tenaciouspirit

Ooh!! ooh!! Doctor Horrible!

Now I've got the hang of photos, thought I would share my signed items, with a few anecdotes where relevant. First up I met Shazad Latif. I'm a big Spooks fan, and have been collecting signatures for a number of years now (although you can't see it from the picture). I was so excited for this one, and he didn't disappoint. He seemed really happy to see Spooks, as it was his first acting job. He excitedly showed the DvD cover to his helper, and pointed to a little picture of himself on the back. We got talking about his character, and how great his final few episodes were. A fantastic interaction Next up I met Zach Quinto. I am a big fan of his Spock, but my wife was an even bigger fan of Heroes and American Horror Story. She was initially only coming to LFCC on the Sunday, so I got him to sign something for her. He was really polite, although you could see he had come off a long flight (sorry for the bad picture on this one, it was in a *gasp* toploader at the time) The final auto I got on Friday was Bob Gale. Now, a little background to this: I couldn't afford to get a big BTTF signed item during the 2015 show; I spent all my money on a signed Christopher Lloyd pic with the Clock. However, I have since turned this into a mini collection of signed BTTF pictures, with a Tom Wilson + Gravestone auto being acquired a couple of years ago. In line with this theme, I got Bob Gale to sign our picture in the Delorean. Again he was very polite and courteous, but you could tell he'd come off a long flight. That was it for Friday autos! My Saturday was really quiet, just the three autographs on that day too. First up was Hayden, who I got straight into the queue for. My personal rule of thumb is not to expect the big guests before 10am (just based on personal experience) so it was really nice to seem him arrive really soon after 9. As others have said, he was really taking his time with people , asking their names and where they wanted the signature. He seemed a bit surprised with the quote that I asked him to put, and it may have been a bit too long for him (as he ended up only paraphrasing). Nevertheless, I was really happy that he did it, especially as I never normally go for quotes (it was meant to be the 'Hold on, this whole operation was your idea' quote). Next up was Jim Kay, the illustrator for the Harry Potter illustrated copies. My wife had made a last minute decision to attend YALC (she could have met Zach Quinto after all!) so we brought along our heavy copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for Jim to sign (now I know how Wrong Name feels with that Firefly book). My wife picked up a VQ ticket for him, and it was a good job she did. He was really popular! After a reasonable wait (which I was actually pleased about, as it gave me a chance to take a breather) we reached the front of the line. As is the case with 'smaller' guests, he was really chatty, polite, and an all round joy to talk to. He seemed genuinely grateful that we'd waited in line for him, and seemed really happy that our book showed signs of wear and tear (as it showed we were actually reading it). He also commented on my wife's Ian Somerhalder Diamond pass, asking if Ian still looked that handsome nowadays (I think my wife can attest that he still does). After he signed, my wife got a quick picture with him and he gave us two free signed prints. I don't have photos of these, but here is the picture of him with my wife. Finally for the Saturday, I met Martin Sheen. He's obviously very famous for his film and TV, but I wanted him for the video game Mass Effect. It may have been a lot of money for a video game voice actor, but Mass Effect is still my favourite video game experience, and I just couldn't pass up this chance. I bought this poster specially for this event, and it felt great to start a new collection. As others have said, Martin was lovely. My wife came up with me, and he asked both our names, before asking if my wife also wanted her name on the poster (she didn't). He admitted that he had never actually played the games, and couldn't remember what his character was called (I had kind of expected this, and we had a good laugh about it). Luckily one of his helpers was a Mass Effect fan, and was able to help him with the specifics. Martin was very careful to get all the details right (name, pen colour, character name ect) and it just really made it seem like he cared about the fans. A great interaction The big meet on Sunday for me was Bernard Cribbins. This was a really late decision, as I'd kind of forgotten he was even attending and didn't have much money left. But then I remembered how much of an impact this man had on my childhood, and I just had to meet him. For his autograph, I chose to take my cassette of a children's book he narrated called 'Sophie's Snail'. I had listened to all the Sophie books growing up, and they formed such an integral part of my childhood. I plumped for the DP and joined the queue as soon as he arrived. At Bernards age, it's no surprise that he wasn't much of a talker, but then I was too startruck to say much myself. Saying that, he seemed genuinely happy to see the cassette, and even remarked 'Oh! Sophie, that takes me back a few years'. I mentioned that I had owned the cassette for over 20 years, and that seemed to make him really happy. I was over the moon with this interaction. Now the rest of Sunday was great, but sadly I don't really have any interesting stories to tell. Carrie Anne Moss signed my Mass Effect Poster (see above), Robert Glenister signed my spooks DvD (below) and Tom Felton added to my Harry Potter poster, which now has 5 names on it (the others being John Cleese, Zoe Wanamaker, David Bradley and Sean Biggerstaff). These were all good guest interactions, but nothing that warrants making this post longer than it already is. I will say though Tom Felton seemed very popular with other guests. Whilst I was waiting in his queue, he had interactions with Jason Isaacs (to be expected), Carrie Hope Fletcher and Noel Clarke (who wasn't even a guest, he must have just been attending for fun!). Tom must just be one of those popular, friendly people. All in all, a great time was had :) roll on next year!

Apologies if this should be in general chat, but as it's to do with the LFCC programme, I thought I would ask here. Are all the conventions advertised in the LFCC programme affiliated with Showmasters in some way? By that, I mean are they safe to talk about on the forum. There are a couple that I am planning to attend for the first time, and wasn't sure how much detail I could go into on here if I have any questions/ want to discuss my experiences. I couldn't find pages for some of these conventions on the forum, hence my hesitation (but wouldn't have thought SM would advertise rival cons). Thank you for any advice.

Finally got my pictures working. Enjoy!

I don't really use Insta. But I gave you a follow anyway :) I normally just put my pictures on my FB

Edit: Well embedding those pictures didn't work. Back to the drawing board I guess!

But your name is broo!

Did anyone else see Noel Clarke around Obviously he wasnt a guest, but as I was queueing for Tom, he came and said hi to both him and Jason. It was really cool :) Wish I could have stuck around and asked for a photo

I don't know... I had Christina Ricci cut through my line, and turn to apologise to me. I wouldn't mind that happening again

It made my wife's whole con meeting him. It was only her second LFCC (I still had to play the part of guide) and she was so so happy with the whole experience. She did the almost touch pose from vampire diaries, and keeps looking at her picture with such adoration .

What an idiot

The biggest high was seeing my wife meet Ian Somerhalder. She had been looking forward to it for so long, had her pose all planned out any everything (some kind of 'almost touch' for any vampire diaries fans) and it all went perfectly for her. I sometimes feel a bit used to the whole meeting celebs thing, so it's sometimes hard to get starstruck. But seeing her so giddy was amazing. Also Hayden was such a gentleman, so polite and really took care to ensure guests got what they wanted :) As mentioned, the lack of cancellations, general manner of most guests, smooth running of all my activities and variety of stuff to enjoy was also amazing

I was really impressed with the relative lack of cancellations this year. Heard loads of people saying 'oh that means there will be loads of cancellation in the last week' and apart from Alex, they never came. Well done to the guests, SM and lady luck!

On such a post con high. Not because of any particular guest, but the general wonderfulness of it all

I wasn't sure it was you at first! It was only when I was coming out that it clicked