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jainaMoving on to cons that actually happened *this* year, here's the first three days of San Diego Comic-Con 2009 in excruciating detail.
Wednesday
After watching the clock tick sloooooowly toward 5:30, I finally got out of work and hoofed it down to the convention center. It was already pretty crazy crowded and I had a bit of a tough time finding the badge pickup line, but once I got in line it wasn’t really that bad. Maybe a half-hour wait? It was pretty annoying after I got my badge, though—they sent us all the way around the backside of the convention center, around Ballroom 20, and then down the escalators by Hall H. It was hot (AC didn’t seem to be working yet) and I was pretty irritated.
Anyhow, I fought my way onto the floor and found the LFL pavilion, where Rogue met me with my exhibitor’s badge. We said hi to Mary and to Christine, who gave us fans and buttons. The fans were a genius idea, especially since it was so hot on the floor. We didn’t stay much longer after that; it was just too hot and too crowded, and I’d already had a long day at work. We did see Nichoel and Bree, but no one else. So that was Wednesday for us—get badges, go home, eat, work on Masq stuff, sleep.
Thursday
Thursday was the first of many cheerleader days. I drove downtown early(ish) since we’d planned a Rebel cheerleader photoshoot on the backside of the convention center. However, security wasn’t letting anyone anywhere near the back of the convention center, as I discovered when I oh-so-cleverly wound my way through the Marriott and across to the back, hoping to avoid the crowds. GRRRR. I could see another Rebel cheerleader having the opposite problem—she was way at the top of the CC, and couldn’t get down to the meeting spot. I couldn’t tell for sure at the time, but we figured out later that it was probably![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
phavorianne. The loading dock staff took pity and let me into the exhibit hall, so I didn’t have to walk all the way back around the CC (which is what “security,” and I use the term loosely, wanted me to do).
I figured the best solution was probably to go find the RL table on the mezzanine and see if anyone was there. Matt was, in his oh-so-dashing boy cheerleader outfit. I finally got ahold of Kathy and we decided to scrap the earlier photoshoot and just meet at the LFL stage at 10:30, as we had previously planned. All us Rebels eventually made it down there—there were six of us—and we ended up getting interviewed for G4, which was kinda weird. We didn’t have any cheers planned or anything, so we went with the old “Give me an R!” standby.wendyhouse says we actually made it on the air, at least for a little. Then we had our half-hour on the stage and took a bunch of pictures of just us, then a bunch more with any passerby who wanted a picture.
After our stage time was up, we went to make Honorary Cheerleader presentations to Catherine Taber, the voice of Padme in the Clone Wars, and Katie Cook, a SW artist. Both were very surprised and happy to receive their plaques and pompoms. J We did a “2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate?” for both of them. On the way to Katie, who was in Artist’s Alley, we stopped by the Heroes booth to take pictures with their cheerleaders, and stopped again to take pictures at the Stargate as if we were running out of it onto a football field. ;-) That was fun!
After Katie’s presentation, everyone went off to do their own thing. I had planned to sit quietly somewhere for a few minutes, then change into my Sith cheerleader and go back to the LFL pavilion to start my shift. But instead I spotted a girl wearing a midriff version of Leia’s ceremonial dress that was still properly constructed in the sleeves and bodice, which I thought was hilarious. I stopped to offer my compliments, and it turned out to be FenigDurak, aka Leah, whose costumes I’ve admired for years but never actually met. We ended up talking for ages! Hopefully I wasn’t too annoying. ;-) But eventually I did have to go change and get back to the booth.
There was no shop at the LFL booth this year, so my duties were solely to give away free stuff, like buttons and mini comic books. That’s my favorite booth duty anyway, so yay. Rogue and Dad and Sean showed up around this time, dressed as Indy and Henry and the Grail Knight. Rogue asked Mary what he should do (since he was on booth duty too) and she said, “Get up on the stage and pose for pictures!” So they did. They were crazy popular!
The Sith cheerleader photoshoot was at 3:00, and it went much the same as the Rebel one. Jess, Kathy, and Joan had all changed from their Rebel outfits to their Sith outfits too, so we had lots of people switching sides. ;-) We should have a rumble at D*C or something, although I don’t know which outfit I’d wear. Maybe both at once.
