The time has finally come to announce the venue of this year’s Summer of Sonic convention. We’re sorry to have kept you – we wanted to make sure that everything was just right before we confirmed anything for you. I can now happily reveal that the Summer of Sonic 2012 will take place in the Hove Centre, at Hove Town Hall, Brighton.
That’s right, the Summer of Sonic is hitting the beautiful British seaside! Hove Centre is easily accessible from Brighton Train Station, which is just a simple hour‘s train journey from London Victoria or London Bridge stations within the UK capital city.
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The Hove Centre
This year will be a landmark for the Summer of Sonic, as we host our fifth convention – and what better place to celebrate one of the biggest events of the Sonic summer than at the great British seaside? With London holding its own summer celebrations this year, the Hove Centre seemed a perfect fit for Summer of Sonic.
What really impressed us about the Hove Centre is the 870-person capacity, the interior design and the facilities it has:
- A sizeable community hall allows us to maintain the same friendly atmosphere that we have carried with past conventions.
- Projector, Stage and Lighting equipment means we can put on a heck of a show for you.
- A balcony area is included that can fit a maximum of 150 people, and features seating overlooking the show floor. This will be open to attendees.
- Both floors of the venue feature bars that will offer drinks (and maybe food..? You’ll have to wait and see) without leaving the hall.
- And yes, there will be air conditioning. And we didn’t have to sell any children to get it either!
What does all of this mean? It means that we will be able to stage an extra-special, more exclusive Summer of Sonic convention for our fifth anniversary! Over the next few weeks we will be publishing tonnes of information that will help you with your travel arrangements to Brighton from London, and beyond. Until then, however, make sure you book your train travel, hotel rooms and any other necessary amenities around the Brighton area.
We’ve answered some questions about the choice of location and further information below. Please ensure you read them. If you have a question that’s not answered here, feel free to ask in the comments area below.
Why Brighton?
The decision to host Summer of Sonic 2012 in Brighton was one made by the online Sonic community and volunteer staff. We previously mentioned why we could not host Summer of Sonic 2012 in London - so an alternative outside of the UK capital city had to be chosen.
There were many cities and towns outside of London that we considered – including Birmingham and the NEC centre that is based there. However, we decided Brighton was the best choice on the basis of three core tenets – international access, an appropriate venue and hotel availability. Plus it’s a proper summer holiday seaside town!
We know a lot of people travel from abroad to attend Summer of Sonic, so ease of travel was one of the biggest concerns. Brighton is, despite its location on the UK map, the easiest location to get to out of the choices we considered, with coach services that run from Gatwick and trains that speed through London. There are a huge amount of hotels on the Brighton seafront, too.
Oh yes, there’s a seafront. And it’s a pretty beautiful seaside at that! The perfect location to host an intimate Sonic party (Emerald Coast, anyone?).
In short – being in Brighton allows us to give you the most awesome day with fellow Sonic fans, at a price you can’t really argue with (free is a pretty cool entrance fee), for a location that will only require a slight tweak to your travel plans.
What if I’ve already booked hotels and travel to London?
Nothing changes. In fact, it’s probably better if you have already made arrangements for London – Brighton is incredibly easy to travel to via train. It takes an hour to get to Brighton from London Victoria station. Booking your tickets in advance via thetrainline.com can make the return journey for the day as cheap as £10.
If you’re from overseas and were planning to spend a vacation in London, we recommend that you keep any London hotel bookings you have and simply order a £10 return from Victoria to Brighton. This way, you can spend the day on Saturday 7th in beautiful Brighton without it impacting the rest of your vacation.
Can you help me book my travel to / hotels in Brighton?
We’re working on a comprehensive travel document that will detail everything you need to know about Brighton – including hotels, travel information to and from London and all major airports, how to get to the venue from Brighton station, and nearby shops/landmarks that you can visit if you plan to make a weekend out of it.
When will tickets be made available, and how many will there be?
The first wave of tickets will be made available on this website in a week’s time – Sunday 13th May at 12:00 BST (03:00 US Pacific, 06:00 US Eastern, 20:00 Japan Standard Time). There will be 400 tickets available. A second wave of tickets will be announced shortly after, with a number yet to be decided. Tickets will be free.
What else have you got to tell us?
Yes – believe it or not, we’re not yet done with the announcements for this week. Stay tuned – tomorrow we will officially reveal the first of many special guests that will be attending Summer of Sonic 2012! Can we give you a clue? … Nah! We like to watch you guess!
