Well it’s been exactly a week since the Summer of Sonic 2009 International Sonic the Hedgehog convention so I thought I’d sit down a write up a tasty little blog entry based on what happened at, during and after the event itself. After all we have placed the photos online but me telling you about everything that happened is another thing, although you’ll be able to catch more of this on the FFM Podcast (Sunday nights @8PM GMT).

Friday

After once again staying up most of the night before to burn off CDs (137 to be precise) to be used at another gaming convention, I was up and ready to make my way on another nice long journey. I mean by comparison I spent 7 odd hours getting to Northampton for Insert Coin, whereas I only had a 4 hour coach trip this time so it wasn’t quite as bad. What was bad was getting to the hotel from London Victoria fortunately I had a partner with me who was quite well vexed in the ways of Sonic. Maria Robotnik of Black Hero joined me for the event as I decided to help her get to England and the convention of course.

Once we eventually realised the nearest tube station was closed, we got to the hotel which was more like your usual student accommodation (hey I’ve been there so I’m used to it!). Asides from the entertaining Fresh Prince of Bel Air and ample supply of jaffa cakes that I had brought with me, we eventually decided to try and sleep amongst the chaotic noises of London in order to actually get up on time for the event this year, although that was more me……ahem yea sorry ’bout that.

Saturday

I actually did manage to get up early which gave us a head start getting to the Boiler House in East London. What did slow us down was me trying to get my hair looking nice and Sonic blue. Unfortunately as I was using hair colour you spray on I turned the hotel towels into a bunch of blue rags; mind you I think that’s what hotels towels are for well that and to steal stuff usually! After I had stopped dripping for the time being we worked our way over to East London. I was relying on my GPS which was deciding not to work, fortunately I had printed off maps and after going completely the wrong way I decided to use them (hey I am a guy after all!).

It didn’t take long but we eventually ended up at the Boiler House after seeing a mass of blue people, one can only assume these people are known as “Sonic the Hedgehog fans” or aliens perhaps but we stuck with Sonic fans. I was keen to get some “fresh air” before I started assembling god knows what and had a chat to a few familiar faces gathering outside of the venue who were all very excited and a little bit annoyed that I and my companion were allowed in early.

For those of you who weren’t there the Boiler House is a very large venue for a convention such as Summer of Sonic, it was well over twice the size of the Dragon Hall used last year, in fact it was so big it felt like being in a giant box, with tiles on it, that used to be a brewery o_O Until 11am when the doors opened to the public, a lot of people usually question what we do, well nothing special realistically essentially we make sure everything is ready, in its rightful place and make sure you all have a good time really.

This year FastFeet Media went all out, as we have a special mobile number for text requests. Not only did we do text requests we ran a “Free Stuff Friday” style of competition where you won if you were the 23rd or 38th text. For those of you who requested the music it wasn’t that we didn’t have it – it was more a case of being able to play the music. Usually there was Bentley on stage or someone else so it’s not the best time to play a request. Also depends how quick the DJ is and what their playlist is like, in short not easy and you were lucky if we had time to play your request. But never mind there’s always the FastFeet Media Podcast to request music

So the doors opened just after 11am and the fans flooded in. I was on the doors for the first 20 or so minutes until I got called away for some sort of DJ-ing emergency. By the time I had come back from that most of the people had come in and by then that was at least 300 odd people inside the building and I’m pretty sure throughout the day we exceeded 500 people attending in total.

Before I knew it Bentley Jones was on stage or not as the case may have been thanks to wireless microphones allowing him to make a surprise entry on stage. Unfortunately my camcorder had decided to lose all of its battery life before we even got started so a quick recharge was in order before any filming happened, however after that I headed straight to the crows nest and proceeded to film Bentleys first set which featured tracks such as “Final Night” from his new album TRANS//LATION (check it out here) and a special version of “They Call Me Sonic (Furry Tails Enhanced Parody Mix)” (Download it here).

Of course I was being run off my feet most of the day I managed to squeeze some filming in, I then had to perform my DJ-set. Of course this was one of the highlights to me as I do love to DJ and especially Sonic music Apparently a lot of people liked what I was playing, from what I recall the tracks included Wonderman, Tripod Baby (Shadow the Hedgehog mix), Wave Ocean & Crisis City, Sonic Jam to True Blue, essentially there’s too many to name but hopefully I will have the full set available to listen to and download very soon.

