UPDATE: Sonic Boom Attendance Estimates as Low as 300, Ticket Sales 1,000

93 Comments

1. 300? MY SIDES ARE IN ORBIT!

2. Oddly enough I think this year’s Sonic Boom was the best yet, hope the quality of this year’s show help sales for the next one.

3. That’s more people than I had at my birthday party : (

4. How much marketing was done for this event? It may not have necessarily been a bad location to have it. There’s a lot of variables to consider when it comes to low turn outs.

   1. But 1,000 tickets were sold…

   2. Simply put, this change of venues was literally last minute. I mean, just one month before the event… Or was it two months? Either way, not enough time for people to make the changes they need, and it’s really pricey to fly there, even those on the east coast. To me, this low attendance was well deserved. Had they announced it back in about Decemberish, I doubt the numbers would have been this low. People need time to plan for this, and the fact it was announced so late in the game says to me that there was some seriously poor planning done. If you’re going to change the venue, but decide to announce it so late, you might as well not announce it at all, or leave it in the state of origin. It’s a shame, really, because this means that there isn’t going to be much of a chance for a traveling Sonic Convention to show up even here in Reno Nevada, and I think Botcon is going to show up here before Sonic Boom does now. Which should be stated as not happening until H E Double Hockey Sticks freezes over for the oldest Transformers Convention visiting here. And that’s despite Worldcon coming here, and saying it was a great time. Oh well…

5. You make it sound like it was not at all populated. Yeah The Pageant can hold a lot, but about half of that was for adult balcony seating. And nobody really went up there. Not only that, about half the floor was dedicated to the 7 lost world demo stands and the buffet. What was left was crowded enough to feel populated with a bit of arm room.
   Overall, this years sonic boom was nothing less than amazing. You had to have been there to really understand that. I’m not sure how the livestream realy captured that feel though.

6. Strange, I’ve heard some people go just to see Crush 40, and there’s a huge number of Crush 40 fans out there, even more for Sonic.

7. As I understand it, there were plenty of tickets still available–even on the day of the show.

   -T

   1. How much did the tickets cost?

      1. Just $20.

8. Maybe if SEGA stopped having these circlejerk Sonic parties so close to Summer of Sonic in only popular locations not starting or ending with “Virginia”, “East Coast” or “Anywhere under 400 fucking miles” and marketed beyond their god damn Facebook and blog….they would actually get ticket sales.

   1. They got ticket sales…

   2. What Sega should have done was not announce the change of venue so late(Just one or two months before? Bad idea, good way to guarantee attendance kill). I made a scathing comment on their blog about it, and am very much pleased to see that Sega had such a low attendance. Serves them right if you ask me. But at the same time, I’m saddened that the decision to announce was handled so poorly, because I do honestly like the idea of a traveling convention for Sonic. And had it worked in the city it was held this year, that means it would have a better chance of coming to Reno Nevada than Botcon currently does. Now It’s more likely that the oldest Transformers Convention will show up in Reno. And that one probably won’t happen until the freezing of H E Double Hockey Sticks occurs. Read that as NEVER… So I am of two minds about this…

   3. I’d love for Sonic Boom to come to the East Coast. Maybe somewhere in New York or even Florida (where I live).

      I feel like the West Coast is always so disproportionately lucky when it comes to events like these.

9. I watched the livestream because I live thousands of miles away from the event, but it was amazing to watch! I’d be really sad if they cut the livestream to boost numbers next year, there’s no way I could afford £££’s to fly to the USA to experience it. I’d happily pay the price of a ticket to watch the livestream though! 🙂

10. No, the worst-attended Sonic-related event was Sonicon 2010 in Dallas, which featured four voice actor guests and an approximately equal number of attendees.

    1. Hello, Doc 🙂

    2. lol I live in Dallas. I never knew of this event or I woulda gone. That might be the case with a lot of people then.

       1. It was apparently a front for some lady’s live hedgehog selling business. The tenuous Sonic tie-in was a failed marketing gimmick.

          1. Wow, the voice of Dr. Eggman is posting here? But yeah, then I guess this year’s Sonic Boom was the second worst attended Sonic Convention? Still, I think it was a bad move to announce the change of venue so close to the event. My other comments pretty much say my feelings on it.

