Dragon*Con: The Experience

Now that I've shown you lots (and LOTS) of photos from D*C, I figured I'd share a few fun (and not-so-fun) things from our weekend there.

As anyone who was there knows, the first not-so-fun thing was, of course, simply getting our badges. If you had purchased your tickets ahead of time online, the line to pick up your badge on Thursday night was about 4.5 hours long. FOUR AND A HALF HOURS.

The line wrapped an entire city block, and that was just to get into the hotel. From there? Another two hour wait.

Near the end of the line.

If, however, you wanted to buy your tickets there, at the door? Well, THEN you had to wait....10 minutes. Really. But the pre-reg line wait never got under 2 hours in length the entire weekend.

Since we were told we couldn't pick up my parent's badges without them there, John & I were in a mild state of panic by Friday night. We'd purchased day passes for ourselves Friday morning (an extra $70) in the hopes that the line would be shorter by that night, but it wasn't - and we didn't want to miss the parade Saturday morning. (My folks were arriving late Friday night.)

Enter the World's Best Dragon*Con Employee: Solutions Desk Guy. I don't know his name, and frankly, he might get in trouble if I broadcast it anyway. Suffice to say, he got us our badges, and my parents', AND he refunded us the amount of our day-pass tickets. Not because I was anyone special - he didn't know me from anyone - but just because he was nice, and because we asked for help. After having so many other D*C guys tell us "just get here at dawn and deal with it," this guy's kindness actually got me a bit weepy. Funny how random acts of kindness can do that sometimes.

I've since heard that next year D*C is finally going to barcodes, so the 4-hour-line should be a thing of the past. (Yay!)

Ok, enough griping. On to the fun stuff!

On Friday John and I went to the DS9 panel:

Photo by Convention Fans

Then on Saturday, we headed over to the Walk of Fame to get Rene Auberjonois' autograph. (What can I say? I love Quark & Odo. Plus, these are two actors that you really want to chat with; they're like a couple of favorite uncles: really approachable and sweet.)

When we got there we walked right up to the table - yay for no line! - and chose a picture of the Chef from The Little Mermaid for Rene to sign.

[Fun fact: did you know Auberjonois was the voice of chef Louis, and sang the song, "Les Poissons?"]

Now, John LOVES singing "Les Poissons," and he sounds just like Chef Louis when he does it. When I told Rene this, he immediately said, "Oh! Let's sing it together!" and launched into the song, leaning across the table and directing with his hands. It. Was. Awesome.

Of course, John was giggling too hard to join in (Yes, my man giggles. And it's adorable.), so really we just got a short mini-concert by Rene. "Hee hee hee, honh honh honh!!" Have I mentioned yet that it was awesome?

Here's our signed picture:

All the money Rene makes on autographs goes to Doctors Without Borders. I certainly don't mind actors profiting from their autographs, but it's also nice knowing money isn't the sole motivating factor for their meeting their fans, either.

My other fangirl encounter happened in the art room, with Doktor A. He's the artist of these two ink drawings in our dining room:

While browsing at his table, I mentioned that the two drawings we'd purchased last year were now in our steampunked dining room. Immediately he said, "I've seen your blog!" and mentioned our apothecary cabinet and that he liked the labels. (!!) So, yeah, no biggie. Doktor A has seen my dining room. Doktor A...has seen...my dining room. YOU GUYS. DOKTOR A HAS SEEN MY DINING ROOM. [faints]

Oh, and speaking of which, check out this cosplayer dressed as one of Doktor A's Mechtorians:


And here's a better view of the Mechtorian he's dressed as, Stephan Le Podd (which is also clipped to his belt):

Cool, huh?

And speaking of fan encounters, I have to tell you how fun it was to meet some of you throughout the weekend. I loved having random folks come up and say, "Are you Jen?!" So. Fun. Not to mention it impressed the heck out of my parents. :D

At one point, though, John actually spotted someone hunting for us, which was a little surreal. We were standing at a cross walk, when he noticed a girl next to us in the crowd clutching Cake Wrecks. "Nice book," he said, nudging me. Her reaction was fantastic: she immediately whipped her head down to stare at my feet, and yelled, "YELLOW BOOTS!!" Ha! Apparently she'd given up on finding us, so it was a fun surprise for us all. Especially when she (her name was Amber, btw) gave me this:

Aheh. Heh. Heh. Do I have the best readers, or do I have the best readers?

(Although, I must admit, the carrot jockey actually seems *more* naked when he's wearing a shirt and no pants. I'm not sure how Donald Duck pulls it off. [no pun intended (for once)])

Then there was the weird part of D*C. No, not the furries. I'm talking about the TNG panel. (Any of you there? Can I get a witness?) I mean, first there were the technical difficulties: mics too quiet, feedback, video that didn't zoom in, and lighting so dim against the black backdrop that all you could see of Levar Burton was his grin. Still, all that's par for the course with cons. The REALLY odd part was the actors themselves. Specifically Jonathon Frakes (Riker), Marina Sirtis (Troi), and Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar).

Marina apparently wanted to talk politics, and right out of the gate threw out some angry remarks about Frakes and his "tea party" and "rewarding people for bad behavior." I'm really not sure what she was talking about. Frakes & Crosby spent a lot of the panel whispering back and forth and putting their heads on each other's shoulders. Then playful insults between the two got so insanely out of hand that Crosby actually stalked off stage in a huff. Frakes went after her. Neither came back. The audience was left scratching their heads and wondering what the heck had just happened, and whether Crosby was play-acting or truly angry.

In fact, here's some video of the few moments before Crosby left (warning: language):

Shortly after this, Crosby commented that she gets too emotional sometimes. Someone yelled out that she should just "switch off her emotion chip," to which she replied, "but I didn't have a chip on the show! [turning to the other actors] I don't have a chip, do I?" Frakes answered, "Only on your shoulder." The crowd went nuts, aaaand exit Crosby, stage left.

In the audience, some of the folks around the microphone began policing those asking the questions - goading them to 'hurry up and ask the question already!' - to such an extent that at one point I thought the lady doing the harassing was going to deck the questioner. The tension was palpable, and it was extremely uncomfortable. The actors also seemed kind of annoyed by the questions, often ignoring them entirely. When asked a lengthy question about how he prepared for a particularly trying role, Frakes answered gruffly, "I read the lines and hit my marks." The fan was visibly crushed.

Don't get me wrong: there were still laughs and cheers and good points, but in all much of the cast behaved like this was a private party and that we, the audience who had waited hours to see them, were eavesdropping annoyances. They seemed to talk more to each other - off microphone, so we couldn't hear - than they did to us, and much of the time we had no idea what was going on onstage. Part of this was the lack of a moderator: Garret Wang (Harry Kim on Voyager) did nothing to ease the huge awkward pauses or keep the panel on track. Contrast that with the cast of Stargate, who face the audience the entire time and are really "on" - doing their best to focus on and entertain their fans - and you can see why I found the TNG panel so disappointing. Especially for my parents, who had never been to a con before. Such a shame.

Well, just so I don't end on a low note: check out this funny video by Chad Vader (Darth's little brother, of course) naming a bunch of costumes at D*C. It's great. Oh, and the steampunk Batman is amaaazing - can't believe I didn't see him while we were there!

And that, finally, wraps up my coverage of Dragon*Con. Until next year, of course. [eyebrow waggle] Hope you enjoyed it!


Stay tuned for an update on my office make-over (remember that?) and some hints at the craft project currently taking up my entire dining room table. [rubbing hands together gleefully] Oh, yeah. This is gonna be gooood.