JoeCon 2017 - Package Pick-Up

My first ever JoeCon!

Here's the basic rundown of how the beginning of JoeCon week proceeded. My wife and I left the north side of Atlanta at around 9:00 am on that Tuesday before and headed south. A brief stop at her sister's house to chat for a few minutes and grab the keys to her condo at Ormond Beach.

Part of the trip down to Florida would involve stopping and shopping along the way. Our daughter is getting married in October and my wife has been looking for a dress for the wedding. We stopped at the Dillard's in Macon and then hit two more in Jacksonville. A trip straight through would have been around 7.5 hours. We pulled into the condo at around 10:30 that night! Not a big deal to me (happy wife, happy life).

We spent Wednesday doing some more shopping in the Daytona Beach area. For those keeping score, she found a dress! Thursday rolls around and it's just a day hanging out at the condo, waiting to hit the road to Orlando. We had loaded a bunch of my wife's sewing and quilting supplies in the car and had set up a nice little sewing/quilting area with a nice view of the ocean.  My time at JoeCon would also serve as a mini quilting retreat for her.

I think I headed out toward Orlando at around 3:00 pm and arrived at around 4:45pm. I knew I had long drives ahead of me, each way and each day of JoeCon. I figured that the free condo, a tank of gas, and a little bit of a hassle with the drive from Ormond Beach to Orlando twice a day were worth not having to pay hotel prices in Orlando.

Once I got to the Disney Dolphin Resort and made my way down into the bowels of the convention area, the first, most obvious sight of JoeCon appeared before me - the lines. Initially, there was just one line, but that was quickly divided into the Golden Ticket holders and then us regular attendees. My thoughts on the Golden Ticket concept in a later post.

I was checking Facebook for the reveals of the JoeCon exclusives and I finally made my way up to the banners that showcased all of the Force of Battle 2000 related exclusives.

I've always seen these types of banners online when JoeCon attendees began revealing all of the assorted goodies at the show. I must confess to a bit of a giddy feeling seeing these banners first hand. At this point, I also picked up the order form for the exclusives. The plan was to wait in one line for the Con set and then wait in another line for the Con exclusives. There's usually complaints from various folks, but I really didn't care. Generally part of the Con experience, plus you get a chance to meet other Joe collectors while waiting.

I'll break down my thoughts on each of the exclusive items from the Club.

  

In the left picture are the Marauder snowmobiles. While they looked cool enough, the price tag was a bit higher than I would have liked and I passed on them. The right picture is of the Sky Serpent and the Vector/Conquest. I was never really impressed enough with the Sky Serpent mold when it came out as a vehicle tied to GI Joe Renegades. I passed on it then and passed on it this time. Sure, there's an exclusive pilot figure with it, but I skipped it. The Vector jet is beautiful. The crisp clean white plastic along with the other colors were quite reminiscent of the original BF2000 Vector. Very pretty and very tempting! But not $132.00 tempting! I passed.
 

 

   

Next up are the figure sets and another pass by me. The "Ultimate Enemies" was pretty cool. Yes, we've got Dee-Jay! The Club did a fine job of recreating Dee-Jay in modern form. But who the hell is Corrosion? Apparently, Corrosa was a South American character that was a straight repaint of the Dee-Jay mold. Fair enough, I suppose. Yes, please! I bought the limit of two sets. Below that picture are the BAT Rocket Packs. I never really liked this original Cobra jet pack, so it was pretty easy for me to skip this set.

The next picture is of the Laser Viper three-pack. Limit one per attendee! Dang it, I would have bought another set! The Club wasn't able to reproduce the original Laser Viper back pack weapon and went with Sci-Fi's rifle and back pack. Works for me!

Of course, the last picture is of the Force of battle 2000 15 figure set. Much more on the set to follow!

 

Just having the set in my hand made me smile like a silly kid! So cool! 

Much more of my JoeCon 2017 review and thoughts to come in the coming days. Stay tuned!

Special thanks to Gray Childs for passing out liquid refreshments while everyone was waiting in line! So cool to meet other new folks at the show!

Were you there? Did we meet? Leave me a comment!