JIBCon 6 Report - Day One
Well, my JIB6 experience technically started on Wednesday rather than Friday last week as I left home on Wednesday afternoon and stayed overnight at an airport hotel as my flight to Rome was at 9 am (and it’s a 3-hour drive there).
I got into Rome early Thursday afternoon, met my roomies and checked into the Hilton, then we headed into the city to grab some snacks from the grocery store and have dinner, which was nice - I went very Italian: ravioli, tiramisu and a glass of Prosecco :P.
On Friday morning, we registered for the con and collected our passes and then just hung around and chatted with fellow fans (and met up with some old friends) in the bar.
I was lucky enough to win (i.e. pay a ton of money for) a Prophet Pass in the auction this year, which meant a front row seat for the entire con, Meet and Greets with 9 of the guests (including J2M) and priority access to everything.
So, for me, JIB6 began with a Meet and Greet with Mark Sheppard. All 15 Prophet Pass holders have their M&Gs together, so we started to get to know each other while waiting for the M&G to start. Until JIB6 I had only ever had M&Gs with Jensen and Jared, which have been fairly serious as there are lots of people waiting to ask questions. However, it quickly became apparent that the Prophet Pass M&Gs were much more casual - really just a chat between the 15 of us and the guest, with the odd question thrown in. Mark asked us all where we were from, answered a couple of questions, talked about how female guests are generally treated by the fans at cons (i.e. not usually that well) and started reciting funny scenes from Father Ted :P. He started talking about penguins too and how he was going to do a Pingu movie next - and that became his joke for the weekend. I asked how the 6 female guests had got on with the fans at A14 the previous weekend, but in true Mark fashion, I didn’t really get an answer :P.
The M&G had started a bit late so we missed the very beginning of the first panel, which was Rob and Jason, followed by Mark, but we got to our seats quickly and enjoyed and afternoon of panels :).
Well, sort of enjoyed, considering the events of Misha’s panel: he started telling us a story about when he went cycling with his friend Darius, but then suddenly one of the girls in line to ask a question fainted in the middle of it. Misha really didn’t know what to do - he called Daniela over to help out, but then got stuck, as he didn’t know if he should continue with his story or not. The girl was helped and was fine and Daniela came up on stage. Misha was like ‘should I just go?’ and she grabbed him and said, ‘no, you have to stay!’ - then she broke the news that Jared was not well and had to cancel! At first, before she said who it was that was cancelling, my heart sank as I was praying it wasn’t Jensen, but then when she said ‘Jared’ it was like, ‘oh no, not again!’.
It was a sad moment because Daniela herself actually broke down on stage and started crying, with Misha comforting her - she so upset that she was letting us down again, but as disappointing as the news was, everyone was very understanding about it and we knew that he needed to do what was best for him.
So, at this point, the atmosphere in the panel room was rather subdued and sombre, but Daniela told Misha to keep going with his story. Only problem was that the story was also sad and then Misha teared up while telling the end of it (he and Darius had decided to race their bikes and they crashed - Misha was okay, but Darius was pretty injured).
Lightening the mood a little, Felicia and Osric were up next for their panel, which was great - Felicia is lovely and they are good together in a panel because they’re quite similar - there was a lot of talk about gaming and fandom, but also about women/female characters in TV/film/books.
Jim Beaver and Richard were up next - their panel seemed a little slow off the ground at first but it got a bit more interesting as it went on, then finally we had Greyston Holt and Tahmoh, which was a bit of an awkward panel, partly because of the sad news about Jared and also because there had been a lot of confusion about why Greyston was at the con in the first place, since he’d only been in a few minutes of one episode as a vampire that Dean had killed in S9, so there weren’t many questions for them. I didn’t think it was that bad though.
Straight after that last panel, I had 3 more Meet and Greets - first with Rob, which was fun… again it was like just having a chat with a friend… Rob went round the room trying to guess where everyone was from, which didn’t go that well, since he decided I was Italian (I’m English) :P. He also said he thought he knew one of my roommates already - but she had to tell him that they’d never interacted before :P. This became a joke through the whole weekend though, about how they were ‘old friends’ :P.
After Rob, we had a M&G with Tahmoh - this one was a bit slower though and there were a few awkward silences. I had an idea of a question to ask him, but didn’t get around to asking it… however, he did say to ask lots of questions in his next panel, so I figured I could do it then.
