Vancouver Con report, part one
God, I suck at doing these kind of things in anything like a timely matter. But I really want to write out my whole experience at Vancouver Con because I want to remember everything I can about it.
To sum it up, it was amazing, I had the best time ever and I never wanted it to end.
I flew in Thursday, flying Westjet for the first time who were totally awesome. I really hope they start flying to more places I want to go because wow, best flight experience ever, seriously. Got to the hotel around four local time, and checked in. Our room was on the 21st floor in the south tower, which yes, meant awesome view of the city. The only thing I didn't like about the room was that there was no wifi and my laptop refused to acknowledge the connection with the ethernet cord (my laptop, I've decided is kinda possessed, but that's a story for another post) so if I wanted to get on the 'net with something bigger than my phone I had to haul my computer down to the lobby of the north tower to access the wifi there. Which I did do several times during the weekend, mostly to upload files and pics I couldn't manage with my phone. But really I relied mostly on my blackberry and was so very happy to have it instead of the crappy phone I used to have.
I was rooming with
sinnerforhire who got in about an hour after I did. We went and grabbed some dinner in the hotel restaurant then wandered around a bit, doing recon, sussing out where all the places con things were going to be held were so we wouldn't be wandering around lost the next day. Then a quick dash back to our room so I could pick up my receipts in case I needed them and we headed over to line up for pre-registration.
We got there around 8:45 and there was already about 20 people in line give or take. When registration opened up 30-45 minutes later there were considerably more than that (I couldn't see the end of the line looking behind me). The wait in line didn't seem long or tedious though because I was surrounded by SPN fans and we obviously had ready made topics to talk about. The girl in line behind me struck up a conversation and we discovered that we had both had won the front row seat auction as well as tickets to both Misha's and Jim's wine and cheese parties. She recognised my online name from the auction listings and I did hers --Adele-- as well from the same place. We'd end up hanging out together a lot over the weekend.
Got through the line and got registered and got my front row seat ticket, though I had to point out that since I was Canadian I also needed to pick up my J2 photo ops and other tickets. As each ticket was in its own envelope I got handed 7 envelopes which I stuck in my bag and planned to open when back in my room. We made a quick tour through the vendors' room, and I picked up a few 8 x10s for autographs, then we headed back to the room.
Now I had been up for roughly 20 hours at this point which I blame for what happened next. We got on the elevator and a tall pretty brunette got on with us. I glanced over, wondering if she was also here for the con, because there was something familiar about her, but didn't see any badge.
sinnerforhire gave a sorta suprised recognition "Hi!" and so I looked over again because that probably did mean she was here for the con and she really did look familiar.... And that's when my brain clicked in and finally recognized her. It was Traci Dinwiddie. "Oh hi!" I said belatedly while I mentally facepalmed. She laughed and was very nice, but I felt like an idiot for not recognizing one of the people I was here to see, especially one who I had met in person before.
We went back to our room and I crashed soon after, taking that as a Sign that sleep might be a good idea.
Friday I woke up ungodly early -- the side effect of being on the west coast while my body was still on east coast time. This is the one and only situation in which I become a morning person. This gave plenty of time to order room service for breakfast and then go for a wander in the neighbourhood around the hotel. We found a Tim Horton's and I introduced
sinnerforhire to the glories that are an iced capp so I have done my due dilligance as a Canadian.
We headed back up to registration when it opened so I could buy an autograph for Traci and the Ladies of Supernatural photo op and to get the Jim Beaver autograph ticket I'd been erroneously given the night before traded in for the Julie McNiven one it was supposed to be. Did that, talked to other fans for a bit, did another turn through the vendor's room and submitted questions for Gabe's panel. They had a new system in place at this con -- they had boxes placed out and you submitted your question ahead of time in writing and then a moderator would ask the questions during the actual panel. This system went merrily along until it ran into Misha on Saturday, but more on that later.
