GenCon Update

It sounds like GenCon LLC filed Chapter 11 due to the temp agency costs from Celebrations IV.
It looks like GenCon is being sued by Lucas for costs and auction proceeds. GenCon is saying they are keeping money that Lucas didn't pay for booth costs - to the tune of about 80,000.
http://theforce.net/celebration/story/Lucasfilm_Sues_Gen_Con_112361.asp

Geez. There's no good winner here. Can't we all get along?

Bridge to Terabithia / Spiderwick Chronicles

We finally saw this film over the weekend. I had never read the book. I believe my mom had first recommended it to me back in the 80s when the first movie adaptation had been done. The book itself first came out in the late 70s. The grandkids had gone to see the new one in the theatre with their grandfather but we hadn’t seen it. I remember the kids chanting “free to pee” for months afterward.
The movie was very nicely done, we’ll probably end up picking it up. We knew what Leslie’s fate was but it still caught us a bit when it happened. The actress playing her, AnnaSophia Robb, also played Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She will be someone to watch in later years. She has quite the impact on the screen – very reminiscent of a young Winona Ryder or Christina Ricci. She can also be seen in Jumper or in the new remake of Escape to Witch Mountain.

We also took the kids to see the Spiderwick Chronicles this week. I hadn’t read these books either but Shan had read the first book and was looking forward to it. It sounds the like movie covers the whole book series. The books are very small - only a shade more than 100 pages each.
It was another fun one although it may be a bit scary for some kids. Ours were fine with it. The movie deals more with the goblins than the fairies, I’m not sure how it compares to the books. The family was nicely done and the boy playing the twins was very impressive. It was neat to see the various fencing swords being used. It’s definitely another one for the to-buy list. D3 picked up the first book yesterday and is almost through it. Now he wants a fieldguide.

Gencon LLC files Chapter 11

http://www.gencon.com/2008/corporate/news-pr/releases/2008/2008.02.15.Press.aspx
GenCon has filed chapter 11. Having run conventions, Shan and I are always boggled that GenCon would be a money losing venture. No matter how we crunched the numbers, we couldn’t figure out how it would be a loss unless they were paying for massive coke parties. Granted these were based on the Mecca GenCons but they should hold up.

The booth costs are huge. I believe booth costs back then were between $500 and $1000 each. With over 200 booths in the dealers’ room, even comping the ones for TSR and later Wizkids, this should generate over $200,000 and should easily cover the cost of the convention space for the week.

The memberships used to cost $50 each. They claimed 30,000 attendees. Even with convention math, this should generate $500,000 which should cover the costs of preregistration books, program books, and any extra convention space that the dealers didn’t cover. This should also cover costs involved with a salary for a dedicated person in charge of the convention all year as well as a staff for the week of the convention.
They used to trade volunteer hours for memberships to help spread out the manpower as well.

The ticket prices for the games should easily cover the costs of printing of tickets. The tickets cost $2 and the judge could cash them in for $1 back. Even if every one of those attendees only played 1 game, the tickets should generate at least $30,000 and probably closer to well over $100,000. This should cover any cost of bringing in a big name guests.

The hotels used to be filled. Based on standard convention deals, if you guarantee a certain number of rooms booked, the hotel usually comps you a certain amount of rooms. With over 10 hotels being filled, any hotel space you need should be covered.
Could it be the spread of GenCon to GenCon SoCal, GenConUK, GenConOZ causing trouble with GenCon itself? See the open letter from Peter himself about GenConSoCal’s demise: http://www.gencon.com/2007/socal/press/Open-Letter.aspx

All the best Peter, we want you to be around in 5 to 10 years when we can start taking the kids again.

KRONA rides again?

On the weekend, we watched the new pilot for Knight Rider. The characters seem okay, the car technology is a bit much – with the morphing car. The biggest change is that Val Kilmer not William Daniels is now doing the voice of KITT. It brought back a fair amount of good memories.

The first Keycon I went to was Keycon 3. Since this year would be Keycon 25, that means Keycon 3 would have been in 1986 – back when I was 17. I would have been in grade 12. (I hadn’t thought I was that old when I went to my first Keycon but the math holds out.) It was at the Ramada out by the University of Manitoba. I was only able to make it out there for the Saturday due to the bus schedules.

I had been into Car Wars and had been told by the nice people at Pendragon that they would be playing it out there. I mainly kept to myself, and did notice the signs posting the various suites and rules. The one that left an impression was that no vehicular weapons were allowed – except at the KRONA suite on the second floor where they were okay.

KRONA was an acronym for the Knight Riders of North America. They had a VCR going with episodes of Knight Rider running all day. That was where I first saw KARR – I wasn’t following the series that close back then.

Universal Legacy

When the Universal Legacy sets first came out we were very excited. I love the old films from seeing them on Saturday afternoons and was looking forward to seeing some of the others for the first time. We quickly got the Wolfman set and then picked up the Frankenstein set figuring that we would get the Dracula set soon after. We didn’t get it right away.

They then came out with sets for the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I’m not in any hurry to get the Invisible Man set, but I added the others to my DVD want list as well.

It’s been a few years now, and we still hadn’t picked up the Dracula set so I finally bought it at Best Buy when we were in there last. Now to work at picking up the others before they disappear too.

Night of the Comet

Of the zombie films, this one is one still holds a special fondness with us. It was a fun film from the eighties that we didn’t ever think we would see on DVD. (The other one I found recently was Robot Jox – which we’ll get when the price drops) When I finally found out that it had come out and was available, Shan said to pick it up. I said we could wait for it to drop a bit but she said it would be our Valentine’s day present for us. And we already have Shaun of the Dead, and the Evil Deads.

Again I think about how much I love my wife. We share a similar taste in movies and TV shows. We have a few discrepancies, but mostly our tastes match. When we blended our movies, we both had Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the Star Wars trilogy boxed set. Our books, while both deep in science fiction and fantasy, only overlapped in the Anne Rice’s and Stephen King’s where she had the hard covers and I had the paperbacks.

The Water Horse

We took the kids to see the Water Horse last night at CinemaCity. I’m finding that the popcorn during the week isn’t as fresh as it is on the weekends. That said, the movie was pretty good. It’s by the people who did Narnia so the effects hold up quite well. The kids were a bit concerned during parts of it but it was a good tale.

Shan has actually been to the Loch Ness when she went to Scotland so she recognized a bit of it. I know the Loch is quite narrow and super long, as well as very deep. I didn’t know that it was open to the sea though. I always pictured it being land locked (or loched).
Still, all in all, a good family film. We highly recommend it.