VanCon 09 Reports: Day 4 (J2, Jim, & Richard!)
It's been many months since VanCon, so perhaps writing about it all now is more than a little crazy. However, it was my first convention experience and I can easily say one of the best weekends of my life. I still look back on those 6 days with great fondness and hopefully I'll be able to remember the important stuff. ;)
All photos in these post reports were taken by me (except for the top/header image of the city). Feel free to take, re-post & use for fanart, icons, etc., but please give me credit for the photos. Thanks!
If you saw my first posts after the con of my photos & downloaded/saved them, please note - the pics in these report posts have been fixed and re-sized larger than the ones offered before. There are also more, unseen photos here (generally). Yes, they are all watermarked. I did this so I can identify which photos are mine if they're used elsewhere online.
Day Four (Sunday)
Got up extra early for the last day of the Con and got to delay breakfast because I'd be having it at the Wall Centre. *g* Decked out in my favorite red shirt and my newly bought amulet necklace, I was ready to go meet the boys!!! I will say, each walk between hotels, especially in the mornings were so nice. People having coffee outside of a little cafe, passing the Pea Patch, it was all very different from what I normally see.
Sunday Breakfast
The breakfast was being held in the lovely Pavilion room on the 3rd floor. Big windows at one end to let in all the daylight and a full spread of food in the lobby area. I and my seat buddies had a good table, off to the right of the stage, near the windows. They'd been up most of the night from the Dessert Party. Guess Jim Beaver did quite a bit of dancing. :) Lots of food for the breakfast: cereal, fruit, pastries, scrambled eggs, sausage, coffee, tea, juices...I think that's it. I'm not much of a breakfast eater, so I only took some eggs, sausage, and a couple of pieces of pineapple. It was enough. They called the tables one at a time to come up and get their food, so there was time to sit and chat with people. I got to gab with a few more of my flisters, so it was all good. Meanwhile, you could feel the excitement in the air! The boys were going to be there soon! They brought out the winner of the Centerpiece Contest and it was pretty interesting. Wish now I'd taken some pictures of it like others did. Too excited, I guess. :P
I don't think the guys showed up until around 9:30. OMG Seeing the boys for the first time! *flails* Yeah, it was amazing! Jim was brought out first, then Jared, and finally Jensen. We were allowed to take pictures only for a few minutes and then were told to put the cameras away. :( I only got off a few shots and wasn't prepared for them to stop us. *sigh* But it was kinda nice to put the camera down and concentrate on the guys sitting right there in front of me. *g* Poor Jim didn't even have a microphone for much of the time and he didn't get a coffee delivered to him either! Poor Jim! He took it all in stride though..."Bobby don't need no coffee." There was some talk about episode 4 "The End" with Jensen acting opposite his stunt double and the episode they'd just been filming, "Fallen Idols" with Paris Hilton. Jensen & Jared both commented on how much they liked this room for the breakfast and Jared got off on a tangent about the building you could see across from us..."It's a faux patio." LOL Jensen kept telling him that was real out there. Heehee! Then there was the whole thing with Jared's coffee, the messed up lid on the coffee, and Jensen finally telling Jared, "Take the lid off!" OMG These guys are so cute and hilarious! At one point Jensen looked over at the food spread and noted how delicious it all smelled. Heehee! There is so much to relate about the breakfast, but you should really just watch some of the videos on youtube of it. There's at least 2 online that I know of that are of the entire breakfast, so check them out if you can! :D
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Ten samples below.
Download of all 18 photos coupled with 6 photos of the Sheraton Wall Centre taken on Saturday:
VanCon09 Sun Brkfst & Sheraton WC LG Photos by Raloria.zip (31mb) @ MediaFire
Before long, our time was up and the next order of business was Jensen's Photo-op! *squeeflail* Luckily, it was all on the same floor, so those of us who had tickets simply lined up outside in the hall. The line, understandably, was HUGE! I had an amazing photo-op experience with Jensen, which you can read about HERE, along with with the photo-ops with Jensen & Jared and then Jared alone. The photo-ops were all done in that order, btw, and each time you finished with one, you'd go back down to the main theater (Grand Ballroom) to wait to be called for the next.