Then the doors to the grand ballroom finally opened and it was time to go take our seats for the first panel. I knew going in that I had an awesome seat, but dude. I had an awesome seat. Front row, obviously, but only a little ways to the left. I mean there were seats closer to the centre that would've been even more awesome to get, but even my cheapo camera with barely existent zoom lens was able to manage great pics from where I was.
First panel was Gabriel Tigerman (Andy Gallagher). I fell in love with Andy way back when Simon Says first aired and fell in love with Gabe at the Cherry Hill con. He is wee (actually he's my height but that's wee when put next to Jared and Jensen) and kinda dorky, slightly hyperactive, completely sweet and all around adorable. His appearance at Vancon just cemented my opnion of him.
He came out dressed in an untucked grey button down shirt, blue jeans and bright red running shoes.
He joked about the shoes, saying his friends were calling him Dorothy now. But he loved them because they made him feel fast. He talked about acting with puppets and how everyone seemed to fall into the trap of talking to the puppet not the puppeteer even between scenes (complete with using his hand as a puppet to demonstrate.) His first crush was on Annie Potts of Designing Women, and he told the story again about walking by Jensen's trailer and hearing him yelling, "Dammit Jared!" (complete with Jensen impression for the line) because Jensen had discovered something was wet that wasn't supposed to be or something. He talked about how he hadn't actually wanted to be an actor, but he hadn't been any good at anything else. He said writing with his wife was the greatest thing ever because every time one of them wrote a line the other would gush over how wonderful and funny it was and then kiss. And how it was "completely different" from writing with his buddy in college.
I submitted a question that got asked, which was what did he think was the best thing about being married. (I'd asked that because he is extra adorable when gushing over his wife and I figured that would lead to said gushing, and indeed it did.) He talked about how they used Asylum this past summer as their way of going on a honeymoon and how his wife had never been to Paris and how awesome it was to watch her see the Effel Tower for the first time. Completely adorable.
He told the story about his mancrush on Michael C Hall of Dexter again and how he'd been caught taking out his invisoline retainer thingy and had a long line of spit going from it to his mouth when Michael walked by him once, but this con he had a sequel to that story as well, where he saw Michael again at a Starbuck's and managed not to make a fool of himself in front of him this time. However he left his wallet inside and begged his wife to go back in to get it and to check and see if she (Michael's girlfriend/wife) was with him. Yes, Gabe at heart is just another crazy jealous fangirl. :D
Link to all of my pics of Gabe's panel is here.
After Gabe's panel it was time to head upstairs for the photo ops of the day. They were all scheduled for one right after the other so it was pretty much line up, go through line, get photo taken, then go find the line for the next one. I had purchased all but Traci's and at the last moment went and got hers too, so I ended up with all five they were doing that day.
They had the same photographer there, Chris, who had done the Cherry Hill con and I was very happy about that as he'd been super nice in NJ (he spoke to
ktnb81 and I in the elevator the first day of that con) and was pretty amazing at his job. And indeed, while I usually hate pictures of myself, I don't mind how I turn out in most of these and there's a couple I actually downright like how I look in.
I'm not really one that comes in to the photo ops with a lot of great ideas for funny poses and all so I just went with the basic smile at the camera thing.
Gabe was first and have I mentioned enough yet how adorable he is? Because he really really is:
As I was in line for the next photo op (Alona) I glanced up at one point and saw Gabe as he was heading for the elevators after finishing his photo work, stop and talk for a moment to a pretty blonde and then hug her and lift her right off her feet, before continuing on to the elevators. The blonde it turned out was Alona and it was really sweet to get that candid glimpse of the fact that they're pretty good friends. Either that or that Gabe goes around hugging random women. Either or. :)
Anyway, Alona was next and she really is tiny. But super nice. And of course gorgeous:
After Alona was Julie, who was also super pretty and nice:
Traci was next and was something of a surprise when I walked into the room. I'd seen her in the elevator the night before and she'd been pretty then, when she was just coming back from a day of playing tourist (as she said she'd been doing on her twitter account), but she'd gone all out for the con. She had on this lowcut black minidress, fishnet stockings, and heeled boots and the way she had her eyes made up really flattered her. She was absoultely gorgeous and sexy and my inner Pamela muse was definitely sitting up and taking notes.
