Well, it was a fun old ride. From inception to staging the event itself, this convention has been a real awesome experience for everyone involved. We’re glad those who turned up had a blast seeing all the sights and chatting to fellow Sonic fans! Now that the Summer of Sonic is well and truly over though, this website is going to change into a simple archive of media, collated by organisers and visitors to the event.

We’re still adding stuff all the time, so come back often to see videos, photos and special words from everyone involved. This blog will remain in the background under the blog archives, you can still access our road to the convention using the monthly breakdown in the left hand column.

Oh, and the photos and front-page articles are, for the most part, still commentable, so if you have an account here you can make a remark about the cool stuff that went down on August 9th.

Sayonara, Summer of Sonic 2008. Will there be another one? Ah, that’s something you’ll have to ultimately ask Svend ‘Dreadknux’ Joscelyne…

Lee Brotherton surprised everyone attending the Summer of Sonic convention by presenting us all with a new mix of the theme song to Sonic The Hedgehog on Xbox 360. HIS WORLD (Blue World Prelude) is a slower, more emotional take on the Zebrahead original. You can download it straight from The Sonic Stadium’s media portal.

HIS WORLD - Blue World Prelude ~THEME OF SUMMER OF SONIC 2008~ (TSS Media Portal) - 6.1MB
Right click and select ‘Save As…’

Well, Saturday has come and gone, and the Summer of Sonic was a complete success! Thank you to everyone that came down and participated in the action on the show floor, and a very special thanks to all of our special guests - Richard Jacques, TJ Davis, Nigel Kitching and Lee Brotherton for taking time out of their no-doubt busy weekends to help create an amazing convention!

We will be posting videos, music and photos from hereon in - if you would like to submit your own recorded media, send them to dreadknux@gmail.com along with your name so we can credit you in our galleries. If you have videos you would like us to show, contact B’man from The Sonic Stadium and he will set you up with details that will allow you to upload your high quality videos onto the TSS Media server. Beats having a strange quality video on Youtube.

What did you think of the event? Post your comments here!

You can now connect to http://www.w00ty.com:8000/sos.ogg via your video player (we suggest VLC player) and watch the whole goings on from your computer! See the Watch Live Online page for details on what we will exactly be showing on this live feed. Apologies if the sound is too loud - we are currently running this right next to the amp (the only place we can find!) Enjoy the day with us!

Hey guys! We’re T-Minus 12 Hours till the big event, and we thought we’d give you guys one last pre-convention hurrah. The prizes. There will be several prize packs on offer throughout the whole day. And they all are packed to the brim with all of these awesome goodies! Included we’ve got a total of five Nintendo DS handhelds, two pairs of kid’s size Sonic X shoes, a Sonic Rush promotional standee, truckloads of Sonic and SEGA computer games, and ultra-rarities such as the Japanese NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams Original Soundtrack.

The item of interest that Kevin’s most proud of is the white and blue SEGA-branded laptop bag - something that you can only obtain if you work for SEGA. How cool is that? You can pretend you’re the one working on the latest Sonic game! It’s a better lie than saying your Uncle works there.

If you don’t manage to win one of these prize packs (there will be stage shows, events and even clues that will provide more details tomorrow on winning one), each attendee will get a goodie bag that will contain a couple of SEGA pens, a vinyl sticker, Summer of Sonic T-Shirt, lanyard and keyring (limited to about 200, unfortunately so once they’ve gone…).

In the Games Zone, all players that attempt to time attack Emerald Hill Zone Act 1 on Sonic 2 will get a free copy of the Guinness Book of Records: Gamers’ Edition 2008. Again, we have 150 of these books kindly provided by Guinness World Records, and are subject to availability.

See you tomorrow!

We’ve prepared a page on this website to showcase every little event that’s going to take place at the Summer of Sonic, and at what times (with the exception of Richard Jacques’ live performance, which will be recorded and placed online on this website at a later date given Richard’s all-clear). If you won’t be here at a certain time of the day, do not worry as we will have a bird’s eye view of the action from the crow’s nest - thanks to our online live video broadcasting system. A page will go online soon with a link to connect to the broadcast when it all kicks off tomorrow.

Click here to read the Schedule, and soak it all in. You can print it off too, if you like. You can also reach this page in the header (replacing the ‘I’m There’ link) and in the sidebar.

EDIT: The Richard Jacques performance will not be taking place at 10am. Sorry for the confusion - we purposefully did not publish the exact time when Richard and co will be performing. The Schedule page has been changed to reflect this.

Here are some pictures of the very special, four-tiered birthday cake we have prepared for Sonic the Hedgehog. It will be handed to him towards the end of The Sonic Hour Live - Joanne Wheatley baked and iced the cake all on her own, costing her several days of unnecessary strife we’d wager. As you can see (sorry for the pictures, taken by a mobile phone camera) it’s decorated in the style of the iconic Green Hill Zone, complete with starpost, Piranha, bridge and waterfall. Sonic’s sneakers can be found at the top of the cake.

One half of the cake’s bases is chocolate, and another is regular cake. Just in case you fancy one over the other. We think you’ll agree that this is an incredible homemade cake, and Joanne hopes you like it too:

“I can’t say I’m overly experienced with doing such a big project… with cake. After spending the best part of the week working on it, though I am proud of it, this will always be know as “that F*****g cake!” I hope everyone who has some, enjoys it.”

Obviously there won’t be enough of this lovely cake to go around for everyone, which is why there will be plenty of little cupcakes for attendees to tuck into at the event as well. Bon appetite!

Just a little reminder that you have until midnight tonight (British time) to send your pre-registration emails to our Summer of Sonic staff. If you do not manage to do it in time that’s fine, pre-registration is not a requirement for entry. It just speeds the process up in you getting in.

We are proud to announce today that the Summer of Sonic will be visited by the Guinness World Records team, who will be keeping a close eye on the events throughout the day to see if any high score records are being broken in the Dragon Hall (make sure that’s the only thing you break though!).

In particular, the Games Zone will have a special table dedicated to run-throughs of Emerald Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Sega Mega Drive. Working with Twin Galaxies, the online high-score leaderboards, the Guinness World Records will be present in tallying gamer’s fastest times in both Act 1 and Act 2 of the iconic first Zone. Be sure to practice, and do your best on the day!

The fastest gamers will be on stage from 1.30pm with online gaming website Sonic Cage Dome to face off against one another, for the chance to win an awesome prize pack along with an official Guinness World Records certificate - plus consideration for inclusion into the 2009 Edition of the Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition book!

For the last few days we have been testing and trialling a method of providing live video broadcasts on the Internet for those who unfortunately cannot make the Summer of Sonic convention, due to living too far away or other commitments. Isn’t that great news? Now if you have been getting excited about the event but live all the way in America or Germany or elsewhere, you can simply watch our video feed and see the action unfold throughout the whole day!

On the Summer of Sonic website and The Sonic Stadium, we will be providing a special link for you to access our video feed with on the 9th August. The best program to use in order to watch our upcoming feed is VLC Player - you can download and install the program using the linked text. Then it’s simply a case of opening VLC, hitting ‘File > Open’ and copy-pasting the link into the program.

Actual content has not been decided for our live broadcasts yet; we may simply use this as a tool to showcase the whole hall floor from the crow’s nest throughout the day, and then focus on the main stage during the major events, such as the Q&A session and the Sonic Hour live. Richard’s performance on piano and keyboard is unlikely to be broadcast live, but may be recorded to be watched later on in the evening.

We’ll see all of you - or rather, you’ll see us - on Saturday.