That Was It? (first Convention)

I attended my first convention after waiting for it to come to Detroit for years and I must say I was sadly dissapointed.

(disclaimer, remember this was only one and I'm not trying to offend anyone)

I get the whole wanting to play other guys from around the country and win the Super Bowl thing, but there where never anymore than 50 or so guys in the room. I went several times on Sat on Sun to try and take everything in. I watched some great games, saw some awesome detailing, and played a couple of scrimmages from guys from other states, but I couldn't beleive the sparse amount of people at this thing.

Miggle had a nice table set up with their stuff on it, even some new things, but they didn't take credit card! We are in the year 2008, I've seen small time art dealers set up a little credit card machine. Also it was abundantly slear that the loss of the NFL license will hurt. several times I saw dad's with their sons walk up to the table asking for the NFL teams only to be told they didn't have any. When the ladies directed them to the painted teams and told them they just need the logos put on, the next question was "so where do I get the logos?" "we dont carry them." was the reply. How can you promote a game that has people using NFL teams while they compete for the championship and not have the products needed.

Also the lack of other vendors was very dissapointing. Four tables had people at them selling stuff or displaying it. the Great Lakes League had a table with a sign on it, but I never saw anyone there. There was someone who had great looking field covers, but they were never there to sell them. Whoever you are you lost ALOT of business. there were plenty of guys wanting info on how to buy them but they just walked away.

The one highlight was meeting and talking to DeWayne Jennings! I enjoyed talking with you about decals, paints and your new figures. I learned some things watching you dress up some players too. I would offer some advice to Mr. Jennings though. Your market is not big enough to support the project you are working on. Judging by this convention electric football is a SMALL hobby that pretty much is dominated by a few dozen people. Your figures are awesome but I can't see how you will make a lot of money from such as small market.

It was also wonderful to meet BEENUTT. We both use the same equipment to make our declas and he does awesome work. I got to purchase some decals from him and pick his brain a bit.

The convention should have tried to recruit people into this hobby and I'm sad to say it fell WAY short of that for several reasons. I'm not sure of this was a "typical" convention or not, but if it was then its certainly not worth traveling hundreds of miles for even to just compete for the title.

There could be WAY more done to promte this hobby but this convention fell far short of that.
I never did find the "clinics" that were offered. \


Mike
Motor city EFL