She took a couple of pictures with a pair of dark sunglasses on a la Pamela when she was blind but then put them aside and joked, "I've gone long enough without eyes."
The last photo op of the day was a group shot with all three ladies and ended up being one of my favourite pictures I got all weekend:
After the photo ops were done, it was back down to the ballroom for the Ladies of Supernatural panel with Alona Tal, Julie McNiven and Traci Dinwiddie:
They were all great, especially Traci who had a camera and was taking pictures of the crowd and her copanelists (and who then later posted the pics to her twitter) and who had a definite naughty slant to a lot of her answers. When asked who she'd want to raise Pamela from the dead she answered John Winchester. "And then I'd raise him." When Alona was wondering out loud what to do about Misha while answering a rather complicated hypothetical question, Traci quipped, "I know what I'd do with Misha." Generally she was just all around amusingly outrageous and entertaining.
Alona talked about how she used the fact she served in the Israeli military to help her get the part of Jo, and when asked who she'd save with her in a plane crash out of Jared, Jensen, Misha or Samantha Ferris, finally decided on Samantha because us girls got to stick together. She said that what she'd been told was going to be what Jo was about turned out to be something a lot different from what she ended up being like and that threw her a little though she stressed she wasn't bitter about it. I did get the impression though that the reaction to the character and all did, at the least disappoint her, though she was careful not to say anything like that.
Julie was just as great as the other two and seemed in some ways more... I don't know... innocent somehow and new to panels than the other two (though I think she'd done one more con than Traci at this point.) She managed to use both "anal" and "oral" and then had to point out that she'd just said them. (At which point Alona quipped, "And you're an angel?" Really, the interaction between the three was one of the best parts.) She talked about the sex scene she shot with Jensen and searched for a word to describe it before settling on 'nice'. She stressed that Jensen made sure she felt comfortable and safe during the whole thing and that made it a lot easier to shoot. She was asked about the Titanic hand against the steamed up window, which led to all three of the girls miming sliding a hand down glass multiple times in response. That part apparently was shot on another day and Jensen wasn't even on the set when she did it.
All in all I came away from that panel with an even greater conviction that the women on SPN were awesome and so were the actresses that played them.
Link to all my pics from the ladies' panel is here.
After that, it was time for autographs. Gabe, Alona and Aldis -- whose panel was the next day but was signing on Friday due to having to get back to Portland late Saturday for Leverage filming -- on one side of the room (their autographs were included in the gold and silver ticket packages) and Julie and Traci on the other (theirs you had to buy separately.)
Being in row A, I got called up for Aldis, Alona and Gabe before my tickets for the other two girls were called up. Aldis was first; I'd brought my Leverage dvd cover for him to sign and his face lit up when he saw it. (I'm sure other fans had some Leverage stuff for him to sign as well, but I think I was the first one in line.) I told him that after Supernatural, Leverage was my favourite show and congratulated him on their getting picked up for a third season (which had been announced the day before) and said I'd laughed when I'd check my twitter waiting for the autographs to start and saw him tweeting from backstage. He said it had taken him a while to be convinced in the first place to get a twitter, but that after first Beth and then Christian had got them, he got talked into it.
Alona was next and I made a point of telling her I liked Jo and that I was very happy when I heard they were bringing her back this season. She thanked me, but said I better wait till I see the new episode before I decide if I'm happy Jo's back. My mind immediately went to the "recurring character gets brought back only to be killed" place that Kripke has gone to so many times before and I joked that I was used to getting excited a favourite character was being shown in a new ep only to have them die, and Alona told me then that Jo doesn't die (whee, spoiler! :) ) Judging from what I know about the ep that has all the hunters in it and what Alona said, I have some ideas about what might happen now, but I'll wait and see if those are correct. And either way, I still think it's going to be great to see Jo (and Ellen) on the show again, no matter how the plot goes. Especially if it doesn't end up with dead hunters...