By now we had reached lunchtime which doesn’t necessarily mean you eat lunch (well not if you’re a SoS staffer!). My DJ-ing wasn’t over though next up was the Never Mind the Buzzbombers quiz (based on Never Mind the Buzzcocks show in the UK). Essentially a music quiz and I think it was one of the best moments of the day as it was damn hilarious between the two teams led by Svend (dreadknux) and Adam (T-Bird). I was still DJ-ing at this point and had to supply music at various points which worked quite smoothly apart from the first one -_- I couldn’t film this part due to me having to DJ and I’m still looking for any videos as there doesn’t seem to be any! So if you have footage of the quiz upload it onto YouTube or FastFeet Media and let us know!

After a well deserved break I carried on doing more filming of game pods, artwork and even a panoramic view of the entire convention, I even bumped into a few friends of mine and agreed to be filmed for SEGASonic:TV. From what I can remember from the afternoon it was mostly filled with Q&A sessions for Sonic the Comic writers and artists, a Sumo Digital Q&A as well as Bentley Jones’ second stage performance with some added acoustic action.

Finally to round up the day the well known Sonic Hour from the Sonic Stadium carried on throughout the last hour. Showcasing the random rantings as usual but alongside what must be the first Sonic the Hedgehog cosplay competition was held with a Rouge the Bat entry winning and rightly so. Outside of that the day was rounded up by getting almost every staff member involved with Summer of Sonic on stage and sending a bit of love our way as well as the usual antics.

So what happened to the FastFeet Media competition? Well we received well over 200 texts throughout the day, my phone was going crazy and so was I as a result of it but I was still enjoying it!! So that’s over half the people that attended – wow! I mean that is a sterling effort and congratulations to our 2 winners: Nathan Parker and Francis Jones. Enjoy all the goodies we gave you both and don’t forget your good friends FastFeet Media next year! But on top of that we believe that we had over 500 people attend the convention during the day and over 4,000 people watching the live video stream during the day, a new record throughout… simply incredible!

Overall though my general feelings of the 2009 convention was that it was close in greatness to the 2008 convention but I think what made the 2009 convention so great was all the acts on stage from performers and DJs and of course everything else inside the building as there was so much of it!

After spending a good 2 hours cleaning up after you lot, the Sonic collective decided to hit the nearest bar which happened to be called 1001. Ok so that’s not as good as the Green Hill Cafe I went to last year but meh. What was great was the 30 odd Sonic fans that piled into this club, but it was really nice as everyone including the staff members finally got a chance to relax. Not only did I finally get a chance to hang and have a beer with people I’ve known for years in the community but it even ended up with some silly Sonic fan dancing which was started by me and Elson ‘darkspeeds’ Wong, damn can that Aussie can dance, I sure can’t!

After a good chill session at 1001, everyone slowly started to disperse. When we got back to the hotel room the least I can say is that my legs felt like jelly, with holes poked in them and half eaten, so not good.

Sunday
Today was just ensuring me and Maria Robotnik got home (as she had flown in for the event). Once back in London Victoria and a couple of souvenirs had been purchased, we sat down for lunch (not the greatest place – my bad) and that was largely because I’d eaten about 8 jaffa cakes within the last 36 hours and. Afterwards we popped across the road to Victoria coach station where we said our goodbyes after a fantastic weekend. I was then left messing around trying to get an earlier coach home. I ended up coming back at 4:30pm as scheduled anyways, so I decided in true blue style to kill 4 odd hours with Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure on my DS. But what really symbolised the weekend was some random boy who was obviously getting tired waiting around and wanted to watch me play Sonic on my DS and did question me a bit about it.

But think about it, that’s what the Sonic community and indeed Summer of Sonic represents – the living breathing people who love Sonic to bits whether it’s a die hard fan at the convention or the average person in the street appreciating the blue blur. That’s why FFM is here, why all the Sonic sites are online and we should be celebrating and broadcasting that fact to everyone every day. Until Summer of Sonic 2010…

FastFeet says: Stay tuned folks more Summer of Sonic coverage from SEGASonic:TV as well as the exclusive downloadable music tracks!