The one convention I go to every year. Sometimes there are guests I want to see, and sometimes I just want to go hang out.
Eliza DushkuThis year, I was keen on seeing Eliza Dushku, aka the very cool Faith from Buffy.
Which is why it was incredibly disappointing when I couldn't.
I spent an hour and a half navigating trackwork to get to Olympic Park, and queued for another quarter of an hour to get inside. Only at the door to the panel room did I find out that her panel on Saturday was restricted to VIP pass holders only.
I was told that Sunday's panel was the one open to everyone. But that doesn't do much good to someone who has already set aside the day, made the trek, paid $25 entry, and has made other plans for the next day. In the five minutes I hovered near the door, I witnessed several other people turned away with the same message, so clearly I wasn't the only one. It was particularly galling since it appeared that the room was half-empty.
The program on the website and in the showbag said only that this event was a "Whedonverse Exclusive", which could mean anything. I had to dig around in the other sections of the site when I got home to find out exactly what this was. In contrast, one of the writing workshops was clearly labelled "ticketed event". In all my years of attending Supanova, this is the first time that I've missed out on a guest talk because of something like this. Probably because the organisers usually label VIP pass holder events with something like "VIP pass holder event". This is my biggest gripe, the poor communication.
Summer GlauOn the other hand, I did get to see Summer Glau's panel, and she was absolutely lovely. Although it wasn't her first visit to Supanova, it was the first time I'd heard her speak, and she was very genuine and generous and talked about how science fiction had become a wonderful home for her. Firefly was her first show, and she seemed still really connected with River.
During the Q&A, someone mentioned that Nathan Fillion had, at a convention in Melbourne, talked about all the stuff he stole off the set when Firefly ended. What did Summer take? She answered that because she was new, she was a goody two shoes and obeyed all the rules, so she didn't take anything. And afterwards, everyone else talked about this they had stolen and that they had stolen, and she was sad, because she had wanted her combat boots.
Nathan Fillion, by the way, sounds as scary as Caleb. You know when people steal garden gnomes and take them on holiday around the world and send photos back to their owners with the Eiffel Tower in the background ? Well, Nathan did the same to the propmaster's toy monkey, and everyone thought it was pretty funny - until one day Nathan *cut off the monkey's thumb* and sent it to the propmaster. And then it was "kind of sad", and not so funny anymore. Argh!
Summer's upcoming projects: a TV series called The Cape, and a movie called The Knights of Badassdom.
ShoppingI picked up Pirotess's Follow My Lead and Pete Townshend and J Marc Schmidt's Psychoderelict, but apart from that I was very restrained this year.
CosplayI didn't sit through the cosplay competition this year, which means I missed out on seeing
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kawak's group take the prize for their Berserk entry. However, I did catch the Sailor Starlights skit later, which featured a very memorable live transformation scene. And there were lots of cool cosplayers wandering around.
FriendsHad a great time catching up with lots of people, including
_leareth,
fluffyduck,
evilhayama,
mrtang,
kawak,
maikero, and Ronin. I even stopped by the AnimeUNSW table for old times' sake.
AfterI ended the night with dinner and karaoke with the gang, a wander through the lights of Vivid Sydney, and hot chocolate at the Guylian cafe. All's well that ends well.
( Photos )And that's it, until SMASH!
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