Calgary Expo 2013 - More Thoughts and Some Links

May 1, 2013, 10:20 am, edited: to add this link from a blog reporter's point of view.


Since it's blogging Wednesday, and since other then write my last final of the semester and buy a new bed (after almost 11 years of marriage we're finally getting a king-sized!) I haven't done much of interest, and I'm still thinking about Comic Expo and watching the comments roll on in their FB page, I still feel the need to write about some things, and link to a few things.

I should say that as someone who does quite a bit of conference planning (but on a smaller scale, maximum 150 people) I can't even grasp the amount of work and number of lists that go into putting this one - 1000 volunteers to manage is a dizzying number - and the expo staff do a great job. But with every conference, no matter how well it goes, there are always things you could do differently next year, and the expo people are great about taking fair suggestions of things to change. Lots of people don't make fair suggestions (where in Alberta could they possibly find a bigger venue then the stampede grounds?!) but they're good about listening to the reasonable ones.

There's a vocal minority who think that line-saving isn't fair, and to some extent it isn't, but how could they possibly police that without being overly harsh? You'd end up splitting family groups and making a large majority of people who come with other people unhappy. If mom takes kids to the bathroom while dad waits in line, and then you didn't let them in line together, and dad gets into the panel and the rest of the family doesn't, you have a bit of a disaster situation for that family. I don't know if there's a better way to do it, except...

I think the trick to managing line-saving (and also room-camping, as mentioned in my previous post) is to have people register for panels beforehand. This could be tricky, because the panel schedule was still changing on the Friday, but I'm sure they could think up some kind of system! This would allow them to put panels in the appropriate-sized room, and avoid the chaos and angst that comes with filling up a panel and not letting anyone else in. For instance, if they'd known that Nathan Fillion was going to be so insanely popular, maybe they could have put just that one panel in the Saddledome?!

Another problem with the panels the way they are now is that they often start 10 to 15 minutes late, and they still have to end on time to clear the room for the next one, so having more flex time between each panel might be a good idea, whether you have people sign up ahead of time or not. When you line up for an hour to only see the actor for half an hour, it can be a bit disappointing! Sometimes it can also take a bit of time for the crowd and the actor to warm up to each other, and then it's just as the panel is ending that the ice is finally broken and the good Q&A is flowing freely.

Next year it would be nice to see the con start Thursday night with a limited sneak-peek opening, and then scheduling all day Friday. For the number of people that come from far away, I think that would give them more bang for their buck.

You know what the expo REALLY needs next year? A designated area for cosplay photos. For some people seeing the costumes and collecting photos of them is a huge con pastime, but it can be a pain in the neck for people who are trying to get somewhere, but who are too polite to walk through someone else's photo. If they had a nice area with some backdrops and places for people to stand, and even approximate times of day when cosplayers from certain fandoms would be in the area, it would make everyone's lives a bit easier.

I am curious about if they had a lineup plan for bad weather - it was snowing like crazy on Monday, and I wondered what they would have done with the thousands of people lined up outside on Sunday if the weather had been like that then? And speaking of lineups, I heard about how some people went over to the Big Four building to the 'food court' (which is a grand title for what amounted to three food vendors) or the photo ops, and then had to re-join the massive entry lineup again, which seemed rather unfair, and meant that I avoided the Big Four until late Sunday afternoon, which is apparently where all the seating was...

And I know that empty space with seating doesn't pay the bills when that space could be rented to a vendor, but for the love of people's sore feet, I hope they have more next year! I miss sitting in the cushy chairs in the Palomino area and people-watching!

The system with the photo ops seems well-organized in theory - you buy your ticket and a time slot online ahead of time - and then you line up 15 minutes before the appointed time with the other people who are in that slot. I haven't done a photo op in years - since the bad experience with Shatner (if you're going to spend $80 on a photo, you should at least get eye contact) - so I don't know if it's still the same or not. I've seen a lot of great photo op moments online this year, so maybe it depends on the actor.

