The EPIC that was the London MCM Expo
I got back from London yesterday around 21:00, and I am still tired and achey and pretty blah overall. Waking up early today didn't help, but what can you do? Aside from my grumblings, I spent most of the day with my mind drifting off to think about the EPIC that was the weekend's convention. Let the pictures do the talking (oh, and of course my lengthy, lengthy commentary :B).
First day: Saturday 24th
Well, getting there was kinda hellish. I couldn't sleep the night before, and had to wake up at 4:45am, so the morning was a bit of a blur of whatdoesthishourexist and yay!we'regoingtolondon. We got a bit horribly lost, but eventually D (aka lemon_jelly17) and I got dropped outside the ExCeL exhibition centre at about 9:30. We had early entry tickets (which a bit half wasted considering the time we got there) so we went off to join the queue.
Right to left: The ExCeL exhibition centre (from where we ate), inside the hall, inside the main stage area, exit sign, discarded FREE HUGS sign that I felt compelled to take a picture of
The mainly surprising thing was the amount of people cosplaying. I knew that people cosplayed at conventions, but this was my first convention, so I didn't know that that many did! Probably about 60-75% of people were dressed as something, although a lot of them were anime characters that I didn't recognise. It was really fun all weekend just watching people and discussing who they were cosplaying. The mainly hilarious thing that I had sort of heard of was the whole Free Hugs thing that people do. Basically, a lot of people have free hugs signs, that literally mean 'free hugs', so a lot of people were just randomly hugging strangers. It especially funny to watch when people are cosplaying, because you'll see things like The Joker hugging Princess Zelda and things :D It was awesome.
We went into the main stage section (mainly to rest our feet) and saw some panels, such as Tru Blood, Deep Space 9 and The Losers (a film coming out next year). We didn't really know of the people on those, but they were all really quite interesting.
Ghostbusters car!
I think it may have been the actual one from the movie, but I did see a totally different Ghostbusters car in August, so who knows? Well it was still awesome.
Right to left: Tom Baker (looking a tad confused), Craig Charles doing various things
D and I went to a little bit of a stalker mode when we found where Craig Charles was. And of course Tom Baker is a bonus! We kind of skulked around the area were for a while, and I tried (and mostly failed) to take some decent photographs discretely. I still can't really believe that Craig Charles was there because I've been watching him in Red Dwarf and Robot Wars since I can remember.
At around 17:00 we left and went back to our hotel room. Most of the evening was spent watching Merlin and Strictly Come Dancing, which was followed by another annoying bout of insomnia. I literally kept waking up every 20 minutes in the night, convinced that we were going to oversleep.
Second Day: Sunday 25th
We did not oversleep: we got up too early (not helped by the clock change), which didn't help tiredness. I got a little hopped up on excitement and general nervousness though, so I guess that's what provided me with the adrenaline for this weekend.
Right to left: queues for the Expo, Bunny and the Bull poster, empty main stage, Bunny and the Bull panel, Merlin panel
Despite getting there half an hour early this time, I feel sure that the queues were way longer for Sunday than Saturday. But even queueing's pretty fun at something like this, so I can't complain. As soon as we got in D and I rushed up to get tickets for the Merlin autograph panel (after accidentally queueing for the Warehouse 13 tickets for a while :|) then rushed out to get a bag of food. After that we literally went to sit in the main staging area (this time we were one row from the front) to wait for the two o'clock Merlin panel. There were some other interesting things (actually the Warehouse 13 cast were pretty funny), including Bunny and the Bull which is a film both of had actually been anticipating. The two main cast guys were there, as well as the producer Paul King, who also works on The Mighty Boosh.
It was sort of around then we started speaking to the two girls sitting next to us, who turned out to be from LJ (which was pretty freaking exciting for me, considering I've never met anyone from livejournal before). They were gnimaerdand shantirosa, and we all chatted a bit before the Merlin panel came out. Then the host announced Angel Coulby (Gwen), Katie McGrath (Morgana) and Johnny Capps (the producer) and it was pretty surreal.
My hands were shaking like crazy, so the pictures I got sucked. But it was just amazing hearing them answering questions and stuff, and just sort of being themselves. I actually managed to ask a question (I had been debating whether to do so all weekend) that was something like: Why is it that, out of the main cast, all of them only have one parent, or no parents, and is there a story behind what happened to Gwen and Morgana’s mothers?
Angel Coulby said something about being an actress she liked to think of a story behind her character, and that she saw it that Gwen's mother had died when she was young. Johnny Caps said something about character development and the chance to explore their families. He mentioned something about it coming up this series. I just sort of nodded dumbly. The acoustics were really bad though so a lot of stuff was hard to hear.
It's pretty hard to remember what was said, but I do remember that someone gave Katie a bag of jelly babies (she was like 'are you kidding?' and hugged the girl who gave them to her) and that Angel Coulby's favourite type of cheese is goat's cheese; Katie grimaced and said she doesn't like cheese at all.
