MegaCon - Where Dreams Come true.

This was our very first year at MegaCon and Oh my lord it was concentrated Awesomeness!

Friday

Friday was mainly our shopping day. We arrived around 11 right before opening, parked, road the bus over (made friends), and then got to skip the multiple hundreds of people in line thanks to being the last ones to purchase tickets for the Star Trek TNG Saturday event (during the purchase there was a massive glitch and we had to go to the badge booth with maybe 100 vendors, not the advanced admission booths with thousands in line).

So, here we are in line with Arne Starr, former DC Comic artist/inker (for Star Trek) and Marvel (Spiderman), just hanging out. It was fun! And then we were branded with our green wristband which doesn't come off. Not the most awesome part, but ok, we had to wear them.  We then waited in line with the massive herd until it was officially open. Charge!

Off to go shopping! We bought Tshirts (Tom = a cathulu with a juice box, a claptrap T and a firefly T and I [Sarah] got a Girl Gamer T and one with an xbox controller on it with hilarious explanations of the buttons), some art based on Star Wars (Storm trooper with a doughnut) Fallout (Muggy!), a Runebound Expansion (actually purchased on Saturday after pics/sigs), and finally a poster of a Map of the world from Game of Thrones. Along the way we saw Lou Ferrigno from the TV show Incredible Hulk. You can tell from the minute you see him what character he played. He is ripped and has a very square jaw.

We then sat down for a brief break, met some more awesome people, and then headed home (it took a lot longer then it sounds like, these were tough decisions!).

Saturday

When we arrived at MegaCon tons of people were walking through the parking lot. We drove behind them and herded them along. What's that you say? Why yes, we were in fact, Nerd Herders. Mwahahaha!

Saturday we had a Goal, Signatures and Pictures. The minute the crowd was released we were off to get in line to have our picture taken with Michael Hogan, who (if you don't recognize him by name) played Colonel Saul Tigh (XO) in Battlestar Galactica.  While in line we took pictures of cosplayers but it didn't take long before it was picture time! Hogan was very friendly, smiled, asked us our names, shook our hands, and then recited his famous line "So Say we all, Goddammit" right before they took our picture.  We thanked him and then moved on to waiting in line for Patrick Stuart's photo session (2 hours early and we weren't the first). We were glad we waited early however, because we were just 2 of probably over 500 people who lined up. We got the job of telling them "no, we're not the end of the line, go around the corner and it continues. "

Then it was time. We were up at the front, Patrick Stuart was smiling this soft gentle smile and welcomed us over. He put his arms around us and we smiled for the camera. For the record he was incredibly soft and cuddly, if I do say so myself.  We left practically bouncing up and down and grinning from ear to ear.

We were then off to get signatures. We walked up Michael Dorn's booth (I was proud to recognize him before Tom did, then again his character has lots of facial prognostics). Michael was very friendly and clearly a much gentler personality than his character (and more refined). We then met with Michael Hogan a second time and  had him sign our picture.  He was very sweet and funny.

Next  was lunch which we had brought from home (Tea, Chef Boyardee, and chips) and relaxed for a bit before going to a Star Trek TNG Panel featuring Gates McFadden (Doctor Crusher), Marina Sirtis(Dianna Troi), Daniel Stewart (Son of Patrick Stuart), and John DeLancie (Q).  It was HILARIOUS. They shared stories from the set, Marina's hesitance to laugh at one of Wil Wheaton's jokes which wasn't actually funny. The shared about how they didn't like working on DS9. How they got celery while other casts got croquettes, and how John DeLancie is now a voice actor for My Little Pony. It was a great panel but the best was jet to come.

The Star Trek TNG Event. The Panel featured Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander William T. Riker), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Levar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), Gates McFadden (Dr.Beverly Crusher), Michael Dorn (Lieutenant Worf), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi), Wil Wheaton (wesley crusher), John de Lancie (Q), and Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar). It was AWESOME. Good Q&A, Hilarious stories. One about having to crawl through dirt with cat poop in it and how Patrick then ended up laughing his butt off because he couldn't figure out how he got from refined British acting to crawling through cat poop. 

Levar and Gates did stunts: Gates a basic roll and Levar reenacted a coolant leak in engineering ending in a dive and roll. They all shared funny stories did impressions of one another. Brent does an AWESOME Picard impression. Wil Wheaton walked like Riker and shared that he was sad as a kid to be left out of the Pez collection so he changed the Riker one to look like him. One girl asked them if they would like chocolate to which Marina jumped up, ran over, picked up the chocolates and passed them out to the entire crew. 

The last Q&A was a touching line from a young man who shared about how he grew up in a single-wide living on food stamp and minimum wage and grew up watching the show. He was given a diecast model of the ship. He shared that now, some 30 years later, he still has it and is now an engineer. He thanked them for helping us reach for greater. The cast was clearly touched and they ended the show with that. 



I am sure I will add to this blog as I remember more.