Campaign for the next convention

[ChelseaRob]

Its been a couple of years since the last convention. Gerry hit 80 in April and there was no "event" to celebrate - think we (the Fanderson diehards) should show our desire to resurrect a convention by posting on this thread - the more posts here the higher the chances that the Fanderson organisers will be able to justify making this happen.... :)

[TonyB]

I would love another convention anytime soon, its been three years since the last event, and if the committee can orginise an event for 2010 it will have been four years, four years, blimey where does the time go.

[Katie Bleathman]

There is a 'Convention Check A-OK' section of the Forum under the members only section. You can post thoughts about conventions there.

Katie
Fanderson Events Co-Ordinator

[Silent Bob]

In the 1970s and 1980s you couldn't move in this country for all the convetions taking place. They were EVERYWHERE and covered every film and TV series you could name.
Although still very big in America they seem to have died a death here and seem to have been replaced by the corperate-like events Collector-mania and Autographica.
Now i have nothing against these events, i really like attending them, but where have all the fan organised events gone?
Throughout the late 70s and early 80s i was going to 5 or 6 conventions a year. Now i'm lucky if its one every couple of years.
I have only attended one convention in America, and although very entertaining, i miss our British cons. The early Fandersons 81, 82 and 84 and the Space 1999 cons in 87 and 90 were some of the best i have attended.
So i for one am hoping Fanderson pull out all the stops in the near future and all us new friends on here can meet up.

[TonyB]

I stood as a dealer at every single memorabilia show at the NEC in Birmingham from their inception in 1994 to 2003, along with other Movie/Film, & Sci Fi shows and Toy Fairs around the country.

The heyday of memorabilia was from 1995 to 1999, after that they seemed to dwindle and not be as good as before. The reason for this was simple, other people set up rival show's because they felt that they too could have a slice of the pie. And they were right, times were good and everyone was pretty much happy, then even more people set up show's and this started to dilute the show's, and this continued for several years, to such an extent that non of them became special any more.

When memorabilia first started there were two a year, six months apart, so people made a real effort to attend because if they missed it they had to wait another six months for the next one, I remember one show in IIRC 1996, 27,000 people came to that weekend, you could not move in the aisles as there were so many people.

When other people started to put on show's in more area's people had more and more chance to attend those, this made it easier for people to plan to attend a show, but there were so many of them that they were not special anymore as if you missed one, you only had to wait a few weeks for the next one. This killed a lot of the interest as many of the attendees just were not as bothered, so that they either stopped altogether or are a pale shadow of their former selves.

I think that this is pretty much what happened to the cons as well. That and the cost, money has been more tight than it was in the 1990s it would seem.

[Colonel Foster]

Had a fab time at Red Lion Square for UFOria and UFOria 2... The one up near Heathrow was fun as well. Would defo go along to another.... especially as EVERYONE is getting that bit older !!

[TonyB]

A big problem though is that we have lost so many of the great guests over the last couple of years. :(

Some of the guests were really passionate about the cons, as much so as the people attending. They will be really missed.

Here's looking forward to the future though.

[colin]

I don't know about anyone else, but the big stumbling block for me is the sheer expense; £100+ just to register as a member, let alone if you're bringing a child, desperate to share in the fun and that's BEFORE the hotel costs.
Don't get me wrong; I'd LOVE or there to be another convention but
as a Civil Servant who hasn't seen a pay rise since the beginning of the century, I must reluctantly conclude that my con-going days are over

[davidoflondon]

FAB 64 says there's going to be a convention in Oct 2010. I thought there'd be some threads on here about that as I'd love to know the latest gen. But can't find any. Am I looking in the wrong place?