Vancouver: 23-30th August 2010; Part II
Vancouver: 23-30th August 2010;
VanCon Weekend;
26th August, 2010;
Day Four, wherein we return to our hotel in time to register for VanCon ASDFGHJK!
After our epic (if ridiculously cold) trip up Grouse Mountain, Sarah-Lou and I returned to our hotel to dump our stuff and get our bits and pieces sorted for the Thursday night VanCon Registration. Now, when we bought our tickets we'd missed out on the Gold Weekend Package by like a day and so ended up purchasing the Silver package. However, knowing just how much we were spending on these tickets and how much it'd cost us to fly/stay in Vancouver for the convention, we were pretty damn determined to get our hands on that elusive Gold package so that we could have the full VanCon experience and make the entire trip worth every single penny we were putting into it! As such, I took it upon myself to email the organisers and laid it on pretty thick that Sarah-Lou and I were huge fans and coming over to Vancouver especially to attend Vancon and how it was our first overseas trip and bla-bla-bla. I got a response back from one of the organises and continued emailing him every couple months (as per his direction) right up until the week before we were due to leave and he finally gave us the news we wanted to hear- WE WERE GETTING UPGRADED! XD XD XD GOLD WEEKEND PACKAGE HERE WE COME ASDFGHJKL. I swear, if you thought you could hear epic amounts of squeeing around mid August, it was probably Sarah-Lou and I going gaga at the news! XD
27th August, 2010;
Day Five, or, Day One of VanCon OMGEEEE!
Interestingly enough there was no kind of opening ceremony for the start of VanCon 2010. I'm assuming this is the case for all the conventions Creation run, but I did find it pretty odd. I realise they couldn't really have had an opening ceremony where they show off the guests as they had different guests attending for all three days of the con, but I thought some kind of hullabaloo was needed to get everybody into the groove, so to speak. That said, Sarah-Lou and I were so juiced up on squee that it didn't really matter, all things considered!
So yeah, they pretty much just jumped straight into things with guest talk, then guest photo-ops, repeat, break, repeat (or something along those lines anyway!). Our Friday guests included: Katherine Boecher, Matt Cohen, Aldis Hodge and Richard Speight Jr.
I didn't get a photo-op with Katherine Boecher (mainly because I hate getting my pictures taken with female actors because they always look gorgeous and I think I look hideous in them XD the exception being free photo-ops and Traci Dinwiddie because... well, just because ::girlcrush:: XD) but she was pretty damn awesome during her talk, even moreso for the fact that she talked about the Sam/Lilith scene in 4.18 and mentioned how freaked out she was by Jared's muscles, making comments like how she thought they were going to eat her and stuff XD t'was hilarious!
I also didn't get a photo-op with Richard Speight Jr. I justified deciding this at the time because I knew I'd be getting a photo-op with him at Asylum5, and I'd already spent shit-loads on the con as it was. But then once the opportunity passed me by I was all "damn! should have just gotten one!" le sigh, such is the story of my life. Thankfully I'll get to meet him again at A5 and get to make up for missing him at Vancon XD
As for the guests I did get photo-ops with :D
Matt Cohen & Me
I wasn't planning to get a photo-op with Matt (XD yeah I know I keep saying this, but to be fair I wasn't planning to get photo-ops with anyone other than J2M!) but after having missed getting him at Asylum3 (and let's not even get into how that happened) and seeing just how awesome he was during his Q&A session, I just couldn't resist! I'm glad I did as well- that thing he's doing with his eyebrow right there? ASDFGHJKL!!!
Aldis Hodge & Me
Oh lookit! Another guest I hadn't planned on getting a photo-op with (mainly because I've already bought a photo-op with him for Asylum5, but shhh! don't tell Richard!) but once again I was won over by his sheer awesomeness and caved. heh. Will power, moi? ;D
Not only was he an awesome guest during the talk (especially for all his talking about Leverage) but he won me over the second I walked up to him in the photo-op and he turned to me and said he was "diggin'" my boots XD we shared a moment of boot!love and the photographer then started joking with us about how he should just take a picture of our boots since we clearly weren't getting our picture taken. heh. At this point I started turning towards the camera when, out of the blue, Aldis surprised me with a hug, a proper not-for-the-camera hug which totally caught me off guard and explains why I'm grinning like a loon when he eventually let me go to get our picture taken. LOVE THIS MAN OMG XD
Unfortunately even though there was the Friday Night Karaoke party, Sarah-Lou and I decided we were far too knackered for any kind of partying and ended up going to bed ridiculously early. So of course we missed the guests getting up and singing and all that jazz but we weren't too gutted when we heard about their shenanigans the next morning ;D
Other noteworthy things about the Friday that had nothing to do with the guests: Sarah-Lou and I got interviewed for a Japanese tv-show! We'd initially thought it was just going to be a written interview but then they led us to a little area with a camera man and a Japanese host and a translator and OMG XD they assured us we did great and that we'd be famous in Japan. LMAO. I have no idea what show it was for though!