    3. Zomg it’s Mike Polllock, my jimmies have rustled cuz this is so cool, oh god this is too awesome.

       And that’s not sarcasm, I’m really this excited 😀

11. ^daaaaaaaaaaaaammnn Straight from the Good Doc himself!

12. Certainly didn’t feel like a bust while I was there. The mosh pit area was full through the night, and most of the seats on the lower level were filled as well. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and the energy level wasn’t at all low.

13. And 1,000 Chao bobbleheads were left over after the event. They should at least gave some extra’s to the attendees (or did they?)

14. Chao bobbleheads?! Dang it i really should’ve been there so i could get the ultimate cuteness. Also Mr. Pollock, is that supposed to mean you and those other 3 huests were the only attendees at sonicon 2010

    1. I was there, along with the lovely Lisa Ortiz, Jason Griffith, and Pete Capella. And then there were just a handful of fans who attended our panels. We literally could’ve held the panels in one of our hotel rooms.

       1. Lisa Ortiz!?!?! Dang it! I’ve always wanted to meet her! I think she does an astounding Amy Rose voice!

15. There’s no way there were as little as 300 people there. I was there, and the entire room, sans the over 21 balcony area, was jam packed. When I left I only saw a single box of t-shirts leftover, and I didn’t see a single extra Chao bobble head, which there are 1,300. I don’t know where you are receiving this inaccurate “news”.

    1. Sapphire: I have word from other places there were, in fact, 1,000 extra Chao bobbleheads outstanding and unclaimed. Do the math.

       -T

       1. Expect those to be sold soon, for extra profit, if that’s the case.

       2. Well a staff member of The Pagent told me that they sold over 1,000 tickets for the event. Do the math.

          1. *Pageant

          2. –Which we’ve accounted for in an update. Tickets sold does not mean actual attendance (though it likely means Sega didn’t lose tons of money.)

             -T

16. I think that the main reason that there was a low attendance this year because of the cost of the ticket. In years past, the event that happened in California last year cost $20, but this years event costed $30 for the entire event and it included Crush 40. I think that next year SEGA needs to look for a cheaper venue that would be ticketed at $20 per person including Ticketmaster prices. This would help the attendance rates to rise next year.

    1. Oh yeah, ten bucks higher ticket price so means that people won’t attend. I’ve heard of people paying 100% more for tickets just to go to a convention that the previous year wasn’t that expensive.

       No, I think it was the last minute change of venue announcement that did it. One to two months before it happens you announce the change of venue? I don’t care what excuse is used, there is no reason to announce the change that late. People spend MONTHS, even years, preparing for some events. They need a fair bit of time to make changes, my friend Blaze TBW on DeviantART was unable to go because there was no way for her to raise the money for the event, and she had attended the last two without fail, and got a top spot in the costume contests in those events. And lest you think I hate the idea of traveling conventions, let me assure you that I love the idea. It means that there’s a chance for my home town of Reno Nevada getting one for a year, and I don’t have to go far to attend it. But with the way things turned out, it’s more likely that Botcon will come to Reno now. And Botcon won’t be coming here for this side of NEVER. So I’m very saddened by this, even though I’m pleased at the same time that Sega got what it deserved for it.

17. Okay, I just saw the bottom of a Chao Bobblehead. They made #1300 of them. “Over 1,000” tickets were apparently sold. They got $15 for each ticket. That’s a minimum of $15,000 dollars they got in.

    Cost was advertising (which they hardly did any of), merchandise (making it), renting that place, getting Crush 40 and others there, and minor other things. They also did a raffle, and I’m assuming other means of making money.

    So, in the end, did the profit? If so, then success.

18. Location location location SUCKED. Come to a bigger city….wink wink Atlanta wink wink. BIG fanbase here.

    1. Long as they give enough advance announcement for it. Which this year they didn’t. When they announced the location, they also announced the time it would be held. Which was just about one to two months AFTER the announcement. Had it been in December with six to seven months for the event to happen after, then it probably would have done better.

