Leverage Convention
Mar. 19th, 2010 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
growyourwingsFickleone and I left the con-con around 4pm this afternoon. We arrived around 9:30 am. Ended up in registration line and photo-op/auto purchasing lines for about 3 hours. Then we went to a local Lebanese restaurant for a late lunch. Then back to the con to check out the main room. It was pretty empty--not much going on at that moment--a trivia contest. The room is "small enough" that we aren't too worried about the fact we do not have reserved seats. So we'll probably show up around 10am tomorrow morning to find seats for the 11:00ish panel with some of the Leverage crew. That should be interesting as we've always wanted a panel with SPN crew.
And by the room being "small enough", we were comparing it to other cons we'd been too (just SPN for me, general sci-fi as well for fickleone). We figured the last SPN con in Vancouver had 1,500-2,000 people with just about 500-600 in the Gold seating alone. The whole room for this con probably only seats 600ish. So even if we get the last seats available--we won't be in the nose-bleed area and should have a decent view.
After checking out the room, we went on a walking tour (self-guided) of some of the filming locations in Portland. The con provided a very nice map with locations mapped out. Unfortunately they identified the locations by episode number and neither one of us know the episodes by number (now if it was SPN....) So we just enjoyed walking around Portland. It was weird to be a "tourist" in our own town.
We only met one other couple who was from Portland. Everyone else in line were from other states and countries! It was lots of fun talking with others while we were standing in line. One woman was from Colorado and is/was very involved with LOTR fandom. She also helps to organize a very large (6,000 participants) convention in Colorado (multiple media, not just LOTR). She's going to New Zealand in 2012 for the premier of The Hobbit. She's been before and has connections with folks down there. We were talking/fantasizing about joining her! We got some LJ contact information from her and her friend. Later the LOTR woman was joined by a local Portland woman she knew from online. They hadn't met before in person. The other woman was "lamiel" or something like that on LJ and she's very into writing LOTR fanfic. She'd just printed a very nice hard-bound book of her biggest (and I guess very popular) work. It was cool to see such a professional looking book produced by and fanfic writer. They kinda invited us to join them for lunch, but fickleone and I wanted to lunch alone since we hadn't had much chance to talk lately between our two jobs.
There were a couple of crews (from TNT? others?) filming and interviewing folks. The LOTR woman and a couple of others next to us were interviewed. Fickleone and I were glad it wasn't us because they asked about favorite episodes and I'm not sure I could have come up with an episode name! But there was some talk about the interviews and filming of the fans going on the Leverage "extras" on the next DVD. That would be cool! Who knows? Perhaps it would be in one of the "20 minutes" thingies you see prior to movies these days. Fickleone and I were in something similar filmed by The CW during one of the SPN cons--our first I think. We were all "Hi Mom! We're famous" and goofing around. We got a small thrill from being caught on a video about the convention. This was early on in our fandom experience of course. But it's still fun to talk with and see the filming crews at work.
I really was truly amazed by the number of folks from out of town/country. We did see a few SPN fans as well that we'd seen at SPN cons. Plus a few new folks that were also SPN fans. I ran into a woman I'd met at the 2nd SPN LA Con. She'd was sitting near me at that con. She's from Germany and it was fun and strange to run into her at a different fandom con and in my own town. There were many people from other countrys--Australia, England, Germany. Plus there were more men there! Ha! One guy standing near us was from Baltimore. This was his first ever convention and he was really into Leverage and was drawn in by the woman who plays Sophie (I can never remember her name.) He's evidently followed her career for a while. He said he was really impressed with Portland and really liked what he saw.
We purchased a photo op with all of the main five together and got autos for them as well. I also go an auto ticket for Mark Sheppard--had too since he's been on SPN as well (not to mention BSG & Firefly.) Mark has a panel on Sunday morning--it will be interesting to hear him talk. It will be interesting to see how the photo ops and auto lines/process goes. After about 1-1/2 hours in line the guy running the convention said they were not anticipating so many people buying extra auto tickets and he was concerned about how the actors/signers were going to accommodate so many.
