Loe Wolf convention

[stardragon]

I've been to many different conventions. I've been to Star Trek conventions, Photon conventions, Jem conventions, horror conventions, and many renaissance faires too. I was thinking of the possibility of having a Lone Wolf convention where Lone Wolf fans can gather and dress up as their favorite characters and if possible, to have special guests as well such as Joe Dever and anybody else who was monumental in the creation and distribution of Lone Wolf.

[asapiens]

Is our community that even that big? Outside of you guys, I know one person who used to read them. Of course, lone wolf doesn't really come up a lot in my work... But, hey, maybe I'm wrong and there's a huge loyal fan base outside my realm of reality. I would love to go to something like that.

[Draugohtar]

Any stats on where we all live?

A local/continental meet-up would be a good start

[Nym90]

The books were pretty big sellers in the 1980s and 1990s. The main Lone Wolf wikipedia page cites sales figures of over 10 million total, and an average of 250,000 copies for each of the 20 books of the original series. So in theory there's a large fanbase available.

[lacroix]

I'm in Australia, so don't think it likely I'd make it to the UK for such an event (but sounds awesome).

Maybe expand it to gamebooks generally?

[zorkraan]

Our German friends have already a kind of LW convention, i.e. the Manticon organized by Mantikore in Summer in the lovely Heppenheim castle. This is in fact a convention dedicated to all the universes published by Mantikore Verlag, but all the German LW fans meet there every year, as well as a few Austrian, Luxembourger and French like me. Joe Dever, Gary Chalk, Alberto Dal Lago are often invited, and I've even had several years ago the huge privilege to gamemaster LWMPG sessions with Joe and Gary themselves .

Such an universal convention of LW fans, with all the players of the LW universe, would really delight me. Authors, like of course Joe Dever himself, but also John Grant, Ian Page, The Oiseau and August Hahn, illustrators, such as Gary Chalk, Alberto Dal Lago, Rich Longmore and Francesco Mattioli, authors of videogames like Samuele Perseo and the publishers in each country like Cubicle 7, Askfageln, Mantikore, Megara Entertainment, Scriptarium and so on, that would be a dream come true !

[stardragon]

Its been a few years since I started this thread but Im back now and after reading through the responses I would like to say this. I am from the Pennsylvania and New Jersey area so if I were to host a convention it would be in that area, or one of the neighboring states. Lone Wolf might not have a fan base anywhere the size of LOTR or Harry Potter or Starwars or Star Trek but it does have a fan base, its got a cult following. Even Jem And The Holograms, a cartoon series of the mid to late 80s has a cult following and enough of a fan base to host annual conventions throughout the USA and Canada. I would say the Lone Wolf fan base should be as big as the Jem fan base. So hopefully it should work out if enough work is put into it.

[rhygar]

Sorry stardragon, I only see obstacles!
The Lone Wolf fans on these boards seem fairly scattered all over the world.
Gamebooks can still be big enough to get people together but it takes a bit of work – the Fighting Fantasy Fests have run twice now and been successful - but then you’ve got Jonathan Green organising it together with Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone plus a number of the artists and other writers attending.. and also relaunches of some of the original books. Can Lone Wolf do this? I don’t know.
The biggest and saddest thing of all is that Joe Dever is lost to us.... with him around one was still possible but I have my doubts about one without him. Likewise Brian Williams.
Perhaps the best to be aimed for would be a stand at a tabletop gaming show like Dragonmeet, a Games Expo, or Salute whether refighting something like the Battle of Cetza or the attack on the Kai Monastery; or else a role-playing session.

[Zipp]

A while back I got into serious talks with someone about throwing a convention like this and we ran into a lot of problems and ultimately scrapped the idea. The main issues were this:

1. Location. The fans are really spread out over the world. It's not mainstream enough that you can pick a location just anywhere and have a decent turn out. Which leads to the second problem...

2. Finances. Financing a convention is a lot of expense. Most of us couldn't front the bill for renting a space, let alone enticing authors to come and paying for any transportation costs for them. Most conventions make their money back by charging ticket admission and by charging vendors to rent spaces for selling of their product, which leads to the third problem...

3. A lack of products and a lack of celebrities. Ultimately, while conventions may seem to run on fan fuel alone, they really attract fans because those fans either want to (a) meet their heores, or (b) buy merchandise related to their hobby. And unfortunately, Lone Wolf is rather limited on both fronts. Joe Dever was the sole author of the series and with his passing it is difficult to find other celebrities associated with the series. Gary Chalk is a big name, but not enough to sell a whole convention. Then too there is the problem of product: the books have a trouble printing history and getting merchandise to sell at the venue would prove difficult. Then there is a serious lack of third-party items, like board games, plushies, replica swords and costumes, etc. In recent years we have more third party products than before, but not enough to sell a convention.

At this point, your best bet would be to hold a convention for gamebooks in general, maybe even try to roll in pen and paper RPGs, and attach Lone Wolf as a small table in the vendor section and a panel at an inconspicious time on the final Sunday of the con.

[stardragon]

Oct 22, 2018 21:24:17 GMT rhygar said:

The biggest and saddest thing of all is that Joe Dever is lost to us.... with him around one was still possible but I have my doubts about one without him. Likewise Brian Williams.
Perhaps the best to be aimed for would be a stand at a tabletop gaming show like Dragonmeet, a Games Expo, or Salute whether refighting something like the Battle of Cetza or the attack on the Kai Monastery; or else a role-playing session.

Yes I recently learned that Joe Dever had died back in 2016 and Im really depressed. Such a genius. I would just about put him at the same level as Tolkien. Too bad his works aren't as appreciated.