Armageddon Wellington 1-3 June 2013
The Armageddon convention in Wellingon last weekend was fun, but my experience was coloured by not liking the venue (the Westpac stadium) -- sure, there was a lot more room for stall-holders, but the panel stages, photograph "booths" and autograph areas were a shambles. I should emphasise that we weren't in the stadium itself, but the surrounding concourse, all bare concrete and odd angles.
From top to bottom, there is the screen for the main stage, the curtains separating the main stage (no sound-protection at all, so you can imagine how difficult it was to hear the panels at times), the autograph tables and queues, the photograph area and the photo printers. Unlike most other cons, there was no protection from passersby taking photos of the actors, which annoyed me. Then they then posted every single official photograph to Facebook, which made me very angry indeed (though to give them their due, the photos of me and
kapuahi were removed within an hour of me sending an email to the organiser, so I was somewhat appeased).
The panels were good. We were there to see the Stargate and Hobbit panels in particular, and they didn't clash too badly. We only missed Tony Amendola's panel because it was at the same time as our Hobbit photos, so it could have been a lot worse (and we managed to chat with Tony for a while when his autograph line was quiet so that was a nice bonus).
Jason was looking absolutely delectable. His questions were more or less equally split between Stargate: Atlantis and Game of Thrones (apart from the idiot woman who wanted him to take off his shirt ... there is always one, unfortunately). He also talked a little about Bullet to the Head and Debug. I can't wait to see him as a Bowie-esque evil computer.
Joe wasn't well -- he caught some kind of bug while he was in South Island, I think -- but his panel was really interesting. I was particularly interested to hear about some of the projects he wanted to make. One was about a doctor who became a drug addict, was deregistered and then worked his way back up to being someone who helps others to overcome addiction, and another was about a homosexual tennis player in Nazi Germany who was allowed his freedom only as long as he kept winning, and was imprisoned as soon as he lost. The third project he wanted to do was, of course, the much-discussed Stargate: Atlantis film. He mentioned the Veronica Mars Kickstarter project and said he'd love to do a similar campaign for SGA (which got huge applause, of course) -- when we went up for autographs later I told him I would definitely back that if it ever appeared on Kickstarter.
Mitch Pileggi's panel was extremely popular and very crowded -- more so than Jason's and Joe's, largely due to the Supernatural and Sons of Anarchy fans, judging from the questions he was getting. He talked a little about Dallas too, which he appears to be enjoying, and said that he had been looking forward to working with Larry Hagman in season 2, which of course his death has made impossible.
The combined SGA panel on Sunday was good, with questions evenly spread among the three of them. That's Mitch's daughter with him on the sofa - I was a bit reluctant to post the photo but with the angle and the focus it's not a good likeness so I think it'll be OK.
The big event on Sunday was, of course, the Middle Earth panel. Even though we arrived an hour early, it was already more than half-full, so unfortunately neither of us got the photos we wanted. This was the best I managed, and it was just before Sylvester McCoy and Luke Evans came in. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Adam Brown, and then later on the dwarves put us to shame by singing "Happy Birthday" in three-part harmony to one of the audience. The photo ops were quite challenging, reconfiguring the chairs to accommodate the different numbers of fans every couple of shots, but it all went reasonably smoothly. The autograph queue was reasonably well-controlled but there was some weird limitation imposed by the management that fans could either get an individual headshot signed from each actor or one composite shot signed by all of them. Trouble was, they didn't have an individual photo for Luke Evans, as he was a last-minute addition, so there was much arguing about that. If you had brought your own things, you were only allowed to carry one of them through the line. I know it was all intended to improve the flow and prevent holdups, but it hadn't been explained beforehand and there was much confusion. Luckily
kapuahi and I both had Hobbit posters large enough for all the actors to sign so we weren't adversely affected. There wasn't time to chat to any of them, unfortunately, but I did manage to tell Luke that I was looking forward to the new Crow film.
