It’s taken us a while to find time to scan them all (like a year and a bit!?) but today I’m proud to present a collection of artwork from the 2009 Summer of Sonic event. This post serves to give back said artwork to those who wanted to archive it on their DeviantArt account or elsewhere, and to detail just how much effort and fun is put into these works by fans. Ultimately the Summer of Sonic is more than just the work of myself and the staff who host the event – it’s about your dedication to the Sonic franchise and your expression of that dedication.

I leave you with the gallery below, along with details of the artist, if it was available on the original copy (and their age at the time). Please feel free to contact me directly if you want to have your name listed, changed or your piece removed from this page at dreadknux@gmail.com.

The new Summer of Sonic 2011 site will be arriving soon – along with the beginning of the lead-up to Sonic’s 20th Anniversary! We’re always listening to your suggestions and comments, and now there are several places for you to make your voice heard – on the Summer of Sonic forum on The Sonic Stadium, the SoS Facebook page, or on our DeviantArt group (thanks to SyamingLi for its creation).

If you don’t own a Wii check it out here…

I'm with stupid.

Now in 2009 you could buy TRANS//LATION for signage by Bentley and a lot of STC prints from Nigel & Nigel. In 2010 in the shop area we had the Archie comic prints and a vast array of specially printed Crush 40 merchandise. Plus Nigel Dobbyn had his prints of course.

Now I know you guys want this cd or this rare thing not seen since forever, failing of course to note that we would presumably have to buy, store and transport the merch before we even got around to selling it. Now when you get dealing with monies it starts getting very complicated. Our hands are tied a lot of the time by licencing – true story I did actually contact Jazwarez in late 2009 about a possible special Juvi statue for SOS10. Hey, No one can ever accuse me of not thinking big when it comes to this event – alas unless a few thousand of you were going to turn up and then all buy three each it REALLY wasn’t going to be really worth it.

Plus we’d’ve have enough event budget left to maybe buy a swiss roll to share out amongst you. It wouldn’t even be a chaos one.

Now licences will again be a bugbear, and I know this can be got around by possibly getting the licencees down to SOS, other places like Tokyo Toys have been suggested several times, blah blah blah. However I will be speaking with Mr & Mrs SEGA regarding this to see if there’s a way around it. So if specific Summer of Sonic branded merchandise can be created to be sold what would you be interested in?

T-Shirts obviously, but what else? After genuine suggestions here so please engage the reality switch on your brain before typing.

Ta!

- ArchangelUK -

Hi all, its your host with the most ArchangelUK here.  We’re not even out of 2010 yet and we’ve got a vast array of work still to do this year on Summer Of Sonic.

Well, I say we…

In order to progress with Summer Of Sonic 2011 I have to begin thinking about it now. As such we’ve begun talking about it in the SOS war-room and I’d like to open up the floor to suggestions from you guys. These are suggestions at this point only. Some things to bear in mind:

1) Don’t bother to suggest air-con. Ok? We know. As far as we were aware the Pavilion had air-con and you weren’t the only ones who suffered.

2) Please keep your suggestions in the realms of both reality and legality. Stupidity will be dealt with harshly and with a big stick.

3) If we then go to do something suggested within the resultant suggestion that doesn’t mean it’s all your responsibility it happened. There are still people who honestly are convinced Crush 40 happened because of them. You REALLY aren’t.

4) Final decisions are always that of SEGA and the SOS management team.

Otherwise you’re free to ask for whoever. Go on, off you go then.

Preparation

This year it was a minor miracle we managed to pull it off as everything seemed to be working against us on Friday, starting with the venue not being cleaned out, discovering holes in the floor, to suddenly having our people capacity number dropped less than 18 hours before the doors open, and I’m only scratching the surface here. We then had, a faulty Wii, a DS that couldn’t take a dev cart, a stolen laptop and camera, and the less said about the Pavilion staff the better. It is a true testament to the commitment of staff that we managed to overcome these problems.

Tails judges as the Pavilion staff dawdles.