19. Maybe There Wasn’t Enough People, Because This Event Just Jumped Almost Out Of Nowhere… After All As Almost Everyone Know, ”Sonic Boom” Is Usually Was Held At The First Sunday Of September, And This Time It Was Held Just The Week After The ”Summer Of Sonic”.
    So, Many People Haven’t Even Got Time To Get There, Because This Year It Was Too Early.

    1. Not just being “too early,” the date was about a month or two after the announcement of the venue change was made. Which counts as a last minute announcement. Look at my other comments to see what my feelings are on this.

20. I think if they would’ve held the event somewhere like Chicago or something they would’ve had more attendance. I’m in the Midwest, and I would’ve gone if Missouri wasn’t such a long trip. The ticket prices seemed a tad high as well.

    But selling tickets was not the problem, it was actual attendance. Maybe some fans bought tickets for the purpose of supporting the event, even if they couldn’t attend?

    1. Even if it was held in a big city, the announcement was made about a month or two before it would happen. If you ask me, people need time to prep for it, which this being announced last minute, and not a lot of people could make the changes with the slim time provided. This is what has me so upset about it that while I’m saddened by the low attendance giving me an idea of the prospects for it coming to my home town, I’m at the same time pleased that Sega got what it deserved.

       As for the ticket sales, you might be right about that.

21. Well this attendence statement is quite bizzare because i could hear thousands cheering at the end of the cutscene mr pollock roger and kate had done vocal work for

22. Ok, here’s another possibility. Perhaps, just perhaps, Sonic isn’t interesting anymore? I don’t think 10$ extra would stop me from going to a convention about something I like. I crossed an ocean for Summer of Sonic in 2009 when I was still a super dedicated fan. No I think the problem is Sonic’s content is just boring now. Conventions exist so people can express their love for a ”universe”. Sonic’s universe is now nothing but gameplay porn and uninteresting story and you wonder why people don’t waste their free time going to Sonic Boom? There’s no real hype for Lost World, even less for its story nor its characters. How many questions about Lost World were asked? 2? one of them was about the tone of the game and Iizuka just repeated the manual’s story. What about Colors? Absolutely nothing about Colors was mentioned, because Colors’ universe is just shallow and not interesting. People care about what? Sonic 3, Sonic CD and SA2. Why? Because the content stimulates conversation. Perhaps you should look further than streaming or marketing problems and realise the very content isn’t appealing anymore. All that is left of the franchise is a couple of idiotic jokes (no offence Mike Pollock, I know you do your best and it’s not your fault at all), and gimmick characters we couldn’t care less about. People like Sonic’s friends, they like the universe, they like the story. If you remove everything you get questions like, ”Where’s Froggy?” (Yup, Froggy gets more attention than Sonic Colors. That should be a hint.) I cannot entirely blame them to ask irrelevant questions, it’s just a signal that the series lack of substance and we can’t just talk about old games forever, they must bring some fresh meat!

    1. Don’t ya think that you are overthinking that possibility? Ever thought that Sonic Boom was more established in San Diego more than St. Louis? Giving it some time, if Sonic Boom were to continue in St. Louis, many people won’t be caught off guard and more people might go.

       1. TBH, it’s those exact stated reasons as to why I wouldn’t go there even if I had the chance.

       2. It’s not even that. The location for the event was literally announced at the last minute last month. Many, and I mean MANY, people who had been preparing to go to California were caught off guard by the last minute announcement. Of which there is no excuse, to me, this is well deserved for Sega being douches in the first place for making the announcement so last minute. Had this change of venue been announced back in say…. December of 2012? Then ok, this would be a head scratcher. But really, it’s not to me. Heck, I even left a scathing comment on the blog at Sega at the time of the announcement, and I NEVER leave a comment there. This was doomed to failure from the time of the announcement… Which is a shame, because it’d be nice for Sonic to have a traveling convention like Transformers does with Botcon…

       3. Ok first

          You weren’t caught off guard, it was announced 2 months before the event which is more than sufficient. Normal humans don’t need more than 2 weeks to plan a trip.

          Second

          Actually St-Louis’s location should have been a more convient place for the east part of the country and also the most populated part of Canada so it’s not even an argument that helps your theory.

