GoGaDoll 2009: Golden Gate BJD Expo – San Francisco–June 19-21

I am pleased to announce the new name and shiny new website of THE San Francisco BJD convention, GoGaDoll -- The Golden Gate Ball-jointed Doll Expo. GoGaDoll is put on by most of the same volunteer BJD-collector staff who brought you Dollectable and will be at the same wonderful hotel, The Holiday Inn Golden Gateway. Next year’s dates will be June 19-21, 2009 and…

Registration is now open!


We listened to all the feedback we got for this year’s convention and have made a few exciting changes:

• We moved the convention forward by a month to try to avoid the July con crunch.

• Friday evening is now not just a cocktail party, but will also be the Opening Ceremony. Attendees will get to meet our Guests of Honor and have their first chance at winning some fabulous prizes. Since Friday will be a much more inclusive event than last year's, we have changed our registration and pricing structure a bit. Not only have we made it easier for more people to attend the cocktail party, but also not to charge people for a whole weekend if they can't make it on Friday. Because of space limitations, Friday evening is only open to 250 attendees, so be sure to register early if you don’t want to miss out on this fun event!

• Saturday morning will be all about shopping! There will be no programming until noon, so as not to distract attendees from the opening of the Vendors Hall.

• Sunday will be a slightly longer day to include a bit more programming, including some special events that will be announced soon.

• There will be a Lounge for attendees to be able to catch up with their friends from around the country, relax after hours of shopping and try on all the fun new stuff for their kids.

• We have a lot of exciting, new programming planned – watch this thread and the website for announcements – plus a number of old favorites, including the Swap Meet, Contests and Spa Night! In general though, we’re going to try to lighten up the schedule a bit, so that you’ll have more time to enjoy all the great events the con has to offer.

We were able to negotiate the same great rate with the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway as we had last year, only $149 a night, and also reserved a few more double rooms than before. You can go here to book your hotel reservations online or can call 415-441-4000 or 866-272-7098 and reference Group Rate SDL. The rates cover June 16-23, 2009, which is good for those of you who want to have a few extra days to visit the city. We have contracted 200 room nights and the reservation cut-off date is May 28, 2009, so when the rooms run out or that date -- whichever comes first -- the special rates will end, so be sure to reserve early to make sure that you don't miss out.


If you have any questions, please check our website for contact information for specific departments or feel free to email me at [email protected]

We can’t wait to see you all at GoGaDoll 2009!

Kelly


First Guest of Honor: Charles Stephan of Charles’ Creature Cabinet

Charles Stephan made a surprise visit to our convention in 2008, but even though he wasn’t specifically scheduled for any programs, he proved to be such a popular attendee that we asked him back next year to be one of our Guests of Honor. Charles is the designer of the adorable little pig anthro, Elfdoll’s Alice Cherry Blossom, and recently started his own BJD company, Charles’ Creature Cabinet, featuring the whimsical Woodlings. Charles will be involved in several not-to-be-missed programs at GoGaDoll, including an exclusive talk with the designer and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.

Discussion thread is here. As always, please no chatting in the News.^_^

 

We decided to have a Holiday Special, since we know that this time of year is tough for everyone, so until December 31, 2008, registration is $10 off for adults (half price for children 6-12). So, for the full convention, including the Friday evening Opening Ceremony and Cocktail Party, registration is only $65 ($32.50 for kids) and for just the weekend, Saturday and Sunday, it's $50 ($25 for kids). Remember, attendance on Friday is limited, so be sure to register early to guarantee your spot!

Click here for the GoGaDoll Registration Page.

 

I'm sorry that I didn't post this sooner, but you can go here to book your hotel reservations online or call 415-441-4000 or 866-272-7098 and refer to group rate code SDL. The rates cover June 16-23, 2009, which is good for those of you who want to have a few extra days to visit the city. We have contracted 200 room nights and once those run out, so do the rates, so be sure to reserve early to make sure that you don't miss out.

And a reminder to everyone -- just one more week of the holiday special, so be sure to register soon!

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

 

Essentially, yes. Please see the full explanation in the discussion thread.

 

The theme for the Costume Contest, Cocktail Party and a special event on Sunday afternoon is...

Weddings -- San Francisco Style

Did you know that Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio were married at San Francisco's beautiful City Hall? Not to mention the other historic weddings that have happened in the city. San Francisco is a city of romance and since the convention is in June, what better time to celebrate marriage in the city of love. However, there's no reason to limit yourself to just the City by the Bay for ideas for the costume contest or even your own outfits for the cocktail party. Weddings can mean everything from the Bride of Frankenstein to Shotgun Wedding, so let your imagination run wild!

