Serenity con report

[emony]

I delivered what is hopefully my last lot of leaflets before the election. Took bloody ages because I had two lots to do, as I wasn't here over the weekend.

I'm going to try to do a bit of a review of Serenity, but I tried last night and got distracted by Firefly, and tonight I'm watching CSI, so .. let's see.

I finished packing on Friday morning, went to Sainsburys and bought more food than I could possibly need, and then got cash. The machine wouldn't let me have as much as I wanted, but as it turned out I didn't need any more than I took anyway, so it was fine. I'd already got my bus ticket from Woking to Heathrow, and the hotel went on my credit card, so I only bought autograph picture and photo shoots. Worked out pretty reasonable overall.

Anyway, I did all that, came back to pick up my stuff, and headed off on the train to Woking. I was a bit worried as I only had nine minutes between arriving at Woking and the bus leaving there for Heathrow, and they recommend you leave at least 10 minutes, but it was absolutely fine. I got to Heathrow around 12.30pm, having left here at just before 11am. I met up with odycee and then niannah arrived and we headed off to the hotel on the Hoppa bus. When we got there, we found out that they weren't checking anyone in until 3pm. They didn't tell us why, but it was apparently because a bunch of university students or school kids or something had been there the night before and had totally trashed the hotel, and they needed extra time to clean the rooms. Not, like I say, that they mentioned this to us. It just sort of got around the hotel by word of mouth, as these things do.

So we went and registered and I got my stewarding pack, and then .. I can't remember actually. At some point (2.30pm, in fact) I went off to do my stewarding duty. Two hours of sitting outside the closed dealers' room. Hm. Passed reasonably quickly. While I as there, indehed's friend F came over and we sat and chatted for a while, and naughtyelf turned up and sat with Niannah and Odycee for a while, waiting in the very long queue to check in to the hotel rooms. It was crazy. Crazy! The hotel had something mad to deal with in cleaning up after the excesses of the night before, but man the service was crappy. I've seen a few posts about that already though, so I won't mention it too much.

Rachael had to leave to get to the football before we even got into our hotel room, but eventually we did - although our room (I was sharing with Rachael) wasn't ready until later. Niannah and Cee had a double bed, for some reason (ie. because the hotel is crap), but Rachael and I had a twin room as we were meant to. It was quite a nice room really, as rooms at the Thistle go. I only found out on Monday morning, after we'd left, when we were sitting at Heathrow having a chat, that misssimm was in the room next door to mine the entire weekend. Doh! Worse for her, of course, given that we had hot water all weekend that she could've used. It does explain the coincidence that we had too much hot water at one point while they had none all weekend.

So, we got into the hotel rooms. Rachael's and mine was at one end of the hotel, Anna's and Cee's was at the other, and Mary's was at a third point to complete our triangle - one might say, our Troika - of evil.

At some point we headed over for the opening ceremony, at which the "surprise" guest, to make up for Adam Baldwin not being able to make it, was announced as both Ron Glass (which everyone already knew, because his name was up on all the signs) and Mark Sheppard (Badger). I wasn't enormously impressed at first, but actually they were both good guests, as was Chris Buchanan, the executive producer on Serenity and head of Joss' company when they were making Firely. Anyway, that was pretty cool. I don't remember much of Friday night, to be honest. I think we sat around and chatted for a while outside, but when I stand for too long my feet hurt, so I was sat on the floor.. or was that Saturday? Not sure. Anyway, there was talking and then we all (?) headed off to bed.

Saturday started bright and early at 7am, because Rachael and I were on 7.30am breakfast (breakfast times - 6.30, 7.30 or 8.30) were assigned on check-in, and Niannah and Cee, lovely as they are, kindly let Rachael and I have 7.30am while they nobley took 8.30am. Oh, and in case you weren't sure? Yes, I was being sarcastic). It actually worked out best that way, because by 8.30am there was a queue for the breakfast room, whereas at 7.30am Rachael and I just walked right in. So, we got breakfast and I nicked some food to eat later on too, and then we went back to our room to finish getting ready for the day ahead.

From here on in I think I'm going to have to vague things up, because I just don't remember what happened in that much detail. At some point, I saw a bit of the Firefly pilot on the big screen. One thing about this weekend, it really rekindled my love of Firefly. I liked it before, of course, but now I really want to rewatch all the eps and absorb the love again. Good stuff. Anyway, I saw that, and then went off to get my photos with .. Morena Baccarin, and then my group photo with everyone. I can't scan them because I don't have a scanner, but they're all quite nice. I also got a picture with Alan Tudyk, and Ron Glass. The photo session were reasonably well organised. Not too much queueing, in comparison with some cons I've been to.