Anyway, I think they need to have a ticket system for the autographs. If an actor can provide their photo op rates ahead of time, why not autograph rates? Then you don't have as much problem with lines that are too long, and people who don't get an autograph after standing in line for ages. Then you can plan your budget because you know what they cost, and you'll know if they charge extra for a photo at the table. Also, if you bring something of your own to sign, it's the same price as if you buy one of their photos, which seems a bit unfair. I think the autograph system that they have right now could use some work! I wonder how other cons do it?

Here's my friend Shelli's blog post about the Calgary Expo. I thought she had a picture of me dressed up, but apparently it was too unflattering to post...eeep! :)

Here's an interesting article from the Calgary Herald, and a large portion of it is an interview with Lexa Doig, who's panel I quite liked.

This is a blog post from someone who managed to get into the Game of Thrones panel, which I didn't. :(

And here's the perspective of someone who had a VIP pass and managed to get into Fillion's panel when it seemed that all hope was lost. Jealous! But at $300/pass it's just not really an option for me. :P

It's funny - I remember my first expo, in 2010, back when it was just a small vendor hall and the Palomino rooms, and how overwhelming and fun it was. Then 2011 was bigger, the year of the Shatner and the photo op gong show, and 2012 was the year of disaster for most people (although not really for me - it was definitely my favourite year, guest-wise), and I did a blog post for each day. Each year seems to have a different 'flavour', and I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with next year!

This is the high point of every expo ever:

A massive Stargate or Stargate Atlantis reunion next year would be AMAZING! :)

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Falling Skies

Over Christmas break, my tv thing was Downton Abbey, which I am still thoroughly enjoying, but since I'm watching it now as-it-happens, my next show to watch on DVD was Falling Skies. We'd actually watched a couple of episodes before Christmas, and then I had to return the DVD to the library. I was sticking with it more out of loyalty to RyRo then anything else, but then the last half of the first season really kicked into gear and grabbed me, and now I'm SO impatient for season 2 to come out on DVD so I can get all caught up before season 3 airs in the summer.

Ryan Robbins and Noah Wyle

Who is RyRo, you might ask? He is otherwise known as Ryan Robbins, or Henry Foss from Sanctuary (which still remains my favourite show ever). He doesn't show up until season 2, but I had to watch season 1, of course. Falling Skies is set in Boston, about six months after earth is invaded by aliens, which sounds a bit cliche, but the characters are good, the atmosphere is great, and there are some plot twists that I really like. Noah Wyle plays Tom Mason, who before the invasion was a history teacher, and who is now the second in command of the 2nd Massachusetts, a group of military and civilians working together to try to not just survive, but fight back.

Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood

Mood Bloodgood plays the pediatrician thrust into the role of chief medical officer, and I *totally* ship her character, Anne, and Tom. They have great chemistry, they're both lonely, and she'd be a great step-mom to Tom's kids. When you're trying to survive an alien invasion, and you have three sons who are always getting into trouble, having the doctor on your team is a really good idea!

I know I'd watch it why Ryan tweeted that he was in it, but what really got me started on actually watching it was my friend's husband working on the costumes for season 3. Good thing too, because then I found out that my favourite actor ever, Christopher Heyerdahl, is going to be in season 3. Not only that, Jonathan Frakes directed an episode, and I *may* have gotten his autograph in my Christmas card from my friend....

I do quite recommend Falling Skies, if you like sci-fi!

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Faith & Fangirling

(With credit to my friend Erin Erickson for somewhat inspiring the title of this post. :)

 

 

Well, this is coming a day late, which you may or may not have noticed. I did...but I had a German test this morning, so there wasn't much I could do about it. I tried to find a chart on line to show you how darn confusing possessive pronouns are, but I couldn't even! It's so confusing even Google can't help me. :P

 

So, last Sunday, October 28 (and that weekend we were in Red Deer at a conference, but that'll be its own post when I get organized!), was Reformation Sunday, the Sunday when we celebrate Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. It's also Confirmation Sunday at our church, when the youth who are around 14 years old, and who've been taking confirmation classes for two years, publicly express their faith and what they've learned, by presenting papers and essentially making a vow.



