Sonic Stadium Turns 8

A slew of retrospectives from Sonic Stadium webmaster Dreadknux has led to a major announcement on this, the eighth anniversary of the “#1 Sonic Fan Site in the World.”
On the front page of the site today is confirmation that the Summer of Sonic convention in London, which TSSZ News reporter Paul Street attended, will be returning.  Further, it looks to be getting a big push from Sega:

I’m sure everyone in this forum and beyond has had daydreams about a ‘Sonic the Hedgehog Convention’ and to wonder what it would be like, to meet online friends face to face and to see the latest Sonic games. I certainly have, and year on year I felt more confident I could stage such an event, with the help of some of my closest online friends. TSS and Sonic Wrecks had staged the first ever London gathering of Sonic fans in May 2007, and subsequent meetups were getting bigger and bigger.

I felt that it was all leading up to this – a huge gathering of fans in one place casually chatting about Sonic and getting to know each other. AAUK suggested reviving the Summer of Sonic name for the event, and between the two of us we arranged a miniature convention that was not only an awesome experience for everyone involved, but was so popular that the demand grossly exceeded the humble hall we had hired out. A wonderful day as it was, I was never really ready to commit to another convention.

Until today.

I’d like to announce that The Summer of Sonic will definitely return for another convention in the London area. Better yet, I can tell you that it will happen next year, instead of a few years time. “Even better than that”, SoS 2008 is said to have really impressed Sega Europe, even going so far that Sega Japan luminaries are aware of it. Even Jun Senoue knows about it. Because of its impact this year, Sega are very much on board to be more involved with the organisation of next year’s event than before (this year they ‘Supported’ it but took a step back to see whether we could make it as good as we said we could).

This doesn’t mean that a once-community event is lost to the wiles of the ‘money-grubbing’ Corporations though. It’s still very much my show. AAUK is still the Sega waypoint man, and together we’ll still be focusing on getting everyone involved in the proceedings. All it means is that this time, AAUK and I will have some proper help. This will make Summer of Sonic 2009 some very, very cool shit. If I ever said that you needed to be a part of SoS 08, I’ll just say that you need to be a part of SoS 09.

I can’t tell you any more details I’m afraid, as proper planning is not due to begin until January. But you know me, I’m already drafting everything that is going into next year’s event, so I’m not sitting on my thumbs over here. Regardless, all I’m able to say is that you should prepare yourselves for a return of the world’s first Sonic the Hedgehog Convention. 2008 started something very special, my friends. It now begins.

We’ll let you know details of the Summer of Sonic 2009 as the event draws near.