There were also talks on Saturday - Chris Buchanan went on with Morena Baccarin (Inara) and Jewel Staite (Kaylee). Jewel told a funny story about how Morena stood in as maid of honour at her wedding and then, at the speeches, told everyone that Jewel wasn't wearing any underwear. Apart from that, I don't remember too much of it. I think I only saw about half that talk, but it was good. Chris Buchanan was a good guest too. Very clued in to the con vibe. A "one of us" kind of guest. Nice guy. After that was Summer Glau and Ron Glass, which I think I saw. Summer is just tiny and cute, and apparently older than Jewel, who is my age. Ron was good too actually. Reminded me a little of Don Davis. He laughed a lot.

After that they showed a classy, classy show called Space Cases, staring a 12-year-old Jewel Staite. Most amusing. After that was a talk by Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk, which I don't remember but I think it was funny. They're both great, and they play off each other really well. Nathan is clearly the boss of all the others, and they admit as much themselves. It's nice. He really loves the show, he loves being adored by the fans, and he loves his fellow cast members.

After that Clare Kramer, who was hosting, did a talk, but I don't think many people went. I didn't. Poor Clare. I think Sean Harry just brings her over to all these things because they're mates.

I think I went back to our room to eat some food at some point, and at 5pm I went in to get my autographs from Nathan, Morena, Mark and Alan, before heading over to do my second lot of stewarding - 5.45pm to 7.45pm on the upstairs autograph room. I was running, but it didn't involve too much really, except standing by the door and checking people's badge numbers. It was okay though, and when we finished I was able to go up and get my own autographs from that room (Ron, Chris, Summer and Jewel) to complete the set. So by Saturday night, I was all done in terms of autographs and photos. Nice.

After that was the fancy dress, which included a few memorable items - the statue of Jayne I thought was the best, it looked amazing, and the Wash-a-saurus, which was a chick dressed up as Wash on the back of a dinosaur! Like when you have a person sat on top of a horse or something, where the horse's legs are really the person's legs and the legs on either side of the horse are fake? It was like that, but a dinosaur. Alan Tudyk was totally blown away by it. He kept getting Nathan Fillion to take photos of him standing with the chick. It was cute :)

So that was fun, and then we sat outside by the bar for a bit, and around midnight I - being old and past it - admitted defeat and went to bed, dragging Rachael along too.

Sunday was fairly similiar. I felt a bit ill, as I always seem to do on Sunday mornings at cons, so I went down to the petrol station to get some drink, in case it was the hotel water making me ill (maryavatar made me totally paranoid about tap water.) It was a gorgeously sunny day. I met Mary along the way, and .. then what did we do? I think we went in for Nathan Fillion and Morena Baccarin's talk. Universal were in all day on Sunday filming us for DVD extras and movie promotion or something like that, so there was a camera crew wandering about. They filmed Nathan and Morena's talk .. oh, wait, that's right. I went to the end of Chris Buchanan and Ron Glass's talk first. Some chick kept asking Chris Buchanan about merchandise, insisting that we wanted figures that were posable, preferably life-sized. *rolls eyes*

So, yes, Nathan and Morena. They did a great bit where they sort of acted out how Mal and Inara would get together, eventually, and Jewel Staite and Chris Buchanan both got up to ask them questions. Nathan butted in to Ron Glass and Chris Buchanan's talk earlier that day, and asked them "how much of their work was down to Nathan Fillion". They both attributed 95% to him, and there were hugs. It was very funny.

After that, Summer Glau and Mark Sheppard did a talk, which I did not see. Then there was more Space Cases, which I missed most of tragically, and then Alan and Jewel, which I don't remember but I was present for. Then there was a group talk by everyone, which again was filmed by Universal. That was good. The questions were, mostly, not too hideously self-indulgent, and there was some good stuff.

Then they filmed us - twice - watching the Serenity trailer. That was cool :)

Then I went off for my second lot of stewarding duty - second veres same as the first - and after that, at about 8pm .. I forget. But at some point I went back for the closing ceremony - about 9.30pm? The funniest moment, of course, was when Sean was gushing about how great Nathan Fillion was - "..a man who inspires us all .." etc - and as he was building up to the climax of announcing the name, Alan Tudyk stood up, saying "Thank you! Thank you!" Very funny :) Hopefully I got a few good photos, but have to wait and see.

Then the stewards "party", which Rachael and I went along to to get our little signed certificate thingies, which were nice this year. We also witnessed a Jedi Chef initiation ceremony. I feel so special. And after that, we went and volunteered on the photo distibution desk, for which we got little if any thanks, as always. Still, we do it for love, not for thanks. Then, party, which again meant sitting about chatting for a while. Around 1am we all headed off for bed, and that was pretty much it.

Monday we got breakfast with Anna and Cee at about 9.30am, then Rachael headed off to get her train while we checked out, and then headed in to Heathrow to get some coffee and wait to get our various forms of transport home. I met up with Clara again there, and we got our respective buses home. The end. *yawn*

So that's pretty much it. And now, to bed. Work tomorrow. Boo hiss etc. Wish I was still at Serenity.