Summer of Sonic

On Saturday, August 9th, the biggest annual Sonic the Hedgehog-related fan event in the UK took place, with your humble scribe being one of the many attendees.

The event was organised by the Sonic Stadium (www.sonicstadium.org), and it was full of hedgehog-y goodness, it was free, and it had cakes (which were also free).

Upon finding my way to London’s Dragon Hall (www.dragonhall.org.uk) and making my way inside, I was immediately struck by how many people/fans/sad bastards (delete as applicable, bearing in mind I count as all three) were packed into such a tiny area.





It seems there are loads of committed Sonic fans still out there, despite the best efforts of Sega and Sonic Team to demoralise us with were-hogs, big swords and Shadow the Hedgehog.

Apart from the cakes, there were also photo-ops with Sonic (guy in suit, not the real one) and Dr. Robotnik (girl in suit strangely, and, yes, I refuse to call him ‘Eggman’), a drawing competition, some memorabilia, music, and obviously a few games.

I considered attempting a go at the drawing competition as I used to do a mean Metal Sonic, but was frankly intimidated by some of fantastic artwork being knocked out left right and centre.

Plus, I couldn’t get a seat, as all the chairs at the table seemed occupied by artists who seemed to have been there all morning, judging by their superb drawings.





The music was ongoing - hits from the Sonic back catalogue of course. Sonic and the Secret Rings with the Green Hill Zone music in the background somehow made the whole game about 100 per cent better.

There was even a crowd sing-a-long to Sonic Adventure 2’s ‘Live and Learn,’ something I’d never ever thought I’d see.

Everyone was very nice of course, all intermingling and chatting away – we’re all friends under Sonic fandom (unless we start talking about Sonic & The Black Knight), and all equally sad.

I do have one big criticism of the event though, and that’s the almost total absence of playable Sonic games, which you’d would think would be a pivotal part of the whole shebang.





Not counting the occasional DS being whipped out here and there, there were four games. One was the special appearance of the upcoming Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (which you can read about here), which only had one measly DS stand to play it on – consequently the queue stayed quite long all day.

Besides that there was:

• The aforementioned Sonic & The Secret Rings which despite all my efforts I just couldn’t get a go on, although I did instruct a few kids on how to actually play it.
• Sonic 2, which was fixed on Emerald Hill Zone Act 1 because the Guinness Book of Records wanted to see if anyone could get the fastest time ever. I didn’t even try.
• Sonic Adventure 2 Battle which was the focus of a big multiplayer race-off between about six teenagers. The winner? The one wearing the Mario shirt!

Incidentally, that last game was unavailable to play for just a quick bit of fun, and was replaced by Sonic 3, which went straight into the repetitive race mode and most people still couldn’t get near it.

So apart from one DS and one Wii, there were no games to play if you just wanted a quick laugh.

I was expecting loads of head-to-head battles with many consoles and TVs, the lack of which was really disappointing.





In the end, I only actually played Sonic Chronicles. I spent less time playing Sonic-themed games at the event than I did on the bus ride over, which has to be wrong.

It was fun, but next time I’d like to see more actual Sonic games please. The cakes were nice though.

Chris Capel