Gabe was last, but there was a slight hold up in the line getting to him. Two people in front of me was the girl who had bought the Andy banner in the auction that afternoon (Creation has these huge banners of all the stars at the con hung up around the room and they auction them off, with the chance to get them autographed during the con) and Gabe's reaction to the banner was priceless. He was totally flabbergasted at the size of it (it was about five feet square, give or take I think) in a gleeful sort of way and declared that something that big deserved a special signature. He then started writing in big block letters, complete with shading, I'M HUGE!!!! This was all taking extra time and was holding up the line a little, which got Alona and especially Aldis heckling him and the whole thing had pretty much everyone in line who was close enough to hear/see all this in stitches. Seriously, Gabe is so sweet and animanted and funny you can't help but love him.
After I got Gabe's autograph, I went over and stood in line to get Traci's and Julie's autographs. I had brought my photo op from Cherry Hill for Traci to sign and got the chance to tell her how happy I was she'd been added to Vancon schedule because she was one of my favourites on the show, and that I was glad she wasn't sick this time! She laughed and said she was too and thanked me.
Julie was next and she had just been talking with the lady who was collecting the autograph tickets for her about her (Julie's) boyfriend and the lady observed, "Every time you talk about him, you just light up." which really is kind of adorable. I got to tell Julie that she was part of one of my favourite moments of s4, namely when Anna killed Uriel and her "but there's still me." line and she smiled and said that had been a great scene to get to do.
After the autographs were over (at least for the front row, I went out to dinner with Adele and.... another woman in the front row whose name I am now blanking on *facepalm*. We went to Earl's which was sorta a restaurant/club place about a block away from the hotel. The food and service were as excellent as the company and had a nice leisurely meal and a couple of drinks before heading back to the hotel in time for Steve Carlson's concert.
An unexpected surprise was that Aldis came out and introduced Steve -- they'd gotten to know each other, what with Steve coming up to Portland to perform with Christian several times this summer. (And, of course, Christian is a castmate of Aldis' on Leverage)
I've listened to a bit of Steve's music and liked it, but didn't have any real expectations to how he would be live. He had a backup singer and a piano player perform with him (Rosalee and Darren Sher, thanks
tittakv for jogging my memory on the names) and they were both just as awesome as Steve.
And when I say awesome, I mean seriously awesome. It's been a very long time since I saw someone own a piano like Darren did and just the whole thing together was an amazing performance. Definitely made me into a huge fan.
Link to all my pics of the concert is here. (Not that there's many, I got too caught up in listening to the music to take much after they started playing)
After the concert we headed upstairs to a karaoke party which was being held in a very small room considering that it was open to anyone attending the con. Aldis, Alona, Julie, Traci and Gabe all showed up at the party and they all did a turn at karaoke and talked to people in the crowd and posed for pics and things. It was hard to get pics of them actually performing because the place was so packed and everyone else was trying to get pics of them too but I did manage to get a few.
Alona sang Creep and has some serious pipes on her, it was a really good performance. Aldis hopped up on stage with some fans who were singing (Don't Stop Believing, if I'm remembering correctly) and sang along with them. Julie had a pretty good voice too though nothing like Alona's (because Alona is really just that good) and Traci, who's about to star as Patsy Cline in a theatre show can definitely sing as well. In addition to each of them doing a solo number, the three girls also played backup singers when one of the few guys there got up and did Carry On My WayWard Son (which of course somebody had to sing at a SPN con. There was also Eye of the Tiger sung at some point by a fan as well.) Gabe got up and sang Proud Mary, but as sweet and funny and talented as he is, singing is not one of his talents. And he knows this. There was much facepalming and I can't believe I'm doing this expressions from him during his performance, which again just made him seem all the more adorable.
Link to all my karaoke party pics is here.
It was about 1 am, give or take when I finally called it a night and headed back to my room and to bed, the first day of the con having been absolutely fantastic.