Jared was supposed to be the first on stage for his panel a little after 12 noon, however, the photo-ops were going long and the day quickly got behind schedule. I don't recall now when the first panel started, but because Jared was still busy in the photo-op room, we got to see Jensen first for his panel. :)
Jensen Ackles
I remember there was almost no warning that Jensen was even going to be there. Just a quick announcement from Adam and then Jensen was on the stage! Needless to say, the audience was ecstatic! I gotta be shallow and fangirly here and say Jensen looked AMAZING! Those tight jeans he was wearing? Oh, my...*guh* Okay, anyway...right away Jensen wanted to point out a lot of the SPN crew who were sitting to the right of the audience. It was so cool to have them there! Jensen followed the new question-taking rules, with Adam asking the questions for the fans. Little did he know that Misha had already broken that rule (he'd find out a little later about it though). I'd written out a question and put it in the box, but it never did get chosen. Oh, well. I was content to stare, listen, and snap as many pictures as I could. Jensen talked about everything from filming to his golf game. It was sweet when he mentioned Danneel who was in the audience and then noted how red her face was getting with embarrassment. Awww. Little did we all know they'd be getting engaged just a couple of months later. Btw, I did see Danneel that day while I was going between floors on the escalators. I was headed down and there she was in the bar right there, chatting with a couple of fans! I was in a hurry, so I didn't stop or anything, but she's just as pretty as the photographs show and I recognized her right away. :)
Jensen pointed out the scar from filming "Lazarus Rising" with Kim Manners directing and it was great hearing him talk about filming "Devour" with his "Pops". :) The "Holy flashing cameras Batman!" moment was def a highlight. Hee! Poor Jensen "Cut it out!!!" LOL Loved him talking about the semi-truck/Impala crash at the end of S1 as well. He gets so geeky about the filmmaking side of the production! *loves* He was charming and cute and adorable. In a word...he was Jensen. :D
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Twenty-four samples below.
Download of all 173 photos:
VanCon09 Jensen Ackles LG Photos by Raloria Set A.zip (95mb) @ MediaFire
VanCon09 Jensen Ackles LG Photos by Raloria Set B.zip (88mb) @ MediaFire
Jensen Ackles & Jared Padalecki
At this time, Jared appeared on the stage and Jensen decided to stay for a bit (but he ended up staying the whole time). It's always great to see how the guys interact with each other. Right away Jared wanted to take questions from the fans. Yay Jared! Jensen weighed in on the misconception that he's shy...which I agree, he's not. He used the word "reserved", which I think fits him better. Hope this finally puts to rest that old idea about him. I won't go into all the questions because, again, there's lots of youtube videos still out there. The PETA question though? Totally uncalled for. You get a chance to talk to these guys, to ask a question, and you choose to push your own agenda like that? So not cool. Jared handled it very well and gave his own take on why he supports the organization. I wish fans wouldn't ask such questions. I mean, really....all you're going to do is get the whole crowd angry at you and upset the guests. It's stupid. Anyway, I loved how Jensen used humor to help deflect the awkwardness of the situation. Then we had an equally bizarre question about if Jensen's character of Alec on DA was related to Dean! OMG WTH??? But Jensen deftly answered that one too.
At this point, the panel was over. We were supposed to get a panel just with Jared, but I guess because of the messed up schedule and falling behind, they chose to skip his altogether. :( Problem is, I see since this Con they've cut down the panel to just one with Jensen & Jared together, which doesn't seem right in my book. For the money we pay, we should get more time with the guys. Just sayin'. *gets off soapbox*
Btw, during their panel, a fan asked them about something that AJ & Travis said they left for Jensen & Jared. Jensen went back and got the card and read it off. Something about them being wingmen for Sam and Dean anytime. *g* When the guys were leaving the stage, Jensen tossed that card into the crowd and it landed in our row! Don't know which gal got it, but she wasn't very far from where I was sitting. Lucky! :)
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Thirty-eight samples below.
