While I was waiting for Jared's panel on Sunday, I got talking to a woman who said she was a journalist for one of the local (Birmingham) papers. She hadn't been allowed to get interviews with the guests, but she said “we don't get big movie stars in Birmingham very often” and she thought someone should write up the con. She was audio-taping the main panels, with permission, I assumed, since she was very obvious about it. We talked a little about fandom and how it can seem a little crazy from the outside. I most carefully did not say just how insane SPN fandom can be!

( Jared )

( Amy, Matt and Samantha )

( Misha )

I didn't stay for the closing ceremonies. My energy had gone and the end ceremony is usually just the organisers patting themselves on the back...and Wayne and Paul do not deserve that kind of credit for this con. It was an incredible line-up of guests and I had a fantastic time. But that's in spite of the appalling organisation. I really didn't feel like sticking around to applaud them.

But it was a good weekend. See y'all next year!

Continuing my notes from the Asylum panels on Sunday:

( Gabriel Tigerman and Charles Malik Whitfield )

( Fredric Lehne )

Coming in part three as soon as I can manage it - Jared's second panel, Amy, Matt and Sam, and Misha.

I'm finally home...and I just totally crashed. But I'm now starting to type up my notes from Sunday.

Sunday was going to be a more relaxed day for me. I'd got all of my autographs and most of my photoshoots on Saturday. There were two photos left for me, and they were scheduled first and last. So I figured I'd be able to spend most of the day in the main hall.

It didn't quite work out that way. I must be getting old :-) My energy was definitely lower on Sunday and I woke up with a headache which meant I wasn't able to dismiss the need for optional extras like food. If I don't look after my hydration and blood sugar, my headaches morph into migraines. The major down-side of holding the con in a location like the Hilton is the lack of options for stuff like that. There are places you can go to find grub, but nowhere very close to the hotel, so you either eat at the hotel or you miss stuff. And the hotel food is either crap or extortionate.

Anyhow...I still managed to catch most of the day's panels.

( Richard Speight Jr )

( Jensen )

Part 2 tomorrow.

( Samantha Smith, Amy Gumenick and Matthew Cohen )

Misha's session was up next. Unfortunately, I missed all of it because I had to queue for my Jensen autograph. I really, really wanted to ask him about that Nip/Tuck episode he did! Someone did ask about it, but I didn't get to hear the answer and it wasn't the question I would have asked :-(.

The autograph queue was fake-better. By which I mean that the staff had resolved the long, visible queue issue by moving the bulk of the queue into the autograph room. It was a bit of a shambles and an incredibly long wait for barely two seconds with Jensen. I have no problem with autographs being fast, but because it's so brief, it's so much better if things are organised. The staff did okay; don't get me wrong, and I know having Jensen and Jared there must have been a nightmare for them, logistically speaking. But having that long queue inside the room was sneaky.

( Jared )

And that's the end of Saturday. There was the concert and disco in the evening but though I made the effort to dress up and go, I only stayed long enough for one drink. I was just too tired.

Tomorrow I am travelling, but I'll try to get at least part of Sunday's report posted for you.

Con report – Saturday

I got up really early and took a walk around the lake behind the hotel. Y'all know my water fetish: it was truly gorgeous out there this morning. I think that walk alone made up for a lot of yesterday's hassles.

That said, when I left the hotel at 5.30am, there was already a substantial queue of people outside the main hall. When I got back there were twice as many. By the time the hotel started serving breakfast at 7.00am, that queue was out of control. This in spite of the fact that we were told yesterday that anyone who started queuing there before 8.00 would be turned away. Wisely, they opened the main hall around 8.30. Everything was supposed to start at 9.00.

Well, it wouldn't be a real con if it didn't start late, would it? 9.46 things finally got started. The hall was packed for Jared and Jensen's talk – the first scheduled. Interestingly, there were a few people unable to find a seat in spite of the best efforts of the staff. I suspect this confirms that Rogue sold more tix than they should have, fire regs be damned apparently. Doug (the M.C.) even thought that was worth joking about but the truth is had something happened in the main hall – like a fire alarm – people would have died. I don't find that funny at all. Neither was I particularly impressed by his need to hog the limelight once Jared and Jensen were on stage – is Doug really under the impression that a thousand fangirls came to hear him talk?

By the end of the day events in the main hall were running on time again – Jared's Q and A started and ended on time, more or less. The photo studios were running behind but not impossibly so. All in all, things went fairly well today.

Theme of the day was accents, apparently. Here are my cliff notes of the talks from today. This is only what I managed to scrawl in my trusty notebook; the highlights that interested me.

( Jared and Jensen )

( Richard )

Next up was Fredric's talk, but I missed all of that, being stuck in a queue elsewhere.