 

I don't have any photos from this year, so here's one of Trevor getting confirmed. :)

 

I've seen a lot of confirmation classes come and go, and you can usually tell from their papers which of the kids actually 'get' it, and which of them are just jumping through the hoops so they can 'graduate'. There were 14 this year, and I only knew a couple of them well, but you can tell so much about them from their papers, and even the ones I don't really know I still care about whether or not they get it. I don't really know why - maybe it's just the burden/gift God has given me (?). Anyway, there may have been a few tears, and not because I was over-tired from being at a conference all weekend. :)

 

Then the first weekend in November was our annual fall youth retreat, which I seem to have somehow and totally accidentally ended up becoming chair of. I think it's because I'm kind of bossy and I just like organizing stuff and so I sort of took over organizing meetings, which then just evolved into 'chairing' them (which I use loosely because we've been doing this for so long that we all pretty much just know what to do and how to work together - it's a great team of people!), but I'm also the registrar, which is a TON of work. Add that to homework, two weeks of being sick, and an unusually tempestuous registration process, and by the time Thursday night rolled around I was seriously questioning why I was putting myself through the agony.

 

But by Friday morning, I was fatalistically calm. If anything else went wrong, there wasn't any way to prepare for it, so it would just have to happen as it happened. Then my friend Brittni arrived to help and the kids started coming, and I got excited again. It's so much fun having a church building filled with life and excitement. Things went really well - we had some scheduling issues Saturday night, but I kept calm and changed the schedule, and it worked out well. I was proud of myself for not freaking out...a couple of years ago I wouldn't have been able to function under my schedule not proceeding as planned, but I'm getting more flexible in my old age. :P Pretty sure it's a God Thing!

 

Some of the 75-ish people at the fall youth retreat

 

By the time everyone left on Sunday, I didn't want it to end, which is how I usually feel on the last day of a retreat. You get this sense of community in a small group, living in a building all together for a weekend like that, which you don't really find anywhere else. I always feel like it's a very imperfect but tantalizing glimpse of what heaven will be like - a giant youth retreat, only without all of the logistical work. :)

 

Then on Monday I had this parcel card, so I went to the post office to pick it up. I figured that I must have forgotten to decline last month's movie club offering, and I was still thinking about the youth retreat, so I wasn't really mentally present in the post office when the clerk handed me a large bubble envelope that didn't look anything like a DVD. I stepped away from the counter and looked at the return address, and got very intrigued when I saw that it was from Shelli.

 

I didn't waste any time ripping it open, and found a recycled inter-office mail envelope. Curiouser and curiouser...and then I opened that, and found THIS:

 

 

 

I definitely said "OH MY GOSH" out loud, because I'm pretty sure the lady standing nearby turned around to look at me, but I was to busy processing to care. (For the first time, I did wish I had a smartphone so I could take a photo and post it somewhere right then and there, because fangirling shared is definitely more fun!) When I got home I had to Google the indecipherable signatures to check whose they were, and it is signed by the entire main cast of Hell on Wheels. How awesome is that? It was totally the cherry on top of an already awesome day! Thanks Shelli! I'm definitely a receptive audience! :)



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Hiking in Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park

Life is funny sometimes. Opportunities come up and you respond to them as you feel appropriate, and I wonder: if we realized the vast consequences tiny decisions can influence, would we be more deliberate in our actions, or would we be paralyzed by indecision, or would we become even more careless when choosing actions? As a fan of scifi, particularly of the Stargate and Star Trek variety, where time travel, temporal paradoxes, and muddled time lines as the result of a moment's hesitation are all in a day's work, I thought I was rather aware of the ripples tiny decisions make, but one of those ripples snuck up and took me by surprise last week. :)

I'm sorry if you're one of the people who's ear I've already talked off about how great Sanctuary was/is, but that's where this ripple started. Last September I discovered my favourite TV show ever (which is really saying something...) and then started following the actors from it as they worked on various other projects, which is how I started watching Hell on Wheels. As the title may suggest, this show is not for the squeamish...it's on AMC, which will probably tell you quite a lot...anyway, the Sanctuary actor I started watching the show for keeps a low internet profile, so I started following the lead actor, Anson Mount, on Twitter. He's an interesting person, and while I don't always agree with him, he's more polite than a lot of Twitter celebrities with whom I don't agree, and he's really great about interacting with his fans.