          1. You ultra rich or something? Must be real nice to have the money to throw away on last minute changes all the time… Especially since the reason I say this is that hotels tend to be booked up like crazy by this time of year. Book early is the key to make sure you get there. Or do you enjoy sleeping on the streets during conventions? If it was during a slow point of the year, you could have a point. But early August is still the middle of summer, and while school may be starting for a lot of kids, there’s a lot of adults still taking vacations. When you take a summer vacation, you plan for it plenty in advance. Not two months from before you do it, let alone two weeks. No, it’s last minute when it’s during the high point of tourism season.

             Also, get some geography classes, pal. St. Louis isn’t in Canada, it’s in Missouri. Unless I missed the news that Canada annexed that state, or that we annexed Canada. Heck, it’s not even anywhere close to Canada. It’s got two states separating it from Canada, more even depending on where you go from Canada. Missouri is as middle of the United States as you can get outside of Colorado. Unless you think the city of St. Louis is in Minnesota or Michigan. Now that area of the continent may be more populated, but that doesn’t exactly hurt my theory. It actually helps, as the hotels there get booked like crazy. If it happens in the west coast, it definitely happens on the east coast. Also, the con was held in the west coast for a few years consecutively in close to the same place and time as I recall. People would generally get the idea that it would be relatively the same, so they book in advance. At the time they would have booked, others would be booking in other hotels, the hotels near where the convention is actually taking place, thus those spots became unavailable for people who wanted to go to the convention.

             Now, it may not have been the only reason, but I’m very confident that it was a major reason. And lest you think I’m someone who doesn’t know anything, my dad was heavily into science fiction when he was younger. Before I was born, he would go to a lot of conventions, even regularly attended Westercon. Now he may have been in it before the time of the internet, but he knows how things worked. When I told him about this, he said “Wow, they must be trying to kill this event.” So let me ask you this then, why do most conventions announce their next location and dates no less than six months in advance? Even Botcon announces ahead of time, and the local anime convention Snafucon announced it’s end of October (A few days before Halloween) event just a few weeks after Snafucon 2012 wrapped up. If those conventions announce so far ahead, why didn’t Sega announce Sonic Boom so far in advance? If location bound cons do it way in advance, despite being in the same place every year, then a traveling convention must announce it’s location and time several months ahead as well. It’s an unwritten rule of conventions for a good reason. It should be so obvious that it doesn’t have to be written down.

             Here’s a challenge, you think you’re so smart? I challenge you to find ONE, just ONE convention that announces it’s time and location two weeks in advance, as well as a convention that announces it’s time and location two months in advance that are smashing successes EVERY time. And I want you to post a reply to me with a link to those conventions, or the one convention if it happens to do a mix of both time frames. Otherwise, I will ignore any response you give to this post if you don’t have a link. Oh, and here’s an added wrinkle, it can’t be a convention that gets low attendance anyways. It has to be AT LEAST as big as Sonic Boom was in previous years. One where the tickets ALWAYS run out as Sonic Boom’s did before this year. Otherwise, it doesn’t count.

    2. This. This is EXACTLY how I feel! It’s not that I hate what their doing. I like the new style of dialogue, the new voices, and Cubot and Orbot, but… there isn’t much to the worlds to make them interesting or alive. The games don’t feel like journeys like the classics did, and they don’t feel like adventures like the adventure games did. THOSE are the feelings they need to capture OUTSIDE of the gameplay to bring Sonic from being a game to being an experience. And THAT’S what a convention is about: experiences.

    3. Point goes to you for having the balls to post this, and a mindset similar to mine.

       May you hopefully not be blasted for it.

    4. The only thing giving this argument any validity is the fact that Sonic Boom is less of a legitimate convention like SoS and more of a glorified PR event for *insert currently promoted game here*

23. Keep Sonic Boom in California please =)

24. Probably people bought tickets just to support Sonic in general even if they couldn’t go.

    For example, a lot of people bought multiple copies of Sonic 4 just to support SEGA/Sonic.

    1. Wait, the same game people said that they would pass up and instead, buy copies of Sonic 1?

       1. No, that movement was in protest of Sonic 4, and I’m sure no one gave a damn about it after its fifteen seconds of fame.

25. Out of curiousity mr pollock in the cutscene shown at sonic boom for lost world it sounded like cubot went back to his cowboy voice but with the pitch of his real voice. Did his voice chip change again?

