17 Days of Con. Days 15-17: Starfury Cross Roads
After 11 days straight of cons in two countries, I arrived home in the UK on the evening of day 12 having picked up con flu (which I later discovered had spread to pretty much everyone), so days 13 and 14 were spent in a cold-induced daze while trying to edit and upload my con photos.
On Day 15, still full of cold and having pretty much lost my voice, I made the trek back to Birmingham for the Cross Roads con.
Cross Roads
As everyone probably knows by now, Rogue Events, who ran the Asylum conventions went bust last year, leaving hundreds of fans out of pocket (the spreadsheet of how much Rogue owed people was over £250,000 (about US$340,000) last time I saw it a few months ago).
As a result, Starfury Events, who have been running cons in the UK since 1998, stepped up and announced their first SPN con (they couldn't do one before due to Rogue having the monopoly). I already knew of Starfury, because I had briefly considered going to one of their Buffy/Angel cons way back in the early-2000s, so I knew they were reputable. Thing is, like Rogue, they strictly don't allow any recording and their cons don't seem to be in the public eye much, so it was hard to know what the con would be like.
I'll be honest: given that I was sick, I wasn't really in the mood to attend the con, but I also didn't want to waste the money I'd spent on it, so I went with the intention of taking it easy and not doing too much.
Starfury cons are small and intimate - they don't oversell their tickets and they keep the attendees to a few hundred, so that the weekend is well-organised and calm.
The announced guests for the con were:
- Mark Sheppard
- Mark Pellegrino
- Kim Rhodes
- Alaina Huffman
- Ruth Connell
- Katherine Ramdeen
- Emily Swallow (cancelled due to work commitments)
- Julian Richings
- Keith Szarabajka
- Ty Olsson
- DJ Qualls
The general schedule is:
Friday
- Afternoon registration
- Opening Ceremony
- Meet and Greet evening event for Gold ticket holders
- Party until the early hours
Saturday and Sunday
- Morning photo ops 9-12pm
- Afternoon auto sessions at 12 and 3pm
- Hour-long, back-to-back panels from 12:30-6pm (with a 30-minute break at 2:30pm)
- 20-30 min Fan Meets with 1 or 2 guests during the afternoon
- Sunday Closing Ceremony
- Party until the early hours on both Sat and Sun night
I had a Gold ticket, which meant an unreserved seat in the first few rows plus the Friday Meet and Greet, which was basically like the speed-dating style Cocktail Parties at JIB. I didn't have any photo ops, and only needed one auto (Keith Szarabajka - it was his first SPN con ever, though he's done several Starfury events for Angel), so I didn't really have anything to do in the mornings and then mostly just sat in the panels in the afternoons.
If I'm really honest, after an amazing couple of weeks at SPNUK and then JIB, Cross Roads was something of a let-down for me. Yes, it was calm and organised, but it just didn't have that same 'SPN Family' feeling I've gotten used to with the other cons. The lighting was terrible - so much that you couldn't even see the guests on the big screens, because they were just in shadow the whole time - most of the panels were quiet and flat (except when DJ and Ty, and Kim and Katherine were on stage) and the audience enthusiasm seemed a bit lacking. Plus, the con had kind of a 'small, makeshift con which has lesser-known bit-part guests' feel about it, where the host and MC were introducing the guests as if we didn't know who they were, as in: 'You know our next guest as Crowley in Supernatural, but you may have also seen him in Firefly, Leverage, etc. etc.'... which felt impersonal and like the company didn't really 'get' the SPN Fandom. Someone asked Keith how the SPN con compared to the Angel cons... I assume because usually there's a big difference in the atmosphere with SPN cons, but he was just like: 'I've worked with Sean (Starfury) several times before, so it's nice to be back'.
So, because of all that, for me, the best part of the weekend wasn't actually the con itself, but the fact that I had a hotel room with Executive Lounge access, and most of the guests were staying in the same hotel which meant I was eating breakfast in the Exec Lounge at the same time as them (the lounge only has a small number of tables). On Saturday morning, when I went up there for breakfast, Keith was eating in there, and then after he left, Julian came in to eat his breakfast. Then on Sunday morning, I called the lift to go up to the lounge for breakfast and found Ruth was in there too (just me and her) - I said hi as i went in, but that was all - and when we got up to the lounge door, I had to let her in because her key wasn't working :P. Once inside the lounge, I realised Kim, Keith and Alaina (and her son) were all in there, and then Julian appeared a few minutes later... so there I was, eating breakfast on my own just two tables away from them, and trying not to eavesdrop too much :P.
In all, it was a good replacement event after the loss of Rogue, and it was much more organised than UK fans are used to (it appears that Rogue modelled their cons on how Starfury do things, but got carried away... they got the big guests, but couldn't afford them because they kept their ticket prices too low, meaning they had to oversell and have 2000-3000 attendees, which caused chaos, but still couldn't break even). However, compared to the other SPN cons I've attended, it just didn't wow me, so I don't think I'll be going back next year.
A selection of my photos from the con (didn't manage to get that many good ones due to the poor lighting):
Keith (Saturday)
Julian (Saturday)
Ty (Saturday)
DJ (Sunday)
Katherine (Sunday)
Kim (Saturday)
Mark P (Saturday)
Alaina (Saturday)
Mark S (Saturday)
Ruth (Saturday)