Download of all 184 photos:
VanCon09 Jensen & Jared LG Photos by Raloria Set A.zip (99mb) @ MediaFire
VanCon09 Jensen & Jared LG Photos by Raloria Set B.zip (102mb) @ MediaFire
At this point, it was time for the guys to sign autographs and being in the 8th row, I knew it would be a while before they got to me. They were also about to start having Photo-ops with Richard Speight Jr. and I figured I'd get one with him. This was when I realized I'd left my wallet back at our hotel. Gah! So I figured I had time and hiked back, picked up the wallet and hiked back. Bought my ticket for a photo-op and autograph with Richard, went back to the Grand Ballroom and caught my breath. Then I found out they were having the photo-ops with Richard right then! They hadn't announced it, I might ad. So back up to the photo-op room I went and luckily (or sadly, poor Richard) there was no line at all and only one gal who had also raced up there. I won't go into the whole thing here, but you can read about it on my Photo-Op post. Back downstairs I went, hoping I hadn't missed my row being called for Jensen & Jared's autographs. I was exhausted simply from going up and down all those escalators! Phew! I made it in time and you can read how my autographs went here.
Richard Speight Jr.
Time for Richard's panel and he was a delight, naturally. I wish there were more videos out there of his panel, 'cause again, my memory is fuzzy. I remember still being in line for Jensen & Jared's autographs when he started, however, but I didn't miss much. It helped that it was all there in the same room, too. He talked about being the Trickster (remember, at this time, nobody knew he was going to be revealed as Gabriel), though he did say that he'd be back on the show soon and we were all very excited to hear that. I loved his story about how his dad once snuck onto the set of "Happy Days". I wish I could remember more, I really do, but he gave a really good talk and was entertaining. He moved a lot across the stage (now I know why the Trickster moves around a lot onscreen), so photos were kinda tough.
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Eighteen samples below.
Download of all 89 photos:
VanCon09 Richard Speight Jr LG Photos by Raloria.zip (83mb) @ MediaFire
I'm a little fuzzy on the details of what happened next because at this point the schedule was kind of a shambles. We were way behind and they'd moved around so many things to try and make up the time they lost, which they never recovered. Anyway, somewhere in here there was my photo-op with Jim Beaver and my autograph with Richard. Check out the respective links further up in this post or they're down at the bottom, too.
Jim Beaver
Oh, Jim...such a great guy! He comes out on stage dressed in a trenchcoat like Castiel and then proceeded to strip for us into his more Bobby-esce attire. One of the highlights of Jim's panel was when he got completely flustered over a gal asking a question at the microphone. I didn't get a good look at her, but I guess she was wearing a black dress that was a little revealing? Jim made the comment of "That's a nice dress you're almost wearing" or something like that and soon we were all in stitches over the fact that he couldn't stop staring at her! He also talked about his daughter, Maddie, and how she was doing and that it's tough for both of them when he's away from home and filming SPN. But he's also very happy to be working, so it comes with the territory. I wish I could relate more, but again...it's been a year. Oh, I do have another sighting story. I did see Jim briefly by the escalators earlier in the day. He was being escorted to the Green Room by someone and said "hi" to me and other fans about as he went. :)
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Fifteen samples below.
Download of all 108 photos:
VanCon09 Jim Beaver LG Photos by Raloria Set A.zip (48mb) @ MediaFire
VanCon09 Jim Beaver LG Photos by Raloria Set B.zip (48mb) @ MediaFire
After Jim's panel, all that was left was his autograph, which many of you know took a very, VERY long time. Jim likes to take his time during autographs, talking to the fans and such. It was a long wait, until my row was called....hours, really. Most of us just sat around and chatted, some slept, others ordered in some food. They played music over the sound system and as the hours went by it felt more and more like a slumber party. In fact, my 2 seat buddies actually went up to their room and changed into their pajamas, came back down and actually got Jim's autograph dressed like that. Hee! By the time we got out of the line we were all giddy from sleepiness. If I recall correctly, I didn't get out of there until after midnight. I said a sad goodbye to my seat buddies and walked back to the hotel. It was so late, and I was so exhausted, we decided to stay an extra day. No way was I going to be able to get up and get out of the hotel by checkout time. This way we could go around and see some extra filming locations! Yay! So that will be the last report. ;)
To read/see the Photo-Ops: http://raloria.livejournal.com/736151.html
To read/see the autographs: http://raloria.livejournal.com/759143.html
Hope you enjoyed this look back at the 4th day of my VanCon weekend!
