The Other Sandy

For those of you who have read my con reports before, this will not be one of my obsessively detailed ones. For one thing, I'm still sick (have been since last Wednesday). For another thing, Supernatural fandom exhaustively documents fandom goings on like no other fandom I've ever been in. I have no doubt that the entire con will be up on YouTube by the time I finish typing this. I'll just hit the highlights. Meanwhile, try to find the YouTube vids of the main panel of the day. I really can't do it justice.

The original plan was for Jared and Misha to each do a half hour alone and to also do a half hour together. Creation kept telling us that Jensen wasn't scheduled to do a panel, but did anyone really think he was going to fly across the country just for autographs and photo ops? If nothing else, I didn't think he'd be able to resist the temptation to screw with Misha and/or Jared while they were on stage. I was right. :-)

( Misha Collins )

( Misha Collins and Jared Padalecki )

( Misha Collins, Jared Padalecki, and Jensen Ackles )

( Brock Kelly )

Shout-outs to agt_spooky, asyouleft, daneffew, seesmooshrun, zazreil, and Jeanne the LJ-less. It was nice to see you all again. Sorry if I gave any of you the plague.

Sorry the report is late. I didn't get home until after midnight and my brain was fried. David Hewlett's autograph session lasted over 4 hours because he insisted on talking to everyone and personalizing every autograph even though Creation told him not to. I was #502 in line.

I had a convention first this weekend, which is saying something because I've been going to cons for 26 years. The button on my jeans separated into its 2 component parts during the first panel and fell off. Since I wasn't staying at the hotel (I only live about 25 minutes away) and had nothing else to change into, I had to hunt up a hotel maintenance man and borrow his pliers to put my pants back together. I'm sure that's a story that will be retold in the maintenance department for some time to come.

But on to the part you actually care about: the panels.

( Joe Flanigan & David Hewlett )

( Dan Shea )

( Michael Shanks )

After Michael's panel, I waited 4 hours for David Hewlett's autograph. Michael started slightly after David and finished his whole line while David was on Row J. David was reading his personalizations out loud as he was signing, and it was like listening to a stand-up routine. I asked him how sorry he was that he'd ever introduced Joe to Twitter and he said he regretted it every second.

Then I went home and fell on my face and slept for 11 hours. I remember when I used to be able to do a whole con weekend on minimal sleep and food. Apparently I need to start acting my age.

Oh, and there won't be a report on Sunday because I only attended the con on Friday and Saturday.

I've been wondering why Creation has been all "Check out our awesome new con hotel for 2010!" for the Chicago Stargate and Supernatural cons. There was an article in the newspaper today about the Wyndham O'Hare going out of business. They'll be closing their doors for good by January 1st.

I've been to at least 5 cons at that hotel.

Once again, the general admission tickets sold out before I even knew they were on sale, so for the second year in a row, I owe somebody else for being able to come. asyouleft managed to score a gold ticket from someone right before the con and sold me her general admission ticket on Friday night. Yay! This is the first year I was able to attend more than one day of the con.

( Richard Speight )

( Aldis Hodge )

( Jim Beaver )

( Misha Collins )

Wow, that turned out so tl;dr I'm not even sure I would read the whole thing. And this was only Saturday. Stay tuned for the Sunday report.

It's so sad to see the Stargate fandom kind of waning. SG-1 and Atlantis have both been canceled, and there hasn't been a lot of enthusiasm for Universe that I've seen so far (when we were asked twice from the stage yesterday if we were looking forward to Universe, there was only a tiny pocket of tepid applause in response). The attendance at this con isn't even close to matching the attendance at Creation's Supernatural cons, where even the one day general admission tickets sell out. For this con, even the autograph and photo op tickets didn't sell out for any of the guests.

( Read more... )

There won't be a Day 2 report because I'm not at the con today, but I will be there tomorrow and taking plenty of notes.

I just got back from Jensen and Jared's panels at the Creation con in Chicago. It was exactly what I'd hoped it would be like. The two of them are adorable individually, but together they achieve critical mass on adorableness.

I didn't even decide to go to the con until last night. I've had really bad luck with guests I want to see having to cancel at the last minute, so I waited until I heard on LJ and Yahoo!Groups that Jensen and Jared had actually arrived at the hotel before committing (I only live 10 minutes away from the con hotel). That meant I had to buy my ticket this morning at the door. When I got there at 7:45 a.m., the ticket line stretched down one hall, turned a corner, down another hall, turned a corner, down another hall, turned a corner, down another hall, turned a corner, then went 2/3 of the way up a flight of stairs. I was hoping to get to the front of the line before I retired, but I will say this about Creation--they have registration down to a science. I was out of the line with my wristband on within 20 minutes. \0/

The dealer room looked fairly big until you realized that most of the tables were selling the same things, namely Creation licensed merchandise. There was also some Steve Carlson merchandise (CDs and T-shirts) and some vendors selling things from other fandoms (Buffy, Angel, and Smallville, which are the other fandoms showcased at this con, but other fandoms too). I wasn't going to buy anything, but they debuted some new T-shirts this weekend that were actually nice for a change. I got one of Sam and one of Sam & Dean.

Fan songvids ran in the ballroom right before the Q&A, which I mostly didn't get to see because people kept milling about in the aisles. Gary Berman, one of the founders of Creation Entertainment, warmed up the crowd by asking if everybody had seen Jensen and Jared in the photo ops yet. "Are they even more beautiful in person? I'm attracted to them, in a very manly way." I'm creeped out by you, Gary, in a very fanly way. Gary is a little too 'circus ringmaster' for me.

And now for the part you actually care about: Jensen and Jared each did an individual Q&A for half an hour, followed by half an hour of both of them on stage together. They were giving each other crap right out of the gate.

( Jensen )

( Jared )

( Jensen & Jared )

I really wanted to see Jared and Jensen on stage at the same time just once while the show was still in production and they were still close friends, and it was totally worth it. I had a great time.

Personally, I think Creation Entertainment sucks more than I can possibly tell you and I never, ever want to go to one of their conventions ever again. Ever. However, if they're going to book a con with Jared Padalecki as a guest and hold it 10 minutes from my apartment, what's a girl to do?

I know he'll probably cancel. He canceled the last Chicago horror con, and Joe Flanigan canceled the Chicago Stargate con before that (Creation gets a lot of guest cancellations), so I refuse to buy tickets in advance. With the con only 10 minutes away, I'll take my chances and wait until he's absolutely confirmed before I show up.