Cheers
Svend / Dreadknux
I can’t wait, thanks for all the hard work in planning everything. See you all at the event.
We’re all going on a…summer holiday!!!!! :D:D:D
Damn… I’m going to be at work when the first wave of tickets goes out =( Good to hear venue details though!
Same here >_<
Awesome, never been to Brighton before. Will you soon be saying what time the day starts so we know what time train to be getting from London? Cheers, guys and thanks for the update!
That’s a very, very good point Ellie!
Time! We’ll be announcing this soon, most likely
next week as we firm up our schedule for the day.
Now to plan everything.
dam im on holiday when the tickets go up to and i was really hoping to go this year hopefully i can still get tickets in the second wave
Thank chaos it’s being held in Brighton! Make’s travel so much easier that having to get to Birmingham! The only question I have is how we will obtain said ticket. Will it be done in house through the website or done through a ticketing supplier?
Could possibly be the most awkward place for someone from the north east to get too. Maybe next time have it in the middle of the country? But i still should be attending if things go right, i wouldnt miss it for the world
Train to London, train to Brighton. It’s not awkward.
As some one from the North West it is actually, total journey by train is going to take 5 hours (4 trains), and cost £151.05 per person. We would need to be at the station at 5.26am to make it in time to get some decent time at the event. We will also need to now stay over as cant make the return journey in the same day.
SOS Team – This is not a dig at you guys, I appriciate the work you do, and that it must of been hard to secure a venue. I am just gutted as I promised my son that we would come back this year, but I just think that we wont be able to afford the trip (we had originaly agreed lifts and accomodation with family in London)hope all goes well, fingers crossed we see you next year :’(
Good to hear you’re up for it! Think of it as a Sonic Adventure!
3 hour drive or 3 hour train journey. Petrol will probbly be £50…train is currently about £30…I gots some thinking to do…
Not impressed. Already got travel and accommodation in London.
Hi Katzil. Remember, you can always book a very cheap train from any of the two London train stations mentioned and take a simple hour’s journey into Brighton. This will not affect your booking in London at all!
Very cheap train? That could cost about £28 return per person. It’s certainly an extra for people who will be flying into the UK, with London rates for hotels already paid.
From London, it’s about £10 if you book early. I believe other conventions also ask for payment before letting you in.
Some conventions do and some don’t although I have said that SoS is good enough to pay for.
@Bradley.
It doesn’t cost anywhere near that. London to Brighton last time I checked is barely £5 per ticket if you pick a specific tain to travel on.
I got that price directly from National Rail.co.uk for an offpeak return train from London Charing Cross to Brighton. Yes some special offers may be running for limited times, but it’s likely people will be handing over £28 per person.
@bradley
How do you think I got mine? National rail tickets. From either Victoria or London bridge is only £3.30.
True enough, but it’s already been expensive enough to get to London in the first place, so it was a bit of an expense I could have done without. It’ll be an hour and a half travel by the time I get from Kings Cross to either of the stations and having to get back to the hotel means I’ll probably have to miss out on the after-party, too. I had to leave early last year since I could only make a day trip and part of making a long weekend would be so I wouldn’t have to miss out.
I guess my personal bit of feedback on this would be to suggest to maybe start planning this a bit earlier in the year and to not make firm statements like “this will take place in London” or “we are looking into places within jumping distance from Central London, so don’t worry if you’ve made arrangements”. I know there are people finding it difficult getting accommodation in Brighton for a decent price so they’re not going this year.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure to have a great time and I know you guys have done your absolute best – I can’t fault you in that respect. Just a bit more notice in future (knowing the venue three or four months prior would be grand), since some of us have to travel from the far reaches of the country to get to Summer of Sonic.
Also, thanks to Dreadknux for very diplomatically answering me on the Facebook page. I’m hoping I’ve not come across as being nasty or anything, and I hope you don’t get any worse backlash from the news, because I’ll put my hands up and admit that my frustration has come across as being a bit selfish. I went last year and you guys did a bang-up job of keeping the atmosphere jumping despite the heat, so I’m anticipating this year greatly!
You’re very welcome! More than happy to explain things in detail to clear things up (well, as much as we are able to explain, that is).
Should be ok, just an extra hours travel time to the hour it would take to get to London, plus Ive always wanted to go to Brighton
That venue is insane… wow.