For all my VanCon 09 posts use my VanCon 09 Tag
All photos in these post reports were taken by me (except for the top/header image of the city). Feel free to take, re-post & use for fanart, icons, etc., but please give me credit for the photos. Thanks!
If you saw my first posts after the con of my photos & downloaded/saved them, please note - the pics in these report posts have been fixed and re-sized larger than the ones offered before. There are also more, unseen photos here (generally). Yes, they are all watermarked. I did this so I can identify which photos are mine if they're used elsewhere online.
Day Four (Sunday)
Got up extra early for the last day of the Con and got to delay breakfast because I'd be having it at the Wall Centre. *g* Decked out in my favorite red shirt and my newly bought amulet necklace, I was ready to go meet the boys!!! I will say, each walk between hotels, especially in the mornings were so nice. People having coffee outside of a little cafe, passing the Pea Patch, it was all very different from what I normally see.
Sunday Breakfast
The breakfast was being held in the lovely Pavilion room on the 3rd floor. Big windows at one end to let in all the daylight and a full spread of food in the lobby area. I and my seat buddies had a good table, off to the right of the stage, near the windows. They'd been up most of the night from the Dessert Party. Guess Jim Beaver did quite a bit of dancing. :) Lots of food for the breakfast: cereal, fruit, pastries, scrambled eggs, sausage, coffee, tea, juices...I think that's it. I'm not much of a breakfast eater, so I only took some eggs, sausage, and a couple of pieces of pineapple. It was enough. They called the tables one at a time to come up and get their food, so there was time to sit and chat with people. I got to gab with a few more of my flisters, so it was all good. Meanwhile, you could feel the excitement in the air! The boys were going to be there soon! They brought out the winner of the Centerpiece Contest and it was pretty interesting. Wish now I'd taken some pictures of it like others did. Too excited, I guess. :P
I don't think the guys showed up until around 9:30. OMG Seeing the boys for the first time! *flails* Yeah, it was amazing! Jim was brought out first, then Jared, and finally Jensen. We were allowed to take pictures only for a few minutes and then were told to put the cameras away. :( I only got off a few shots and wasn't prepared for them to stop us. *sigh* But it was kinda nice to put the camera down and concentrate on the guys sitting right there in front of me. *g* Poor Jim didn't even have a microphone for much of the time and he didn't get a coffee delivered to him either! Poor Jim! He took it all in stride though..."Bobby don't need no coffee." There was some talk about episode 4 "The End" with Jensen acting opposite his stunt double and the episode they'd just been filming, "Fallen Idols" with Paris Hilton. Jensen & Jared both commented on how much they liked this room for the breakfast and Jared got off on a tangent about the building you could see across from us..."It's a faux patio." LOL Jensen kept telling him that was real out there. Heehee! Then there was the whole thing with Jared's coffee, the messed up lid on the coffee, and Jensen finally telling Jared, "Take the lid off!" OMG These guys are so cute and hilarious! At one point Jensen looked over at the food spread and noted how delicious it all smelled. Heehee! There is so much to relate about the breakfast, but you should really just watch some of the videos on youtube of it. There's at least 2 online that I know of that are of the entire breakfast, so check them out if you can! :D
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Ten samples below.
Download of all 18 photos coupled with 6 photos of the Sheraton Wall Centre taken on Saturday:
VanCon09 Sun Brkfst & Sheraton WC LG Photos by Raloria.zip (31mb) @ MediaFire
Before long, our time was up and the next order of business was Jensen's Photo-op! *squeeflail* Luckily, it was all on the same floor, so those of us who had tickets simply lined up outside in the hall. The line, understandably, was HUGE! I had an amazing photo-op experience with Jensen, which you can read about HERE, along with with the photo-ops with Jensen & Jared and then Jared alone. The photo-ops were all done in that order, btw, and each time you finished with one, you'd go back down to the main theater (Grand Ballroom) to wait to be called for the next.
