Less than five years ago I, was
sat in a tea shop in Nottingham eating cake and sipping tea with
AAUK and Dreadknux, celebrating Sonic’s
15th anniversary, joking about the prospect of a Sonic
the Hedgehog convention. Five years on and we are celebrating our
biggest and most successful event to date, with over one-thousand
attendees passing through the event doors on the day. It fantastic
that even though Summer of Sonic is a fan event, it has over the
years evolved into something increasingly professional, and that
has become growingly involved with SEGA on an official level.
We have also been fortunate
across the four events to have comic artists such as Nigel Dobbyn
and Nigel Kitching from Sonic the comic and our first international
guests Iain Flynn Tracey Yardley this year.
We’ve seen musical performances from the likes
of Richard Jacques, TJ Davis, Bentley Jones, Julien-K and Crush 40,
and we’ve even had the two big Sonic Team names,
Yuji Naka and Takashi along on the day to give you guys an
opportunity to meet them face to face.
Each year, our selection of playable Sonic titles grows larger,
with opportunities to games that are months away from release. The
input from the community has grown rapidly, with many prominent
fans, talented with both the brush and the microphone, contributing
substantially to making Summer of Sonic something special. You guys
keep turning up in your droves in ever more elaborate and unusual
costumes, and our prizes become ever more desirable! There is of
course the social aspect of the day too, and many of you have met
some of your best friends through SoS; some of you have met future
husbands and wives. It is fair to say that many of you look forward
to SoS more than you do to Christmas!
From an organisational point of
view, Summer of Sonic went extremely smoothly this year, by far the
least stressful Summer of Sonic to stage manage to date. But of
course as this event becomes bigger, the amount of time, effort and
organisation becomes greater. Summer of Sonic simply would not take
place if it was not for the passion and dedication of the 20+
strong community team who hold the event together
– whether they are at the front on stage as the
compare, or at the back of the hall as door-safe; each member is
vital to the machine and most notably they all work for nothing,
giving up their day so you can have a fantastic time. A lot of them
also donate substantial amounts of money for extra guests, prizes
and events for the day – just so as much as
possible can be packed into the day. Each one deserves a huge thank
you from us all. I also want to thank all of our guests, some of
whom returned for their second or third round of Summer of Sonic,
and who also come to talk and perform to you for nothing; they come
back every year because they love SoS just as much as we all
do.
Summer of Sonic was once again
a totally free event for anyone of any age who wanted to attend. We
often get asked why we don’t charge for tickets,
and the reason is twofold; first off it creates a lot of red tape
and secondly, we don’t want a ticket price to be
a reason for people not to attend. This is something we hope to
continue. We’d like hope to make more
opportunities for you guys who want to donate in the future; some
of you did this year, quite generously I might add, and this year
and that was a great help…especially considering the quantity
of water consumed backstage!
I also want to thank all of you. As always, I was pleased with
how well-mannered and courteous you all were to our special guests
and to each other, particularly when queuing for games or to meet
guests. Even with venue air conditioning running full blast it got
very warm very quickly inside the building, but you
didn’t let that ruin your fun.
At the moment we
don’t know what the future holds for Summer of
Sonic; our hope is that as long as you guys keep coming, Summer of
Sonic will keep going and SEGA will continue to generously support
us. Not just that, but the community prongs now extend all the way
around the world, and I was extremely honoured to be able to
represent Summer of Sonic this year at the Sonic Boom event in Los
Angeles. This event proved just as popular as Summer of Sonic with
thanks to the fantastic community team at SEGA of America, and we
hope that Sonic Boom will be something that makes a return next
year.
I will be stepping down from my duties as stage manager at
Summer of Sonic; it’s been a fantastic job and
I’ve loved being able to facilitate some
fantastic stage events. Don’t think for one
second though that means this is the last you’ll
see of me though! I will definitely be at the next Summer of Sonic
come hell or high water, but in a more supporting roll.
On this note, I would also like to thank Kevin Eva who will also
be stepping down this year, who has been the linchpin in realising
the Summer of Sonic dream. I tip my hat to him for the incredible
amount of work he has done over the last three years in getting
Summer of Sonic off the ground and building strong bridges between
SEGA and the community. We wish him all the best in his future
endeavours!
I would also like to give our thanks Thank you to SEGA of Europe
too, who have continued to support us in all of our endeavours, and
I hope this partnership will continue into the future.
On my final note I’d like to wish Sonic a
very happy 20th birthday, and that I hope that our
celebrations continue to unite fans, old and new, with their mutual
love of a little blue hedgehog.
SUMMER OF SONIC FOREVER!