What’s the best time to get a train from Sheffield if I’m going to be able to get to the start of Summer of Sonic?
i already had a look because i live in moorthorpe, and theres a link http://ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/timesandfares/SHF/Brighton/today/2100/dep
Nice! Just a few questions…
What time of the day will it start?
How long would it take me to get there? (Washington… UK)
And, how do we obtain le tickets? Yes, you give them in waves on the site… but HOW do we obtain them, as in, will it be digital, or actual, holdable tickets?
I guess per previous years, an e-ticket you have to print off with a barcode.
Barcode gets scanned at the door, wrist band/ticket is given to you there.
^ This. They’ll be self-printed tickets.
We’re currently deciding how exactly to handle it – we have to be more careful as the turn-up-at-the-door option is no longer available – so I can’t give much more information. The basic plan is essentially the same as the last few years, though.
Oh, excellent! I’m (hopefully) going, look forward to see everybody there!
Excited dosente even come close
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This is absolutely perfect! I was a little concerned about the non-London location, but Brighton is fantastic
Oh I do love to be beside the seaside!
Excellent news
Brighton is only 30-45 minutes away on the train from
where I live…EASTBOURNE so it will be closer to home so the
travel will be cheaper 
Thank you for making my day with this excellent news
Dreadknux 
Just up the road from me this year.
To all the people who have complained because they already booked accomodation and travel – seriously? You booked yourself into an event you weren’t 100% on the location for and even paid for travel already? Before you’ve even acquired a guaranteed spot/ticket?
Brought it on yourselves a little bit, I’m afraid. :V
We were told in previous entries that it would be NEAR Central London, and some of us actually have a way to travel to get there which isn’t cheap, so we have to work around that.
So no, we haven’t “brought it on ourselves a little bit :V”, actually.
Nice one dude. Now – what about the afterparty? You think that’ll be in Brighton or back in London? My hotel will depend on it <3
Awesome, wonderful choice for the venue guys. Also, I don’t think anyone would begrudge you if you did charge for admission!
I Love Brighton!!! Great place to be. A real holiday then!
Birmingham would have been easier for me as I live there XD
But Brighton eh…never been there before. It will be an adventure!
Can’t wait! I just hope I don’t get lost!
Awesome that venue looks great, and fingers crossed for air condition!!
Also, fingers crossed for no planned engineering works to Brighton!
Sounds like a great venue and location, good choice. Plus it means I don’t have to travel to London and spend ages on the tube. London takes 2 hours to get to, but there’s another hour plus sitting on trains and walking. Getting to the venue in Brighton in the car will take about 2 and half hours which is better for me.
This is just amazing! now i REALLY Can’t Wait! now i have to make the cosplay ready!
It’s time to party!
Brighton! Awesome! Never been. Hehe. Might b a good two hour train journey but heck, this WILL be worth it… I know you guys will make it great wherever it is!
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Is there anywhere I park a car nearby?
Interesting, not in London this time. Makes sense considering the capitial will be hella busy come SOS’12. I’m glad the tickets are opening on Sunday as I won’t be at work.
I live locally. WTF happens at a sonic convention anyway? If it sounds any good i may go.
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na I can’t go this year…looks like I have to wait till next year..=[
thanks Olympics for ruining mine and my boyfriends holiday…=[
I wish we could come but it will take hours and cost too much so I’ll wait till next year, sorry SOS. =[
SO super excited that it is going to be beside the seaside instead of a busy city! Perfect venue. So excited to come over from Ireland again!
Hi all
Will it be possible to have 4 tickets ? Or will they be dispatch one by one ?
I will bring my 2 boys and wife , they are asking me every day since 1 year lol
We’ll have a system for family ticketing.
Super
I know 2 guys already anxious to get theyre ticket
See you
Thank you dreadknux u bloody legend!!! =D
My original plan of action was to get the bus from Belfast on Friday evening, and arrive at London the following morning at 9:15. Now its moved to Brighton, is there any complications about arriving late as I will?
There shouldn’t be any problem. Last year tickets were good until 1pm, and they should be good throughout the day this year. With that timing, you’ll likely miss the welcome event (or arrive halfway through it), but not like that’s a major part of the day.
im been looking for head/owner of summer of sonic 2012 i cant find email, can anyone give me email? you have no idea how hard it is, to find owner/head of summer of sonic X_X help!
cant wait to go there and see my awesome closest friend!
