BOREDOM WARNING: This is a personal view! Itll ramble on, you may get
bored. So... On arrival, passing through the hotel reception, getting my bearings, I heard a happy, bouncy Scottish accent coming from a woman on one of the sofas. I trotted over and enquired if she was Lesley from the SHADO eGroups list. She was, so that was Lesley and me sorted. Lesley, being Convention Queen (ie, expert) was extremely good at telling me what was what and where was what. Thank you Lesley. I hadnt been to a Convention before. And really didnt think it would be so expertly and professionally organised but still happily informal. Okay,so stuff overran, but if a panel session is going brilliantly with an audience hanging off every word being said on stage, the organisers would have been mad to cut stuff off in its prime. So the schedule did go to pieces a bit. But apart from that, I really thought the whole organisation and set up was excellent. Thank you FAnderson. I went to the Opening Ceremony and Chris Bentley (Chairman or similarof Fanderson) did the welcome and he was good and it was fun. He didnt want people using flash photography during the panel sessions. As he said (paraphrased!) If we have guests up on stage trying to remember the details of a days work from 30 years ago a flash in their face at the wrong time could result in the information being lost to us forever. Hmmmm. I probably shouldnt have laughed quite so out loud! There was a Space:1999 episode for which Zienia Merton (Sandra Benes) provided alive commentary. I found it fascinating. I did watch Space:1999 when it was first broadcast. Did notice at the time the sets resembled Moonbase but until I found Marcs FAB-UFO list and his web site, had no idea of the history behind the proposed second series of UFO vs the arrival of Space:1999. So it was fun to scrutinise the set on the big screen. Zienia Mertons commentary was fascinating (for me, anyway) because she commented on production / direction stuff like the programs two main stars did no outside location work. The rest of the cast were shunted to cold woods to run around in leopard skin vests, getting bitten by midges, but Barbara Bain and Martin Landau stuck resolutely to the studio. And details like an episode not breaking (for commercials) on a freeze frame of a junior cast member needed to be a star etc. Having no knowledge of drama, television etc, having all this explained was very enlightening. About 6 or 7 of us had a group photo taken at the SHADO@eGroups meeting up in the screening room. Which was very cool! The backdrop was a painting on canvas I think of Strakers office. It was lunchtime, so I went looking for food that didnt require queuing for 30 minutes (I may be British, but nothings worth queueing for!) Lesley joined me and we got filled rolls (no queue!) and looked around for a table to sit down at. Lesley is Queen so I followed Lesley who was muttering some incantation under her breath about shall we should we yes we can and sounding a bit hyper! So she chose a table and we sat down and I assembled my napkin and cheese salad roll and beamed happily (probably inanely) round the table and thought, good grief, Carly, youre slow. *Of course* Lesley chose this table. Err hello Mr Bishop! As I said, Lesley knows exactly what shes doing at Conventions!!! As mentioned in other posts, Charles and Lorraine from the List were at the table and Lesley and I introduced ourselves to them. Mr B was chatting to someone. Another official guest. Might have been Alan Perry. EB was (predictably) a magnet for the convention guests (I mean official guests like David Graham and Shane Rimmer etc) so while I was there, he was occupied talking to people who came up. Gerry Anderson came over to say hi too. I scoffed my lunch left Lesley and the others at the table so I could go to one of the sessions. Later, the guest panel with Ed and Gabrielle Drake was very entertaining. I dont know how much of the stuff they said was new but I and I reckonthe rest of the audience really enjoyed it. There was a distinct buzz from the male members of the audience when Gabrielle made her entrance. She did look fantastic. Ed commented on how he and Gita Santano (spelling?) and he used to sit and have lunch together on filming days. Straker and the resident alien sitting down together, eating and discussing actor stuff. Shame no photos seem to be around of that scenario. Questions from the floor were good. One guy who was dressed in a Strakeresque costume the turquoise one with the brown banding only his recreated version wasnt quite so bright! asked of Ed and Gabrielle: how does it feel to be immortalised as the coolest man and most beautiful woman in television? (something like that!). Chuckles from the audience and amused replies from Gabrielle and Ed. The UFO episode Identified, which was to have been run with a live commentary by Gabrielle, Ed and Peter Gordeno as I think he had turned up by then, was postponed to the next day as everything had dramatically overrun by then. This was my one disappointment as I wasn't going to be there on Sunday to see it. There followed an autograph session - for about 2 hours. Sitting signing your name for that length of time is definitely a labour of love! I had a brilliant time. Bloody well run convention even if my judgementis based on no prior experience. Great meeting List People. I think Id go to a con again because I enjoyed the screenings and guest panels and stuff so much. Dealers room was of no interest to me personally, but the model / costume / marionette room was amazing and I did take photos. Thats it. My view of Saturdays events. I liked it. I liked it!! Carly _______________________________________________________ Get 100% private, FREE email for life from Excite UK Visit http://inbox.excite.co.uk/ |
Hey Carly,
Not boring at all! I've loved every comment from all of you that managed to attend - special thanks to those of you that went, and have posted their thoughts and feelings at their first opportunity - it's been an almost vicarious experience. I'm simply jealous, now.. <g>. Thanks, once again! -- Rob |
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In reply to this post by carly.ward
Hi All,
I've been having extreme difficulties getting an Internet connection in my Ukrainian hotel, so perhaps you won't be hearing much from me during the next 2 weeks. In response to the question on what Ed was wearing when I met him & Jane in the hotel lobby before the costume ball, he was wearing a black tuxedo without a tie. And also in response to your question about Jane, she looked very nice indeed! -- Marc Martin, [hidden email] |
In reply to this post by Rob Hemmings-2
Rob wrote :
> Not boring at all! I've loved every comment from all of you that > managed to attend - special thanks to those of you that went, and have > posted their thoughts and feelings at their first opportunity - it's > been an almost vicarious experience. I'm simply jealous, now.. <g>. > Thanks, once again! |
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