Next up was Saturday. And Misha. Which will be in part two of the con report.
To sum it up, it was amazing, I had the best time ever and I never wanted it to end.
I flew in Thursday, flying Westjet for the first time who were totally awesome. I really hope they start flying to more places I want to go because wow, best flight experience ever, seriously. Got to the hotel around four local time, and checked in. Our room was on the 21st floor in the south tower, which yes, meant awesome view of the city. The only thing I didn't like about the room was that there was no wifi and my laptop refused to acknowledge the connection with the ethernet cord (my laptop, I've decided is kinda possessed, but that's a story for another post) so if I wanted to get on the 'net with something bigger than my phone I had to haul my computer down to the lobby of the north tower to access the wifi there. Which I did do several times during the weekend, mostly to upload files and pics I couldn't manage with my phone. But really I relied mostly on my blackberry and was so very happy to have it instead of the crappy phone I used to have.
I was rooming with
sinnerforhire who got in about an hour after I did. We went and grabbed some dinner in the hotel restaurant then wandered around a bit, doing recon, sussing out where all the places con things were going to be held were so we wouldn't be wandering around lost the next day. Then a quick dash back to our room so I could pick up my receipts in case I needed them and we headed over to line up for pre-registration.
We got there around 8:45 and there was already about 20 people in line give or take. When registration opened up 30-45 minutes later there were considerably more than that (I couldn't see the end of the line looking behind me). The wait in line didn't seem long or tedious though because I was surrounded by SPN fans and we obviously had ready made topics to talk about. The girl in line behind me struck up a conversation and we discovered that we had both had won the front row seat auction as well as tickets to both Misha's and Jim's wine and cheese parties. She recognised my online name from the auction listings and I did hers --Adele-- as well from the same place. We'd end up hanging out together a lot over the weekend.
Got through the line and got registered and got my front row seat ticket, though I had to point out that since I was Canadian I also needed to pick up my J2 photo ops and other tickets. As each ticket was in its own envelope I got handed 7 envelopes which I stuck in my bag and planned to open when back in my room. We made a quick tour through the vendors' room, and I picked up a few 8 x10s for autographs, then we headed back to the room.
Now I had been up for roughly 20 hours at this point which I blame for what happened next. We got on the elevator and a tall pretty brunette got on with us. I glanced over, wondering if she was also here for the con, because there was something familiar about her, but didn't see any badge.
sinnerforhire gave a sorta suprised recognition "Hi!" and so I looked over again because that probably did mean she was here for the con and she really did look familiar.... And that's when my brain clicked in and finally recognized her. It was Traci Dinwiddie. "Oh hi!" I said belatedly while I mentally facepalmed. She laughed and was very nice, but I felt like an idiot for not recognizing one of the people I was here to see, especially one who I had met in person before.
We went back to our room and I crashed soon after, taking that as a Sign that sleep might be a good idea.
Friday I woke up ungodly early -- the side effect of being on the west coast while my body was still on east coast time. This is the one and only situation in which I become a morning person. This gave plenty of time to order room service for breakfast and then go for a wander in the neighbourhood around the hotel. We found a Tim Horton's and I introduced
sinnerforhire to the glories that are an iced capp so I have done my due dilligance as a Canadian.
We headed back up to registration when it opened so I could buy an autograph for Traci and the Ladies of Supernatural photo op and to get the Jim Beaver autograph ticket I'd been erroneously given the night before traded in for the Julie McNiven one it was supposed to be. Did that, talked to other fans for a bit, did another turn through the vendor's room and submitted questions for Gabe's panel. They had a new system in place at this con -- they had boxes placed out and you submitted your question ahead of time in writing and then a moderator would ask the questions during the actual panel. This system went merrily along until it ran into Misha on Saturday, but more on that later.
Then the doors to the grand ballroom finally opened and it was time to go take our seats for the first panel. I knew going in that I had an awesome seat, but dude. I had an awesome seat. Front row, obviously, but only a little ways to the left. I mean there were seats closer to the centre that would've been even more awesome to get, but even my cheapo camera with barely existent zoom lens was able to manage great pics from where I was.