I was off-shift at 4 pm, and I just decided to go home. I was thoroughly tired (from my busy day posing for pictures :-P), I was starving, there weren’t any panels I wanted to see, and I really wanted to make sure all our costume pieces were ready for our Friday rehearsal. I was close to done at that point, but there were still small-but-important things to do like sew the Jafar turban onto its baseball-cap base, taper Mickey’s pants so they looked more like MM and less like a fat guy, sew the M onto Mickey’s shirt, and finish sewing the Velcro onto the flag so it could be hung from Melissa the frame.
On my way out, I passed by the OfficialPix booth, where James Callis, Michael Hogan, and Edward James Olmos were just sitting there waiting for people to approach them for autographs. No line, no anything, just BSG actors, right there. EJO actually had a semicircle of people standing around his table in speechless awe, all too afraid to approach him, and he was welcoming every single one of them up to say hi and shake hands. So I did too! I only said “hi” because I was afraid if I tried for anything more, my inner fangirl would get loose and I’d start blabbering about how Roslin/Adama is the best ship ever. And I didn’t really want to do that. Because that's just embarrassing.
Friday
Sean, Dad, and I slept in, intending to arrive downtown by 11:45 or so. Stupid me, I thought this would be plenty of time to get into the Big Bang Theory panel at 1 pm. Last year most of the TV panels were in smaller rooms, and I’ve almost always been able to walk straight into B20 no matter the panel (excepting that one Lost year, yikes). This year, not so much. We were lucky just to get in line—they cut it off a few dozen people behind us, and let me just stop for a minute and say how idiotic THAT was. Instead of letting people line up, nice and orderly, in the designated spaces outside, a mob formed inside the lobby, waiting for them to open the line back up. It was beyond stupid.
Sooooo, yeah, we waited outside, mostly in the shade, but it was still really hot, and Dad and Sean were dressed as Henry and Indy again, so they had lots of layers. Pretty much everyone in line had taken a picture of them by the time we were done with the line, though. ;-) The line moved slowly while the BSG/Caprica panel was going on, then it moved a lot during the break between BSG/BBT, but it was obvious we weren’t going to make it in. We were still 2 turns from the end of the outside line, then we had the whole inside line to go through. Rogue was super super sweet—he’d been in B20 since that morning to see the SGU and BSG panels, and he came out on a bathroom pass and switched with me so I could see the second half of the BBT panel.
The panel was awesome—it was great to see the cast interacting and being generally adorable with each other. The boys all looked like mountain men, and Simon Helberg especially looked like Wolverine. Apparently they were all under orders not to shave or cut their hair over the summer. Jim Parsons got an exception though, since he was announcing the Emmys. There were lots of hilarious things in the panel, like an audience member asking for a sample of Jim’s DNA on a napkin so he could grow his own Jim Parsons (this makes sense if you’ve seen BBT), another guy telling Kaley she was hot and her reply of “*You’re* hot! Call me!”, and Jim’s explanation of how Sheldon would react to the Emmy nomination, which was so perfectly *Sheldon* even though it was just Jim talking. Also I’d forgotten what Johnny Galecki’s real voice sounds like. I really dislike his fake nasal Leonard voice. But I just love this show and its cast SO MUCH and I’m so glad I got to see some of the panel.
After BBT was 24, and Sean and Rogue joined me in the room. Unfortunately, Dad had gotten extremely tired and hot from standing outside for so long, so he departed the line to find a place to sit down and rest *just* before the line started moving in earnest. Worse, Dad could *see* the line moving, and see Rogue and Sean getting into the room, but he couldn’t go rejoin them in line due to the way security was routing the traffic. :( The 24 panel made very little sense to me, since I’ve only listened to the first season and I think they’re going into season 8 now. But hey, Kiefer Sutherland was there, and so was Katee Sackhoff. Sadly, no one asked Kiefer to yell at them this year. Also, it really looked like one of the ladies in the cast (the one who just had a baby, both IRL and on the show) was *seriously* drunk during the panel. Which you expect at D*C, but not so much at SDCC. Whatever gets her through it, I guess?
