HasCon Brand Experiences

hasconLast Weekend Hasbro completed their first ever ‘FANmily’ event Hascon; a celebration of all of the Hasbro brands. The con was held at the Rhode Island Convention Center and the Dunkin Donuts Arena in Providence Rhode Island and featured a floor full of Hasbro properties and experiences including exclusives, panels, meet and greets, Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons tournaments, artists and even concerts all rolled into the ticket price.

Fans of Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons intermingled with Star Wars, Transformers, and even My Little Pony fandoms to create an interesting event. Hi-Def Ninja was able to attend both Friday and Saturday of the show and I’ll be providing an inside look at all of the happenings around the event.

This article will focus on the main show floor which featured the branded Hasbro properties but be sure to check out my other coverage on other exhibitors and one more on the panels and concerts from the weekend. The floor itself was very spread out and each brand of Hasbro was given a large footprint to work with. The aisles were very spread out so unlike other conventions other attendees were not on top of you whacking you with their bags or strollers.
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Autobot’s Roll Out!

Transformers
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The first thing fans encountered when entering the show floor was the Transformers area. This area featured a huge Optimus Prime as well as some vehicles including BumbleBee in his older Chevrolet Camaro form as well as Barricade and Frenzy. The area also featured movie props, a case of classic Transformers as well as prototypes and new and upcoming figures throughout their product lines. An electronic station with some games and activations as well as a scavenger hunt for a set of nice art cards rounded out the experience in this area. Revealed at the con in the Power of the Primes line were all five dinobots!

Finally throughout the weekend the Hasbro stage featured signings from many relevant Transformers names including Chris Mowry from IDW, Stan Bush the singer-songwriter from the 1986 animated movie soundtrack, and the amazing duo of Peter Cullen and Frank Welker the voices of Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively.


Marvel
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The Marvel brand area was full of interesting items. Display cases featured costumes from some of our favorite characters including Thor, Spider-Man, Peter Quill, Captain America, and Black Panther. A diorama previously seen at SDCC was brought out for the show but with more space it was much easier to appreciate all the little details that went into it. The area also featured a prototyping station where you could watch the process that goes into creating the figures. Revealed that weekend was a first look at all of the Black Panther merchandise as well as Marvel Legends figures based of the 90’s Apocalypse run with a classic looking Wolverine in his  blue and yellow suit, Psylocke, and Storm with Apocalypse being the build a figure in the series.

The stage area which was shared with Star Wars also featured mini-costume contests and a signing from Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn.

Star Wars
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Much like the other brands Star Wars had a nice presence with multiple product lines and activations. The booth space showed off products from the New Last Jedi Figures in both 3 and 6-Inch scale. Black Series figures were out in abundance including a look at a Poe Dameron and a Finn in some First Order officer garb. Again Hasbro reused a diorama from SDCC but it was still a really nice display to see again. Another display featured all of the Forces of Destiny figures and a build your own lightsaber area let you experiment with their blade builders line.

They even has a full sized Luke Landspeeder signed by cast members and a replica Emperor Palpatine throne chair you could sit in and get a photo-op.


Dungeons and Dragons
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A property that usually gets less press at the big comic conventions Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) had a nice display of product including their newest expansion Tomb of Annihilation as well as some classic pieces of D&D history. A photo-op with a troll and a free 20 sided plush die rounded out the experience in this area. Scattered throughout the convention were also statues and other D&D related props.

That however is not to say that was all for D&D. The real part was actually playing the game. D&D hosted a number of daily events from 2 hour starter sessions to a 5 hour intense campaign to even a 10 hour two day campaign that was either an add-on to your ticket or as part of a D&D VIP package. The gameplay was held in rooms on another level of the convention center away from the crowds and Hasbro even had Dungeon Masters who had just learned the expansion days before the convention.

Magic the Gathering
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Another property that at conventions usually doesn’t get a lot of attention except for the SDCC exclusive sets. Magic the Gathering (MtG) also had a lot going on in their branded area including learn to play demos for beginners, some nice statues, and a huge area for their online game Magic: The Gathering Arena which allowed you to play against others online, the mechanics of which are like playing the card game with some animations. That said I found it very entertaining to demo the game.

Also like D&D the real meat of the weekend for Magic players was the tournaments held throughout the weekend. Hasbro also had a few MtG artists (Aleksi Briclot, Chris Rahn, Scott Murphy, Tyler Jacobson, and Victor Adame Minguez) in the tournament area who were on hand signing autographs and selling original art.

Nerf
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Nerf had probably the largest space of all of Hasbro’s properties but they needed it with all those darts flying. Probably one of the most fun experiences they had a huge pit where you could outfit yourself with a blaster and shoot at some other like-minded people. A big modular building area let you design your own Nerf gun and some targets let you play with all of the Nerf blasters.

For me though the highlight was a display of Deadpool Rival guns and a Boba Fett blaster.
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G.I. Joe had some amazing movie props and costumes along with displays of figures throughout the years

Dropmix
Dropmix is an upcoming game developed by Harmonix creators of Rock Band. The game uses cards that are placed on top of a game board that is connected to a mobile device via an app. Each card can have a part of a song such as drums, guitar, or vocals. By combining cards onto the game board the game will mix each component of the song and create a unique sound.


Other Hasbro brands and Licenses

BeyBlade
A competitive spinning top game

Disney
On display were costumes from Beauty and the Beast and Descendants 2 along with products from Moana and Disney Princess

Hasbro Gaming

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Dreamworks Trolls

Hana Zuki

Littlest Pet Shop

My Little Pony

Play-Doh
Play-Doh was letting children play with as much modeling clay as they wanted. They even let you create your own figure and upload it to an app and play with your own creation in the game.

Play-Doh also created hand prints of all the celebrities on hand, which I found really cool. Photos below Courtesy Hasbro

What would a convention be without exclusives and while it was not on the scale of SDCC Hasbro did have a few exclusives for sale including some leftover SDCC exclusives. Transformers had two exclusives a Arcee and Ultra Magnus Generations figure and a Optimus Prime transforming power bank. My Little Pony had a box with a plush figure, a t-shir, and some other goodies as well as a Dungeon and Dragons co-branded Dice Set. Magic the Gathering had a 3 card set with co-branded cards. And finally a Star Wars Black Series Captain Rex.

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Finally if you have stuck around this long what would a con be without a little cosplay!
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Thanks for sticking around for this super long but hopefully super fun article look at HasCon. Here’s hoping to a second year for this show!

About the author

Media Journalist | Michael loves all things pop culture and has an opinion about everything whether you ask for it or not. Michael collects steelbooks, posters, convention exclusives, LEGO, Transformers, and everything in between.