28th August, 2010;
Day Six, wherein Caspe actually speaks to Misha. Shock, horror!
Saturday brought us appearances from MISHA COLLINS ;D, Fredric Lehne, Rob Benedict, Demore Barnes, Samantha Smith and Matt Cohen.
Rob Benedict, Misha Collins, Me!, Matt Cohen, Demore Barnes.
Is there a limit to how many men you can love at a time? Because, seriously, I think I fell inlove with every guest at this convention XD
I didn't get a photo-op with Demore Barnes on his own but I'm super glad he was in the Saturday shoot (another photo-op I wasn't going to buy ::shakes head::) as he was such an amazing guest! His talk was beyond fabulous and you just wouldn't have known it was his first convention- witty, bantery and he kept all us fangirls in the palm of our hand by playing into our undying love for "Castiel" and slash. Oh yeah, Raphael/Castiel? Their love is a burning ring of fire, baby! ;D
Misha & Me ♥
The reason I'm grinning so hard my face hurts? Misha Collins only went and recognised me! XD OMG. I walked up for my photo-op and he was all "Hey you, how are you? How're you doing" and ASDFGHJKL I think I died just a little from sheer happiness (it wasn't until later it occurred to me to worry about *why* he would remember me of all people :S). Thankfully he also remembered Sarah-Lou (so we assume we made a lasting impression when we met him at CM:London the previous year).
I also happened to win this huge-ass Castiel banner ::whistles:: during one of the auctions (as soon as I get the picture off Sarah-Lou I'll show just how ridiculously big it actually is!) and an autograph ticket with it. Because I won the banner I got to be one of the first people in the autograph queue for Misha and, omg, I actually managed to form words in front of him! I know, I know, it's almost too good to be true, but I did. I even managed to have a conversation with him which totally made the entire trip I can't even tell you!
I basically went up to him and we did the whole hey again/how are you thing and I handed over my first autograph (just a random Castiel picture) and he signed that for me and then I handed over my second auto ticket and said: "Also, I have this huge-ass poster too" and proceeded to show him the banner. His response was a laughing "Jesus!" which was a much better reaction that I was expecting, haha. The conversion then followed with:
Me: "Yeah, I don't know what happened, my hand just wouldn't go down-"
Misha: "-you were waving to a friend and ended up with this ugly dude!"
Me: "Oh yeah, it was totally like that."
Misha ::grins::
It wasn't until I'd left his table I realised I'd kind of agreed with the "ugly dude" part XD whoops? heh. But yeah. I was just so over the moon I actually managed to speak to the guy this time, seriously.
Rob Benedict & Me
I love this picture so much. There are actually no words for the sheer adorableness of this man and I just love the way he hugs! He just squished you so close XD <33 HE'S TOTALLY MY NEW BOYFRIEND OMG!!
Saturday night brought with it the Dessert Party, equivalent to the "Gold Reception" that Showmasters do with their cons. This was one of the perks of a Gold Ticket and something Sarah-Lou and I were really looking forward to! Unfortunately the experience failed to live up to the hype. We had a great time with the guests that attended, don't get me wrong, but the rest of it just felt like such a let down. For starters the dessert part of the party was more like the ice-cream factory you get at Pizza Hut (ice-cream, sprinkles of some kind, sauce. huzzah!) and if you wanted a drink you had to pay a small fortune. But I mean, okay, I can live with this, it's the guests everyone is there for, not the dessert right? Yeah, right up until the guests left around midnight and suddenly the place was deserted! Sarah-Lou and I were dressed up with nowhere to go. And so instead of partying it into the wee hours we just ended up headed back to our room and to bed :S
We did have a wonderful convo with Rob Benedict during the dessert party though and Sarah-Lou tried to convince him to bring his guitar with him to the Roadhouse con he was attending the next weekend. He looked really surprised when he realised we were attending that one too XD heh.