In April Anson tweeted a blog that someone he knows had written about a visit to the set of Hell on Wheels. Of course I checked it out, and as I was very entertained by Shelli's 'voice', I started at the beginning and caught up on all of her old blog posts, and subscribed to new ones. I have a pretty wide range of blogs I follow, and I'm a fairly regular commenter, because I know how nice it is to know that someone's actually reading what you write. (Insert crickets chirping on my blog here. :) Shelli started chatting back, and eventually she was back in Calgary and emailed me to hang out, which really got me excited, because I really like making new friends, but in person I'm pretty much an introvert when it comes to starting up a conversation, so becoming internet friends first was a good way to get past my initial shyness (which, can you believe, has in the past been taken for snobbery?! :P).

And I figured what better way to introduce someone from LA to my favourite things about Alberta than to take a hike in a place I'd never been! :) Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park is about half an hour from my house, just west of Calgary on the way to Cochrane. It's so close and so beautiful, I can't believe I've never been there before.

CP Rail train and prairie skies!

The paths are mostly paved, and very well maintained. The views were absolutely stunning - we were close enough to Calgary to still glimpse Canada Olympic Park in the east, as well as see the mountains to the west.

Cute little critter!

One of the interpretive signs said that badgers live in the park, and I got really excited, because I didn't know we even had any in Alberta, but the park guide said that they're nocturnal so we wouldn't likely see one anyway. :( Still, we saw enough other things to make the hike worthwhile!

Old general store/post office. The original brick facing is piled up behind and to the left.

I ADORE rural decay. The old store is fenced off so we couldn't get too close, but it was close enough to spark my interest. The park was originally the site of a ranch, and a CP rail town with a brick-making industry. Eventually the town folded and all that's left is this building and a pile of bricks. My minor is in Canadian History, so this is all right up my alley!

It looked like rain!

We walked and talked for hours and hardly even noticed! I tend to get bored fairly easily when doing nothing but walking, because I'm usually multitasking like a crazy person, but when you add in talking about everything under the sun, the time just flew. :) The skies were clouding over and there was a bit of a drizzle by the time we were heading back, but despite faint thunder in the distance, we managed to avoid bad weather. My car needs a bath though...the road into the park is gravel, and very very very dusty!

After leaving the park we headed into Cochrane for some world-famous MacKay's Ice Cream, which you can read about on Shelli's blog...she posts more pictures and isn't as rambley as me... :)

So, thanks to Anson Mount, who I followed because of Hell on Wheels, which I checked out because of Christopher Heyerdahl and Sanctuary, which I first noticed because of Amanda Tapping and Stargate - in short, my fangirling of scifi - I met a friend, hiked, and ate ice cream. And it was a glorious break from a week of helping with Vacation Bible School...which is definitely a story all on its own. :)

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Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo 2012 - Saturday

I was up and online early Saturday morning. The first panel I wanted to catch wasn't until noon, but I was trying to figure out what was going on with the Phelps twins, who play Fred and George Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. They were a late addition to the con, and there wasn't any info in the program guide about when they might be doing a panel, and the volunteers I talked to on Friday night didn't know anything about it. So before I went to bed, I tweeted @calgaryexpo and asked about it. During the night they did respond, but it wasn't very helpful - it just asked if I had gotten the update newsletter, which I hadn't. I did eventually find a copy - there was one in Trevor's goody bag, but not mine. Anyway, it didn't list a panel, just their photo ops, so I assumed that meant they weren't doing a panel.

But I was up early, so we headed down early and got there around 10:30. We basically walked right in - the only delay was simply the volume of people who also got off the same c-train. I wanted to walk down 'autograph alley', but it was literally such a dense crowd we could hardly move, so we gave up and headed into the exhibit hall. The problem was that they had all of the big stars down one aisle, and all of the old wrestlers down the other, so 90% of the foot traffic was stalled in one area.