All in all, it was a great weekend, but I have to say that for organisational competence it fell quite a way behind others I've attended.
This entry was originally posted at http://alassenya.dreamwidth.org/97009.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
From top to bottom, there is the screen for the main stage, the curtains separating the main stage (no sound-protection at all, so you can imagine how difficult it was to hear the panels at times), the autograph tables and queues, the photograph area and the photo printers. Unlike most other cons, there was no protection from passersby taking photos of the actors, which annoyed me. Then they then posted every single official photograph to Facebook, which made me very angry indeed (though to give them their due, the photos of me and
kapuahi were removed within an hour of me sending an email to the organiser, so I was somewhat appeased).
The panels were good. We were there to see the Stargate and Hobbit panels in particular, and they didn't clash too badly. We only missed Tony Amendola's panel because it was at the same time as our Hobbit photos, so it could have been a lot worse (and we managed to chat with Tony for a while when his autograph line was quiet so that was a nice bonus).
Jason was looking absolutely delectable. His questions were more or less equally split between Stargate: Atlantis and Game of Thrones (apart from the idiot woman who wanted him to take off his shirt ... there is always one, unfortunately). He also talked a little about Bullet to the Head and Debug. I can't wait to see him as a Bowie-esque evil computer.
Joe wasn't well -- he caught some kind of bug while he was in South Island, I think -- but his panel was really interesting. I was particularly interested to hear about some of the projects he wanted to make. One was about a doctor who became a drug addict, was deregistered and then worked his way back up to being someone who helps others to overcome addiction, and another was about a homosexual tennis player in Nazi Germany who was allowed his freedom only as long as he kept winning, and was imprisoned as soon as he lost. The third project he wanted to do was, of course, the much-discussed Stargate: Atlantis film. He mentioned the Veronica Mars Kickstarter project and said he'd love to do a similar campaign for SGA (which got huge applause, of course) -- when we went up for autographs later I told him I would definitely back that if it ever appeared on Kickstarter.
Mitch Pileggi's panel was extremely popular and very crowded -- more so than Jason's and Joe's, largely due to the Supernatural and Sons of Anarchy fans, judging from the questions he was getting. He talked a little about Dallas too, which he appears to be enjoying, and said that he had been looking forward to working with Larry Hagman in season 2, which of course his death has made impossible.
The combined SGA panel on Sunday was good, with questions evenly spread among the three of them. That's Mitch's daughter with him on the sofa - I was a bit reluctant to post the photo but with the angle and the focus it's not a good likeness so I think it'll be OK.
The big event on Sunday was, of course, the Middle Earth panel. Even though we arrived an hour early, it was already more than half-full, so unfortunately neither of us got the photos we wanted. This was the best I managed, and it was just before Sylvester McCoy and Luke Evans came in. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Adam Brown, and then later on the dwarves put us to shame by singing "Happy Birthday" in three-part harmony to one of the audience. The photo ops were quite challenging, reconfiguring the chairs to accommodate the different numbers of fans every couple of shots, but it all went reasonably smoothly. The autograph queue was reasonably well-controlled but there was some weird limitation imposed by the management that fans could either get an individual headshot signed from each actor or one composite shot signed by all of them. Trouble was, they didn't have an individual photo for Luke Evans, as he was a last-minute addition, so there was much arguing about that. If you had brought your own things, you were only allowed to carry one of them through the line. I know it was all intended to improve the flow and prevent holdups, but it hadn't been explained beforehand and there was much confusion. Luckily
kapuahi and I both had Hobbit posters large enough for all the actors to sign so we weren't adversely affected. There wasn't time to chat to any of them, unfortunately, but I did manage to tell Luke that I was looking forward to the new Crow film.
All in all, it was a great weekend, but I have to say that for organisational competence it fell quite a way behind others I've attended.
This entry was originally posted at http://alassenya.dreamwidth.org/97009.html. Please comment there using OpenID.