Supanova Perth June 2013 - Friday night
Sorry it's taking me so long to get my reports from Perth together, but 1) I was more jet lagged than I thought and 2) I've been mad busy doing stuff since I got back (LFCC FTW)! Anyway, if you're looking for in detail reports of the Q&As these are not the posts you're looking for. If you want pretty pictures and the general silliness that I got up to over the Supanova weekend then jump right in! :-) Obviously these will be Merlin biased, but I will be mentioning the other panels I went to as well. Right, with that out of the way, onwards to Friday (k)night in Perth!
The Showgrounds station wasn’t open on Friday afternoon so we were in for a long walk to find the right gate to get inside and start queuing for our tokens. En route we found a Merlin fan and her father who’d been roped into accompanying her to the event and hung out with them as we went through the process of getting our passes. Then it was on to the hell that is getting your autograph and photo tokens and, honestly, the new and improved system for the VIPs really had nothing improved about it as most people seemed not to have used it! Ah well.
First event on the agenda was the opening ceremony and as we saw the guys being ushered backstage we surmised they would be part of that before heading to a different hall for the Arthurless Q&A. As it happened they were the last to be introduced, which meant we then had to run back through the Showgrounds in the dark to the other theatre! Eoin was wearing those retina-damaging shorts again. Someone needs to take them away and burn them for the good of humanity! Anyway, we didn’t have to wait long before the guys came on stage.
The Q&A was very funny and really rather silly. I think they were suffering from jetlag… or something stronger! There was a lot of messing around with a plush meowing cat, a Smurf (not Eoin’s late, lamented one) and a koala. It transpired these were things they’d been given in Sydney but had opted to sign and auction off for charity. Anyway, my main recollection of the Q&A remains the question about whether or not you can say ‘bubbles’ when you’re angry. Rupert’s attempts at this were especially funny (and appeared to prove that it is indeed impossible). Aside from that there were a lot of questions that got repeated frequently over the weekend and evidence that Tom’s love affair with the dragon continues apace!
After the Q&A the guys started the auction with the cat plushie and amounts were being shouted out from all sides so they couldn’t keep track. Eventually Tom took charge as auctioneer and things went a bit more smoothly. All the toys went for a lot of money and I think they ended up raising over a thousand Aussie dollars for charity. After the cat they auctioned the koala and when the bids didn’t go up fast enough Tom got up and rubbed it all over Eoin’s hair to add value! This theme continued with the Smurf, for which Tom memorably hiked up his shirt and then rubbed it all over his abs! As I recall, this led to the Smurf making 570 dollars on its own! And that concluded Friday’s festivities.
ETA: Based on information acquired at LFCC it appears Eoin's Smurf was rescued from its watery grave and is alive and well and living in Perth!! \o/
The Showgrounds station wasn’t open on Friday afternoon so we were in for a long walk to find the right gate to get inside and start queuing for our tokens. En route we found a Merlin fan and her father who’d been roped into accompanying her to the event and hung out with them as we went through the process of getting our passes. Then it was on to the hell that is getting your autograph and photo tokens and, honestly, the new and improved system for the VIPs really had nothing improved about it as most people seemed not to have used it! Ah well.
First event on the agenda was the opening ceremony and as we saw the guys being ushered backstage we surmised they would be part of that before heading to a different hall for the Arthurless Q&A. As it happened they were the last to be introduced, which meant we then had to run back through the Showgrounds in the dark to the other theatre! Eoin was wearing those retina-damaging shorts again. Someone needs to take them away and burn them for the good of humanity! Anyway, we didn’t have to wait long before the guys came on stage.
The Q&A was very funny and really rather silly. I think they were suffering from jetlag… or something stronger! There was a lot of messing around with a plush meowing cat, a Smurf (not Eoin’s late, lamented one) and a koala. It transpired these were things they’d been given in Sydney but had opted to sign and auction off for charity. Anyway, my main recollection of the Q&A remains the question about whether or not you can say ‘bubbles’ when you’re angry. Rupert’s attempts at this were especially funny (and appeared to prove that it is indeed impossible). Aside from that there were a lot of questions that got repeated frequently over the weekend and evidence that Tom’s love affair with the dragon continues apace!
After the Q&A the guys started the auction with the cat plushie and amounts were being shouted out from all sides so they couldn’t keep track. Eventually Tom took charge as auctioneer and things went a bit more smoothly. All the toys went for a lot of money and I think they ended up raising over a thousand Aussie dollars for charity. After the cat they auctioned the koala and when the bids didn’t go up fast enough Tom got up and rubbed it all over Eoin’s hair to add value! This theme continued with the Smurf, for which Tom memorably hiked up his shirt and then rubbed it all over his abs! As I recall, this led to the Smurf making 570 dollars on its own! And that concluded Friday’s festivities.
ETA: Based on information acquired at LFCC it appears Eoin's Smurf was rescued from its watery grave and is alive and well and living in Perth!! \o/
