I got my wristband at the grandstand, which was really a good idea because it diverts the crowds of people that need to exchange their tickets away from the rest of the con. After picking up a "grab bag," nearly murdering an ATM machine and purchasing my photo op, I headed out to the line-up...to get inside.
It may be hard to see, but that entire +15 is full of people. There were two sections of the line, and I ended up in the secondary one. I was still 30-40 minutes early. And no, I do not know those people in the picture. I was alone at this point.
Sign above the line really says it all (even if it's actually referring to hockey). I met two other con attendees in line, Sarah, who had come from Vancouver with the poster she got JUST in time for the con that she was going to get autographed, and Thomas, who was excited for...well pretty much everything. Not too sure about Thomas though...he IS an Xbox fan after all (cue angry rants from xbox owners).
After a long wait in line and a lot of random discussions later, we were allowed into the building. On the way in I spotted (and was perplexed by) the terrifying inflatable characters outside the expo pavilion.
Inside I felt like a kid in a candy store. The cliché is the only real way I could describe it in the moment. I was extremely happy as well, because the con only had about 1/3 of the people that would be there on Saturday...AND I HAD ROOM TO BREATHE. It was wonderful and all the vendors had fully stocked merch. Sarah went off in search of the Expo store while Thomas stuck around for awhile to look at through artist's alley. I found some delightful prints, jewellery and leather work on my travels, but only ended up purchasing prints for the time being.
Yessssss merchhhhh. Thomas decide to wait in this area for his friends (who apparently decided to show up after all, which is good because he said he had been ditched by them) and I continued on alone (which was probably for the best as I was distracted by everything and I'm sure my drooling over ALL THE MERCH is a little frightening if you're not used to it).
I then found one of the many Daleks of the hundreds I am bound to encounter over the weekend. I should count the number of Daleks encountered, and document that progress. Sadly, I will have to wait until I return to see how many I truly find.
I continued my wanderings as the room slowly filled with more people. I spent a good 10 minutes at one of the medieval weapons vendors thinking "yes, I could use a Bodkin point for practical purposes" and then tore myself away from the dagger with much difficulty (they also had a mace man...a freaking mace...I could totally use a mace). I collected business cards of the places I wished to return to (I think I can make a full deck out of them at this point). In line Sarah gave me the brilliant idea of writing down the booth numbers on the cards to remember where they were. I, however, am not that brilliant, so I just pocketed the cards after I received them.
I dunno wtf this is.
As I travelled, I took a couple pictures of cosplayers who were kind enough to stop for me. I always find it difficult to approach people to ask for their picture as I feel like a complete creep. I know that's not the case, but it's still a whole level of awkward I'm really not used to. regardless, I got a few good pictures. I was super excited about the Alice costume as I recently finished an LP of that game. I am disappointed by the lack of blood on the dress though.
I met up with Rachel and we shopped for a short time, mostly looking through artist's alley once more. Thirty minutes before Billy Boyd's spotlight, we decided to head outside towards the pavilion to line up. Out there we got a closer look at the curious giant inflatable----
HOLY SHIT. RUN CHILD! THE WOMAN IN GREEN WILL ACT AS A DISTRACTION. WHY ARE YOU SMILING? IT'S GOING TO CONSUME YOUR SOUL.
We had excellent timing as when we reached the line, they had just started allowing people to enter. We found a seat somewhere in the middle and waited for Billy Boyd to arrive.
When they said "spotlight on Billy Boyd," I didn't actually think there'd be a spotlight. Hence, poor Billy was drowned out in a sea of blinding white light in all my pictures. The screen helped a little bit with that aspect. He did a wonderful job answering the questions, especially some of the more awkward ones. Some highlights and quotes from the spotlight:
"I missed the one while I was doing the other one." - Billy
"Sounds like bad relationship advice." - hostess from The One Ring.net (apparently it's their 15th anniversary this year...go check it out!)
"I stood up to sit back down again." - Billy in the middle of answering a question
Billy's favourite practical effect to work with was from Space Milkshake.
There are hundreds of cats, dogs and toads named after Merry and Pippin. Billy encouraged more to be named (he figured a 90% rate for cats and a 10% rate for dogs in terms of naming...he had not heard about the toads at that point).
My favourite story was about when he was filming Master and Commander and they were doing a storm scene. They were using a large water tank to film it, with pipes showering water on them for the rain and a jet engine for the wind. Apparently a bunch of the supporting actors were peeing in the water tank. Little did they know that the water from the pipes showering them during the scene...was being drawn from the tank. So they were being showered with piss for a good week until someone found out and shut it down to drain and refill the tank. When they asked what was going on, they were told "sorry, but you're all covered in piss."
If Billy could have played any other Lord of the Rings character, Legolas was his first choice, Arwen was his second choice, and Gollum was his third.
When asked if he'd rather sing or act, he said he would like to sing act. He didn't care what production it was, even Shakespeare. And when he said "Shakespeare," Rachel and I gave each other knowing looks as we were about 3 feet away from him last summer as when he played Banquo at the globe theatre in MacBeth. Yeah...I lost a bet after that play. I will never mistake Billy Boyd for Dominic Monaghan ever again.
There were other good moments, but those are the ones that came to mind.
After the spotlight, we headed back into the exhibition halls to shop more and get Rachel her expo t-shirt. We encountered Disgruntled Gandalf (okay, the person wasn't really disgruntled...I think they were just annoyed that they had just been in about four other photos). That hat is awesome. I would love a hat like that.
We encountered the movie prop display and shop again, nearly the same one that was here last year. I at least got a nicer picture of it. The Gandalf Hat that was there was being sold for 36000 360 dollars (EDIT: My brain added extra 0s for some reason). I decided that I did not want a hat like that. I can't afford to.
And then I got menaced by the Pale Orc. I look so puny.
On the way out we encountered the Southern Alberta Lego Users Group display. Everything was awesome.
And of course, here is the other giant Dalek I found. That brings our total count up to 2 Daleks.
As we left I spotted the giant Gordon Freeman figure. I was tempted by this until I saw the price tag. If it had been Corvo Attano...maybe I would have considered it. At any rate, it's a good tie-in to the HL2 LP right now.
As we left the con, I was amused to see how many of the vendors still wanted to sell stuff despite the volunteers and announcers telling us to GTFO. Most of the vendors were still selling items long after the 8pm announcement. It's refreshing because by Sunday, all their merch will be gone and they'll be too tired to care anymore.
Thursday Comic Con was amazing. Definitely doing that again next year. I may not get out to the con today (Friday), because some stuff came up. I might make it out for an hour/hour and a half, but otherwise, I'll be there most of the day Saturday and Sunday, and there will be MANY more pictures as I won't be so focused on MERCH.
PS - WTF
Snapped that while Rachel was looking at goggles.
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