Bones was next, and I was SO EXCITED because OMG THE BONES. Rachel (McFortune, notmiana_dude, the one who got me into Bones in the first place by loaning her DVDs) came up and sat with us during the break; she’d gotten into the very back of the room during 24. (When we were in the huge line earlier, waiting to get in, Rogue texted Rachel to tell her to come get in line *right then* if she wanted to have a shot at getting in for Bones.) The panel was supposed to be Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, and Hart Hanson, but David couldn’t come because his wife was late in pregnancy and he didn’t want to be that far away from her, just in case. Which I totally, totally understand, but I was still sad he couldn’t come. Seeing the actors and creative staff interact, especially actors with amazing chemistry, is one of my favorite things about attending panels.
Anyway, they had filmed what was meant to be a short clip of DB apologizing for not being there. But apparently he is impossible to shut up, so the video just kept going and going (not that any of us were complaining!). He predicted what Hart and Emily were going to do during the panel, held his foot up to the camera to show us his socks (he was in costume), and repeatedly said that people were motioning for him to stop, but he was going to keep talking anyway. It was awesome.
Emily and Hart did a very nice job of keeping the panel rolling by their lonesomes. I was sad to hear Hart say that he got so much bad feedback about the finale, because I LOVED it. If you’d asked me a few months ago whether I needed a nightclub AU of one of my favorite shows to exist in my life, I would have looked at you funny and said, “Noooo…” I know better now—I have lost count of the number of times I’ve watched that episode, seriously. So anyway, I was sad that he’d heard so much negativity about it, and I was like WHERE DO I GO TO TELL YOU IT WAS AMAZING. Apparently the answer is Twitter. I should actually figure out how to use that account I signed up for, I guess. *happy sigh* Oh, Bones. How do you be so good?
After Bones, Sean and I met up with Dad, and we stopped by the Masquerade booth so I could pick up our backstage passes and figure out how to get access to the loading dock on Saturday morning in order to unload the Mickey head and the various pieces of Melissa. Then we skedoodled on home, since we were having Masq practice that night and I needed to eat, pack, and finish prepping the rehearsal agenda so that we could get through everything in two hours. Nicole, in her geniusness, had discovered that it was only $100 for us to rent a ballroom at the hotel where she, Kent, and Danica were staying in Mission Valley. Spread among the 16 castmembers, the cost was very reasonable, and we had a secure, quiet, indoor space to practice. They even provided us with a water station. It was pretty much perfect. I drove back downtown to pick up Corli, Bree, and Nichoel, and then out to Hotel Circle so we could unload, mark the stage dimensions on the floor, and get dressed. There was a slight hiccup where the hotel couldn’t decide which room we were supposed to be in, but it was easily cleared up.
This was the first time we’d had everyone in one place to practice the whole skit together, and with 16 people, plus the three ninjas figuring out how to work around us, it was a bit chaotic. We had some new traffic jams to work out (why, why did I put so many formation changes in???), but we were mostly able to solve everything. It was also the first time we’d tried the costume strip all together, in time with the music, although of course we’d all tried it on our own. Some people needed a helping hand from another castmember, because they had a lot of individual pieces to take off or were otherwise hampered (like Kent, who only had one hand because the other was a hook). This resulted in the really excellent visual of Ursula stripping off Captain Hook’s pants.
Anyway, it took us a bit longer than two hours to get through it all, but when we finished, we were pretty confident in our ability to perform the skit smoothly, or at least with only minor issues. It was fun to get to see at least pieces of everyone’s costumes, and to think hey, we’re gonna look pretty good! Nicole gave us all mix CDs she had made for our entry, with themed songs for each movie represented. She and Danica also gave me a sweet card and a really, really awesome retro lipstick that does not rub off EVER. (Seriously, after I wore it the first time and tried to take it off, I ended up looking like a vampire because all I managed to do was smear it a little.)
After we packed up, I drove Corli, Bree, and Nichoel back to their hotel, then went back home, where I went to SLEEP because I was DONE and did not have anything more to sew! WOOOO!!!