First panel was Gabriel Tigerman (Andy Gallagher). I fell in love with Andy way back when Simon Says first aired and fell in love with Gabe at the Cherry Hill con. He is wee (actually he's my height but that's wee when put next to Jared and Jensen) and kinda dorky, slightly hyperactive, completely sweet and all around adorable. His appearance at Vancon just cemented my opnion of him.
He came out dressed in an untucked grey button down shirt, blue jeans and bright red running shoes.
He joked about the shoes, saying his friends were calling him Dorothy now. But he loved them because they made him feel fast. He talked about acting with puppets and how everyone seemed to fall into the trap of talking to the puppet not the puppeteer even between scenes (complete with using his hand as a puppet to demonstrate.) His first crush was on Annie Potts of Designing Women, and he told the story again about walking by Jensen's trailer and hearing him yelling, "Dammit Jared!" (complete with Jensen impression for the line) because Jensen had discovered something was wet that wasn't supposed to be or something. He talked about how he hadn't actually wanted to be an actor, but he hadn't been any good at anything else. He said writing with his wife was the greatest thing ever because every time one of them wrote a line the other would gush over how wonderful and funny it was and then kiss. And how it was "completely different" from writing with his buddy in college.
I submitted a question that got asked, which was what did he think was the best thing about being married. (I'd asked that because he is extra adorable when gushing over his wife and I figured that would lead to said gushing, and indeed it did.) He talked about how they used Asylum this past summer as their way of going on a honeymoon and how his wife had never been to Paris and how awesome it was to watch her see the Effel Tower for the first time. Completely adorable.
He told the story about his mancrush on Michael C Hall of Dexter again and how he'd been caught taking out his invisoline retainer thingy and had a long line of spit going from it to his mouth when Michael walked by him once, but this con he had a sequel to that story as well, where he saw Michael again at a Starbuck's and managed not to make a fool of himself in front of him this time. However he left his wallet inside and begged his wife to go back in to get it and to check and see if she (Michael's girlfriend/wife) was with him. Yes, Gabe at heart is just another crazy jealous fangirl. :D
Link to all of my pics of Gabe's panel is here.
After Gabe's panel it was time to head upstairs for the photo ops of the day. They were all scheduled for one right after the other so it was pretty much line up, go through line, get photo taken, then go find the line for the next one. I had purchased all but Traci's and at the last moment went and got hers too, so I ended up with all five they were doing that day.
They had the same photographer there, Chris, who had done the Cherry Hill con and I was very happy about that as he'd been super nice in NJ (he spoke to
ktnb81 and I in the elevator the first day of that con) and was pretty amazing at his job. And indeed, while I usually hate pictures of myself, I don't mind how I turn out in most of these and there's a couple I actually downright like how I look in.
I'm not really one that comes in to the photo ops with a lot of great ideas for funny poses and all so I just went with the basic smile at the camera thing.
Gabe was first and have I mentioned enough yet how adorable he is? Because he really really is:
As I was in line for the next photo op (Alona) I glanced up at one point and saw Gabe as he was heading for the elevators after finishing his photo work, stop and talk for a moment to a pretty blonde and then hug her and lift her right off her feet, before continuing on to the elevators. The blonde it turned out was Alona and it was really sweet to get that candid glimpse of the fact that they're pretty good friends. Either that or that Gabe goes around hugging random women. Either or. :)
Anyway, Alona was next and she really is tiny. But super nice. And of course gorgeous:
After Alona was Julie, who was also super pretty and nice:
Traci was next and was something of a surprise when I walked into the room. I'd seen her in the elevator the night before and she'd been pretty then, when she was just coming back from a day of playing tourist (as she said she'd been doing on her twitter account), but she'd gone all out for the con. She had on this lowcut black minidress, fishnet stockings, and heeled boots and the way she had her eyes made up really flattered her. She was absoultely gorgeous and sexy and my inner Pamela muse was definitely sitting up and taking notes.