So we'll see.
The hotel was gorgeous. And I took photos of the Portland area. It was a very beautiful day and fickleone and I were glad so many out-of-towners were seeing Portland for the first time with this gorgeous weather.
.
And by the room being "small enough", we were comparing it to other cons we'd been too (just SPN for me, general sci-fi as well for fickleone). We figured the last SPN con in Vancouver had 1,500-2,000 people with just about 500-600 in the Gold seating alone. The whole room for this con probably only seats 600ish. So even if we get the last seats available--we won't be in the nose-bleed area and should have a decent view.
After checking out the room, we went on a walking tour (self-guided) of some of the filming locations in Portland. The con provided a very nice map with locations mapped out. Unfortunately they identified the locations by episode number and neither one of us know the episodes by number (now if it was SPN....) So we just enjoyed walking around Portland. It was weird to be a "tourist" in our own town.
We only met one other couple who was from Portland. Everyone else in line were from other states and countries! It was lots of fun talking with others while we were standing in line. One woman was from Colorado and is/was very involved with LOTR fandom. She also helps to organize a very large (6,000 participants) convention in Colorado (multiple media, not just LOTR). She's going to New Zealand in 2012 for the premier of The Hobbit. She's been before and has connections with folks down there. We were talking/fantasizing about joining her! We got some LJ contact information from her and her friend. Later the LOTR woman was joined by a local Portland woman she knew from online. They hadn't met before in person. The other woman was "lamiel" or something like that on LJ and she's very into writing LOTR fanfic. She'd just printed a very nice hard-bound book of her biggest (and I guess very popular) work. It was cool to see such a professional looking book produced by and fanfic writer. They kinda invited us to join them for lunch, but fickleone and I wanted to lunch alone since we hadn't had much chance to talk lately between our two jobs.
There were a couple of crews (from TNT? others?) filming and interviewing folks. The LOTR woman and a couple of others next to us were interviewed. Fickleone and I were glad it wasn't us because they asked about favorite episodes and I'm not sure I could have come up with an episode name! But there was some talk about the interviews and filming of the fans going on the Leverage "extras" on the next DVD. That would be cool! Who knows? Perhaps it would be in one of the "20 minutes" thingies you see prior to movies these days. Fickleone and I were in something similar filmed by The CW during one of the SPN cons--our first I think. We were all "Hi Mom! We're famous" and goofing around. We got a small thrill from being caught on a video about the convention. This was early on in our fandom experience of course. But it's still fun to talk with and see the filming crews at work.
I really was truly amazed by the number of folks from out of town/country. We did see a few SPN fans as well that we'd seen at SPN cons. Plus a few new folks that were also SPN fans. I ran into a woman I'd met at the 2nd SPN LA Con. She'd was sitting near me at that con. She's from Germany and it was fun and strange to run into her at a different fandom con and in my own town. There were many people from other countrys--Australia, England, Germany. Plus there were more men there! Ha! One guy standing near us was from Baltimore. This was his first ever convention and he was really into Leverage and was drawn in by the woman who plays Sophie (I can never remember her name.) He's evidently followed her career for a while. He said he was really impressed with Portland and really liked what he saw.
We purchased a photo op with all of the main five together and got autos for them as well. I also go an auto ticket for Mark Sheppard--had too since he's been on SPN as well (not to mention BSG & Firefly.) Mark has a panel on Sunday morning--it will be interesting to hear him talk. It will be interesting to see how the photo ops and auto lines/process goes. After about 1-1/2 hours in line the guy running the convention said they were not anticipating so many people buying extra auto tickets and he was concerned about how the actors/signers were going to accommodate so many.
So we'll see.
The hotel was gorgeous. And I took photos of the Portland area. It was a very beautiful day and fickleone and I were glad so many out-of-towners were seeing Portland for the first time with this gorgeous weather.
.