There was a camera man from the Merlin Behind the Scenes DVD who filmed some of the panel and the crowd screaming 'We Love Merlin!' so that'll be interesting to see.
After the panel, D and I left and managed to hang around gnimaerdand shantirosawho helpfully led us to the autograph panel queue. Again, we got in the wrong line, and started queueing for Warehouse 13, until gnimaerd realised as much. The Merlin queue wasn't that long, but there was a bit of wait, so we all just talked, which was really interesting. Talking about LJ and fandom isn't something I do in RL (apart from with D) so it was strange but very good.
When we finally got to the panel we were given a promotional photograph to get signed. I met Johnny Caps first and he asked me if I'd been at the Q and A. I said yes, then blurted out that I asked the question about the character's families; he said something like it was a good question and then something about 'insightful' and 'character development.' I just smiled proudly like an idiot. After he signed his name, I spoke to Angel, who is totally gorgeous and looks quite different to how she appears on TV. She was really nice and I said something about liking Gwen's characterisation and she said 'thank you so much' and smiled very sweetly. I was going to ask her for a picture but then I was sure there wasn't time so I moved on. After she had signed her name, I met Katie (it was totally surreal when I looked over and saw D having a conversation with Katie. My brain couldn't really comprehend it. They were talking about stickers which was totally random).
Katie was so lovely! She signed her name and I babbled something about liking what she'd done with Morgana in the past two series. She replied with something like: 'Well that's really thanks to everyone else working on the show, so I can't take credit for that' or something equally humble. I was kind of just thinking OMGKatieMcGrath is talking to me. Then I said she was an inspiration (it's strange what your brain comes up with on the spot) and she said 'Aww, thank you so much!'. I actually worked up the courage to ask her for a photo, which I took, hoping that my hands weren't shaking. It actually came out really well, as you'll see:
After that I sort of garbled 'It was really lovely to meet you' and she said something I didn't quite hear. I bounded away with my signed sheet and spent the next few minutes pretty dazed. D and I walked out with gnimaerdand shantirosa, then we split ways because they had to catch their train.
Right to left: Leaving the exhibition centre (pretty sunlight was pretty), the train station just outside, the picture that pretty much summarises the general feeling of the weekend
We discussed at length how crazy the past hour had been as we waited to be picked up, and then got a little snap-happy with the camera. I have concluded that it was EPIC and that I really hope I can go to other conventions, and hopefully this one in May, or next October.
We actually dropped in at Cambridge on the way back home to see my brother, and he pretty much got the verbal rendition of this post. Then home and bed really. And that's the end of the recap (if you've actually made it all the way to the end of this ridiculously long recount, then congratulations :D).
Whew, this has taken waaaay longer than I had anticipated. But it was totally worth it.
NIGHT NIGHT.
First day: Saturday 24th
Well, getting there was kinda hellish. I couldn't sleep the night before, and had to wake up at 4:45am, so the morning was a bit of a blur of whatdoesthishourexist and yay!we'regoingtolondon. We got a bit horribly lost, but eventually D (aka lemon_jelly17) and I got dropped outside the ExCeL exhibition centre at about 9:30. We had early entry tickets (which a bit half wasted considering the time we got there) so we went off to join the queue.
Right to left: The ExCeL exhibition centre (from where we ate), inside the hall, inside the main stage area, exit sign, discarded FREE HUGS sign that I felt compelled to take a picture of
The mainly surprising thing was the amount of people cosplaying. I knew that people cosplayed at conventions, but this was my first convention, so I didn't know that that many did! Probably about 60-75% of people were dressed as something, although a lot of them were anime characters that I didn't recognise. It was really fun all weekend just watching people and discussing who they were cosplaying. The mainly hilarious thing that I had sort of heard of was the whole Free Hugs thing that people do. Basically, a lot of people have free hugs signs, that literally mean 'free hugs', so a lot of people were just randomly hugging strangers. It especially funny to watch when people are cosplaying, because you'll see things like The Joker hugging Princess Zelda and things :D It was awesome.
We went into the main stage section (mainly to rest our feet) and saw some panels, such as Tru Blood, Deep Space 9 and The Losers (a film coming out next year). We didn't really know of the people on those, but they were all really quite interesting.
Ghostbusters car!
I think it may have been the actual one from the movie, but I did see a totally different Ghostbusters car in August, so who knows? Well it was still awesome.
Right to left: Tom Baker (looking a tad confused), Craig Charles doing various things
D and I went to a little bit of a stalker mode when we found where Craig Charles was. And of course Tom Baker is a bonus! We kind of skulked around the area were for a while, and I tried (and mostly failed) to take some decent photographs discretely. I still can't really believe that Craig Charles was there because I've been watching him in Red Dwarf and Robot Wars since I can remember.
At around 17:00 we left and went back to our hotel room. Most of the evening was spent watching Merlin and Strictly Come Dancing, which was followed by another annoying bout of insomnia. I literally kept waking up every 20 minutes in the night, convinced that we were going to oversleep.
