. I don't know if TC! will be the candidate to grow into that, but we can always be hopeful, right? I look at it this way: AdventureCon in Knoxville is only a couple of years old, and it's already pretty big, especially on the guest front. MSC is 23 years old, and is nowhere near the scale and scope of AdventureCon. It all has to do with what attracts fans, and AC has it.

Considering that we attracted 200 people on a rainy day with only 5000 flyers (at a cost of $22) is pretty damned good if you ask me.

As Lin said, we'll get together after the holidays and start discussing TC!2. By then, everyone should have some ideas that we could address.

 

Is MSC gonna happen?
It would be cool (here I go again--**Rolls eyes**) if we could get them to bring a significant SW guest.

 

I think the chances of that are between slim and none, Jacob. Only speaking for myself here, but, if we bother to go to MSC next year, it'll only be for one day, mainly to visit some of our friends with the 501st. Other than that, especially after looking at their lineup, I have no interest in attending at all.

To be honest, I'd rather put the money towards going to CIII than waste it at MSC.

 

I'm with Tim on that one MSC isnt doing it for me and the best part about it is hanging w/you guys and gals of the SMT... but the dancing is cool too!

 

You got that right, Sal. Last year was fun because, like everything else, we turned it into a party. I'd rather save the dough and get my Star Wars party geek on at CIII next year.

 

What is the SW presence like at MSC? Is there a SW "track" of events/forums, etc.?

 

Well, the SW presence there is a lot bigger since the 501st and SMT showed up, but it's still a far cry from where we think it should be. Right now, the SW presence is only due to our physical presence at MSC. It really doesn't spread beyond that.

We tried doing a panel on the missing and deleted scenes of the SW saga the first year we were there. We were all ready with a nice multimedia presentation. It turned to crap because MSC couldn't handle crisis and put on a Con at the same time. We ended up losing almost all of our time slot over a lady who fell and broke her arm, which MSC very rudely did not allow us to continue. We ended up asking Michael Sheard to share a SW experience with us. Big mistake. He never shut up, eating up even more of our time.

We swore then that we'd never do a panel there again.

The 501st does a costuming panel, but that's really about it as far as SW is concerned.

 

We ended up asking Michael Sheard to share a SW experience with us. Big mistake. He never shut up, eating up even more of our time.

You should have surreptiously given him a bottle of whiskey.

 

I'll keep my comments on MSC to myself (or voice them privately to Lin) regarding the "good ol' boy" Powers That Be. It is improving (boy, if you had only seen it eight years ago when I first moved to Memphis), but at an old, balding, fat geezer pace.

Some homework for anyone interested-
Make a guest/events wish list, big/small list them all. Do seperate catagories if you want.
Make a list of all your possible contacts (media, comics, marketing, food/beverage, hotels/event centers, celebs, etc.)

Contacting potential media guests is not that hard, I've learned, but getting them to contact you back, that's another story!

John Hudgens of Z Team Productions is an exception to that rule. He lives in Knoxville, TN, and could probably be persuaded to come cheaply. He was on the short list of potential media guests for MSC 2005.

Does anybody have contact with the MTAC organizers in Nashville? Getting voice actors might be your best bet, and they may have tried-and-true suggestions (my suggestion ... try the Voice Chasers website).

Perhaps try getting cast/crew from the Toon Network show CLONE WARS, such as Art Directors Paul Rudish or Scott Wills, or voice actors Corey Burton or Tom Kane. For MSC 2005, I tried to contact the Series Creator, Genndy_Tartakovsky, through the Turner Broadcasting mailing address in Atlanta, but no feedback.

Considering that we attracted 200 people on a rainy day with only 5000 flyers (at a cost of $22) is pretty damned good if you ask me.

That is damn good! Keep on hustlin'!

 

Thanks, Michael!

I will say this: Dragon Dronet was an unexpected treat at MSC 2004. (And any man who carries a flask in his costume is OK by me.)

 

Christ, I could do with a flask of something right now. My head feels like the inside of a bass drum at the Glastonbury festival.