Babel Con '82 TV ad -

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Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by davemerrill »

So I was going through some off-air Star Blazers tapes courtesy Mr. Steve Harrison, and I noticed in the ad breaks this TV ad for the Grand Rapids MI Star Trek/SF/fantasy convention Babel Con. What makes this interesting, besides being a TV ad for a SF convention, is that the ad highlights one of the convention's special events, a Star Blazers Micro Con.

This might be the first American anime fandom convention gathering that went beyond a party or a video room screening. There's a higher probability that this is also the first ever television advertisement for an anime fandom convention gathering in the United States.

https://youtu.be/bSerXKI30-o
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by davemerrill »

darn it, I meant to add "Star Blazers Micro Con' to the topic, but I hit "enter" instead. What a goof.
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by DKop »

To think that Star Blazers was that big of a hit to be recognized at this con on TV is a pretty big thing for 1982. You dont ever see ads for cons on regular cable networks anymore, and that's in part too how much it costs for a con to come up with the money to promote on a TV spot in the first place. The internet makes finding local cons much easier, and maybe a local news station here or there will cover it from time to time for TV.

That's a small nick for anime fandom history in America, and im glad thats on youtube for people to see.
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by Guyver I »

That's awesome; thanks so much for posting it!

It does say a lot, in that having a television commercial was probably a significant expense for a local convention (then, and now) and still they decided that a Starblazers mini-con was worth mentioning in the limited amount of time they had for the ad.

I don't know if I've ever seen a commercial for a convention before on TV, or a mention in the news, or anything like that; maybe once or twice for some of the comic shows around here, but I wouldn't really call those conventions, in the traditional sense.
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by DKop »

The last time I saw any coverage of a con on the news was my local affiliate did a brief minute spot news segment on Dragoncon, and had footage of the parade, furries and other oddities. The only thing the newcaster could give was "Wow, that Batmobile looks fantastic!" while the other news members just stood around awkwardly not able to process what they saw. :( :shock:

And to think, Dragoncon is probably the most "normal" of cons out there as a general con goes for nerd fandom.
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by davemerrill »

I've seen ads for Dragoncon on TV, AWA did a few TV ads one year. There are some surprisingly good deals on TV advertising to be had if you know where to look. It's not something that a convention should spend all its available cash on, but if the right deal comes along, it's worth it. AWA did a few billboards as well, a few years back, and it was ridiculous hearing people say that the billboard was the first time they'd heard of AWA. You honestly never can assume people know about your convention.

Usually in cities with decently sized comic book or SF cons, the local news will send a camera crew down to shoot B-roll footage of people in costumes so that the anchor has something to talk over when he says "Bang! Zoom! The comic book people are back!" I know the anime shows in various cities have been pretty good about getting decent newspaper coverage, usually the AJC has a nice story about AWA every year.

Another interesting TV ad for a SF convention is this one from the 1984 "Omnicon" in Miami, which also uses Japanese animation as part of its promotion: https://youtu.be/6BiNqrrzs90

The Grand Rapids Babel Con ad aired during Star Blazers on the station that aired Star Blazers, so I'm sure the station felt it was, at the very least, promoting one of their own shows. I don't know if that station aired Star Trek or not.
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by SteveH »

I'll try to just do some quick hits here to help. :)

1. While I was not directly involved with the ad buy at WWMT-17, I was still an influence and consultant to the con staff that I handed the reins to. I insisted the Micro-Con be mentioned.

2. I'm pretty sure the cost of that ad was fairly cheap, including production. WWMT was a brand new UHF station competing in a market that had the 3 'majors' plus a UHF station that went live in 1979. Since Star Blazers was 'full barter' at the time I suspect we paid for 30 seconds that was SUPPOSED to be station ident and public service time. If it cost more than $100 I would be shocked. Yes that was still a significant amount at the time but a good roll of the dice.

3. Production was all handled by the station, pulling art from whatever files they had on hand. (insert voice "If I had then what I had now" in terms of visual material...)

4. Star Trek was still in the hands of WKZO channel 3, Kalamazoo, a Fetzer Broadcasting station, but running late night and weekends. Look up how Fetzer basically saved Star Trek by licensing it and putting it in early evening strip syndication.

I wish to publicly thank Dave for spotting (and posting/promoting) that ad. I honestly didn't recall it being on that tape. It also firmly and without argument nailed those recording to 1982, when I had thought it was 1981. Wow. Painful nostalgia. :)
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by Guyver I »

Thanks for the insight!

That makes sense, that a local UHF wouldn't be charging all that much. And even more, if it aired during Starblazers - you have an entire audience (and likely attendee) pool, guaranteed to be watching.

Do you recall how well the mini-cons were attended? I know this wouldn't be a ballroom-sized event like showings are now or anything, but I am curious, that early on, were the showings popular enough and enough of a draw to have a few show up, full seating, or even to some needing to stand?
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by SteveH »

Guyver I wrote:Thanks for the insight!

That makes sense, that a local UHF wouldn't be charging all that much. And even more, if it aired during Starblazers - you have an entire audience (and likely attendee) pool, guaranteed to be watching.