    1. I don’t know. We all recorded separately.

26. well sega try do one ” sonic boom” here in brazil on the “Brasil game show” ( oct 25 to oct 29 ) and watch a giant public XD

27. Pingback: This is easily how far Sonic has fallen | Conflicting Views

28. If you look at how much time was between the announcement of the venue change and the actual time the event would happen, it was clear that it was a last minute change and announcement. You don’t do that unless you’re trying to kill an event. One to two months is not enough time for most of the people who would have gone to make the changes needed. For these kinds of events, you need to announce at least six months before the event happens to allow people the time to make the plans they need to attend it.

    It’s for this reason that I made a scathing post on Sega’s blog, a place I NEVER post on. And while I am pleased that Sega got exactly what it deserved for this dickish move on their part, at the same time I’m saddened that it had such a low attendance, because that means it’ll never come to my home town. I like the idea of a traveling convention, because it could come near where I live so I won’t have to go far to attend it. But as Reno is not a “major” metropolis, that means the chances of Sonic Boom coming here are beyond NEVER. And what’s really sad is that we’re a fantastic city to have a convention in, we have quite a few big convention centers and spaces, and places to eat for a good price aren’t very far. Heck, there’s so many places to eat at in this town that you could spend an entire year trying out each one for each meal of the day, and never eat at the same one twice. Not to mention that we have a fair number of tourist sites, and are very close to the historic towns of Virginia City and Carson City, as well as Lake Tahoe. There’s a lot to do here, and conventions would help highlight that. It’s saddening that popular culture sees us as a dieing hole in the wall… I’m still infuriated by the joke that the Muppets Movie from a couple years ago made about us, despite the crew having filmed here at one of the Casinos for a scene. They could clearly see how big we are, but thanks to them, people have less interest to visit… Ok, way off topic now, but that just shows how I feel about this to go off topic in a rant.

29. Exactly what part of releasing the official figures would help them save face?

    1. They could prove the data above wrong, for one.
       -T

       1. Best case scenario, that just makes them seem petty to me. “NUH UH, WE HAD TONS OF PEOPLE THERE, FOR REALZ” lol

30. I live in Florida, and if it were to be held in California I could have gone. There is pretty much no chance for me to go to St. Louis unless there is something equally significant like San Diego Comic con happening up there. I would chalk this up to extremely poor timing and location.

31. Timing, because a good portion of kids are already in school at this time.

32. I attended the event and 300 seems like a very low estimate from what I saw.
    Still, It would probably be in their best interest to try a major California city, NYC, or even Dallas next year.

33. That’s funny because as someone who was actually there I can say there were way more than 300 people there. The place was pretty crowded. Was it full? No, but it was a good crowd. And I think it’s pretty safe to assume since there were only 1300 chaos, they only had 1300 tickets. My estimate of people is 600-700. It was not only 300, sorry.

    1. Hey, that’s fine. We want as accurate an estimate as possible.

       That said, 600-700 is still too low for something like this–that’s hovering around a third capacity for the venue.

       -T

34. Um, St. Louis has a population of 2.8 million…that’s not a major metropolis? It would a little more appropriate that Sonic Boom wasn’t held with another major event like E3 or SDCC. If anything I would suspect next year would go back to pairing with another convention, such as NYCC or PAX.

35. I think it’s great that Sega made an effort to reach fans that aren’t on the west coast with Sonic Boom this year. I plopped down a lot of cash to fly to San Diego last year, but I’m an adult and if I want to blow that much cash, I can. The majority of fans I’ve seen at both events are under 21 and need to ask their parents to go. So I think changing the location every year is a great idea to give the greatest amount of fans a chance to attend at least once in their life. I never dreamed I’d ever get to see Crush 40 play live unless I flew to Japan, so I was thrilled to have a chance to see them again this year and not spend several hundred dollars to do it (they’re the main reason I go…I’d certainly never spend that amount of money just to play the latest game or hear Takeshi Izuka answer questions in Japanese).