The first panel I wanted to see was in the Corral, which was fairly empty during the Fringe panel right before the Star Trek one. We got seats and listened to the Fringe actors, and even though I don't know the first thing about Fringe, it was fairly entertaining. I need to check out what else John Noble has been in, because I really enjoyed him. While we were waiting for the Star Trek panel, we were joined by my new friend Stephanie who came all the way up from Lethbridge just for the one day. We secured decent seats further up after the Fringe people left, and were entertained by Spiner, Wheaton and Burton (Data, Crusher and LaForge). It was a fun panel, and each of the three of them got a fair amount of spotlight time. Burton's stint on Reading Rainbow came up, and the crowd sang the RR theme song. There was a lot of imitating Patrick Stewart's accent, discussion about Wil being easily amused, discussions of Timmies, and bashing of Microsoft, which is always a good time! The whole panel is up on YouTube, courtesy of 'oilcountryDon' if you want to look it up.

Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton and LeVar Burton

A lot of the panels during the weekend were moderated by one of a trio of talk show hosts from the Space channel. As a trio, I find them highly annoying. However, thankfully, apart from each other they weren't bad at all. Still, I would rather just have the dynamic of the actors without having another person added into the mix.

Trevor left part-way through the panel to secure a place in line for the Sanctuary panel, since that was really the MUST SEE panel of my weekend. Isn't he great? However, it turned into a bit of a gong show. Steph went off to do her own thing, since Sanctuary isn't her thing (but I mean really, how can Sanctuary not be anyone's thing?! :) and I went to try to find Trev. The crowds outside the Corral were dense, so instead of trying to struggle upstream, I just went to a spot near the start of the Sanctuary lineup, meaning to meet up with Trevor as the line progressed by my spot. However, once a large chunk of the line had gone by, it completely stopped and there was no more line. My cell phone couldn't connect, and since there was no line in sight, I hopped on to the end of what was passing by me into the theatre doors, and managed to snag two decent seats. The panel was supposed to start at 1 pm, but by 1:15 it hadn't started yet, although I'd managed to get enough cell reception to let Trevor know where I was and that I had a seat, since they'd stopped letting people in. SO CLOSE! I almost didn't make it, and that would have made me cry!

Shortly after 1:15, Amanda Tapping and Christopher Heyerdahl came out with the Space channel guy and sat down. It gets a little blurry in my memory, because I was trying to start the camera recording at the same time as Trevor was standing down in the doorway looking for me, and it seemed like ALL THE THINGS were happening at once. Amanda was needling Chris for checking his cell phone on stage, and he was talking about how he had a text from Ryan Robbins, and that Ryan wanted a Biggie head-slap (Chris plays two characters on the show, and this one, as a sign of affection, smacks people on the back of the head, like Gibbs from NCIS). 

Now, my Ryan-radar was already in full gear, because of this great historical western that's filming its second season in Calgary RIGHT NOW. Chris is in it, which is why I started watching and keeping an eye on what was going on with it (but he's not on Twitter, which makes things more difficult), however, Ryan IS on Twitter, and on April 20th he tweeted that he was packing up in LA and heading back to Canada for an exciting opportunity. 50% wishful thinking and 50% knowing that his good friend Chris was in Calgary meant that I immediately responded asking if he was coming to Calgary for Hell on Wheels, knowing that it was a huge leap, but not being able to resist the urge to fan-girl. Of course, the details were still confidential, so he couldn't reply, but on April 24th, he tweeted that he was on his way to Calgary, and there may have been a bit of flailing going on in my office. I KNEW that he was coming for Hell on Wheels, because it's the only thing filming here right now, and I made sure the Comic Expo knew about it too, just in case they could squeeze him into the Sanctuary panel as well. Really, I tell you, if fan-girling paid money, I'd be a rich woman. :)

But thanks to being so excited and trying to do too many things at once, I missed the surprise of Ryan walking out on stage, and managed to not get any usable photo or video! D'oh! Thankfully Trevor was able to rescue the camera from me and get really good video footage of the rest of the panel, which you can find on my new YouTube channel, MichelleEdits.