29th August, 2010;
Day Seven, or, THE ONLY REASON TO REALLY ATTEND VANCON OMG!
Sunday morning dawned bright and early with Sarah-Lou and I sporting grins like Cheshire cats! Why? Because Sunday involved having breakfast with Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki! ::flaily::
Firstly, my only complaints for the breakfast involve the people we were sharing a table with- not a single one of them would move up a seat so me and Sarah-Lou could sit together, despite the fact they were all sitting with a spare chair between almost all of them ::glare:: I get people want the "best" view of the boys to take pictures and whatnot but to be perfectly honest there wasn't a bad view to be had from our table and I thought everyone was just plain rude for it. The other niggle was the "breakfast" they served. They had a basic selection of cereal and some fruits on offer. There was the option of having a bagel for breakfast, but they only had one toaster available so yeah, good luck getting to that!
Those things aside: OMG THE J2 BREAKFAST WAS BEYOND AMAZING!!! Things took a complete turn once Jensen and Jared came into the room and omg there are just no words for their awesomeness. Bearing in mind my only prior experience with them came from A3 ::shudder:: it was such an eye opener to see them laughing and joking and talking a mile a minute about everything and anything that seemed to pop into their heads! They were so relaxed and happy and smiley and omg just getting to see them like this made then entire fortune spent attending VanCon worth it. I kid thee not.
After the breakfast we made our way down to the main hall where we were seated in our designated seats and led up group by group to get our photo-ops.
First up, Jensen Ackles!
Jensen Ackles & Me
Guys, I can't even tell you how nervous I was for this photo-op, OMG! I'd wanted to ask him for a hug or something but he looked so good and was wearing leather and I just lost all brain function and asdfgh! I honest to god don't even remember looking at the camera, my brain was kind of stuck on "OMG Jensen has his arm around my waist! OMG OMG" XD I couldn't even remember if I'd smiled for this picture, I was in so much of a daze! Thankfully the picture came back pretty alright and I'm not actually making any weird googly-eyed faces at him or something, haha.
Jared Padalecki & Me
Funnily enough, I had absolutely no trouble forming words when it came to Jared. I even managed to ask him for a hug! I don't even know guys. XD This man gives ridiculously great hugs though ASDFGHJKL CLING!
Jared/Me/Jensen
♥♥♥
These guys were just amazing at VanCon, all day they were in such high spirits, bantering back and forth, smiling and laughing and joking with us fans. It was just such a difference from the first time I met them at the dreaded Asylum3!
Also, just as I was walking away from the J2 photo-op, Jensen called after me and said: "Hey, cool dress!" and I kind of just looked over my shoulder and grinned like a loon as I met his eyes and managed to choke out a "thank you" ::flails:: ...I may have to wear this dress to all future cons with hot men-things, just incase ;D And you know, I think that wee moment totally makes up for my freak-out during my solo op with him XD
Brock Kelly & Me
Also attending Sunday was Brock Kelly and aww, isn't he just adorable? It was Brock's first convention and you could tell how nervous he was, but he held himself very well and even managed a witty comeback or two in response to some of the Q&A questions! Although I think we all just wanted to hug him by the end of the day XD
I justified getting his photo-op with the excuse that it was the last day of the con and I had some pennies to spare for it ;D heh.
After all the talks and auto's were done, VanCon kind of just ended. As with there being no opening ceremony there was no closing ceremony (they had some kind of auction where you could bid of seats to next years con) and even being in high spirits from meeting J2 and having a blast of a day with them it kind of felt like... a let down. Everything just sort of fizzled out to nothing. There wasn't even a Sunday night party to attend which I dunno. I guess it was just weird the way it just ended.
We headed back to our room afterwards and ended up spending the night packing as Monday was to be our last day in Vancouver. Thankfully we still had the Supernatural Locations Tour to look forward to before our flight that evening back to the UK!
On a whole the "VanCon" experience was beyond amazing, but at the same time definitely only a "once in a lifetime" experience. At the end of the day, though I was more than willing to pay the amount I did for the gold package, I don't feel that the price is really worth what you get in return. It was worth it for being the first overseas/in Vancouver convention I did, but I doubt I'll be doing it again! XD
I'll be doing a separate post regarding the Supernatural Locations Tour for anyone interested in heading about that!