So what did I end up doing? Well to start with not much, getting to the venue and finding it in the state it was, we had to just sit off the side lines and watch the Pavilion staff clean up very slowly. Once most of it was cleaned up it was a case of all hands on deck to get as much done as possible, setting up the stage, tables, pods, chairs, sound checks etc. A couple of hours later and we had something approaching a convention hall.

The next morning went a little more smoothly with everything falling into place, we ended up opening the doors half an hour late, but hey the year we we open the doors on time will be the year where everything goes to plan, and that is never going to happen.

Looks okay from where I am.

My Job

My duties this time round were a bit more varied than normal, starting out with my usual role of door man along with Urtheart, I think I must have got about 200 people through in that first half hour or so, all the time saying, “if you leave you may not be able to get back in,” over and over again, in the end though capacity wasn’t a problem.

Convention hall filling up nicely.

After about half an hour and a case of dry throat later it was to take on my next role… as Wentos… or so I thought, as it was all a clever ploy by AAUK to get me on stage to perform my forfeit for failing this years wrecks factor. Damn him for playing on my willingness to help out! As it turned out it wasn’t so bad as I had feared that I would be forced to sing something… which would have cleared the room faster than suddenly discovering it was really a Mario convention, no instead I had to do Caramelldancin.

Once my humiliation was over with it was on with my third role of the day, Sonic’s helper. Which on it’s own doesn’t sound like much but when your in a convention hall filed with Sonic fans it suddenly turns into a real hassle. In the end it involved me (politely) asking people to move aside, a role my voice seems to be well suited to, and taking photos hopefully most of them didn’t come out too blurry.

The Event

I’ve talked a lot about what I was doing at the event but what about the rest of the event? What was actually going on? Well we had a lot more than last year, for a start the place was bigger which was a good thing however the ventilation wasn’t as good as last time some of those cos-players must have cooked.

The merch cabinet was back with the usual stock of Sonic curiosities old and new including some of mine, and a very special addition from First 4 Figures, after seeing Super Sonic light up for the first time I was glad I’d pre-ordered the special edition. peaking of merch this year we actually had a shop this time round where some of the staff flogged some of there merch and of course there was the magnificent Crush 40 merchandise.

This year we had two new games on show Sonic Colours for the Wii and DS which I didn’t get around to but it will be out soon enough, and the much anticipated Sonic 4 which I did take a few minutes to try out it was okay but I felt it’s a good thing they are taking the extra time to refine it a little more, and lets not forget the Allstars racing contest which was one by someone playing as Tails which pleased me no end.

Then there was the stage where we had me humiliating myself, the Wrecks Factor, Nevermind the Buzzbombers, Afternoon Tea with Jun Senoue, an amazingly busy cosplay contest that I still think Sally should have won, and of course the Crush 40 concert to round off the day (videos of which should be forthcoming soon on my end).

I’m sure I’m forgetting a pile of things but when your dashing around the place it’s hard to keep track of everything that’s going on.

In the End

Overall it was once again an experience that left me mentally and physically drained, with barely enough energy to find the after party, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it, I love helping out where I can making the day the best it can be for you guys. Now I hope everyone will join me in thanking Svend ‘Dreadknux’ Joscelyne for creating the event, Kevin ‘AaUK’ Eva for doing his SEGA magic, Adam ‘T-Bird’ Tuff for all his work organising the stage and the rest of the staff who helped to make this the best Summer of Sonic ever!

Incidentally I was going to address things regarding my decision to stop being an active part of SOS after SOS11, but that ended up rather taking over the piece so I’ll leave that for another day – I also want to word it just right. It needs to be worded right… For now lets just shine the spotlight on a few individuals.

ADAM/T-BIRD

Make no bones about it, Adam was frickin’ GOD this year, instrumental in helping me to get Crush 40 over here for you guys be it whispering sweet nothings into Jun and Johnny’s ears to get them to agree in principle to come or helping me sweet talk SEGA Japan into allowing Crush 40 to come down and perform with his awesome proposal writing skills. Adam was also responsible for much more, he (along with Svend) forked out part of Johnny’s plane ticket, covered the hire of the band equipment (which reminds me I owe him £200 towards that) and the organisation of an awful lot over the Friday and Saturday.

