Ai-Kon, Manitoba's Anime Convention, July 16th - 18th

[Robimus]

Manitoba's biggest anime convention, Ai-Kon, is taking place this weekend, July 16th - 18th at the Winnipeg Convention Center. Weekend passes are $39 while single day passes range from $19 to $27.

Video Rooms, Panels, Costume Contests, Video Gaming and a large dealer are are just a few of Ai-Kon's attractions.

As well the following special guest voice actors will be in attendance:
Monica Rial(Trinty Blood, Full Metal Alchemist, DragonballZ),
Greg Ayres(Full Metal Alchemist, Evangelion 1.0, DragonballZ)
Chris Ayres(Devil May Cry, Halo Legends, Xenosaga)
Kirby Morrow(Deathnote, Gundam, Transformers: Cybertron and X-Men Evolution)

Ai-Kon starts Friday at 4pm and doesn't stop until Sunday at 4pm. Be sure to check it out if your in the Winnipeg area this weekend.

[Robimus]

Iacon North, the Manitoba Transformers Collectors Club will be attending as well.

www.iaconnorth.com

Come check out our Fan Club table and take part in our panel on Sunday Morning at 11am.

[Haggis]

I'll be there but i'll mostly be at the Iacon North Table

[Robimus]

Day 1 of Ai-kon is over(for Iacon North anyway) and it was pretty fun, although we didn't get far from our Fan Club tables in general.

Myself, Scrapper6 and Benzo roled in around three, fought our way through some truly prolific lineups and set up the table. Haggis then came by after he was done work and the team was complete.

My favorite moment of today was a fellow who's costume consisted of a radio square speaker on each shoulder.

He walked over to us shortly after we set up and said "Hmmmnnnnn, Transformers eh?" Then he punched a few buttons on his I-Pod and suddenly Stan Bush's "The Touch" was blaring out of the speakers. It was completely unexpected and completely awesome.

Anyway, we'll be out once again tomorrow starting at about 8am and will be displaying Classics/Universe and Beast Wars stuff on the tables after having covered Animated today. We'll also have some Masterpeices on display tomorrow.

Sunday will be our panel as well as the displays of G1 and Movieverse stuff.

[Robimus]

Day 2 of Ai-kon topped day 1 I think. Niteowl was set up in the dealer room so at least we had some Transformers goodies to look at.

Noodle brought by our new Iacon North business cards They look great!

Benzo brought in his MP Ghost of Starscream, a very sweet looking figure.

Scrapper brought in his City Commander Armor to display, along with a few Hot Shots.

Then I stepped out and just before I got back Kirby Morrow, the voice of Rad and Hot Shot, stopped by the Iacon North table and chatted with the crew!

Pretty cool guy from what I hear, somebody else who was present can expand on the experience I hope. Benzo got a nice picture with him and the guys got him to sign my Universe Hot Shot(which we had on display) - So now I have an Autographed Hot Shot by Kirby Morrow! I'm pretty pumped about it.

Panel is tomorrow morning and I think I'm set to go.

[Robimus]

The last day of Ai-kon is now several hours past, the pictures downloaded and the memories still fresh.

Wer started the day setting up our G1 toys, all kinds of awesome there including Apeface, Scorponok, Power Master Prime, Rodimus Prime and more.

Next came the Iacon North presented panel, Transformers: Journey to America. Being that it is the first panel I've done I think it went fairly well. We had maybe 25 people checking it out and the trivia contest seemed to easily be the highlight of the panel.

Congrats go to Ravage, the winner of the Trivia contest. We had answers for all but two questions which was good.

Iacon North has been invited back to Ai-kon next year so all in all it was a very successful weekend. Scrapper6's Transformers Mosiac is pretty cool and I think Benzo has a shot or two of the panel to post up as well.

[Haggis]

An awesome time was had... It was nice to me you guys IRL