( Charles and Gabriel )

Well...it's getting late and I'm more than ready for some sleep. I'll post part 2 when I can.

I may be the slightest bit tipsy, as I forgot I haven't eaten since breakfast until after I ordered the beer. The number of times I've had to backtrack and correct my spelling in that first sentence would seem to confirm the thesis. But I'm not drunk if I just managed to use the word "thesis" correctly!

Anyhow - today at Asylum.

Registration was supposed to open at 2pm. By 1 o'clock, they were no longer permitting people to join the registration queue "for health and safety reasons" (eta - legitimate reasons; there were way too many people crowded into a small space). I ran into ghyste and we sat in the bar watching the queue not go anywhere for a long time. By 3.30, which is when they announced registration was opening, there was the queue, there was a queue to join the queue, and (I've been told but cannot verify) a queue to join the queue to join the queue and a "rogue" queue that wasn't actually going anyplace. In other words, once again Rogue Events proved they couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. I suppose it could have been worse, but most of the queue issues could have been avoided if they'd just opened registration on time.

When I got to the registration desk, after nearly 2 hours in the queue (not counting time spent watching the queue), they didn't have my registration pack. I did not take it out on the gal doing the registrations although by then I was tired enough that I'm surprised I didn't (I have a terrible temper when I'm tired. I am not proud of this.). She called Wayne, who apparently promised to be there in ten minutes to sort it out. Half an hour later, still no sign of Wayne but someone else had figured out they'd given my stuff to someone else. It got sorted quite quickly when the person who got my stuff was located. But still. Piss-up. Brewery. When it did finally get sorted, I found all the right tickets in my little envelope, which despite the screw up (and I'm sure that was a genuine mistake and no one's fault) means I did better than a lot of people - the queue at what the stewards were calling "the customer service desk" to get photo and autograph tickets missing from registration packs was stupidly long when I passed it. There was a queue to join that queue, too.

I met castalie breifly in between waiting in queues, and I know krazykipper is here 'cause she texted me, but we haven't found each other yet.

There were no guest talks today. The con events were the double photo shoot with Jensen and Jared (supposedly limited to 600; according to the photographer not so much limited - I'm guessing the shopping cart malfunctioned and sold more than they should) and the early autograph sessions. Both of which I attended.

The photo-shoot would have been the highlight of my day if I weren't already ready to drop. I hadn't eaten and I think I had a blood-sugar issue plus a caffeine OD ('cause the only drink I had with me was Kick). A photo-shoot hardly qualifies as "meeting" the boys - you barely get time to say "Hi" before the camera clicks and you're hustled out of there - but it's a good ten miliseconds :-) The boys looked great (well, duh!) and we at least exchanged a "hi". Goddess only knows how bad I'm gonna look in my photo, though. They were partway through printing them when I decided to call it a night and hadn't reached mine.

Then the autographs. Again, poorly organised at the beginning as the autographs queue got tangled up with the "customer service" queue and different people were giving contradictory advice about where to stand/wait. Things got started a lot later than they were supposed to.

Oh! Apparently Misha Collins can teleport! I say this because at one point while we were waiting he definitely left the autograph room. And no one saw him return (and let's face it, the man would get noticed), yet he was inside once the doors opened. Teleportation seems the most likely explanation to me.

Give the staff their due, once things got started it all went very smoothly. I got to meet everyone. Fredric Lehne (did I spell that right?) took the time to chat briefly and shake hands with everyone so was kinda holding up the line. But he's a sweetheart. He asked me if I got my tattoo (on my forearm) in prison. I wasn't awake enough to say I did. :-) The two musicians - Jason Manns is one and I can't for the life of me remember the other's name - were chatting with everyone waiting in line, until one of the stewards forced the line away from their table. I get why - the move made sense with the way the room was laid out - but I kinda felt bad for the guys. They were left sitting there alone as not many people paid for their autographs.

Gabriel made an impression, too. Someone ahead of me mentioned him stealing the Impala (as Andy, obviously). I didn't hear all of his reply but it was something about the fandom letting him get away with grand theft auto. I can't wait to hear more from him. Amy - a total sweetheart, talked about cuddling Mitch Pileggi after their scenes.

I don't know if some of those ahead of me got their Jared and Jensen autos tonight, but by the time I reached their room (they were signing in a different location than the other guests) they had both gone. Hard to blame them. It was pretty late by then and I was told - though I don't know if the source is reliable - that Jared only flew in today, and came straight to the hotel from his flight - if that's the case he must have a major jet-lag.

I guess there's more I could tell, but I'm amazed this is even coherent. I'm gonna get some sleep and tell more tomorrow, if I survive.