Adam was my suave, sophisticated and much better looking wingman this year. He said to me in about May when we were really getting into things that he didn’t realise SOS took as much as it did in organising. Fact of the matter is he handled his side expertly in spite of a lot of surprises and bumps in the way… and on the day he was a tour de force considering a rather unpleasant experience with an unknown agent in his meal the night before.

Kudos and thank you sir.

JOSH/URTHEART

If you look up the term “unsung hero” in an encyclopedia (because Dictionaries DO NOT HAVE PICTURES IN THEM) you’ll probably find Urtheart. Lewis (Sonic Yoda) posted the following in the SSMB and it sums up my thoughts somewhat.

I need to give a very special message to a particular member of the SoS staff:

There’s been one man who has staffed every SoS so far and has received almost no recognition for what he has done. His name is Josh ‘Urtheart’ Cartlidge and he has volunteered his time and effort to man the doors and deal with security every year. He does this for absolutely nothing and spends the majority of his day on the doors to make sure everyone is checked into the convention following the correct procedure.

Now, this probably sounds a bit dull. “Yeah, so what? How hard can it be to make sure people get in?” Well if you think that you need to wise up and realise that Josh misses everything you get to enjoy. Playing Sonic 4? Forget it. Meeting Nigel Dobbyn? Forget it. Watching Crush 40? Clear off!

What bugs me most about this is that Josh didn’t need to be on the doors all day because he had 2 paid and qualified members of security helping, yet he still fully committed to his role. That’s dedication and as far as I can see, he didn’t even receive a certificate for his 3 years of service.

Seriously, if you were a Sonic fan giving up your time to staff a Sonic convention, you would at least hope you get to enjoy it on the same level as everyone else. Josh puts in some incredible effort to do what he does and he takes all the flak you give him when you’re waiting to get in or end up disappointed that you missed getting a goodie bag.

Next year there needs to be as many people cosplaying as Josh as there was this year as Shadow! Make sure you show Urtheart just how valued he is in the Sonic community at the next possible occasion. Thank you Urth for doing such an amazing job year-in, year-out.

Couldn’t say better than that.

LEWIS/SONIC YODA

Being Sonic might seem a pretty cushy job, what Lewis does though is BECOME Sonic. Also the Sonic costume is NOT a nice place to be, if we hired an “actor” to play Sonic they’d last about 10-15 mins before disappearing off for a break. What Lewis does every year is do about 5x the amount of time they do, REPEATEDLY. Seriously we beg him to stop and he wants to go back out there for everyone the silly sod.  Not only that he was Wentos this year – and that coat is HOT. When he’s not in a costume he’s keen to help out in any way.

My thanks mate.

JAY/BLAKE DRACO & PHIL/VGER

You already know Vger very well for being such a great sport with Carameldansen. Blake helped run the ASR tournament with Dale/Shadtzer.  What you don’t know is that in the set-up and closedown these two were EVERYWHERE. Whenever someone needed a team to help with something Blake was there and helping out without complaint – if you needed some help he was at your side immediately. Vger deserves thanks for taking a lead role in the closedown of the event and helping me out in a time of trial.  Both worked like trojans to little fanfare – I’d like to give them such now.

ALLAN/ROARZ/ROARY RACCOON

Roarz wasn’t even a member of staff – but was quick to volunteer his services as runner supplying the crew with liquid refreshments and even buying a FREAKIN’ FAN for people.  Ultimately the best joy was just seeing Roarz again for the first time since SOS 08 and seeing him so happy.  I’d like to offer my thanks for his kind offers and for helping out in various ways.

The entire crew deserves your respect and thanks, as they have mine.  That’s all for now.

-ArchangelUK-

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing World Championship Tournament

I was staffing the Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing tournament with Sonic Wrecks’ Blake Draco. Things went O.K. during time trial qualifiers, despite him and I having difficulty monitoring two pods each out of a total of four to make sure everyone kept to the three lap limit, didn’t cheat and helped new players/owners of other console versions to learn the XBOX 360 versions controls.

The 32-player knockout round was a mess since only about half the people showed up but it was more than likely because people had got stuck in queue for other things going on. We didn’t take this into consideration when planning the tournament and I deeply apologise to those who did show up that had to wait while we tried to find your opponents and sort out what to do from this point. The last thing we wanted to do was keep participants standing there wondering what the hell was going on and what you’re doing next.

