How it Started - Feb 2020

In February 2020, on the allspark.com transformers news site, it was reported that Karl Hartman announced via Facebook the widely known transformer convention BotCon (once ran and owned by FunPub) would be making it's return and relaunch back into the world. 

(click to view announcement)

The forum went on to chatter and converse about the joy and trepidation of the returning Botcon. You can read about it HERE.

The allspark.com website went on to announce that they would be hosting Botcon chatter on their forum, and in the frustration between fans on the forum on the announcement and between the ranks of the moderating staff... where they disagreed, several threads were locked and unlocked. And in the end, the upset between the staff itself, several members of the staff resigned. They published a very public letter.

(which you can read or download here)

Pete Sinclair, former employee (head of PR) of FunPub, who aided in running the previous era of BotCon, went on the forum and published a message, that was received with mixed responses. But mostly met with fans bringing up problems with the previous iteration of the convention and airing their grievances about racist comments Pete allegedly made online from both personal and Botcon accounts in the past. And then some current posts from his personal account since the convention wrapped up in 2016.

Although it is lengthly, to get context on how things start to fair a year later, its worth the read if you can take the time to sift through the broader strokes and of course the words from Pete himself.

Needless to say BotCon itself and all social media platforms made no official announcement of who would be running the new show and fans were left for over a year to wonder, ponder, and stew on what the next version of BotCon would be like and IF Pete was involved at all. Many assumed that because Pete was the only one talking and defending the convention and was the loudest one to do so, that it confirmed the convention was going to be run mostly by him.

Until April/May 2021.