Canonball writes in about the Cybertronian Conference, a regional Transformers event held each year in Tacoma, Washington. All photos provided courtesy of TFcollector1984. You can read more from Canonball at Canonball’s Run. Thanks, guys!
I’ve been to a lot of conventions in my day, but I’ve never been to one devoted to a single, specific pocket of fandom before. The Cybertronain Conference (or CybCon, as it’s known) is a convention devoted to the love of Transformers and all things Cybertronian that takes place in Tacoma, WA every August. It’s very much a DIY affair organized by Greg Gaub to give those Pacific Northwesterners who aren’t able to make the trek to larger events like BotCon or San Diego Comic-Con a place to meet, chat, buy, sell, and bond over anything and everything involving Transformers, and I have to say – it was pretty cool.
We made the drive up to Tacoma from Portland bright and early in order to get to the con as early as possible in order to cruise all the dealers’ tables before the crowds. Naturally, we weren’t alone in that plan, and it was starting to fill up nicely when we got there about half an hour in.
I’ve never seen so much Transformers product in one place before in my life. The dealers tables were selling heaps of toys covering every era of the brand and prices ranged from just a few bucks for a loose Transformer, to several hundreds for very rare toys like certain coveted BotCon exclusives or MISB G1 Transformers.
This event required participants to register in advance, and one key reason for this was lunch – Papa John’s pizza was provided as part of the registration fee ($10), and around noon the pizza arrived. While we lined up, Greg got on the mic and asked who the vegans were. Canongirl and I raised our hands, and I quickly noticed ours were the only hands that were raised. Great! We’re a minority population within a minority population, LOL!
Greg allowed us to cut the line and get our pizza first since there was just one vegan pizza among about 50 regular pizzas. That was pretty cool, I have to admit. Seeing all the attendees take a break from the tables to all have some food together definitely made this stand apart from any other con I’ve been to because it reinforced that “community” aspect that makes events like these so special. Once the grub was put away, the dealers’ tables were swarmed once again.
Aside from just buying and selling Transformers, there were other activities like a silent auction, tables with Transformers video games, art tables, toy transforming contests, and video screenings. It’s a pretty comprehensive experience for any Transformers fan and there’s enough going on to keep a fan interested all day. This is definitely something I’ll look forward to attending next year.
