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.

Fan Expo 2011 impressions – day one.

So I’ve been to Fan Expo for the afternoon, and the first thing that struck me was how much more orderly it was than last year – possibly just on account of it being Thursday, and nobody being around, but still, I was expecting to wait in line for a while with my wristband for a while before being let in at four o’clock. Instead, the people who’d got their armbands delivered were just about put on the greased skids until they got to the sales floor entryway, which suggests to me that the convention actually opened a little bit earlier than it was supposed to. Not that I’m complaining.

I had a lot of fun playing a D&D 4th edition low level adventure, (though the rules were kinda confusing me,) and got one email address in the speed dating – that I can’t entirely decipher. 😦 Oh well, quite possibly it was from one of the girls who I carefully left my cell phone number with, and maybe she’ll get in touch with me.

I also scouted out the sales floor and the signature line spots, and made my first purchases of the weekend – a little hardcover copy of “Doctor Who: The Glamour Chase” and a Doctor Who sound effects key fob.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the convention, and planning to be smart and careful when it comes to the potential for crowds and lines. I signed up for another gaming session, for the Serenity RPG tomorrow, and I’m interested in doing the introduction to LARPing on Sunday. That’ll leave all of Saturday free for signature lines, Q&A’s, and other panels.