Melbourne Geekfest - I would say part two but it was with a different company
This weekend (well two weekends ago now cause I am behind in my internet life) marked my first ever trip to Armageddon. I only learnt about Armageddon two years ago and for two years it has been denied me due to exams. Having finally gotten around to attending I can say that I have mixed feelings about it. Although I wonder if in part it’s that I reject the unfamiliar.
It was certainly waaaaaaaaaay better organised than Supanova ever is - from ticket collection to being able to buy autograph and photo tokens online before hand, to staff on the ground who actually knew the answers to my questions, to a strict criteria for cosplay entrants (and hence the best and most understandable cosplay that I have ever seen - not at all hurt by the fact that one of the presenters was dressed as MY evil queen Regina Mills), things were designed to function and function they did. Overall I think it is probably better than Supanova and that my problems relate to the fact that most of the people that I went to see got cancelled and that I only really had a signing line moment with one person.
When I got my ticket to this earlier in the year I was super excited by the large Babylon 5 line up that they had (for I am nothing if not a geek) but slowly but surely they dropped out. I lost Claudia and then Patricia and JMS (and I sooooo wanted him to sign my V DVDs) and finally Mira (about a day before the event) until Bruce was all that was left. I will admit that this put quite the damper on things for me and I suspect that if this had not have occurred I would be a firm convert to Armageddon.
I am only going to talk about the best of the best - best signing moment and best panel. Christopher Judge wins best in show in the singing line department. Pretty much everyone else just signed (although Miltos Yerolemou) did at least write ‘Not today’ for me on my Game of Thrones DVDs as per my request. Christopher loved my shirt (which was an old Glarkware Now or Never shirt) and wanted to take it from me. He told me I either had to find him one (and given it was an old Now or Never shirt I knew that would be impossible) or give mine to him. I told him if I did that I would have nothing to wear to which he replied that that wasn’t his problem. His flunky for the signing offered up his shirt to me so that Christopher could have mine but I wasn’t parting with it and despite this Christopher remained amiable and fun.
Best panel (and best part of the whole shebang) goes to the boys from Game of Thrones Miltos Yerolemou and Finn Jones. This was definitely one of the best Q&As that I have ever attended. For starters the audience asked smart, insightful questions (not once did I have to deal with would you rather fight 100 duck sized horses or one horse sized duck? and can I just say thank fuck for that??!!) - the questions were about the show, about the mythos of the world, about the characters - it was truly great. Just so you know they very much associate with the houses they are connected to on the show (so Miltos would bend his knee to a Stark and Finn to Renly (but Finn very much feels he is a Tyrell “we have the nicest things and the best taste”), Finn has no problems with his scenes with Renley, the only character that they feel would frighten their characters is Dany “that bitch has got dragons”, Jack is not the dick that Joffrey is, if Finn could play a super hero it would be Wonder Woman and if Miltos could play one it would be Iron Man (‘because seriously that fucking character is in everything, he is like a one man franchise”), Miltos has no idea if he dead or not, they both feel that if they could play anyone else that it would be Varys - it was mentioned that Tyrion has the great lines and Theon has an interesting arc but Varys has grown more and more interesting. They speculated that Varys will be the last one standing and have the throne at the end. They also seem to be really interested in the world - they would love some origin stuff eg a spin off about the mad king even if they are worried that they would be too old to be in it.
What was also great was how fun, funny and relaxed they were (also Finn is so cute). Under the cut are a few pictures (not great quality as they were taken on my phone) of them bouncing around and kicking back.
I was feel bad and that I should have given more praise to the weekend and so I will give a shoutout to the other panels I went to - Jim Beaver , Bruce Boxleitner, Nathaniel Buzolic, Aron Eisenberg, Christopher Heyerdahl, Aldis Hodge, George Lazenby, Sebastian Roche and Karl Urban. Good times, good times.
It was certainly waaaaaaaaaay better organised than Supanova ever is - from ticket collection to being able to buy autograph and photo tokens online before hand, to staff on the ground who actually knew the answers to my questions, to a strict criteria for cosplay entrants (and hence the best and most understandable cosplay that I have ever seen - not at all hurt by the fact that one of the presenters was dressed as MY evil queen Regina Mills), things were designed to function and function they did. Overall I think it is probably better than Supanova and that my problems relate to the fact that most of the people that I went to see got cancelled and that I only really had a signing line moment with one person.
When I got my ticket to this earlier in the year I was super excited by the large Babylon 5 line up that they had (for I am nothing if not a geek) but slowly but surely they dropped out. I lost Claudia and then Patricia and JMS (and I sooooo wanted him to sign my V DVDs) and finally Mira (about a day before the event) until Bruce was all that was left. I will admit that this put quite the damper on things for me and I suspect that if this had not have occurred I would be a firm convert to Armageddon.
I am only going to talk about the best of the best - best signing moment and best panel. Christopher Judge wins best in show in the singing line department. Pretty much everyone else just signed (although Miltos Yerolemou) did at least write ‘Not today’ for me on my Game of Thrones DVDs as per my request. Christopher loved my shirt (which was an old Glarkware Now or Never shirt) and wanted to take it from me. He told me I either had to find him one (and given it was an old Now or Never shirt I knew that would be impossible) or give mine to him. I told him if I did that I would have nothing to wear to which he replied that that wasn’t his problem. His flunky for the signing offered up his shirt to me so that Christopher could have mine but I wasn’t parting with it and despite this Christopher remained amiable and fun.
Best panel (and best part of the whole shebang) goes to the boys from Game of Thrones Miltos Yerolemou and Finn Jones. This was definitely one of the best Q&As that I have ever attended. For starters the audience asked smart, insightful questions (not once did I have to deal with would you rather fight 100 duck sized horses or one horse sized duck? and can I just say thank fuck for that??!!) - the questions were about the show, about the mythos of the world, about the characters - it was truly great. Just so you know they very much associate with the houses they are connected to on the show (so Miltos would bend his knee to a Stark and Finn to Renly (but Finn very much feels he is a Tyrell “we have the nicest things and the best taste”), Finn has no problems with his scenes with Renley, the only character that they feel would frighten their characters is Dany “that bitch has got dragons”, Jack is not the dick that Joffrey is, if Finn could play a super hero it would be Wonder Woman and if Miltos could play one it would be Iron Man (‘because seriously that fucking character is in everything, he is like a one man franchise”), Miltos has no idea if he dead or not, they both feel that if they could play anyone else that it would be Varys - it was mentioned that Tyrion has the great lines and Theon has an interesting arc but Varys has grown more and more interesting. They speculated that Varys will be the last one standing and have the throne at the end. They also seem to be really interested in the world - they would love some origin stuff eg a spin off about the mad king even if they are worried that they would be too old to be in it.
What was also great was how fun, funny and relaxed they were (also Finn is so cute). Under the cut are a few pictures (not great quality as they were taken on my phone) of them bouncing around and kicking back.
I was feel bad and that I should have given more praise to the weekend and so I will give a shoutout to the other panels I went to - Jim Beaver , Bruce Boxleitner, Nathaniel Buzolic, Aron Eisenberg, Christopher Heyerdahl, Aldis Hodge, George Lazenby, Sebastian Roche and Karl Urban. Good times, good times.