Radio Redux’s annual end of year Sonic singing contest,
the Wrecks Factor, will return to SOS for a
second time as a live event following its appearance last year
during Bentley Jones’ set.Â
Three members of the SOS audience will be invited up onto the
stage to do vocal battle with a fourth audience member, last years
winner Katiefoxe. There’s the chance to win a
special Wrecks Factor trophy and of course to prove yourself as a
singer extraordinaire!
About half of you guys coming to Summer of Sonic are visiting
for the first time this year, but did you know that SoS – not
counting the website in 2006 – is now in its third year?
At the start of 2008, a London convention was just a twinkle in
the eye of freelance game journalist Svend Joscelyne and recently
employed Sega community manager Kevin Eva. Imagine, if you will, an
event financed by people with not a lot of money to their name, and
organised and run by a ragtag group of fan site members who, almost
without exception, had no experience at doing it!
When Svend put the feelers
out in February, there was no shortage of enthusiasm from Sonic
fans around the UK dreaming of a return to the social Sonic heyday
of the mid-90s. At the same time though, there were plenty of
pessimists of the opinion that it’d never take off, and the
general feeling was that people really wanted it to happen, but
weren’t really sure it would. Even the staff themselves
worried about this new Summer of Sonic becoming a flop never seen
before in the Sonic community.
Enter Sega UK, stage left. Kevin somehow convinced his bosses at
Sega that this little shindig at somewhere called the Dragon Hall
would be something good, and they gave him the resources to support
SoS in a way we couldn’t have imagined. The Sonic Chronicles
pod, masses of prizes for competitions throughout the day, hundreds
of goodie bags that took a solid day to fill up at Sega HQ, let
alone transport to Covent Garden.
On top of that, we got legends like Richard Jacques, TJ Davis
and Nigel Kitching, as well as recent star Bentley Jones to offer
their talents for the cause, and got Guinness World Records in to
oversee a new world record time for Emerald Hill Zone Act 1.
In the lead up to this year’s event on Saturday, the Sonic
Stadium’s Sister Site the Sonic
Show has posted their own look back at the highlights of the
original Summer of Sonic. Check it out, and see how far we’ve
come in two years…
Thanks so much for your contributions so far to the Spotlight
– we will be working through all of our submissions very soon
and adding all of the entries onto this website later on today. But
as we enter the final week leading up to the Summer of Sonic 2010
convention, it is time we said goodbye to this feature as we all
prepare for the big day.
Tuesday will be the last day you will be able to submit anything
to the Spotlight – after that, we will try to add your work
but it is not guaranteed. Likewise, as previously mentioned, having
your work published on this website is not a guarantee of your work
appearing in the Summer of Sonic venue on Saturday. Spotlight is a
feature intended only for the SoS website.
If you’ve yet to send us anything to show us your love for
Sonic, then you have one more day to do it! Simply grab your work
(if it’s an image, please ensure it is saved with a popular
filetype extension – PNG, JPG, GIF for example – and
make sure it’s not too big in filesize), attach it to an
email or send us a Youtube link (or other such information) to
summerofsonic@yahoo.com.
Make the subject of your email “Spotlight” and
include your Name, Nickname (if
you’d rather not use your real name), Email
Address and any Website Link you might
want us to reference. Please note that we cannot guarantee every
submission will be published on this website (although we will
certainly try), and that original fan works published here cannot
be re-used for any contest at the Summer of Sonic convention.
By now you’re probably all wondering one thing –
that the Summer of Sonic is absolutely fantastic and all, but just
when the dickens does it all start? Well wonder no longer. We can
confirm that the doors to the Summer of Sonic 2010 will open at
10:30am, on the morning of Saturday 7th
August.
Remember, only those
with registered tickets will be allowed entry at 10:30am
– if you did not manage to pre-register on our website, you
will need to wait until 11:30am to be allowed in on a
capacity-basis.
From the moment you walk in there will be art tables,
merchandise booths, playable game pods and cabinet displays to
admire and enjoy. At 11:00am, Svend
‘Dreadknux’ Joscelyne and Kevin ‘AAUK’ Eva
will take to the stage to formally welcome you all to the
day’s activities and events. From thereon in, it’s
showtime!
We have an excellent schedule planned for your entertainment as
you chill out and meet new friends – we will be publishing
this a little later on so you can plan your day accordingly.
Obviously, the event you will want to look out for is Crush
40′s first ever live Western performance – this will be
the last event to take place in the day at 5:45pm,
and will follow Svend and Rory ‘Roareye Black’
Joscelyne’s contest prize giveaways and closing show.
Unfortunately, like all good things, the Summer of Sonic 2010
must come to an end. And that end will be 7:00pm.
That’s right, because of the amount of Way Past Cool
we’ve crammed into this year’s convention, SoS will be
going on for longer than past years. We hope you’ll enjoy
it.
Reminder: Although the Summer of Sonic 2010
will officially finish at 7:00pm, the front doors will close at
5:30pm, ahead of Crush 40′s live performance.
After this time, door staff will only be able to let people out
– nobody will be allowed to come back in after they have left
the venue at this point. If you plan to enjoy Crush 40 and need to
leave the venue before the performance, please allow yourself
enough time to arrive back at the venue before doors close.
To recap, then:
10:30am – Doors open 11:00am – Start 5:30pm – Doors close 7:00pm – Finish
