Martin, you should go at least once to experience it. This was my third one (2004 and 2006 were the other years I went).
My experience this year: never go unregistered as I did. Due to the club's web page, I couldn't sign up to register in time. But I still decided to go down as it was around a 9 hour drive one way from Toronto. Because of this, I couldn't do anything until on Saturday. By then, the carded Iceberg, the carded Lady Jaye, the figure two-pack and Steeler were sold out. Only the Boomer jet was available for purchase, at 145 US without a figure, that was a steal
. In the end, I had to pay scalper prices to get Lady Jaye and the two-pack; Jon S hooked me up with a carded Iceberg at cost.
Compared to my previous experiences, the line-up for picking up the convention sets went fast. However, the line-up for buying the extra convention exclusives remains a joke. Lining up to at least 10 PM with no dinner for most is the joke. As such, this should have been done on Friday during the day. Thursday was a travel day for most.
I tried to go onto the show floor when the doors first opened Saturday morning. But the club wanted $50 for "early bird" admission, it was $15 if waited until 10 AM. Sigh. The sales floor was already opened on the Friday for club members and anything that I would have wanted would been picked over. So I wasn't going to pay early bird for stuff already picked over by high end collectors and dealers.
As for the sales floor, if you take away the Joecustoms and Declassified booths, the space that the vendors took up couldn't have been more that what I have observed at the past couple Canadian conventions. It was bigger in the past two club conventions I have gone to. Plus most of the stuff seemed to be overpriced.
Mary McDonald-Lewis and/or Bill Ratner would be awesome guests for coming up to Canada. Mary was just awesome. Even talked to her about the amount of times I have sworn at her in my car due to Onstar (it's her voice) while in the elevator. Both laughed over it.
At least I got to see some old faces and some new ones. That helped to salvage the trip. Even though I didn't do much convention related events, I did get to enjoy downtown Indianapolis and take in a Triple A ball game.