Do you recall how well the mini-cons were attended? I know this wouldn't be a ballroom-sized event like showings are now or anything, but I am curious, that early on, were the showings popular enough and enough of a draw to have a few show up, full seating, or even to some needing to stand?
Hm. I wish I could sit down with Dave or someone and sketch out, storyboard if you will, what I'm trying to explain here. It was a COMPLETELY different era, a different environment, compared to what people are used to post 1990s. It was the era of the small local/regional Science Fiction nee general media convention. A con like Capricon in Chicago might have attendance in the thousands (but single digit. Like 5k tops.) while BabelCon had much more modest goals. I know it took us our second year to break 500, I think we eventually hit like 1,200 or so and leveled off for some time. It was enough to pay the bills.


The Holiday Inn I had picked was right next to a major shopping mall and walking distance to many different restaurants. Traffic was heavy on the streets but not like freeway level. It was also easily accessible by city bus lines. In the '80s there was plentiful and varied eating choices inside the mall, plus within easy walking distance was the Funway Freeway arcade and the UA Movies at Woodland three-screen theater. I felt this was an ideal location for a media convention.

But the ONE thing I quickly learned, this was a hotel with minimal function space. When I picked the hotel I thought it would be fine but I learned quickly it just wasn't going to be good enough. (later, when I regained control of the con for the 1985 event I moved us to the Hilton up the road. Less walking access to useful places but much more function space) The Holiday Inn had first floor suites, and some small 'business conference' rooms but the main 'banquet/wedding' area was a 'three partition' spot near the bar/restaurant. It would barely be large enough for most any anime con's 'secondary' video room, and that was where we had the dealers and main programming. I do not miss the fear of rigging rented large projector TVs (the old 'all in one' kind, screen and projector in one unit) onto tables for viewing.

Art show was in a studio/suite, the MicroCon was in a suite. It was mostly grab floor in front of the TV. For all that we had a pretty constant 20 or so (numbers varied due to drift, English dubbed drew more 'casual' watchers) people watching for the entire weekend (occasionally shutting down for meals, swamping out the room and just plain letting the VCR cool down a little) and grooving on both Star Blazers and a wild assortment of then-recent anime (Endless Road SSX episode 4 was a huge hit and requested re-showing!) mixed with full length movies (Galaxy Express, Arcadia of my Youth, Lupin III Mystery of Mamo and so on).

I can't recall the house that year, I was not the guy in charge but I think attendance was over 800. So maybe 20-50 people total over the weekend isn't a huge number but this was for a bunch of multi-gen VHS in raw Japanese, no subs, not even much 'narration' to explain (or mis-explain :) )what's going on. Nobody stood around in a Happi coat clutching a wooden sword (yes I have seen that!) being Official Japan Expert Dude, just folks watching junk and loving it. Like I said, a completely different world compared to now.

When I took my 'Traveling Japanimation Show' on the road to cons near and around Detroit we could get maybe 100 or so people watching. Again, English dubbed drew more eyeballs. 42 pound VCR. Maybe 100 pounds of tapes in milk crates. Cold Michigan winters and no valet cart in sight. Yeah, that's an aspect of the thing I don't miss very much. :)
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Re: Babel Con '82 TV ad -

Post by davemerrill »

imagine, if you will, a time in fandom when the largest events might have cracked 5,000 attendees (1982 Worldcon &, San Diego Comic Con did 5000) and the country's only home for nerd events were regional comic-cons, Star Trek shows, Creation events, and literary science fiction conventions.

My 80s experience was spent at Atlanta Fantasy Fair, which topped out in the mid 80s at around 5K, at the Atlanta Star Trek con Dixie-Trek (maxed out at 2K), the Chattanooga literary SF show Chattacon (maxed out at 2K in the early 90s), or smaller shows like MOC, which also maxed out in the low thousands.

The conventions were smaller, you'd see a lot of the same people wandering the halls, the community all kind of knew each other, vaguely. It was easy to show up with a VCR and some tapes and show anime out of a hotel room and get people wandering in and out of your room all night, and if you could sell it to the con organizers they might give you some time in the video room to show anime, or a table for your anime club. There was a crew of Blake's 7 fans, a crew of Dr. Who fans, at least three different groups of Trek fans, and the anime fans soon congealed into their own little crew.

The comic cons weren't as room-party friendly, but the SF cons had that tradition, and other conventions would throw parties to promote their conventions, fan clubs would throw room parties, pretty much any excuse for beer and pretzels and nerds gabbing. If you were, as I was, a teenager who wanted to get his drink on and talk to the only girls in three states who shared even a few of your interests, this was where it was at, baby.

By the late 80s, every con had at least two vendors selling bootleg anime tapes and you'd have people coming from all over to buy their yearly fix of anime in the dealer's room. There were whole circles of anime fans who we didn't know, who had their own connections for anime, who were building their own networks. Of course by the mid 90s we had our own conventions.

(excerpted from my upcoming book "Look At That Cheese Bounce: Drunk At Chattacon")
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