kaaatie: (DH: Armageddon 2008)
[personal profile] kaaatie
SATURDAY: Day 1 of Armageddon

Teasers:


Ummm... what are some adjectives that do it justice? Perfect. Amazing. Awesome. Awesomely awesome. I think you get the picture! Basically, I loved it!

By the end of the day, I was pretty exhausted, so I only wrote a short summary. Allow me to put it here:

Oh wow! Today was amazing! David Hewlett and Kavan Smith were both lovely. David is just so (*refrains from using the word "dreamy"*) great. He’s funny and interesting and so incredibly nice.

*Happy sigh* I met David Hewlett and Kavan Smith!!


Now I’ll try to give more of a blow by blow account. I warn you: this might will get long!

General Stuff about the Expo:
I must start off by saying that I definitely think it’s worth getting a silver or gold pass. We silver pass holders were able to rock up at 9am (as the door was about to open) and rather than join the queue of hundreds (maybe thousands?) that had already formed, we were able to jump straight to the front. When the doors opened, we headed in, and went to the token booth.

I think that they could improve this system. As it was, there were only two people (who seemed a little uniformed about the details) selling tokens to almost the entire crowd, who wanted to buy theirs ASAP. I wonder if they could work it out for people to have the option to buy them before the event – obviously there could be some logistic difficulties (particularly if guests cancel at a late stage) but if some proportion of the crowd already had their autograph and photo tokens, it’d certainly reduce some of the lines, which would then reduce the number of disgruntled visitors and the stress on the volunteers.

But anyway, with the silver pass it was good, and I should add that I think the organisers and volunteers do a wonderful job. I can’t imagine that it’d be fun to coordinate that many people with so many different things going on at once. Anyway, it seems like I’m rambling about the less fun aspects of the day... Quick, distract those still reading with the pretty:


Ahh, that’s better! I love David in profile!


A photo with Kavan Smith:
Quite quickly we had our tokens, and [personal profile] mcalex22, [profile] derry667, [profile] yokiem [personal profile] starrylizard, [personal profile] garneteve, LS, SB, HD and I joined the queue for Kavan photos. He was lovely! He shook my hand, asked my name, and then pulled me in close for the photo! I put my hand around his waist and he put his on my shoulder. The lady took the photo, then I thanked him, he thanked me (and called me "Darlin’") and I left. It was a short meeting, but was very nice!

Autographs with David Hewlett:
We then joined the queue for the David Hewlett autographs. This year, they were happy for us to take flash photos in the queue, which was great! Whilst waiting, I managed to get some good photos of His Hewlettness, and once again, I really liked just watching him for a while.



When it was my turn, I walked up and said hello. I had my A Dog’s Breakfast DVD, and he was very happy to see it. I told him how much I enjoyed it, and he thanked me, then said I’d "better have one of these then", and gave me one of the promotion postcards for the movie. He asked me where I wanted him to sign it, and I said anywhere would be great – I said I trusted his judgement. He said he’d sign it on the disc then. He likes to sign the disc because you can misplace the cover, but you’ll never misplace the disc. I thanked him, and then asked if he’d also sign one of the photos, and make it out to Katie.

I honestly can’t remember anymore of the conversation – I don’t think it was anything ground breaking, but it was great! With David, you get the feeling that he’s so happy to talk to you. He has an amazing ability to put people at ease. Oh, how could I forget: I also got an unofficial photo with him – it turned out well (*points to icon*)

An autograph with Andee Frizzell:
Next, I decide to get Andee’s autograph. I had a nice chat in the line with a chick who was visiting from Germany and a guy in a great Stargate uniform (who I discovered was also from Adelaide – it’s so cool to discover that there are people in Adelaide who are obsessed enough with Stargate to wear the whole uniform. I love it!)

Andee was absolutely lovely, and I asked her to sign one of the photos of her as the wraith in The Rising. We had a quick little chat, but I can’t remember the details at the moment.