Wednesday
After watching the clock tick sloooooowly toward 5:30, I finally got out of work and hoofed it down to the convention center. It was already pretty crazy crowded and I had a bit of a tough time finding the badge pickup line, but once I got in line it wasn’t really that bad. Maybe a half-hour wait? It was pretty annoying after I got my badge, though—they sent us all the way around the backside of the convention center, around Ballroom 20, and then down the escalators by Hall H. It was hot (AC didn’t seem to be working yet) and I was pretty irritated.
Anyhow, I fought my way onto the floor and found the LFL pavilion, where Rogue met me with my exhibitor’s badge. We said hi to Mary and to Christine, who gave us fans and buttons. The fans were a genius idea, especially since it was so hot on the floor. We didn’t stay much longer after that; it was just too hot and too crowded, and I’d already had a long day at work. We did see Nichoel and Bree, but no one else. So that was Wednesday for us—get badges, go home, eat, work on Masq stuff, sleep.
Thursday
Thursday was the first of many cheerleader days. I drove downtown early(ish) since we’d planned a Rebel cheerleader photoshoot on the backside of the convention center. However, security wasn’t letting anyone anywhere near the back of the convention center, as I discovered when I oh-so-cleverly wound my way through the Marriott and across to the back, hoping to avoid the crowds. GRRRR. I could see another Rebel cheerleader having the opposite problem—she was way at the top of the CC, and couldn’t get down to the meeting spot. I couldn’t tell for sure at the time, but we figured out later that it was probably
phavorianne. The loading dock staff took pity and let me into the exhibit hall, so I didn’t have to walk all the way back around the CC (which is what “security,” and I use the term loosely, wanted me to do).I figured the best solution was probably to go find the RL table on the mezzanine and see if anyone was there. Matt was, in his oh-so-dashing boy cheerleader outfit. I finally got ahold of Kathy and we decided to scrap the earlier photoshoot and just meet at the LFL stage at 10:30, as we had previously planned. All us Rebels eventually made it down there—there were six of us—and we ended up getting interviewed for G4, which was kinda weird. We didn’t have any cheers planned or anything, so we went with the old “Give me an R!” standby.
wendyhouse says we actually made it on the air, at least for a little. Then we had our half-hour on the stage and took a bunch of pictures of just us, then a bunch more with any passerby who wanted a picture.After our stage time was up, we went to make Honorary Cheerleader presentations to Catherine Taber, the voice of Padme in the Clone Wars, and Katie Cook, a SW artist. Both were very surprised and happy to receive their plaques and pompoms. J We did a “2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate?” for both of them. On the way to Katie, who was in Artist’s Alley, we stopped by the Heroes booth to take pictures with their cheerleaders, and stopped again to take pictures at the Stargate as if we were running out of it onto a football field. ;-) That was fun!
After Katie’s presentation, everyone went off to do their own thing. I had planned to sit quietly somewhere for a few minutes, then change into my Sith cheerleader and go back to the LFL pavilion to start my shift. But instead I spotted a girl wearing a midriff version of Leia’s ceremonial dress that was still properly constructed in the sleeves and bodice, which I thought was hilarious. I stopped to offer my compliments, and it turned out to be FenigDurak, aka Leah, whose costumes I’ve admired for years but never actually met. We ended up talking for ages! Hopefully I wasn’t too annoying. ;-) But eventually I did have to go change and get back to the booth.
There was no shop at the LFL booth this year, so my duties were solely to give away free stuff, like buttons and mini comic books. That’s my favorite booth duty anyway, so yay. Rogue and Dad and Sean showed up around this time, dressed as Indy and Henry and the Grail Knight. Rogue asked Mary what he should do (since he was on booth duty too) and she said, “Get up on the stage and pose for pictures!” So they did. They were crazy popular!
The Sith cheerleader photoshoot was at 3:00, and it went much the same as the Rebel one. Jess, Kathy, and Joan had all changed from their Rebel outfits to their Sith outfits too, so we had lots of people switching sides. ;-) We should have a rumble at D*C or something, although I don’t know which outfit I’d wear. Maybe both at once.
