17 Days of Con. Days 8-11: JIB9: heavenli24

heavenli24

17 Days of Con. Days 8-11: JIB9

Jun 07, 2018 10:02

After JIBLAND3, it was straight on to JIB9...

JIB9

Given that JIBLAND is still a small con (probably about half the size of JIB, which itself is a small con), it's starting to become a bit of a shock to suddenly get so many people arriving on Thursday and Friday ready for the SPN weekend! Nevertheless, it's still a very awesome weekend... after 6 years, JIBCon feels like home and it's like seeing family now when I attend :).

This year's the JIB9 lineup was supposed to be almost exactly the same as the SPNUK lineup, except that instead of Jake Abel, we had David Haydn-Jones. But of course, things couldn't go that smoothly... unfortunately, Matt Cohen had to cancel just a couple of days before the con started (due to filming) and so a really fast replacement was arranged in the form of Adam Fergus. As an added frustration, they had also managed to snag Sam Heughan to attend briefly during the weekend as a general JIBWEEK guest, doing a panel and some photos and autos... however, right before the con, he also had to pull out due to filming, and was replaced by David Berry (Outlander) at the last minute. So, kudos to the JIB Staff for managing to deal with all the last-minute cancellations and replacement guests and still having everything run smoothly!

It was an amazing weekend, and we felt even more like a family when Briana found out the news about Wayward Sisters not being picked up in the middle of the con - she even said she was glad she found out when she was with us, because it was like being with family (or something to that effect - I can't remember her exact words).

Of course, it wouldn't be JIB without some kind of crazy, online drama, so let's set a few things straight:

1) Jared was not depressed and fragile and in need of care. His mental state was fine. Problem was, he was a bit out of it on Saturday due to having a bad reaction to allergy meds (particularly in the afternoon), so Jensen, Rich and Rob came up on stage during his panel to make sure he was okay for the panel and to cause a bit of a distraction and divert some of the attention away from Jared.

2) The final panel of the con was awesome and I heard nothing but cheers from the audience when Jared joined Jensen and Misha on stage. As far as I know, the majority of the drama online was caused by people who weren't even at the con and who had taken Tweets out of context and 'decided' that everyone hated the panel. I don't get how everyone seemed to be so excited about a J2M panel at SPNUK the weekend before, and people were also disappointed to only have 15 minutes of J2M at JIB9 on Saturday... yet, when we actually got an unscheduled J2M panel on Sunday of JIB9, there was outrage! As a family member said when I told them about it: 'surely having all three of them on stage together is just a bonus?'.

3) There was such a fuss made on Twitter about no recording and about how apparently the staff were being mean and horrible about it, but as far as I know all it was, was that one or two people were quietly spoken to about not streaming... and that was it. No big deal. The staff have to keep reiterating the no recording rule, because it is one the rules on the website and always has been. This is not a new thing! The official line is no videoing, however, they will overlook it if you are discreet and you are not streaming. Therefore, all the normal videos are available to view, same as every year. Again, like the other issues mentioned, it was all taken out of context and blown way out of proportion by people online!

A few highlights from JIB9, for me:

- My awesome third row seat (fingers crossed for a good seat again next year), which meant I could take good photos

- I had been wondering what I could say to Jensen in autos this year (because I don't think anything could top the Antarctica conversation from last year), and thankfully he gave me a topic in his Saturday panel. One girl asked about dealing with a fear of flying (I guess, since he flies so much?) and he gave her an analogy for turbulence (where it's like when you're in a boat and another boat goes past you, causing waves, so your boat rocks) and talked about bad landings/turbulence/diverted landings he's experienced. Now, my job is to forecast take-off and landing conditions for pilots, and also to brief them on where and how bad any turbulence will be... so when I got to Jensen's auto, I told him that I forecast turbulence and that his explanation was good (though it's a little more scientific.. turbulence is caused either by convective currents in clouds or by a sudden change in wind speed in clear air, such as when you go near the jet stream).

- My roommates and I checked out of the con hotel on Sunday and moved into the city for Sunday and Monday nights. On Monday morning, we had breakfast in the hostel where we were staying and the cook overheard us talking about Jensen. She asked if we'd met him because her sister is a massive fan of the show who had seen his Instagram post in Rome and wanted to go around the city to see if she could see him. We explained we'd been at a con and gave her the details for her sister, and also said that it would be really unlikely to see him out and about in the city anyway. After breakfast, we took the Metro down to the Piazza del Popolo and then walked down to the Spanish Steps to grab some food. I was checking Instagram as we walked and saw that Briana had just posted a pic of her and Rob shopping in Rome. My friend wondered if it was near the Spanish Steps, since there are a lot of designer shops around there, and then as we got to the Steps, I remembered Jensen had taken his photo with the Steps in the background... so we walked down the street and sure enough, there was the Gucci store, with the balcony where he had taken the photo. Just as I was taking a photo of it myself, my friend was like 'there's Jason'... we turned, and sure enough, Jason, Rich, Rob and Briana all came out of the shop next door! It was a really random coincidence (and not sure if they saw us, but I hope they don't think we were stalking them!).

My photo ops from JIB9 (I only got J2 ones this year):

JIB9 Jared photo op

Jared (slightly awkward pose from me, because he didn't hear my request for a tango pose so pulled me in for a tight hug - it took telling him 3 times, while he was hugging me, to get him to actually do the pose... as a result, I'm squished against him and smiling instead of being serious):

Jensen (again, another one where I wasn't supposed to smile... I was supposed to be going for sultry but I didn't quite get there!):

J2 (they were running late so the staff were only allowing hugs and no poses... but luckily I wanted a sandwich hug anyway as I'd never had one before):

And a selection of my photos from the con: