Pictures courtesy of Christian Gausin and 50 Rings Photography. This past Sunday was the first ever gathering of Sonic Revolution at the Holiday Inn at Buena Park. It’s the largest organized Sonic convention in the U.S. similar to “Summer of Sonic” in the UK, but still fairly small so far. We also are encouraging other Sonic fans across the U.S. to make their own Sonic conventions or at least a “meet and greet”. Sonic Revolution was founded by Shayne and Charles Edwards, Christian Gausin and Lidice Garcia. It started with them organizing “Sonic Boom U.S. West Chapter” (it was in response to Sonic Boom moving to St Louis) in September of 2013. During our little meet and greet, she asked if we’d like to be involved in building up the community for a full on Sonic convention and we were all in!
So how was it? It was great! We had some wonderful guests and a nice amount of attendees. Guests included gaming composer legend Tommy Tallarico, Archie Comics Evan Stanley, artists Elson Wong and Devin Taylor, my brother John and his girlfriend Debbie selling her hand-made jewelry, Darian Gonzalez with his very Sonic-like fan game “Bingo the Multiva” Chris Wilcots of fan film “Sonic Prologue” and rock band Serenity Seven. Not to mention the extra surprise of Sega’s Aaron Webber and Stephen Frost who stopped by to check out the event. We even had a real life hedgehog show up!
The schedule of events included a cosplay contest, a panel with Tommy Tallarico talking about his life and video game music (he confirmed that Michael Jackson was the composer on Sonic 3), two concerts by Serenity Seven, Chris Wilcots showed off two exclusive scenes from his upcoming fan film “Sonic Prologue”, Aaron Webber and Stephen Frost had a Q&A panel (or course someone shouted “When do we get Shenmue 3?”), a very tough trivia contest (hosted and prizes supplied by yours truly), a one minute art contest in which Evan and Elson had to draw Sticks auditioning for Sonic Boom, a gaming competition (with several consoles in the back showing off many Sonic games) and finally, a raffle for some cool prizes and one more concert by Serenity Seven. It was an absolute blast and I can’t wait until next year! Let’s get to the pics!
Our Gaming Tournament booth.
Tanner “Ogilvie” Bates showing off his display of Sonic merchandise for sale.
Our program guide.
Blaze and Rouge enjoying themselves.
Bishop’s son enjoying the show.
Now THAT’S a big Sonic.
Tails – Don’t worry Shadow, I’m sure there’s someone who wants a giant, ugly Shadow plush.
Bishop Gahram’s Silver poster.
Rouge with what appears to be a piece of the Master emerald.
Letting people in to enjoy the show.
Blaze the Cat.
Shard’s here and ready to party!
Mariaaaa!!
Aaron and Steven Arrive on the scene.
“Sonic the what now? Never heard of it.”
Tommy Tallarico hangs out with Serenity Seven.
Tommy talks to the crowd about his music career.
Aaron and Stephen enjoying the show.
It was so cool getting to meet a musical legend like Mr. Tallarico.
This father and son were in line at least 3 hours before the show opened
“Gasp!” It’s the Chaos Emeralds!
“Time to go super!”
Some classic Sonic merchandise.
“Hmmmm yes. This does play quite like Sonic. You’ll be hearing from our lawyers soon.”
Here, Aaron is showing off a fan’s concept art for a game idea Stephen had were Tails (who’s deathly allergic to bee’s in his official bio) is being chased by Charmy and the object of the game is to keep the pair apart.
This is Aaron idea for a game. Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3.
Guess who won first place in the cosplay contest?
Aaron and Stephen answering questions on stage.
The fans soaking in the Q&A panel.
Fan’s at Evan, Elson and Devin’s booth.
Founders Shayne and Lidice enjoying the fruits of their labor.
Evan won the one minute art contest with her drawing of Sticks jugging. Elson was apparently drawing her on a surfboard,but didn’t quite get to finish.
Well, that’s a wrap for now. There’s plenty more pics on our Sonic Revolution Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/sonicrevolution . There, you can check ou-wait! What’s th-..