The animation panel:
I then went upstairs to the main stage and caught the last part of the panel from the Animation people (Johnny Bosch, Grey Delisie, Crispin Freeman and Dave Wittenberg). They were great! One of the guys told a very freaky story of the scariest question he’d had from a fan. He explained that a group of giggling girls once asked him if he ever worried about being raped by his fans. WTF people?! That’s just ... so many levels of wrong that I can’t even express the wrongness! The only real response is the one that Grey Delisie gave: "Well now I am".

Crispin told an equally freaky story – he was playing a character who was dating his sister and some guy emailed him and explained that he was dating his first cousin. This guy asked Crispin for dating advice on how he could convince his cousin to keep dating him. Again, just... no! There were lots of other amusing stories too. They seemed like such lovely, funny people.

David Hewlett’s panel:
On to the true highlight – David’s panel. I ended up with a great seat, almost right in the middle, in the second row. David came out to a massive round of applause, and he was an absolute pleasure to watch. Basically all of the questions asked of him were quite sensible, and David had some really interesting, funny responses. I would try to write details here, but this post is already quite long, and I’m sure the panel will end up on youtube, so there probably isn’t a need. (I must mention that he referred to the new series as Stargate 90210!).





A photo with David Hewlett:
After the talk, we rushed down to David’s photo line. The wait wasn’t too bad, and then I got to meet David again! He was lovely. He asked “what was my name again?” (which indicates that he did remember seeing me earlier!). I answered, and then reached out to shake his hand just as he was reaching for my waist to pose for the photo. He apologised – he said something like "Oh, I’m sorry, I was just going straight in for the waist". I responded "No, no, that’s fine" (because seriously, what wouldn’t be fine about David Hewlett having his hand on your waist?!) and he answered "Oh no, we should shake". So I shook his hand (he has a nice, firm grip) and then I think he said "Now I’ll go for the waist" or something like that!! (*grins*) Anyway, then I thanked him, and left on cloud nine!

[profile] derry667 was nice enough to make her photo a group one, so I got to see him again only a few seconds later!

A short intermission:
After we all had our photos, the group of us headed for a late lunch. We ate at the same place that we ate at last year, and I had the same burger. It was damn good! I can see myself eating that burger again next year!

A autograph with Kavan Smith:
We headed back to the Expo, and joined the not-very-long line for our Kavan autographs. One of the people assisting this year was a lovely chick who we met last year in the Joe Flanigan line. When she saw [personal profile] garneteve and I in line, she told Kavan that we were trouble. He said something like "Yeah, those two look like trouble" and then wrote “KATIE (TROUBLE) NICE TO MEET YOU” on the photo that he signed for me. It was great to get a bit of an individual comment from him. Anyway, we had a quick little chat with Kavan, and then I asked if he’d mind posing for a photo, which he happily did.


I cut myself out of the side of that photo. It wasn't the best shot of me, but Kavan looks lovely!


I really like the unshaven look on him.


Other stuff:
By this point our photos were ready. We picked up our Kavan photos, and I was really happy with how they turned out. I usually dislike photos of myself, but those looked pretty good. It was actually funny, because we’d all been so thrilled with how the Kavan photos turned out, and then we picked up our David photos (which were taken by a different photographer) and we were even happier (and suddenly the Kavan ones didn’t look as good!). The group shot of us looks so awesome!

Umm... I think that about sums up Day 1 of the expo. As I said before, it was a wonderful, perfect, lovely day!

Wicked:
After that, we wandered back to the hotel, showered, changed, and then [personal profile] mcalex22, [profile] derry667, [profile] yokiem, SB, LS, HD and I went to Wicked (the broadway musical). I really enjoyed it and was so glad that we decided to go. It was a great performance, and I loved the way they spun the story. After Wicked, we went for a drink, then headed back to the hotel.

Did I mention that it was a perfect day?? I'll post my review of Sunday tomorrow. :)
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kaaatie

May 2009

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