*all photos used are by me.
Well here I am, another Supernatural Convention in my rear-view mirror and I’m already feeling the long drag until the next one.
My name is Amy and I’m a Supernatural convention addict.
It started last year…no wait, it started before that. It started in 2010 when I went to All Hell Breaks Loose 2 in Sydney. Just being amongst people who didn’t think I was loony-tunes was such a revelation. Let alone meeting the fantastic cast members who attended. Misha, Jim, Rob, Julie and Sam. Of course that year, there was no Jensen or Jared. So for a gal who goes by the moniker sweetondean, there was nothing else for it, I was going to have to head over the seas to get my chance to meet the man in my life and his ridiculously tall buddy.
Last year I did LAcon. Or as I like to call it, the beginning of Amy’s bankruptcy (I kid…sorta). I was blessed to not only meet fellow fans, some of whom have become my closest friends and my convention cohorts, but also to get full on J&J hugs and attend Jensen’s jam session with Jason Manns. The whole experience was wonderful. The whole experience spoiled me forever. I was hooked.
I followed up LAcon with Chicon…with the friends I met in LA. This time around I did the Jensen meet and greet….. Oh dear. It was all kinds of perfect. He was all kinds of perfect. The spoilage continued.
I was in a predicament. How could I ever do a convention without including something that allowed me to sit in a small room with this man and his freckles? (I have a bit of a thing for the freckles).
The answer was simple: I couldn’t. There was no turning back.
So Burcon rolls around and yep, me and my buddy Hazel, who had basked in the glory of the jam and Chicago meet and greet with me, decided come Hell or high-water, we’d be sitting in a small room with Jensen again. At LAcon his meet and greet had gone for crazy money and I missed out….by one dollar….I may or may not have cried. Then as luck would have it I got a ticket for the jam, which was one of the highlights of, well my life actually! So this time around, having seen LAcon prices, having done the Chicon meet and greet, we had a pretty good idea of what we’d be up for. We placed our bid and tried not to compulsively visit the page for the next week. Both of us were awake to watch the final minutes of the auction tick over. Miracles of miracles, not only did we win 2 seats but the auction closed way under what we thought it would! We had money left over! So at 4am in Sydney and 6am in Wellington NZ, we decide, via a series of frantic and somewhat over excited texts, to bid on Jared’s as well. Guess what. We won that too! You could hear the cheering back and forth across the Tasman that morning! Meet and Greets with both the boys, I was thrilled.
Flash-forward and it’s Sunday March 4 at Burcon, or what I like to call, J-day. As Alice of The Winchester Family Business did a great write up of the Js panels, I won’t be doing that here. I’m just going to give you a sense of my crazy Sunday and then, to the best of my ability in parts 2 and 3, report on both the Js meet and greets.
Having the 2 meet and greets meant that Sunday needed to be like some kind of strategic military operation. It was going to take organisation and maybe a bit of brain engagement, which doesn’t come easy for me on J-day, as you will see.
Hazel and I prepped. We worked out all our timings. We found the meet and greet rooms early, so we’d know exactly where we were going. We even walked the route from the photo room to the meet and greet room and kind of timed it. We weren’t sure how they were doing the seating. In Chicago it was pre-organised, but we heard that sometimes it was lucky dip and sometimes it was first in best seat (it was lucky dip), so we needed to make the trek across the building in the quickest possible time, just in case. We felt ready, we felt organised. We had no idea how crazy it would be.
And so it begins….