She took a couple of pictures with a pair of dark sunglasses on a la Pamela when she was blind but then put them aside and joked, "I've gone long enough without eyes."
The last photo op of the day was a group shot with all three ladies and ended up being one of my favourite pictures I got all weekend:
After the photo ops were done, it was back down to the ballroom for the Ladies of Supernatural panel with Alona Tal, Julie McNiven and Traci Dinwiddie:
They were all great, especially Traci who had a camera and was taking pictures of the crowd and her copanelists (and who then later posted the pics to her twitter) and who had a definite naughty slant to a lot of her answers. When asked who she'd want to raise Pamela from the dead she answered John Winchester. "And then I'd raise him." When Alona was wondering out loud what to do about Misha while answering a rather complicated hypothetical question, Traci quipped, "I know what I'd do with Misha." Generally she was just all around amusingly outrageous and entertaining.
Alona talked about how she used the fact she served in the Israeli military to help her get the part of Jo, and when asked who she'd save with her in a plane crash out of Jared, Jensen, Misha or Samantha Ferris, finally decided on Samantha because us girls got to stick together. She said that what she'd been told was going to be what Jo was about turned out to be something a lot different from what she ended up being like and that threw her a little though she stressed she wasn't bitter about it. I did get the impression though that the reaction to the character and all did, at the least disappoint her, though she was careful not to say anything like that.
Julie was just as great as the other two and seemed in some ways more... I don't know... innocent somehow and new to panels than the other two (though I think she'd done one more con than Traci at this point.) She managed to use both "anal" and "oral" and then had to point out that she'd just said them. (At which point Alona quipped, "And you're an angel?" Really, the interaction between the three was one of the best parts.) She talked about the sex scene she shot with Jensen and searched for a word to describe it before settling on 'nice'. She stressed that Jensen made sure she felt comfortable and safe during the whole thing and that made it a lot easier to shoot. She was asked about the Titanic hand against the steamed up window, which led to all three of the girls miming sliding a hand down glass multiple times in response. That part apparently was shot on another day and Jensen wasn't even on the set when she did it.
All in all I came away from that panel with an even greater conviction that the women on SPN were awesome and so were the actresses that played them.
Link to all my pics from the ladies' panel is here.
After that, it was time for autographs. Gabe, Alona and Aldis -- whose panel was the next day but was signing on Friday due to having to get back to Portland late Saturday for Leverage filming -- on one side of the room (their autographs were included in the gold and silver ticket packages) and Julie and Traci on the other (theirs you had to buy separately.)
Being in row A, I got called up for Aldis, Alona and Gabe before my tickets for the other two girls were called up. Aldis was first; I'd brought my Leverage dvd cover for him to sign and his face lit up when he saw it. (I'm sure other fans had some Leverage stuff for him to sign as well, but I think I was the first one in line.) I told him that after Supernatural, Leverage was my favourite show and congratulated him on their getting picked up for a third season (which had been announced the day before) and said I'd laughed when I'd check my twitter waiting for the autographs to start and saw him tweeting from backstage. He said it had taken him a while to be convinced in the first place to get a twitter, but that after first Beth and then Christian had got them, he got talked into it.
Alona was next and I made a point of telling her I liked Jo and that I was very happy when I heard they were bringing her back this season. She thanked me, but said I better wait till I see the new episode before I decide if I'm happy Jo's back. My mind immediately went to the "recurring character gets brought back only to be killed" place that Kripke has gone to so many times before and I joked that I was used to getting excited a favourite character was being shown in a new ep only to have them die, and Alona told me then that Jo doesn't die (whee, spoiler! :) ) Judging from what I know about the ep that has all the hunters in it and what Alona said, I have some ideas about what might happen now, but I'll wait and see if those are correct. And either way, I still think it's going to be great to see Jo (and Ellen) on the show again, no matter how the plot goes. Especially if it doesn't end up with dead hunters...