I also apologize to the few that turned up later and/or didn’t catch our shout outs for you and then had to be disqualified. I felt so bad for you guys having to miss out and wish there was something we could have done.

Despite all of these problems with the tournament, we got our winner and runner-up crowned and their trophies given to them on stage to an applause from the huge crowd of attendees, which made the stress and difficulties all worth it.

The Days Events, Games and Guests

It goes without saying that this year has been bigger and better than ever, with so much to do and see there was plenty to keep any Sonic fan occupied. We had a Cosplay Contest, an Art Contest, a Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing tournament, a comics table where Sonic the Comic’s Nigel Dobbyn was present, a merchandise store,
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, Sonic Colours (both Wii and DS), plenty of other game pods, many on-stage events including Nevermind the Buzzbombers, The Wrecks Factor Live, the one and only Crush 40 and more. Now that is a lot of activities and entertainment. All for a whole day and all for free.

The People of Summer of Sonic

The Summer of Sonic couldn’t be what it is without the people behind the scenes who pull it all together voluntarily and the special guests who give up their time to attend. There is a huge team of us staff who work hard for this event and don’t get paid. They give up their free time, money and risk their sanity and health for the love of one spiny blue speedster and his community of fans.

Many of the Summer of Sonic’s guests and activities all come from the event’s main organisers. ArchangelUK, Dreadknux and T-Bird who deserve the highest respect and thanks for their huge efforts. Without these three guys, there was no way we could have had all of the special things we had and no way we would have gotten through the day.

All of the other staff at the event such as Vger, Flyboy Fox, JayZeach, DiscoPonies, Bmn, Roareye Black, Roarey Raccoon, Echo Hawk, Jemnezmy, Blake Draco, Urtheart, Nemain, Turbo, Iceman Etika, Gnasher and others deserve huge praise, too. This is what the true super power of teamwork has made: a large convention for the community and by the community.

The Heart of the Convention

The heart of Summer of Sonic is what keeps people coming back every year and makes the event really some thing special. The heart is within the community who attend this convention every year and it really shows. From every inch of the convention, you can see people socializing and making new friends, sharing each others experiences in their time in the fandom and even their creations in areas like the art tables. I myself got to see a good friend I’ve made in the community outside of the staff here, Doctor MK, who is the founder of the charity event Sonic Relief that I help out with. I also got to meet other folks, too, like Skai5er (on the left of the photo). To see a room full of love, friendship and spirit for our favourite blue dude with ‘tude is why we staff volunteer our energy and souls to this event.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed myself! It was good to see familiar and new faces, make new friends and a pleasure to work with my fellow staff. I didn’t get to take part in many of the days events since I was staffing, but it’s worth it to bring you guys the goods. I’m glad all of us, attendees and staff alike, got to enjoy the Crush 40 concert at the end. That’s an experience I’ll always remember and treasure. Johnny and Jun were fantastic! The way they interacted with the crowd who love them so much was absolutely fantastic. I’m sure the rest of the fandom are so grateful to them for coming down to see us all.

All in all, Summer of Sonic 2010 was a blast and I look forward to next years event for Sonic’s big 20th Anniversary. A massive thanks to my fellow staff and thanks to everyone in the community who have supported us. See you all next year!

Check out more photos of the event below -

This is now my 3rd year of Summer of Sonic doing my job, involving some of the more boring parts of SoS, namely legal, health and safety, sorting tickets, getting you guys into the venue and that stuff. This in itself is always a stressful job, this year made not only manageable but rather pleasant by the work of Bmn whom created a fully singing and dancing registration management and ticket issuing system allowing me to sort almost 400 registrations an hour. He is a man I owe both a drink and possibly a bottle too.

To the event itself my first thanks is to the security guards whom were hired. In the end they were the ones helping to advice my drained mind and making sure all you guys not only got in and out safely, but made sure you were all safe from the various people whom did try to get in and spoil the event (a fair few drunk football fans for the most part).
However the big hats here goes off to JayZeach, our very own SoS security guy. Not only did he follow his schedule and patrols, he went above and beyond it, helping to clear the queue lines outside for your safety and the general public, helping those who got lost in fire exits, all the while stepping up to his security badge. As such he should be proud to wear it, as I am sure he is.