The final M&G of the day was Greyston, which I hadn’t been looking forward to because I didn’t really want him as a guest in the first place, and although I’ve seen his show, Bitten, it’s not one of my favourites. However, he was very personable and friendly and seemed very grateful and happy to be invited to the con, so that was good. He told us about his guitar-playing and how he would love to be involved in the concerts that happen at SPN cons if he gets invited to any more.
After the M&Gs, we went to the con reception to exchange our Jared/J2 photos for other ones. Having Prophet Passes meant we could skip the entire queue and get them exchanged immediately! I switched my J2 photo for another Jensen single and a Rich/Rob photo, but decided on a refund for the Jared single as there weren’t really any others I wanted.
After all of that, we had about an hour to get ready for the Cocktail Party that evening. I have to say though that I was a little disappointed with the Cocktail Party when you have a PP. What we had was good, but not as much as I would have expected - we got to sit at the rectangular VIP tables at the front of the room, and we had half of the guests sit down with us at the same time, so I had Misha on one side of me and Rob on the other, with Rich and Jason diagonally across on each side. Misha was trying to work out where we were from based on our accents - he got my roommate to say the months of the year in English and then he got me to say the days of the week… I did, but as soon as I finished, he was like ‘okay, you’re British… never mind :P’.
I tried to keep up with the conversation with Misha and Jason, but I couldn’t hear much… then Rob tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention because I hadn’t been talking to him! So at that point I was torn between two conversations. We only got a couple more minutes with them before they switched tables, but just before they left, Rob gave me a hug :).
The annoyance with the Cocktail Party though was that we only got about 5 minutes in total with all the guests (in two groups) and then it was over - and I only got to talk to a couple of the guests, as the others were nowhere near us. In comparison, all the other tables get each guest for 2-3 minutes over 2 hours. For the second lot of guests, I had Osric and Tahmoh beside me, and Greyston, Mark and Feliciaopposite. I had lots of photos of penguins on my phone, from my time in the Falklands, so I called out to Mark and showed him a couple - Osric saw and I talked to him about the Falklands, but that meant I there wasn't enough time to talk to any of the other guests :(.
We headed to the bar for a few minutes after the party had finished, but to be honest, I was exhausted, so I just ended up going to bed instead :P.
I got into Rome early Thursday afternoon, met my roomies and checked into the Hilton, then we headed into the city to grab some snacks from the grocery store and have dinner, which was nice - I went very Italian: ravioli, tiramisu and a glass of Prosecco :P.
On Friday morning, we registered for the con and collected our passes and then just hung around and chatted with fellow fans (and met up with some old friends) in the bar.
I was lucky enough to win (i.e. pay a ton of money for) a Prophet Pass in the auction this year, which meant a front row seat for the entire con, Meet and Greets with 9 of the guests (including J2M) and priority access to everything.
So, for me, JIB6 began with a Meet and Greet with Mark Sheppard. All 15 Prophet Pass holders have their M&Gs together, so we started to get to know each other while waiting for the M&G to start. Until JIB6 I had only ever had M&Gs with Jensen and Jared, which have been fairly serious as there are lots of people waiting to ask questions. However, it quickly became apparent that the Prophet Pass M&Gs were much more casual - really just a chat between the 15 of us and the guest, with the odd question thrown in. Mark asked us all where we were from, answered a couple of questions, talked about how female guests are generally treated by the fans at cons (i.e. not usually that well) and started reciting funny scenes from Father Ted :P. He started talking about penguins too and how he was going to do a Pingu movie next - and that became his joke for the weekend. I asked how the 6 female guests had got on with the fans at A14 the previous weekend, but in true Mark fashion, I didn’t really get an answer :P.
The M&G had started a bit late so we missed the very beginning of the first panel, which was Rob and Jason, followed by Mark, but we got to our seats quickly and enjoyed and afternoon of panels :).
Well, sort of enjoyed, considering the events of Misha’s panel: he started telling us a story about when he went cycling with his friend Darius, but then suddenly one of the girls in line to ask a question fainted in the middle of it. Misha really didn’t know what to do - he called Daniela over to help out, but then got stuck, as he didn’t know if he should continue with his story or not. The girl was helped and was fine and Daniela came up on stage. Misha was like ‘should I just go?’ and she grabbed him and said, ‘no, you have to stay!’ - then she broke the news that Jared was not well and had to cancel! At first, before she said who it was that was cancelling, my heart sank as I was praying it wasn’t Jensen, but then when she said ‘Jared’ it was like, ‘oh no, not again!’.