Gabe was last, but there was a slight hold up in the line getting to him. Two people in front of me was the girl who had bought the Andy banner in the auction that afternoon (Creation has these huge banners of all the stars at the con hung up around the room and they auction them off, with the chance to get them autographed during the con) and Gabe's reaction to the banner was priceless. He was totally flabbergasted at the size of it (it was about five feet square, give or take I think) in a gleeful sort of way and declared that something that big deserved a special signature. He then started writing in big block letters, complete with shading, I'M HUGE!!!! This was all taking extra time and was holding up the line a little, which got Alona and especially Aldis heckling him and the whole thing had pretty much everyone in line who was close enough to hear/see all this in stitches. Seriously, Gabe is so sweet and animanted and funny you can't help but love him.
After I got Gabe's autograph, I went over and stood in line to get Traci's and Julie's autographs. I had brought my photo op from Cherry Hill for Traci to sign and got the chance to tell her how happy I was she'd been added to Vancon schedule because she was one of my favourites on the show, and that I was glad she wasn't sick this time! She laughed and said she was too and thanked me.
Julie was next and she had just been talking with the lady who was collecting the autograph tickets for her about her (Julie's) boyfriend and the lady observed, "Every time you talk about him, you just light up." which really is kind of adorable. I got to tell Julie that she was part of one of my favourite moments of s4, namely when Anna killed Uriel and her "but there's still me." line and she smiled and said that had been a great scene to get to do.
After the autographs were over (at least for the front row, I went out to dinner with Adele and.... another woman in the front row whose name I am now blanking on *facepalm*. We went to Earl's which was sorta a restaurant/club place about a block away from the hotel. The food and service were as excellent as the company and had a nice leisurely meal and a couple of drinks before heading back to the hotel in time for Steve Carlson's concert.
An unexpected surprise was that Aldis came out and introduced Steve -- they'd gotten to know each other, what with Steve coming up to Portland to perform with Christian several times this summer. (And, of course, Christian is a castmate of Aldis' on Leverage)
I've listened to a bit of Steve's music and liked it, but didn't have any real expectations to how he would be live. He had a backup singer and a piano player perform with him (Rosalee and Darren Sher, thanks
tittakv for jogging my memory on the names) and they were both just as awesome as Steve.
And when I say awesome, I mean seriously awesome. It's been a very long time since I saw someone own a piano like Darren did and just the whole thing together was an amazing performance. Definitely made me into a huge fan.
Link to all my pics of the concert is here. (Not that there's many, I got too caught up in listening to the music to take much after they started playing)
After the concert we headed upstairs to a karaoke party which was being held in a very small room considering that it was open to anyone attending the con. Aldis, Alona, Julie, Traci and Gabe all showed up at the party and they all did a turn at karaoke and talked to people in the crowd and posed for pics and things. It was hard to get pics of them actually performing because the place was so packed and everyone else was trying to get pics of them too but I did manage to get a few.
Alona sang Creep and has some serious pipes on her, it was a really good performance. Aldis hopped up on stage with some fans who were singing (Don't Stop Believing, if I'm remembering correctly) and sang along with them. Julie had a pretty good voice too though nothing like Alona's (because Alona is really just that good) and Traci, who's about to star as Patsy Cline in a theatre show can definitely sing as well. In addition to each of them doing a solo number, the three girls also played backup singers when one of the few guys there got up and did Carry On My WayWard Son (which of course somebody had to sing at a SPN con. There was also Eye of the Tiger sung at some point by a fan as well.) Gabe got up and sang Proud Mary, but as sweet and funny and talented as he is, singing is not one of his talents. And he knows this. There was much facepalming and I can't believe I'm doing this expressions from him during his performance, which again just made him seem all the more adorable.
Link to all my karaoke party pics is here.
It was about 1 am, give or take when I finally called it a night and headed back to my room and to bed, the first day of the con having been absolutely fantastic.
Next up was Saturday. And Misha. Which will be in part two of the con report.