Jared was supposed to be the first on stage for his panel a little after 12 noon, however, the photo-ops were going long and the day quickly got behind schedule. I don't recall now when the first panel started, but because Jared was still busy in the photo-op room, we got to see Jensen first for his panel. :)
Jensen Ackles
I remember there was almost no warning that Jensen was even going to be there. Just a quick announcement from Adam and then Jensen was on the stage! Needless to say, the audience was ecstatic! I gotta be shallow and fangirly here and say Jensen looked AMAZING! Those tight jeans he was wearing? Oh, my...*guh* Okay, anyway...right away Jensen wanted to point out a lot of the SPN crew who were sitting to the right of the audience. It was so cool to have them there! Jensen followed the new question-taking rules, with Adam asking the questions for the fans. Little did he know that Misha had already broken that rule (he'd find out a little later about it though). I'd written out a question and put it in the box, but it never did get chosen. Oh, well. I was content to stare, listen, and snap as many pictures as I could. Jensen talked about everything from filming to his golf game. It was sweet when he mentioned Danneel who was in the audience and then noted how red her face was getting with embarrassment. Awww. Little did we all know they'd be getting engaged just a couple of months later. Btw, I did see Danneel that day while I was going between floors on the escalators. I was headed down and there she was in the bar right there, chatting with a couple of fans! I was in a hurry, so I didn't stop or anything, but she's just as pretty as the photographs show and I recognized her right away. :)
Jensen pointed out the scar from filming "Lazarus Rising" with Kim Manners directing and it was great hearing him talk about filming "Devour" with his "Pops". :) The "Holy flashing cameras Batman!" moment was def a highlight. Hee! Poor Jensen "Cut it out!!!" LOL Loved him talking about the semi-truck/Impala crash at the end of S1 as well. He gets so geeky about the filmmaking side of the production! *loves* He was charming and cute and adorable. In a word...he was Jensen. :D
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Twenty-four samples below.
Download of all 173 photos:
VanCon09 Jensen Ackles LG Photos by Raloria Set A.zip (95mb) @ MediaFire
VanCon09 Jensen Ackles LG Photos by Raloria Set B.zip (88mb) @ MediaFire
Jensen Ackles & Jared Padalecki
At this time, Jared appeared on the stage and Jensen decided to stay for a bit (but he ended up staying the whole time). It's always great to see how the guys interact with each other. Right away Jared wanted to take questions from the fans. Yay Jared! Jensen weighed in on the misconception that he's shy...which I agree, he's not. He used the word "reserved", which I think fits him better. Hope this finally puts to rest that old idea about him. I won't go into all the questions because, again, there's lots of youtube videos still out there. The PETA question though? Totally uncalled for. You get a chance to talk to these guys, to ask a question, and you choose to push your own agenda like that? So not cool. Jared handled it very well and gave his own take on why he supports the organization. I wish fans wouldn't ask such questions. I mean, really....all you're going to do is get the whole crowd angry at you and upset the guests. It's stupid. Anyway, I loved how Jensen used humor to help deflect the awkwardness of the situation. Then we had an equally bizarre question about if Jensen's character of Alec on DA was related to Dean! OMG WTH??? But Jensen deftly answered that one too.
At this point, the panel was over. We were supposed to get a panel just with Jared, but I guess because of the messed up schedule and falling behind, they chose to skip his altogether. :( Problem is, I see since this Con they've cut down the panel to just one with Jensen & Jared together, which doesn't seem right in my book. For the money we pay, we should get more time with the guys. Just sayin'. *gets off soapbox*
Btw, during their panel, a fan asked them about something that AJ & Travis said they left for Jensen & Jared. Jensen went back and got the card and read it off. Something about them being wingmen for Sam and Dean anytime. *g* When the guys were leaving the stage, Jensen tossed that card into the crowd and it landed in our row! Don't know which gal got it, but she wasn't very far from where I was sitting. Lucky! :)
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Thirty-eight samples below.