Second Day: Sunday 25th
We did not oversleep: we got up too early (not helped by the clock change), which didn't help tiredness. I got a little hopped up on excitement and general nervousness though, so I guess that's what provided me with the adrenaline for this weekend.
Right to left: queues for the Expo, Bunny and the Bull poster, empty main stage, Bunny and the Bull panel, Merlin panel
Despite getting there half an hour early this time, I feel sure that the queues were way longer for Sunday than Saturday. But even queueing's pretty fun at something like this, so I can't complain. As soon as we got in D and I rushed up to get tickets for the Merlin autograph panel (after accidentally queueing for the Warehouse 13 tickets for a while :|) then rushed out to get a bag of food. After that we literally went to sit in the main staging area (this time we were one row from the front) to wait for the two o'clock Merlin panel. There were some other interesting things (actually the Warehouse 13 cast were pretty funny), including Bunny and the Bull which is a film both of had actually been anticipating. The two main cast guys were there, as well as the producer Paul King, who also works on The Mighty Boosh.
It was sort of around then we started speaking to the two girls sitting next to us, who turned out to be from LJ (which was pretty freaking exciting for me, considering I've never met anyone from livejournal before). They were gnimaerdand shantirosa, and we all chatted a bit before the Merlin panel came out. Then the host announced Angel Coulby (Gwen), Katie McGrath (Morgana) and Johnny Capps (the producer) and it was pretty surreal.
My hands were shaking like crazy, so the pictures I got sucked. But it was just amazing hearing them answering questions and stuff, and just sort of being themselves. I actually managed to ask a question (I had been debating whether to do so all weekend) that was something like: Why is it that, out of the main cast, all of them only have one parent, or no parents, and is there a story behind what happened to Gwen and Morgana’s mothers?
Angel Coulby said something about being an actress she liked to think of a story behind her character, and that she saw it that Gwen's mother had died when she was young. Johnny Caps said something about character development and the chance to explore their families. He mentioned something about it coming up this series. I just sort of nodded dumbly. The acoustics were really bad though so a lot of stuff was hard to hear.
It's pretty hard to remember what was said, but I do remember that someone gave Katie a bag of jelly babies (she was like 'are you kidding?' and hugged the girl who gave them to her) and that Angel Coulby's favourite type of cheese is goat's cheese; Katie grimaced and said she doesn't like cheese at all.
There was a camera man from the Merlin Behind the Scenes DVD who filmed some of the panel and the crowd screaming 'We Love Merlin!' so that'll be interesting to see.
After the panel, D and I left and managed to hang around gnimaerdand shantirosawho helpfully led us to the autograph panel queue. Again, we got in the wrong line, and started queueing for Warehouse 13, until gnimaerd realised as much. The Merlin queue wasn't that long, but there was a bit of wait, so we all just talked, which was really interesting. Talking about LJ and fandom isn't something I do in RL (apart from with D) so it was strange but very good.
When we finally got to the panel we were given a promotional photograph to get signed. I met Johnny Caps first and he asked me if I'd been at the Q and A. I said yes, then blurted out that I asked the question about the character's families; he said something like it was a good question and then something about 'insightful' and 'character development.' I just smiled proudly like an idiot. After he signed his name, I spoke to Angel, who is totally gorgeous and looks quite different to how she appears on TV. She was really nice and I said something about liking Gwen's characterisation and she said 'thank you so much' and smiled very sweetly. I was going to ask her for a picture but then I was sure there wasn't time so I moved on. After she had signed her name, I met Katie (it was totally surreal when I looked over and saw D having a conversation with Katie. My brain couldn't really comprehend it. They were talking about stickers which was totally random).
Katie was so lovely! She signed her name and I babbled something about liking what she'd done with Morgana in the past two series. She replied with something like: 'Well that's really thanks to everyone else working on the show, so I can't take credit for that' or something equally humble. I was kind of just thinking OMGKatieMcGrath is talking to me. Then I said she was an inspiration (it's strange what your brain comes up with on the spot) and she said 'Aww, thank you so much!'. I actually worked up the courage to ask her for a photo, which I took, hoping that my hands weren't shaking. It actually came out really well, as you'll see:
After that I sort of garbled 'It was really lovely to meet you' and she said something I didn't quite hear. I bounded away with my signed sheet and spent the next few minutes pretty dazed. D and I walked out with gnimaerdand shantirosa, then we split ways because they had to catch their train.
Right to left: Leaving the exhibition centre (pretty sunlight was pretty), the train station just outside, the picture that pretty much summarises the general feeling of the weekend
We discussed at length how crazy the past hour had been as we waited to be picked up, and then got a little snap-happy with the camera. I have concluded that it was EPIC and that I really hope I can go to other conventions, and hopefully this one in May, or next October.
We actually dropped in at Cambridge on the way back home to see my brother, and he pretty much got the verbal rendition of this post. Then home and bed really. And that's the end of the recap (if you've actually made it all the way to the end of this ridiculously long recount, then congratulations :D).
Whew, this has taken waaaay longer than I had anticipated. But it was totally worth it.
NIGHT NIGHT.