It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us. I suppose we’ve all been doing what (hopefully) you all are – enjoying these holidays.

This time of the year causes me to reflect on the community of people we all know and love, who share our passion and our interests. It is because of these people, it is because of you, that we as a convention exist and because of your dedication and your spirit we are not, in my mind, just a group of people with a shared interest – but a community.

Every year due to events such as ours throughout the year, I’m happy to say I meet more and more wonderful people who I consider to be friends. For many of your I know this is similarly the case.

So now it’s Christmas and while reflecting on all we have, I’m grateful to each and everyone of you for helping foster this good hearted community that is open, welcoming and encouraging.

I want to on behalf of myself and the entire team behind SMASH! wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. However you choose to celebrate this time of the year, I hope that you have a safe and relaxing break and can enjoy it with those closest to you.

Hey SMASHketeers,

Have you ever wanted to help run an anime convention? Are you a student interested in event management, design, hospitality, human resources, publicity and promotion or marketing? Are you brimming with lots of crazy new ideas that you think everyone should enjoy and experience?

Whatever the case may be, in a few days we will be opening the doors so that you can apply online to fill any role at SMASH! There are a lot of jobs to suit you depending on your interests and you can select as many or as few as you like. Unless otherwise specified, no experience is necessary. We appreciate many of you will be doing this for fun and to get experience. We want to make 2010 better, bigger and bolder and to do that we want to hear from you and get a whole new wealth of experience and ideas.

All roles are voluntary and unpaid. All applicants must be available for the dates selected for SMASH! 2010 when they are decided. All applicants must be aged 17 or over by Jan 1, 2010.

A trio of SMASH! staff are braving the spring heat of Brisbane for GenCon 2009. If you’re in town, drop by and say Hi at the SMASH! booth. And if they seem at all bleary eyed and madly dashing about, it’s because they’re busy running a host of anime events, including cosplay and karaoke.

Gencon starts this Friday the 18th, and continues with merry gusto through to Sunday, with a sprawling array of exhibitors and events covering video games, miniatures, RPG, tabletop games and more. Gencon also welcomes special guests Robert Picardo (Stargate and Star Trek Voyager), Kate Vernon (Battlestar Galactica) and Sam Witwer (Smallville, The Mist and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed) as well as authors and games developers who will speak on topics of interest to the ever-growing gaming community.

Hit up the Gencon website to find out more: www.genconoz.com

Please contact events@smash.org.au when possible.

Registration for the Madman Cosplay Competition will be open on the Saturday and Sunday of SMASH! 2009 on a first come first serve basis. There are limited places left.

You must bring a picture of your character and a progress picture of the creation of your costume on a usb/cd or as a printout. If you cannot provide a progress picture you will not be eligible to win the Best Cosplay award in the competition. If you don’t have a photo you can still be in the running for Best Skit, Best Group and the Judge’s Award. Registration will close at 12:00pm each day.

To register, just head down to the Cosplay Registration Desk in the Cosplay Room.

To read the Cosplay rules please click here.
For a sample registration please click here.

On 7 April 1979, Japanese viewers were introduced to Mobile Suit Gundam on TV. Though the series was not very popular at first, the model kits later released by Bandai increased the show’s popularity such that the re-runs drew higher ratings than the original run managed. This sudden rise in popularity led to the TV series being turned into a re-drawn, re-animated movie trilogy that is considered by some to be the true beginning of the Gundam legend. What followed after were many sequels, side stories, video games, manga, books, MORE model kits, and even a magazine named after characters who possess spatial awareness – “Newtype”.

Throughout the years, Gundam has firmly rooted itself as a pop culture icon in Japan, various Asian countries, and has now found its way into Western countries such as Australia and America. SMASH! will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Gundam with the Hobbyco Gundam Workshop as well as screenings of past and present Gundam shows. See you there!

Pre-registration closes today! Have you got your tickets? What? No?! Perhaps I need to run through this one more time…

SMASH! 2009 is almost here.

That means Cuson Lo and Rósek and over 50 local and interstate artists are almost here.

The Hobbyco Gundam workshop is almost here. Our craft workshops are almost here. Art, cosplay, games and general panels are almost here. The Cosplay Comp is almost here. Manga Idol and Maid Café are almost here.

Anime Excess, DJ Cosplay, Gifts for the Geek, Good Games, Hondarake, Kings Comics, Kiseki, Madman Entertainment, Manga Arts, Mike’s BBQ, Miss Pixie, OzTaku, Paris Café, Pinin, Rabu Rabu, Rock Salt, Siamese Twins, Syoku Samurai, Tamarket, Transreality, Wacom, Voodoo Baby and X-seven are almost here.

ITG, Mario Kart, Rock Band, Street Fighter 4, StepMania and Super Smash Bros Brawl are almost here. Ubisoft is almost here.

The AMV, digital art, dollfie photography, doodling, envelope art, fanfic, karaoke, traditional art and trivia contests are almost here. Animania, Animavericks, Autobase Australia, Eminence, OzFormers and Supanova are almost here. AnimeMQ, AnimeUNSW, Anime@UTS, JAUWS and SUAnime are almost here.

And your tickets? Buy them now and, well, you’re almost here.

The event schedule and floorplan for SMASH 2009 is out now. Check out when all our events are on and start planning your weekend at SMASH! There is just so much to see and do! To see our schedule and work out where all our stuff is, click the thumbnail

Things you should definitely check out:

• The Hobbyco Gundam workshop
• Ubisoft and all their game previews
• Guest artist demonstrations from Rosek and Cuson Lo
• Manga Idol and Wacom’s doodle competition
• Madman Cosplay Competition
• Australian premier of the Deltora Quest anime
• Maid Cafe

I cannot tell you how disappointing it is to write this. It’s disappointing because I talked to a lot of you about this at Supanova. It’s disappointing because I saw you talking about it on forum threads across the web. It’s disappointing because we could feel the buzz this had.

Today we found out that Shaun Healey cannot come to SMASH! 2009. We were incredibly disappointed to hear this. We believed everything was locked in and had booked Shaun’s flight and his hotel and, more importantly, had put him on our poster. Unfortunately, for business reasons Shaun is no longer able to attend.

We know SMASH! is going to be great this year. We are incredibly lucky to have guests of the calibre of Cuson Lo or Rósek who are on their way to Sydney and we know that they are going to blow you away. We are incredibly lucky to have supporters like Madman, WACOM, Siren, Kiseki, Hobbyco and Supanova not to mention all our artists, clubs, panellists, vendors and volunteers. And, most importantly, you. We know you are going to kick ass.

As much as we know you’ll love this year there’s no getting around how much this sucks. We’re sorry for the sudden change and hope you’ll still have a fantastic time.

We love video games at SMASH! and so we’re really excited to announce that Ubisoft is coming to SMASH! this year. That’s right. THE Ubisoft. And they’re bringing with them a bunch of cool games for you to see!

We’re calling their section Testing Grounds because these are games you won’t find anywhere else (unless you went to Supanova). Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny, Star Ocean: The Last Hope and TMNT: Smash-Up.

When it comes to these four I know the one I’m most looking forward to is Turtles! (It’s called SMASH-Up!) What about you? What are you looking forward to playing?