Article: Summit

Each year, CollectionDX readers and fans of Japanese toys in general get together in an epic event we call the Summit!

2008 was the year that I started taking CDX, and the summit, seriously. Egged on by Dan I decided to host the summit at my place that year, and attempted to make it a big event. I think some people bemoaned the idea of putting the event on Facebook and expanding our audience, but in the long run it worked out OK.

I ended up renting tables for the first time, and I rented too many, making the summit look a bit desolate, despite having our largest turnout yet. The specter of rain loomed ominously forcing us to move trade fodder into my already crowded garage.

Lots of new faces showed up that year, some would go on to be regular CDX contributors.

Highlights of that year:

– Numerous giveaways, which were totally not targeted to that crowd. Sponsors sent a lot of stuff, and the crowd reaction was “meh”. I think this was the last time I did a raffle.
– Matt Doughty spending almost the entire summit in my garage, building a powered suit out of first generation Glyos figures.

The 2007 summit was held at Sanjeev’s house in Braintree MA, and was the first one we had “sponsored” (meaning companies sent out toys to be raffled off). Turnout started to increase with some people I didn’t know in person for the first time.

Things of note:

– Jason’s 6′ Gundam makes another appearance
– Matt from Onell Design makes his first appearance
– Bob Eggleton (Godzilla Artist) makes his first and only appearance
– Jason’s custom Gekiganger III Jumbo makes it’s first of many appearances. Remember when making custom Machinders was a thing?
– There are no tables, so everyone trades on the ground.
– Dave brought a box of mini-carnival machinders.
– Roger brought porn.
– Mazinger Ring Toss

Video

The 2006 summit is where shit got real. Dave, Sanjeev, Mason and I all went down to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania to Mark’s house for the summit that year. It was one hell of a trip. There’s a pretty thorough write-up that year on the site, but I’ll go over what I remember as the highlights:

– Fat Acceptance Convention at the hotel we booked ourselves at
– Sanjeev’s irrational fear of little people
– Scrapple.
– Mark’s amazing home theatre
– Roller Derby girls crashing the summit
– Gamera breaking the speed limit

As we entered the video age, I captured the summit on video, including us doing a MST3K style riffing over the Japanese version of Spiderman.

The summit still stayed about the same size as previous years, not including roller derby girls.

The 2005 Summit was held at Mason’s house in Maynard, Massachusetts. Turnout was about the same, and Mason debuted his gourmet burgers which would become a staple at these events.

Highlights from 2005:

– Jake unveiled his full-back Grendizer tattoo line art, therefore out-nerding all of us. We’d see the progress over the coming summits.
– Jake also brought homemade screen printed Gamera art for all of us.
– Sanjeev made his debut appearance.
– Roger, unable to attend, sends goodie bags.

Photos are here

One thing I noticed while reminiscing about these past years is how small they were compared to my memory. How far we’ve come…

Less than ONE WEEK until the 2013 East Coast Summit!