Fan Expo – Too Many Crowds

I bailed on Fan Expo early today – or maybe I beat a strategic retreat. By a little after 4 I’d done everything I wanted to and still had the opportunity to do today, and I was tired of being in a crowd and the phones not working well. But I didn’t want to go back to my hotel room because there’s a Browncoats shindig downtown in about two hours.

So I’m loitering in the VIA Rail part of Union station nibbling on snacks and enjoying how well the iPhone works without 9000 other phones next to it – until the battery runs out. And I’m thinking about what I accomplished today and the disappointments.

Accomplishments:
Met Alan Tudyk in his autograph line. Got my copy of “Those Left Behind” signed, bringing that comic up to 5 big damn signatures, and 6 for the blueprint book, which has Melinda Clarke too. Alan loved the shiny detail in the blueprints, and he signed over the cockpit on the cover of course.

Played a little fragment of a Settlers of Catan game with a nice fellow from the board games room.

Got a pretty good seat for the Lost Girl panel, loved hearing the cast banter back and forth and seeing the blooper reel.

Fan Expo Day 2 – A good kind of tired.

Okay. Woke up, got Tim’s for breakfast, worked on some of ‘The Witches of Arion’, transferred it to the Tungsten C to work on while I was on downtime at the convention center, got into the shower, and rushed to get dressed and out of the hotel before ten.

Got into the show without too many lines, around twenty after. Picked up a ticket for the John Barrowman autograph line, they said it’d be around twenty minutes. There were a few people lined up for James Marsters, but he wasn’t there, and somebody said he was supposed to get there for eleven, so I didn’t wait around there.

I checked for the Browncoats booth, (still not there, maybe they don’t have one this year,) and read a bit. Back to the autograph lines, got a book signed by John Barrowman pretty quickly, he was really fun and friendly.

By this time James’ line was pretty long and a few people were filtering in for Juliet Landau, so I talked to the people in Juliet’s line, and they said they were hoping that she’d be there around eleven too, so I got in line too, pulled out my Kindle, and waited.

And waited. Eleven o’clock comes around, James shows up, his line starts moving. After noon, a volunteer finally shows up and says that Juliet is still in her hotel, and that the earliest she’ll be around is one fifteen. One fifteen is also when James and Juliet were supposed to have a joint photo op according to the program.

I bail from the line then, surprised that it doesn’t entirely melt away. I line up for James, then give up when I’m about halfway through, deciding that I don’t really want to spend forty bucks on a repeat signing.

So I wander around a bit, go to the board games room, find an old critique partner and talk to her about writing or the lack of it for a few minutes, check out a rules book for “Settlers of Catan”, then go back downstairs to grab some pizza, and I decide to try the Juliet line around one fifteen.

First afternoon at Fan Expo

I’ve been inside Fan Expo for a little more than an hour now. At this point on Thursday afternoon, things are relatively quiet, but there’s still some fun stuff going on.

I left work just before noon, lugging my suitcase onto the train, and walked up Bay and Yonge streets all the way to Wellesley, sweating up a storm as I went. A nice lady checked me into my room, and I spent half an hour there organizing my stuff and cooling down before taking the subway down and figuring the right way into the convention center through crowd control – though the crowds haven’t really arrived yet.

Since I got here I’ve signed up for a Dresden Files RPG session tonight, walked most of the sales floor, and talked to a few guys at the photo sales booth about Kaylee cupcake dress pictures. Jewel Staite isn’t at this show, but I want to get that picture signed by Jewel and Jane Espenson at DragonCon. A fellow customer said that he got the picture at Jewel’s autograph table at Polaris last year, so I think I should be able to track it down in Atlanta.

I only bought two items so far – packs of trading cards, Firefly and Angel

What else? I scouted out the autograph situation a bit. Looks like John Barrowman and Juliet Landauwill be signing tomorrow, but I’ll have to wait until Saturday at least for Rose McGowan and Alan Tudyk. That helps me know what I need to bring to get signed. I’ve seen a few familiar faces around and chatted with Jason R briefly. The Toronto Browncoats fan booth isn’t where it’s marked in the programme; I wonder if they let TCON have their space for today.

It’s still more than an hour before Julie Benz’s Q&A session. I want to go find the ctv sprawl again and find out more about this ‘arrow’ show, and then maybe I’ll get in line early for Julie and read as I wait. Please excuse any typos in this post as the on-screen keyboard is not really meant for long composition.

A few pics of the convention center hall:

Fan Expo is less than two days away…

Can you tell I’m excited? 🙂

I haven’t packed yet, but I’ve been working on my schedule plans, figuring out what Q&A sessions and other events I need to make it to, when I can fit in some role-play gaming, (They’ve got Harry Dresden RPG sessions!) and what I want to take to be signed by whom.

I’m leaving work Thursday around noon, taking the train to Toronto, and checking into a little boutique hotel near the Wellesley subway station that was cheaper than any of the official convention hotels closer to downtown. Then it’s down to the convention center to see how early I can get in – Julie Benz’s Q&A session is on the first night, and hopefully I can fit the gaming in afterward.

I’m really excited about meeting Alan Tudyk, but John Barrowman and Juliet Landau should be fun too, also seeing Julie Benz and James Marsters again.

I’ll probably be very tired when I get back to the office on Sunday evening to drive back home, but as long as I don’t get into an accident it’ll all be worth it.

And then a few days later I fly down to Atlanta for Dragon*Con.