I was off-shift at 4 pm, and I just decided to go home. I was thoroughly tired (from my busy day posing for pictures :-P), I was starving, there weren’t any panels I wanted to see, and I really wanted to make sure all our costume pieces were ready for our Friday rehearsal. I was close to done at that point, but there were still small-but-important things to do like sew the Jafar turban onto its baseball-cap base, taper Mickey’s pants so they looked more like MM and less like a fat guy, sew the M onto Mickey’s shirt, and finish sewing the Velcro onto the flag so it could be hung from Melissa the frame.
On my way out, I passed by the OfficialPix booth, where James Callis, Michael Hogan, and Edward James Olmos were just sitting there waiting for people to approach them for autographs. No line, no anything, just BSG actors, right there. EJO actually had a semicircle of people standing around his table in speechless awe, all too afraid to approach him, and he was welcoming every single one of them up to say hi and shake hands. So I did too! I only said “hi” because I was afraid if I tried for anything more, my inner fangirl would get loose and I’d start blabbering about how Roslin/Adama is the best ship ever. And I didn’t really want to do that. Because that's just embarrassing.
Friday
Sean, Dad, and I slept in, intending to arrive downtown by 11:45 or so. Stupid me, I thought this would be plenty of time to get into the Big Bang Theory panel at 1 pm. Last year most of the TV panels were in smaller rooms, and I’ve almost always been able to walk straight into B20 no matter the panel (excepting that one Lost year, yikes). This year, not so much. We were lucky just to get in line—they cut it off a few dozen people behind us, and let me just stop for a minute and say how idiotic THAT was. Instead of letting people line up, nice and orderly, in the designated spaces outside, a mob formed inside the lobby, waiting for them to open the line back up. It was beyond stupid.
Sooooo, yeah, we waited outside, mostly in the shade, but it was still really hot, and Dad and Sean were dressed as Henry and Indy again, so they had lots of layers. Pretty much everyone in line had taken a picture of them by the time we were done with the line, though. ;-) The line moved slowly while the BSG/Caprica panel was going on, then it moved a lot during the break between BSG/BBT, but it was obvious we weren’t going to make it in. We were still 2 turns from the end of the outside line, then we had the whole inside line to go through. Rogue was super super sweet—he’d been in B20 since that morning to see the SGU and BSG panels, and he came out on a bathroom pass and switched with me so I could see the second half of the BBT panel.
The panel was awesome—it was great to see the cast interacting and being generally adorable with each other. The boys all looked like mountain men, and Simon Helberg especially looked like Wolverine. Apparently they were all under orders not to shave or cut their hair over the summer. Jim Parsons got an exception though, since he was announcing the Emmys. There were lots of hilarious things in the panel, like an audience member asking for a sample of Jim’s DNA on a napkin so he could grow his own Jim Parsons (this makes sense if you’ve seen BBT), another guy telling Kaley she was hot and her reply of “*You’re* hot! Call me!”, and Jim’s explanation of how Sheldon would react to the Emmy nomination, which was so perfectly *Sheldon* even though it was just Jim talking. Also I’d forgotten what Johnny Galecki’s real voice sounds like. I really dislike his fake nasal Leonard voice. But I just love this show and its cast SO MUCH and I’m so glad I got to see some of the panel.
After BBT was 24, and Sean and Rogue joined me in the room. Unfortunately, Dad had gotten extremely tired and hot from standing outside for so long, so he departed the line to find a place to sit down and rest *just* before the line started moving in earnest. Worse, Dad could *see* the line moving, and see Rogue and Sean getting into the room, but he couldn’t go rejoin them in line due to the way security was routing the traffic. :( The 24 panel made very little sense to me, since I’ve only listened to the first season and I think they’re going into season 8 now. But hey, Kiefer Sutherland was there, and so was Katee Sackhoff. Sadly, no one asked Kiefer to yell at them this year. Also, it really looked like one of the ladies in the cast (the one who just had a baby, both IRL and on the show) was *seriously* drunk during the panel. Which you expect at D*C, but not so much at SDCC. Whatever gets her through it, I guess?
Bones was next, and I was SO EXCITED because OMG THE BONES. Rachel (McFortune, not
miana_dude, the one who got me into Bones in the first place by loaning her DVDs) came up and sat with us during the break; she’d gotten into the very back of the room during 24. (When we were in the huge line earlier, waiting to get in, Rogue texted Rachel to tell her to come get in line *right then* if she wanted to have a shot at getting in for Bones.) The panel was supposed to be Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, and Hart Hanson, but David couldn’t come because his wife was late in pregnancy and he didn’t want to be that far away from her, just in case. Which I totally, totally understand, but I was still sad he couldn’t come. Seeing the actors and creative staff interact, especially actors with amazing chemistry, is one of my favorite things about attending panels.Anyway, they had filmed what was meant to be a short clip of DB apologizing for not being there. But apparently he is impossible to shut up, so the video just kept going and going (not that any of us were complaining!). He predicted what Hart and Emily were going to do during the panel, held his foot up to the camera to show us his socks (he was in costume), and repeatedly said that people were motioning for him to stop, but he was going to keep talking anyway. It was awesome.
Emily and Hart did a very nice job of keeping the panel rolling by their lonesomes. I was sad to hear Hart say that he got so much bad feedback about the finale, because I LOVED it. If you’d asked me a few months ago whether I needed a nightclub AU of one of my favorite shows to exist in my life, I would have looked at you funny and said, “Noooo…” I know better now—I have lost count of the number of times I’ve watched that episode, seriously. So anyway, I was sad that he’d heard so much negativity about it, and I was like WHERE DO I GO TO TELL YOU IT WAS AMAZING. Apparently the answer is Twitter. I should actually figure out how to use that account I signed up for, I guess. *happy sigh* Oh, Bones. How do you be so good?
After Bones, Sean and I met up with Dad, and we stopped by the Masquerade booth so I could pick up our backstage passes and figure out how to get access to the loading dock on Saturday morning in order to unload the Mickey head and the various pieces of Melissa. Then we skedoodled on home, since we were having Masq practice that night and I needed to eat, pack, and finish prepping the rehearsal agenda so that we could get through everything in two hours. Nicole, in her geniusness, had discovered that it was only $100 for us to rent a ballroom at the hotel where she, Kent, and Danica were staying in Mission Valley. Spread among the 16 castmembers, the cost was very reasonable, and we had a secure, quiet, indoor space to practice. They even provided us with a water station. It was pretty much perfect. I drove back downtown to pick up Corli, Bree, and Nichoel, and then out to Hotel Circle so we could unload, mark the stage dimensions on the floor, and get dressed. There was a slight hiccup where the hotel couldn’t decide which room we were supposed to be in, but it was easily cleared up.
This was the first time we’d had everyone in one place to practice the whole skit together, and with 16 people, plus the three ninjas figuring out how to work around us, it was a bit chaotic. We had some new traffic jams to work out (why, why did I put so many formation changes in???), but we were mostly able to solve everything. It was also the first time we’d tried the costume strip all together, in time with the music, although of course we’d all tried it on our own. Some people needed a helping hand from another castmember, because they had a lot of individual pieces to take off or were otherwise hampered (like Kent, who only had one hand because the other was a hook). This resulted in the really excellent visual of Ursula stripping off Captain Hook’s pants.
Anyway, it took us a bit longer than two hours to get through it all, but when we finished, we were pretty confident in our ability to perform the skit smoothly, or at least with only minor issues. It was fun to get to see at least pieces of everyone’s costumes, and to think hey, we’re gonna look pretty good! Nicole gave us all mix CDs she had made for our entry, with themed songs for each movie represented. She and Danica also gave me a sweet card and a really, really awesome retro lipstick that does not rub off EVER. (Seriously, after I wore it the first time and tried to take it off, I ended up looking like a vampire because all I managed to do was smear it a little.)
After we packed up, I drove Corli, Bree, and Nichoel back to their hotel, then went back home, where I went to SLEEP because I was DONE and did not have anything more to sew! WOOOO!!!