Opening time will be a big factor in wether I go this year or not. I won’t get to Brighton until 10am, and then you can expect a 1 1/2 – 2 hour wait to get in. I only have the one day booked off as the rest of my work holidays are saved for my wedding in August, so I can;t even book a hotel.
We’re currently doing all we can to speed up entry because we know it’s tough to wait in a queue. We do also have some very tentative plans for making queuing less of a pain, though I don’t have a clue if they’re feasible yet.
And, errrm… how do we get there from Suffolk? ^^;
I’m coming from Suffolk, and i’m simply getting a train to London and from there a train to Brighton.
The Venue this year is insane. Might make a long weekend of it (Friday-Monday) since i’m coming from Manchester.
This has just caused more problems due to train travel. Its great to have SOS in a different place this year but its so far away now! Why is the event not in London like it has been in the past?
P.S spelling mistake in my own interwebs name -_-….
We hear you. The decision to move from London was taken fairly late on in the planning, which is why the confusion was there on the site. Simply put, we found it incredibly hard to find a suitable venue in London – we find it hard every year in fact, it’s possibly the hardest part of preparing for the event. Various issues including, of course, the Olympics on the horizon, made it even more difficult and forced us to look further afield.
This is a very important question for when the ticket application comes online next Sunday, I will be at work at the time so therefore I’ll have to rely on my father to signup on my behalf while im at work, Hes not a PC user, in fact im the only PC user in the house so this is about the form that we signup on the site, what questions will be asked on the form So i know what to ask my dad to type in? Will it be just name and email? Would there also be a checkbox for terms and conditions or will that be a seperate page like it was last year. I need to know this as my dad will not have a clue and I need to tell him exactly what to put in and what needs clicking on. I work every sunday lunch and cant actually get time off as im the only employee that does the job I do basically =( and sundays our busiest Day.
We’re currently deciding the format of the signup page, so I can’t say much, but at its core it will be the same system used in the last few years.
We’ll have a post on this site a day or two beforehand explaining how the system works, so hopefully it should be clear by Sunday.
Looking & reading about the venue above I just gonna say this: “Sonic Fun Under the Sun!”
kinda disappointed as this will not be cheap to travel to no matter what, and the fact that the tickets will be started when im right in the middle of my work shift.
got a lot to think about,
The venue looks really nice! I can understand why it’s held outside of London this year since travel would be a nightmare due to the Olympic crowds. Brighton is a nice change of pace, and I’m happy to get away from the maddening crowds that will be in London this year anyway.
I can understand not being London due to the Olympics being here this year but how am I supposed to get to BRIGHTON from LEEDS. I would have to pay even MORE then what I would to go to London and I would also have to get 2 trains.
Sorry guys, but im defiantly not coming this year, Brighton is just too far and expensive for me. And I was so excited to go too :’(
I can understand that feeling, and indeed Brighton is a tougher place to get to. Consider though that a lot of the staff live even further afield – I’m in Newcastle, some are in Scotland – have to arrive on Friday for setup, and don’t have much money themselves.
On top of that, some of us are heading down there in the near future to plan out where we want to put things. I’ll be spending 14 hours on a coach to do that because I can’t afford to take the train, but I’m happy to do it because it helps so much to see the place first-hand and I get to hang out with my SoS buddies for the day.
At the end of the day, if you want something enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen.
Yippee Brighton – well Hove actually! Ab so lute ly can not wait! Praying I get a ticket this year as queued for hours last year
Will there be an attended cloakroom where you can leave your stuff, instead of having to carry it around all day when fighting your way through the masses?
Whether to come by car or train… depends on the price of the ticket!
AT LAST!!!!! I cant wait now, I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!! Thanks for all these updates I am getting m,ore and more hyper!!!!!! XD XD XD Great location choice too!
There had better be Chilli Dogs. I MEAN IT.
I’m surprised no one’s made any guesses about the first special guest yet. I’m guessing it’s going to be Jun Senoue.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
You’ll be finding out very soon
I live in Wembley, but there’s no such thing as far away when it comes to the Summer of Sonic!
I’m planning how to get there, what time I need to wake up and everything this instant!!
Glad to hear it!
It will be a brilliant day to be a Sonic fan!
Bit annoyed that it’s an extra hour to my journey but then complaining about travel times seems dumb considering some attendees come from America, Canada, Austrailia, etc.
Surprised the venue only holds 870 people (or is that 1020 including the balcony?). I thought over 1000 people came last year. Are you expecting fewer people this year? Why?