Of course he wasn’t the only one to help me with the doors. Vger has helped me also for 3 years in a row at the entrance, punching tickets and checking details, generally doing the boring jobs with me. This year he thankfully he managed to grab centre stage for a while, where my second thanks comes in, Jemnezmy, whom wasn’t even meant to be staff stood up and volunteered to take over from him, she deserves just as much love from you guys because she worked just as hard the day before as well to make sure you guys could enjoy the event.

Along with that we had two staffers whom during their free time came to help us get you all in, Blitzchris & Gavvie had about 10 minutes training and briefing before being thrown right into the thick of the job, and they performed exceptionally with a rather stressed and panicky Urtheart. The fact that these guys went straight back to DJing afterwards is a testament to exactly how much they were willing to give up for you guys.

To round off your front end team we also had Sonic Yoda and Iceman (again another person not originally meant to be working during SoS) helping to get you guys straight into the main hall to enjoy yourselves, as minor a job as it may have seemed, trust me when I say it helped us immensely.

However they aren’t the last people to thank, I also have to thank you guys. The job is hard enough but what makes it manageable is you lot being rather mild mannered and so supportive. Despite the Sonic community’s reputation you guys prove that it is an exception rather than a rule. The key word there is community, that’s what you guys are, this year you showed us what it was, meeting up before, during and after the event and welcoming every single person with open arms, that’s why so many people enjoyed SoS.

I have other thanks to give too, Casanova/Gnasher, TRiPPY, Umiyuri and her mother, Syaming-li, ShadowFox, Strata, Tall-guy and probably others I have forgotten, who came out from the venue, in some cases missing some stage stuff simply to come and say hello to me out in the lobby, tis really appreciated, though you are all silly buggers for coming to do so, even if you did have the ulterior motive of trying to cool down.

But there is one last thanks I have to give. People wonder why I do what I do, miss out on basically the biggest event of the year and stand bored stiff at an entrance. Well if you consider what some of the other staff sacrifice to make this event happen, you realise what I do is basically bugger all comparatively. AAUK, Dreadknux and T-Bird give huge amounts of their time, effort and money to make this event happen. Yes SEGA support us, but a huge amount of the work comes out of these guys, all 3 of them sacrifice their health, sanity and bank account all for you guys. By no means are these the only guys that sacrifice stuff as you’ve already heard in previous blogs. Nemain, Flyboy and WayPastCool all dragged large amounts of goods huge miles, some of which hard to obtain, for you guys to buy and help contribute towards coving the costs of the event. The Archie guys who sent us loads of original inks of their comics, something which you can not usually buy, just for you guys. Richard Elson for his donations, Nigel Dobbyn for coming down once again, Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli for flying half way across the world to do a private gig for you guys, Blake Draco, Echo Hawk, Shadzter, Speedknux, Roarey Raccoon, Turbo, Roareye, Discoponies, Fastfeet, and the other volunteers we had, all do this off their own backs. As the security guard from SoS09 said to me, if that isn’t a true Sonic fan then no one deserves to call themselves a true fan.

Summer of Sonic brings out what I think is the true essence of the word community, every year it surpasses itself in this aspect. I’ve seen people win huge prizes, and give them away on the spot to someone who wanted it more, only to win, by pure luck, an even better prize later on. I’ve seen people sacrifice their tickets or brining their friends to help those whom they don’t even know get into Summer of Sonic purely because of how upset they were that they missed the opportunity. I’ve seen a young girl’s face light up simply because she was allowed to come to the event when she had spent so much effort flying from the USA she forgot to book her ticket, and as such a member of staff made sure that she had a ticket, and to go even further a member of staff played a song she had created for Sonic, and was listened to by the musicians she loved.
If you can name me another community like this that brings a tear to the eye of this old and battered Urtheart, then I can safely say you are lying.
And to answer the question that loads of people ask me, that is the reason I do my job at Summer of Sonic, that and it’s what I’m good at.