July 2005
Story by Chris Rhoads (dustrho)
 

IT'LL BE HERE BEFORE WE KNOW IT!
I can’t believe it’s been almost one year since the last Wizard World convention strolled into the Chicagoland area.  Last year’s event was my first big outing as a staff member of Sandtroopers.com, and it was a hell of a time meeting up with all the other staff members (Boba Binks, Darth Spice, Reconsgt and Sandtrooper Dan).  We had an absolute blast, and we truly were the dominating force at the show.

Like last year, Hasbro chose not to attend the convention, for reasons that were unknown to us.  Sadly, they have chosen once again to not participate at this years Wizard World.  It’s a shame, because they had the coolest Star Wars and G.I. Joe displays and dioramas back in 2003.  Looks like we’ll have to spend more time at the other vendor’s booths.

Since we launched the forums just over one year ago, we have accumulated over 600 members.  That is such an amazing feat, and is truly one of our biggest accomplishments in recent years.  With all the new members, we are hoping to meet all of you for the very first time, and it is something I am very much looking forward to.  I hope that everyone who’s thinking about going to this show does end up going to it.  If you’ve never been to one of these, you definitely won’t want to miss this!

At Celebration III we sold several hundred Sandtroopers.com t-shirts to many loyal Troops, and everywhere you looked you saw our shirts.  What a great site that was (well, that’s what I was told since I didn’t attend Celebration III)!  We are hoping to have another batch of t-shirts readily available for this event, so that we are again the dominating site patrolling the area.  Only Darth Spice knows the status of the next batch of t-shirts, so if you haven’t gotten one already you’ll want to email him your request for one ahead of time, so that you can wear it at the show.

The only Star Wars related exclusive this year are the Gentle Giant silver Boba Fett Bust-Ups figure and Master Replica’s exclusive .45 scaled Yoda lightsaber.  I could really care less about the first one, but I’m really hoping to get my hands on that lightsaber.  Previous year’s exclusive promotions included the following: Hasbro’s silver Boba Fett, Gentle Giant’s blue Clone Trooper bust, and more.