We wanted to accommodate more, for sure, but various circumstances this year made this impossible. 870 is still a very large number for what is essentially a community event held by fans, for fans. It’s very difficult finding venues with space for more than 1000 people as it is, and if we kept looking for larger venues every year we’d end up having to deal with a catastrophically high budget!
Over 1000 people showed up last year, but then again we had a very relaxed approach to entry (getting tickets guaranteed entry, but if there was room non-ticket holders could wander in on the day). This year we are controlling it, so that only those with tickets will be allowed in. It will eliminate long queues as well, as there is only one queue to process, and it will make things less confusing for attendees.
YES! It’s coming to Brighton!
I live literally only a few minutes away from Brighton.
I’m so excited!! ^^
Brighton is rather a long way but I will defently be there, can’t wait
Darn, my dad’s gonna have to wake me up alot earlier now
but it sure is definitly worth it! 
really glad to hear when the tickets come out!
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me and my bro loved summer of sonic 2010 and 2011′s we will try to get to this one, even though it might cost alot on travel lol but we’ve never been to brighton and we could see this day as a summer holiday too.
WHAT?! brighton?! that’s too far. i’m sorry but i just can’t get there. i just can’t. unless it’s going to be london next year, i can’t get there this year
oh another question.. when will it open? just asking xD
no one haven’t give me email of head/owner of sumemr of sonic yet xD i really need to talk to that owner so badly!
will there be a link to book the tickets from when the first wave are issued?
YAY BRIGHTON!!! I haven’t been there for what feels like ages. I still can’t wait =D
Oh my-
In which case I may actually be able to go, I’m visiting friends in Exeter at the time.
…The werehog is finished this time I swear.
Two Aussie-roos have already booked accommodation for Fri & Sat. We’ll swim to Brighton from downunda, it’ll be a world record!
I’ll be waiting at Brighton holding your official Record certficate, a Towel, a Pint and the directions to Summer of Sonic Elson!
Oh hell yeah! my hometown!! i always wished crush 40 to come to my hometown.. never EVER thought it would happen!!!
It will be a bit of a pain to get there (I live in the Northwest) but I’ve figered out what to do and I can wait to go. :3
on sunday 13th…how do we get tickets? is there a telephone number we need to call or do we apply online? we waited in line last year to get in…
There’ll be a site where you put your info in. We’ll have full info about how it works on this site in the near future.
Funny, I almost went to Brighton two years ago after the convention, but opted for Bath instead. Isn’t there a ferry calling out of Brighton for France, or is that down the coast in another town. I don’t know If I will be able to travel abroad this summer, looks like I won’t be able to get the time off from work, but we’ll see how it goes.
Just thought id post here too, if your traveling from london to brighton, you can get the train to hove station (right around th corner from the venue..literally 5 min walk) and its the same price as to brighton station
Where are you seeing these same prices? I’ve just looked and it’s £20 more!
Oh derp, didn’t look at the single tickets, hahahah.
This is a dream come true. I live in Portslade, Hove is just down the road… I could walk there if I wanted.
I’m so happy, thank you guys so much!
How long will the event be held for?
this is going to be a really special SoS for me, being as its my first and hopefully not last, also im really excited to see crush 40, i just need to know, roughly how difficult is it to secure tickets?
Could you please post some of the gory details NOW that are needed for pre-planning? Like, when will the event start (doors opening), when will it end, will there be a pre-SoS party on the day before the event (and if yes, where and when exactly), and if there will be a cloakroom where you can leave stuff (3rd time I’m asking this)…?
There never has been an official pre-SoS party, it’s usually just a bunch of friends meeting up and having a few drinks – very informal.
Traveling from “Sunny” Bournemouth to “Sunny” Brighton.
I think you picked the wrong seaside town.
I live in Brighton.
This just made
My day
I don’t have a printer, nor does any of my family members. Is that going to be a problem for me?
Where do we register? I see no link! ^^;
just out or curiosity where will the tickets be given out on the website
Hmm… As much as I hate to admit it, I might have to give it a miss this year – I imagine the travelling will be a bit harder than anticipated, especially changing at London with the olympics going on and I would probably have to stay overnight, which I don’t really have the money for. Might save up and splash out on next year – I assume there will be an SoS 2013 ^^ That said, I’ll do some research and cross my fingers.
THIS IS PERFECT!!!! i was worried about travelling to london from my gran’s but brighton is only an hour bus journey away!