 

GoGaDoll is pleased to welcome Hyunjeong Lee, also known as Pan on DoA, and Kyungmin Lee, the owner and designer of Peak's Wood dolls, as our newest Guests of Honor to the convention. Not only has Peak's Wood been offering beautiful and unique dolls for five years, but they have also recently done two popular collaborations with Haute Doll, DollHeart and Val Zeitler, the Marie Antoinette and Halloween collections.
The Peak's Wood philosophy is best expressed in Pan's own words:

" The Peak's Woods company was built on a dream of love for BJD in 2004, and the concept for their dolls is that they are each fairies. Peak's Woods' SD size dolls are called 'fairies of color' (FOC), and there are also 'fairies of bugs' (FOB) that are MSD sized dolls: each doll has its own symbolic color or bug. Peak's Woods meets doll lover's expectations and requests with strict principles and pride: everyone is truly welcome to Peak's Woods."
​

We are very excited to have Pan and Ms. Lee at our convention and hope that all Peak's Wood fans will give them a warm welcome!

 

Just a reminder that to take advantage of the excellent $149 a night room rate at the convention hotel, Holiday Inn Golden Gateway, you need to reserve by May 28th. Reserving at the hotel not only saves you a lot of money and puts you in the center of all the BJD action, it also helps the convention. We are contracted to fill 160 rooms, but are only at 100 now. If we don't fill those other 60 rooms, we have to pay for the empty ones. Only 30 of you have to book rooms for two nights of the convention to help us out, so please consider booking soon! Keep in mind that attendees staying in the hotel get to enter the Vendors Hall an hour early at 9am on Saturday just by showing their hotel card key, so by staying at the hotel, you also get first chance at all the great stuff the vendors will have!

To make your reservation, you can go here to book your hotel reservations online or call 415-441-4000 or 866-272-7098 and refer to group rate code SDL. The rates cover June 16-23, 2009, which is good for those of you who want to have a few extra days to visit the city.

 

Last week, I posted about how the special $149 room hotel room rate ends on May 28th and how important it is for us to fill 60 more room nights by that date. While we can't thank the few people who reserved since then enough, we are still seriously behind on reservations. To illustrate the seriousness of our current situation, if we do not fill 55 more room nights in a week, we could be responsible for up to $15,000 to pay for the unfilled hotel rooms. This would pretty much make it impossible for us to ever have a convention again, which would be sad for everyone.

So, in a last minute attempt to stimulate more hotel room reservation, we are offering a special for the next week of free admission for one person to the entire convention if you reserve for two nights at the hotel. This admission will include the cocktail party on Friday night and all the fun and prizes for the rest of the weekend. To take advantage of this offer, please register for the full convention as usual and then make your hotel reservation. Then forward your hotel reservation confirmation to me via email ([email protected]) and I will refund one convention registration to you.

We cannot thank enough the people who have had faith in us already and have paid for admission to the convention and reseved hotel rooms. While we cannot offer to refund admissions to all those who have registered before this week and are staying in the hotel, we would like to offer you a coupon for one free admission to next year's convention. To receive the coupon, please bring your hotel key to the registration desk at any time during the convention and we will issue you a coupon and check you off of our list as having received one.

If you have reserved a hotel room already, please call the hotel (866-272-7098) to confirm that you have done so under the special "SDL" code so that your room will be applied to our totals.

Again, thank you, everyone for supporting GoGaDoll. We're looking forwarding to having a great con even in these tough financial times!

Hotel reservation info: you can go here to book your hotel reservations online or call 415-441-4000 or 866-272-7098 and refer to group rate code SDL. The rates cover June 16-23, 2009, which is good for those of you who want to have a few extra days to visit the city.

 

Parking information:

Our regular overnight parking rate for hotel guests is $36.00 plus tax and daytime event attendee is $20.00 per day. However, base on the contract, we are offering a special parking rates as $32.00 plus tax for overnight and $14.00 for daytime attendees per day.

Our packing system has changed and we now have the automated parking system. Instead of giving you the parking stickers, we will provide an encoder near the registration area. This encoder will be programmed for the day time parking rate and attendees just need to validate their tickets from it. Once they have the validation, we have two automated pay stations in the lobby by the front desk area. Please note that once they pay at the stations, they only have 30 minutes to exit the garage.

Just getting a validation from the encoder, they can get the validation anytime. Until they pay at the stations, they do not have that 30 minutes time limit. It is actually good idea to encourage the participants to get that validation as early as possible, so they can avoid the traffic getting that validation at last minutes.

For over night parking, they need to inform that at the front desk upon check in. They will provide a separate card key for the garage and the daily rate will be charged to each guest room accordingly.