HOLY CROM!

Joel and the gang from MST3K are gonna be there!

From the Archon website:
This is huge, bigger than huge, more awesomeomely spectacularly huge.

Well, it is for me and most of the people that I know. I just received word from the Mr Con Chair (Steve Norris) that the MST3K guys will be at Archon. Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Coniff, and Joshua Weinstein will be spending the weekend at Archon celebrating their 20th Anniversary this year and promoting their latest venture "Cinematic Titanic".

Cinematic Titanic features the same biting humor and B-movies, but the old "MST3K" puppets, robots and space gear have all been shoved into the closet. Hodgson says, "We've all grown up." In the MST3K days, they used to turn out episodes every eight days. For Cinematic Titanic, Hodgson says it takes three weeks from pen to paper to final shot.

From a press release about Cinematic Titanic, "The story line for Cinematic Titanic, says Hodgson, is that scientists have found there is a "rip in the electron scaffolding and all digital media is at risk. They have gathered us together in this mysterious underground think tank, and they are asking us to riff on movies for future generations. They [the people who gathered them] are actually fans of 'Mystery Science Theater,' so they brought us together."

Yeah, when I saw that Joel and the Bots and Dr Forrester and TV's Frank will be there, I was doubly stoked. Should be a big return to form for Archon this year.

It should make up for the disaster that was NaSFic last year.

You know, I don't recall hearing any reports abut last years Archon (but then, I don't recall a lot of things). Did Nasfic really bring it down that badly?

NaSFic was an absolute disaster. They lost sooooo much money last year it was not funny. Attendence was about half of what they normally have for Archon.

The gaming was relegated to a small room of tables, the party wasn't really a party. Add to that that they changed the date to the weekend sandwiched between Pennsic and GenCon Indy and you have a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, word is out that Archon is going back to its normal routine and it sounds like the attendance will be back to normal.

Loco Gigantes wrote:
NaSFic was an absolute disaster. They lost sooooo much money last year it was not funny. Attendence was about half of what they normally have for Archon.

The gaming was relegated to a small room of tables, the party wasn't really a party. Add to that that they changed the date to the weekend sandwiched between Pennsic and GenCon Indy and you have a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, word is out that Archon is going back to its normal routine and it sounds like the attendance will be back to normal.
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Lord, what is it going to take to kill these scurrilous rumors?

NASFIC was NOT a disaster for Archon, Archon did NOT lose money and made a profit, there was PLENTY of gaming for everyone who wanted to game and I setup to run 4 games, ran 3 and played in two.

Unlike many of the people disparaging arcon 31, I was there and had a pretty good time of things.

As to archon going back to a 3 day format, yes I regret that however they were doing the 4 day format as a way of attracting nasfic, which apparently requires a longer format, and it was a burden on the good, hardworking people who have to maintain careers and families while setting up archon, so they, to my regret, switched back to the 3 day format in a move that has nothing to do with money of "archon dieing!", but rather to put less stress on the people running the archon committee.

Professor tanhauser wrote:
Lord, what is it going to take to kill these scurrilous rumors?

NASFIC was NOT a disaster for Archon, Archon did NOT lose money and made a profit, there was PLENTY of gaming for everyone who wanted to game and I setup to run 4 games, ran 3 and played in two.

Unlike many of the people disparaging arcon 31, I was there and had a pretty good time of things.

As to archon going back to a 3 day format, yes I regret that however they were doing the 4 day format as a way of attracting nasfic, which apparently requires a longer format, and it was a burden on the good, hardworking people who have to maintain careers and families while setting up archon, so they, to my regret, switched back to the 3 day format in a move that has nothing to do with money of "archon dieing!", but rather to put less stress on the people running the archon committee.

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Its great that you had a good time, but when a member of the Archon committee tells me that attendance was down, gaming was down and they lost money, I am going to take their word for it.

Not to mention the fact that every other person I know who went said they noticed significantly fewer people in attendance and were not at all thrilled with the scaled-back gaming and it paints a pretty bad picture of NaSFic Archon.

No offense to you at all Tanhauser, but I am inclined to take the word of a Archon Committee member over you. Especially when Jon Bancroft tries to expand DieCon this year to make up for Archon.