It was a sad moment because Daniela herself actually broke down on stage and started crying, with Misha comforting her - she so upset that she was letting us down again, but as disappointing as the news was, everyone was very understanding about it and we knew that he needed to do what was best for him.
So, at this point, the atmosphere in the panel room was rather subdued and sombre, but Daniela told Misha to keep going with his story. Only problem was that the story was also sad and then Misha teared up while telling the end of it (he and Darius had decided to race their bikes and they crashed - Misha was okay, but Darius was pretty injured).
Lightening the mood a little, Felicia and Osric were up next for their panel, which was great - Felicia is lovely and they are good together in a panel because they’re quite similar - there was a lot of talk about gaming and fandom, but also about women/female characters in TV/film/books.
Jim Beaver and Richard were up next - their panel seemed a little slow off the ground at first but it got a bit more interesting as it went on, then finally we had Greyston Holt and Tahmoh, which was a bit of an awkward panel, partly because of the sad news about Jared and also because there had been a lot of confusion about why Greyston was at the con in the first place, since he’d only been in a few minutes of one episode as a vampire that Dean had killed in S9, so there weren’t many questions for them. I didn’t think it was that bad though.
Straight after that last panel, I had 3 more Meet and Greets - first with Rob, which was fun… again it was like just having a chat with a friend… Rob went round the room trying to guess where everyone was from, which didn’t go that well, since he decided I was Italian (I’m English) :P. He also said he thought he knew one of my roommates already - but she had to tell him that they’d never interacted before :P. This became a joke through the whole weekend though, about how they were ‘old friends’ :P.
After Rob, we had a M&G with Tahmoh - this one was a bit slower though and there were a few awkward silences. I had an idea of a question to ask him, but didn’t get around to asking it… however, he did say to ask lots of questions in his next panel, so I figured I could do it then.
The final M&G of the day was Greyston, which I hadn’t been looking forward to because I didn’t really want him as a guest in the first place, and although I’ve seen his show, Bitten, it’s not one of my favourites. However, he was very personable and friendly and seemed very grateful and happy to be invited to the con, so that was good. He told us about his guitar-playing and how he would love to be involved in the concerts that happen at SPN cons if he gets invited to any more.
After the M&Gs, we went to the con reception to exchange our Jared/J2 photos for other ones. Having Prophet Passes meant we could skip the entire queue and get them exchanged immediately! I switched my J2 photo for another Jensen single and a Rich/Rob photo, but decided on a refund for the Jared single as there weren’t really any others I wanted.
After all of that, we had about an hour to get ready for the Cocktail Party that evening. I have to say though that I was a little disappointed with the Cocktail Party when you have a PP. What we had was good, but not as much as I would have expected - we got to sit at the rectangular VIP tables at the front of the room, and we had half of the guests sit down with us at the same time, so I had Misha on one side of me and Rob on the other, with Rich and Jason diagonally across on each side. Misha was trying to work out where we were from based on our accents - he got my roommate to say the months of the year in English and then he got me to say the days of the week… I did, but as soon as I finished, he was like ‘okay, you’re British… never mind :P’.
I tried to keep up with the conversation with Misha and Jason, but I couldn’t hear much… then Rob tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention because I hadn’t been talking to him! So at that point I was torn between two conversations. We only got a couple more minutes with them before they switched tables, but just before they left, Rob gave me a hug :).
The annoyance with the Cocktail Party though was that we only got about 5 minutes in total with all the guests (in two groups) and then it was over - and I only got to talk to a couple of the guests, as the others were nowhere near us. In comparison, all the other tables get each guest for 2-3 minutes over 2 hours. For the second lot of guests, I had Osric and Tahmoh beside me, and Greyston, Mark and Feliciaopposite. I had lots of photos of penguins on my phone, from my time in the Falklands, so I called out to Mark and showed him a couple - Osric saw and I talked to him about the Falklands, but that meant I there wasn't enough time to talk to any of the other guests :(.
We headed to the bar for a few minutes after the party had finished, but to be honest, I was exhausted, so I just ended up going to bed instead :P.