    That said, I do think St. Louis was an odd choice considering that previous years were always tied to another major event (E3 in LA and Comic Con in San Diego). The fact that they scheduled this year’s event the same weekend as Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago but decided on St. Louis instead is kinda puzzling (and I’m not just saying that cause I live in Chicago and it would been super convenient). The turnout was definitely lower than I expected. I told my friends who came with me this year my story of getting to House of Blues in San Diego an hour before doors opened and getting in a line that already wrapped around the entire block. And yet we wandered down pretty much right at 5 and waltzed right in. Maybe HoB was just more cramped though, cause the floor level was packed all night. The 21 and over balcony was fairly deserted, but then so was the bar area in San Diego.

    I think everyone there had a great time (myself included) and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sega announced next year’s Sonic Boom on the east coast to give that last section of the US a chance to go. My only disappointment was not getting a chance to meet Jun or Johnny. I got to meet Jun in San Diego and got a pic and autograph – he was just hanging around the stage after the concert and was super cool. But if Sega keeps this event going, maybe I’ll get the chance to see them again!

36. I can guarantee that if Sonic Adventure 3 was coming out, the venue would have been packed.

    1. Doubt it. Apparently the venue was changed last minute, which meant a lot of people who bought their tickets were screwed.

       1. I don’t remember reading that anywhere. Did the venue indeed change last minute?

          -T

          1. No, the venue was always the Pageant in St. Louis. But the event wasn’t announced until late June, and people might have been anticipating that it would be on the west coast again. A little over a month doesn’t give a ton of time to plan a trip, especially if it involves booking a flight or a hotel. Certainly not “last minute,” but seeing as last year’s show was announced all the way back in March, it did seem like they didn’t give people as much of a heads up.

          2. Oh, Mike is probably right. My comment was referencing a similar one from this thread, but I’m most likely incorrect.

             Marik: IGNORE ME!

             😛

    2. Exactly my point. Most people aren’t interested into wasting any kind of energy for a convention to glorify ”Sonic Lost World”. SLW isn’t convention worthy. They need a real Sonic hype, then we can talk about cons.

       1. Will we ever get a real hype Sonic game ever again?

37. I asked Aaron Webber during Comic-Con about the location change, he said it was because of the request of fans, so it was awesome of SEGA to consider those (lucky) people.. plus they apparently sold over 1000 tickets and only had to cater for half of that 🙂

38. I admit, if Yuji Naka was attending this year’s Sonic Boom, I definitely would book a flight and a hotel to St. Louis without delay. If it’s just the same people as last year though, whom I already met, then saving money takes a higher priority… =(

39. Sonic is a classic example in disastrous mismanagement of a brand. It is functionally dead, yet the braindead idiots at SEGA keep trying to push their clueless vision down the market’s throat. The Sonic 4 fiasco should put to rest any skepticism regarding their monumental incompetency.

    Just take a look at Rayman. RAYMAN is more relevant than Sonic nowadays. This is how incompetent SEGA is.

    At the right hands, Sonic could return to the spotlight. But it’s SEGA we’re talking about here. They should just let a competent studio like Ubisoft make new Sonic games and stop trying.

40. I like that this has more comments than the actual game footage, lol

41. Well mr pollock do you know who is voicing the zeti deadly six because the red one sounded like kevin michael richardson

    1. We recorded separately, so I know nothing. It would be fun it was Kevin since I went to college with him and now he seems to have no idea who I am.

42. One last question mr pollock. Is super sonic in the game?

43. I can only comment on stuff that’s been released. Sorry. We’ll all just have to wait and see.

44. I am guessing you never heard of all the seizures hyper sonic gave people with his speed color flashing

45. It’s weird how they sometimes record these thing separately, I think responses to a previous character would sound more convincing if one VA was able to hear the previous VA.

    A l: Super Sonic is pretty much in every new Sonic game… what makes you think he wouldn’t be in this?

    1. It’s often not logistically possible to record in ensemble style, especially in a dubbing situation, when producers need to add the time-consuming step of massaging each line of dialog to fit pre-existing video. If someone’s already been recorded I can hear and respond to them, but I’ve gotten used to reacting to dead air. If we’re doing our job well, you won’t be able to tell.

46. I wanted to make sure since it’s on a different planet. Also have you ever suggested to SEGA teaming up with Marvel to make a sonic spider-man game?

    1. I’m not there to make suggestions. I’m just the talent.

47. That question was for mr pollock

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