THE CYBERCON EXPO!

“On April 5th of 2003 fans J.E. Alvarez, Alex Weiner and Fran O'Boyle held their first fan-oriented convention at the Holiday Inn in Cherry Hill New Jersey. Born out of a desire to produce a great fan experience without a high cost of attending and with no desire to compete with other conventions, even to the organizers it was a surprising success as fans enthusiastically turned out in drones to attend.” (From the Cybercon website)

This past weekend, they brought their annual “Cybercon Expo” to NYC. To tell you the truth, I had mixed feelings about their success. Boy was I ever wrong! The Convention was a complete success and it was a really fun to attend. These guys know how to put on a great show!

There were many dealer tables selling all kinds of new toys, old toys and parts!!! Man was there parts! These guys had any and every part you were ever looking for and then some. The craziest thing I saw was a guy asked a certain vendor if he had some kind of antenna for a certain Transformer, and the guy had it!! From generation 1 transformers to the current series, everything you can imagine was here.

It always seems that The Transformers and GiJoe: A Real American Hero are lines that will be forever intertwined. And that was evident at this show as well. There were a lot of Gijoe, figures, vehicles and even fans in costume! I am a huge fan of GiJoe, so it was great to see so much of this as well. It was great to see the Transformer fans and the GiJoe fans getting along together. "Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya!!"

 

They also had a bunch of Contests as well. They first had a costume Contest which was won by a fan dressed up in an awesome Optimus Prime costume. The costume was completely handmade as well. Then Shocker Toys had a “Shockini” Custom contest. Judged by Eternal Collector! The winner was Daniel Flores of New York for his great Captain America Custom. Great work Daniel! We look forward to seeing more of your work soon!

 

Then there was the Cybercon Expo Custom Contest. There were many great entries, these guy really put a lot of hard work into their customs. But the winner was head and shoulders above the rest as Scott Gomez won for his Custom “Masterpiece Megatron”. What an amazing custom! When I first saw it, I thought it was an actual release. The craftsmanship that went into this item was spectacular. When I asked Scott about it, he told me it took him over a month of hard work to make it. Using parts from other toys and resin molds as well, this was one of the best customs I have ever seen!

The highlight of the convention was the special apperance by the voice of the original "Optimus Prime", Peter Cullen! This sure was a treat for all the fans and there was a HUGE line to meet the man. Everyone got their chance to chat with him and get his signature and he stayed to the very end. He was absolutely great to the fans and seemed genuinely happy to be there.

 

All in all, a great time and a very well run Convention. I hope they bring this show back as it seemed that everyone had fun. If you didn't have the chance to go, make it your business to get to the next one. Transformer fan or not. Eternal Collector looks forward to adding the Cybercon Expo to our Convention Calendar.

 

Fran O'Boyle, J.E. Alvarez, and Alex Weiner

Click here for more pictures from this great convention!