Download of all 184 photos:
VanCon09 Jensen & Jared LG Photos by Raloria Set A.zip (99mb) @ MediaFire
VanCon09 Jensen & Jared LG Photos by Raloria Set B.zip (102mb) @ MediaFire
At this point, it was time for the guys to sign autographs and being in the 8th row, I knew it would be a while before they got to me. They were also about to start having Photo-ops with Richard Speight Jr. and I figured I'd get one with him. This was when I realized I'd left my wallet back at our hotel. Gah! So I figured I had time and hiked back, picked up the wallet and hiked back. Bought my ticket for a photo-op and autograph with Richard, went back to the Grand Ballroom and caught my breath. Then I found out they were having the photo-ops with Richard right then! They hadn't announced it, I might ad. So back up to the photo-op room I went and luckily (or sadly, poor Richard) there was no line at all and only one gal who had also raced up there. I won't go into the whole thing here, but you can read about it on my Photo-Op post. Back downstairs I went, hoping I hadn't missed my row being called for Jensen & Jared's autographs. I was exhausted simply from going up and down all those escalators! Phew! I made it in time and you can read how my autographs went here.
Richard Speight Jr.
Time for Richard's panel and he was a delight, naturally. I wish there were more videos out there of his panel, 'cause again, my memory is fuzzy. I remember still being in line for Jensen & Jared's autographs when he started, however, but I didn't miss much. It helped that it was all there in the same room, too. He talked about being the Trickster (remember, at this time, nobody knew he was going to be revealed as Gabriel), though he did say that he'd be back on the show soon and we were all very excited to hear that. I loved his story about how his dad once snuck onto the set of "Happy Days". I wish I could remember more, I really do, but he gave a really good talk and was entertaining. He moved a lot across the stage (now I know why the Trickster moves around a lot onscreen), so photos were kinda tough.
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Eighteen samples below.
Download of all 89 photos:
VanCon09 Richard Speight Jr LG Photos by Raloria.zip (83mb) @ MediaFire
I'm a little fuzzy on the details of what happened next because at this point the schedule was kind of a shambles. We were way behind and they'd moved around so many things to try and make up the time they lost, which they never recovered. Anyway, somewhere in here there was my photo-op with Jim Beaver and my autograph with Richard. Check out the respective links further up in this post or they're down at the bottom, too.
Jim Beaver
Oh, Jim...such a great guy! He comes out on stage dressed in a trenchcoat like Castiel and then proceeded to strip for us into his more Bobby-esce attire. One of the highlights of Jim's panel was when he got completely flustered over a gal asking a question at the microphone. I didn't get a good look at her, but I guess she was wearing a black dress that was a little revealing? Jim made the comment of "That's a nice dress you're almost wearing" or something like that and soon we were all in stitches over the fact that he couldn't stop staring at her! He also talked about his daughter, Maddie, and how she was doing and that it's tough for both of them when he's away from home and filming SPN. But he's also very happy to be working, so it comes with the territory. I wish I could relate more, but again...it's been a year. Oh, I do have another sighting story. I did see Jim briefly by the escalators earlier in the day. He was being escorted to the Green Room by someone and said "hi" to me and other fans about as he went. :)
All photos are 2560x1707 or 1584x2376. Fifteen samples below.
Download of all 108 photos:
VanCon09 Jim Beaver LG Photos by Raloria Set A.zip (48mb) @ MediaFire
VanCon09 Jim Beaver LG Photos by Raloria Set B.zip (48mb) @ MediaFire
After Jim's panel, all that was left was his autograph, which many of you know took a very, VERY long time. Jim likes to take his time during autographs, talking to the fans and such. It was a long wait, until my row was called....hours, really. Most of us just sat around and chatted, some slept, others ordered in some food. They played music over the sound system and as the hours went by it felt more and more like a slumber party. In fact, my 2 seat buddies actually went up to their room and changed into their pajamas, came back down and actually got Jim's autograph dressed like that. Hee! By the time we got out of the line we were all giddy from sleepiness. If I recall correctly, I didn't get out of there until after midnight. I said a sad goodbye to my seat buddies and walked back to the hotel. It was so late, and I was so exhausted, we decided to stay an extra day. No way was I going to be able to get up and get out of the hotel by checkout time. This way we could go around and see some extra filming locations! Yay! So that will be the last report. ;)
To read/see the Photo-Ops: http://raloria.livejournal.com/736151.html
To read/see the autographs: http://raloria.livejournal.com/759143.html
Hope you enjoyed this look back at the 4th day of my VanCon weekend!
For all my VanCon 09 posts use my VanCon 09 Tag