Ryan Robbins, Amanda Tapping and Chrisopher Heyerdahl at the Sanctuary panel.
Photo courtesy of tea-and-text.blogspot.ca

The first thing Amanda talked about was the future of Sanctuary, which is in limbo right now thanks to  a whole bunch of factors, and while she didn't have the news we were hoping for, it was good to know that Sanctuary isn't dead - she said its chest is still rising and falling, and she's standing by with the paddles. So here's hoping! Sadly, thanks to the crowd control issues, the panel ended up being only 31 minutes instead of 45, but I'm SO THANKFUL I managed to get in at all! They're just a wonderful bunch of people, and it was so neat to see them in person, particularly Amanda, who I've been a fan of since I started dating Trevor and he introduced me to Stargate.

All the excitement meant that I was STARVING, so we headed back to the autograph area to meet Steph for lunch at the Ceili's pub tent. The food was a bit pricey, but it was better than Stampede hot dogs, and we shared a table with a Newfie from Edmonton and did a lot of people watching. We braved the bathroom, which was DISGUSTING, and then managed to wander down autograph alley.

I hadn't been planning to get any autographs (that whole unemployed student thing) but while we were standing around Amanda Tapping came out to her table to the cheers of the people in her VERY long lineup. As much as I'm a fan, I didn't want to pay $40 and stand in line for the rest of the afternoon, but we happened to be standing by Chris' lineup, which was short, and I was speculating that if Amanda had arrived, he soon would be as well, which he did. And since I was there and the line was short, I got in it. :) Steph went to wander the exhibit hall, and Trevor and I hung out in line. Chris was letting everyone take photos as well, which was really nice of him. The Shatners and the Stewarts don't do that sort of thing - well, to be fair, so many people want to see them that they can't take that time with everyone - but I'd rather just meet a Canadian actor and feel like I actually met him or her. And for once I haven't been replying my conversation over and over wishing that I'd said everything all different - I was coherent and normal. As normal as a 31-year-old woman in a Starfleet mini-dress can be, anyway. :)

Me meeting Christopher Heyerdahl

After all that excitement, I needed to do something a bit quieter, so I headed to a publishing panel in one of the nice plushy conference rooms. The two women doing the panel were Krista Ball (an Alberta author who I saw at When Words Collide last year) and Margaret Curelas from a small Edmonton publishing house. They had both previously worked with 'my' publishing house, Edge, and so I was interested to hear their perspectives on the industry. Sadly, there was something very loud and distracting going on in the conference room next door, and the panel was a lot more basic than I was expecting, but at least I got to sit in a comfy chair for a while. :)

Trevor and I met back up (he'd been wandering the exhibit hall) and he told me about this vendor who had cheap DVDs, including some of the Stargate seasons, so I was able to acquire season 3 for $15, which is a heck of a deal! Who knows when I'll get time to watch it, but at least it's in my collection now. We went to the Coco Brooks (a GREAT local pizza chain) stand to get a bit of a snack, and shared a cheese pizza and a fruit smoothie. I was very entertained by the crowd of people who were camped out on the floor by the stand - I thought it looked like a refugee camp.

A geek refugee camp

We met back up with Steph and caught the last panel of the day - 'Stump the Nerds' with the local 404 geek comedy troop. The person on the troop who I knew doesn't appear to be with them anymore, and the whole panel was pretty special. It was supposed to be PG-13, but I would have given it a 14-A, and some of it was just strange!

I'd heard rumours throughout the day that the fire marshall had stopped anymore people from coming in, but I didn't realize the extent of it until I got home and online again. What a gong show - I'm HEARTILY thankful that my OCD tendency to be over-cautious and early meant that I didn't miss out on any of the fun things that happened on Saturday! My priority before bed was to get my Sanctuary panel video up on YouTube, which ended up being a lot more work than I'd expected, and we were up till midnight, but it's online in three parts, and the first in the series has over 1700 views! Everyone wants to hear Amanda talk about the future of season 5, apparently!

I was going to post a couple of costume photos, but this had turned out to be so long I'll have to give major kudos to those of you who are still reading. (Hi, Mom - happy birthday! :) Stay tuned for Sunday's recap!

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