5 am Sunday - Wake up to the dulcet tones of Colder Weather by the Zac Brown Band, register that stomach is doing some kind of gymnastic move that would win it gold at the Olympics, get ready in pre-planned Sunday photo op outfit, say my mantra “He’s just a dude, he’s just a dude”, hit the breakfast, don’t eat because of the stomach Olympics, wait….only twitching slightly, gasp when Jensen suddenly appears by himself…come on….who in the audience didn’t think THE BABY CAME EARLY, breathe a sigh of relief when Jensen explains it was a car mix up, cheer when Jared bursts in late. Phew. Laugh. A lot. Bolt from the room when the panel is over, get first in line for the Jensen photos because we have the Jared meet and greet, check lipstick, check teeth, remind myself what my name is, what his name is, how to form whole sentences, step forward, say hello, ask for my poses with surprising externalcomposure, get awesome photo, say thank you, giggle like a thirteen year old, rush to the other damn building (Jensen will comment more on that) for Jared’s meet and greet, anxiously wait for him to arrive, grin like an idiot when he walks in the room, sit for 30 minutes transfixed by his ridiculously gorgeous dimples and surprisingly long eyelashes, rush back to the other building, wait for the J&J photo, check lipstick, check teeth, remind myself what my name is, what their names are, how to form whole sentences, say hello, say thank you, forget to walk away and have Jensen yell jokingly (in his Jensen stern *read smokin’ hot* voice) “Get outta here”, pull weird embarrassed face at Jensen, head-desk internally, find Creation attendant, get first in line for Jared’s photo because we have the Jensen meet and greet, check lipstick, check teeth, remind myself what my name is, what his name is, how to form whole sentences, say hello, blush when he calls me a dag (I’ll explain later), get awesome photo, say thank you, bolt back over to the other building again, try to stop nervous Olympic tummy from making a commando assault on my entire body, drop into a seat and wait for that guy to arrive, remember that I need to breathe if I don’t want to pass out, gasp when Jensen walks in, remind myself about the breathing thing again, gaze at him for 30 minutes while occasionally whispering under my breath to Hazel…Oh..My..God, ask a couple of surprisingly confident and coherent questions, wiggle so much that the ridiculously cliché bodyguard with the sunglasses on nearly makes a move on me, pout when my precious 30 minutes is over, watch him stride out of the room as I feeling equal parts elated and sad, sit for a minute absorbing it all, remember where I am and that I’m on a schedule, sprint up to the hotel room to get that Jensen banner I accidentally bought at the auction (how did THAT happen), sprint back down and drop into my seat in the auditorium to wait for the Js to come on and regale us with their silliness. Laugh. A lot. Go up first for the autos because I have that mysteriously purchased banner, nearly remove Jensen’s head when I flip said banner onto the table, apologise profusely while he laughs it off, get my autos, thank him for the day, blush when he’s all adorable back to me, briefly forget what I’m doing, where I am, who I am, float over to Jared in some kind of haze, have him call me and Hazel a couple of dags, giggle like a thirteen year old, give him a Boba Fett key-ring we bought in Legoland in Chicago, have him be all awww about it, thank him for the day, blush when he’s all adorable back to me and float away. Wait for the upgrade for Vegas, manage to go from row G to row C (!)…and realise….. IT’S ALL OVER……NOOOOO! Grab friends and go drown the post con sorrows in copious amounts of carbohydrates at McDonalds while I start counting the days until VanCon (167).
Doing the two meet and greets did make for a very hectic schedule, but I’m so stoked I got to do them both. It made the day all the more fabulous. You know, these conventions are the most fun I’ve ever had. Having done 3 now, I’m starting to get recognised by other regular convention goers and also, by some of the cast, which is unbelievably cool. I’m so impressed with everyone I meet and so very impressed with the cast that attends and how wonderfully laid back they are. I’ve not had one single negative experience. I sometimes read things about how some fans are disappointed by the reaction they get from the cast members, but I’ve never found that. Maybe it’s because I don’t go in there expecting the world. I understand the time constraints and the pressures they are under, I also understand they are people, they get stressed, they get tired, they’re allowed. So if I didn’t get the most positive response, I would totally understand why, but that’s not the case, because every interaction has always been brilliant. It might be because I’m polite and always make and effort to say something semi-intelligent to them. I always say please, always say thank you, I never assume. I do think sometimes fans can forget that we are all human beings and though I get ridiculously silly around Jensen, I treat him like a human being. I’m courteous and thoughtful about his personal space and never do anything without asking him first if he’s cool with it. I think, especially with him, that goes a long way to getting a positive response. That would be my advice for everyone who goes to these things, always be polite, never be demanding and always make an effort to interact. If you don’t speak to them, why would they speak to you in return? And remember they are people…just people…ridiculously gorgeous and awesome people, but people all the same. They let us hug them, do crazy poses with them and they do it all with a smile. How lucky are we? Very.
Ok….that’s part one! As always, thanks for reading, your support means the world to me!
Next up….Part 2 - Jared’s Meet and Greet... click here!
