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Wrong Name’s Wround Up LFCC 2019 (AKA The Wrong Name Appreciation Thread)


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Well, due to popular demand here it is, Wrong Name’s Wround Up LFCC Summer 2019 Edition! Another exciting tale of standing in queues for hours to let strangers scribble on pieces of paper for me! (We love it though!).  As per usual I want to start off with a warning here, that I’m writing this for myself. Selfish, yes, but I like to do this now to have a memory of what I go through at these events, and writing it allows me to try and re-live what I just went through. If that makes sense?! Who knows? Anyway, people have said they enjoy these things so I hope I can keep you entertained for the 100,000 word essay that I’m planning to lay out here ;) 

 

Usually with these things, I’ll start from the Thursday before LFCC due it being pass collection day, but this time I want to start a little before that to the Sunday.  I’m the type of guy who likes to be prepared for things (if this is a surprise to you then I’m pleased I’ve managed to hide my OCD!).  For months before the con I will be checking all the travel arrangements to make sure I’m ok, and will look at the weather etc. in the hope I already know how things will pan out. I’m not the type of person who will wing things, although it has happened on the occasion due to necessity. By the Sunday I had everything set and was pretty confident in my plans to travel up from my home to Olympia every day, and back again in the evening (I only live roughly 1 hour away by public transport). Of course this is when my train line decides to announce full on line closing engineering works for the weekend ahead! I had to re-plan everything. I looked at all the different lines trying to work out timings. I looked into driving to the next town over to see if that would be quicker. In the end nothing seemed to work and it looked like it was going to take 3 hours to get there at the time I as I wanted to be, which with all the socialising I wanted to do, would leave me with a total of 4 hours sleep or less per night. That wasn’t gonna work.

 

There was nothing else for it, I was gonna have to find a hotel. Of course my brain decided this when I randomly woke up at 3am on Monday morning. That was sleep over for me that night. The next several hours were spent researching which hotels still had rooms, how close were they to Olympia, and due to the weather reports, did they have air conditioning! Reviews were read, other booking sites were checked to see if they had it cheaper, and eventually I found one that ticked nearly all the boxes I require and still had a room for me. With that booked, I could relax, and I actually became more excited for the weekend ahead as it gave me a lot more freedom for the social side of things.

 

We’ll skip ahead here as this is meant to be about the con and I’m sure you don’t want to read about me sitting round watching YouTube and movies while job searching, visiting relatives and trying to decide if I should go to the cinema that evening or not.  So here we are at the usual starting point, the Thursday before LFCC. I was packed and ready the day before. I woke up to many message for people coming to the con with them saying they had started their long journeys to London (and for some, the UK) to get to the con. This made me instantly jealous, as I would not be leaving until several hours later as I couldn’t check into my hotel until 3pm. The clock moved the slowest I’ve ever seen as those hours ticked by and I started to see them all posting about being in their hotels (earlier check ins for them it seemed!) or being down the pub. Looking back now, the pub would have been a good idea, but I did have a massive suitcase that I would have needed to store somewhere, but it doesn’t matter now.  Eventually, the hour came and I left to catch my train.

 

Now, you may well remember that Thursday was not a normal day for the UK. Thursday was the day that our country SET ON FIRE!!!! I’m a big-ish guy and I don’t do well with heat. Stepping outside my house was like walking into a sauna and was even making me question if LFCC was worth it!  It wasn’t and I stayed home.

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, I obviously didn’t stay home. There were a lot of issues with transport on Thursday, but I was mostly lucky with my journey. My train had air con, as did the tube I needed, so really it wasn’t much different to a normal journey to Olympia, which was great! Until I had to step outside to the fiery pits of Mount Doom, where I melted faster than Gollum but without the smile from winning my precious!  Finding the hotel was not a problem but when I did arrive, my room was not ready. “No problems” I thought as they told me it would only be 20 mins or so. After an hour, with no sign of my room, I headed out and bought some water and snacks to just generally kill some time. This worked as on returning I was given my key, along with a free breakfast voucher for a day as an apology.  I also found out that the hotel had only been open for 9 days and that explained why things were not working as well as they could yet.  

 

My room was small, but comfy and modern. The “mood lighting” setting was cool and felt like a party was going off! I didn’t have much time to play though as I was meant to be meeting people so I changed to get rid of all the sweat from my journey and headed out to Olympia to pic up my passes. Stepping back outside I found that a shower had been pointless as after 30 seconds in the heat I was back to the same state I had been before I got into my room! I shrugged it off, as everyone must have been the same that day. I was thrilled to see a few people at pass collection including Teskothemad and whitewillow. It’s always great to see people who have become my friends thanks to LFCC. The collection queues were none existent on the Thursday again this year for which I was grateful as I remember having to queue for a couple of hours in the past. Showmasters (SM from here on out) have really gotten this down now and the Thursday collection just makes life so much easier. My entry this year was a standard three-day pass and I had diamonds for Jason Isaacs, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hayden Christensen. I collected them all and was out of the collection area within 5 mins! So finally it was time for the pub. As I was walking over to the Hand and Sceptre, I saw a police bike drive down the road with it’s lights on. It stopped the traffic, and I saw two Land Rovers coming up behind it that had to move to the wrong side of the road due to where traffic had stopped. As they approached I assumed they’d have the blacked out windows you often see when these VIP convoys come through London, but I was a bit surprised to see the clear windows, and Her Majesty The Queen sitting in the back seat as the cars rushed by! My first celeb siting of the weekend! 

 

As per usual with these write ups, I’ll save you the details of my nights out drinking! After starting at the Hand and Sceptre, a bunch of us made our way over to Latymers for the usual meet up which mainly just consisted of drinks, catching up, and excitement about the weekend ahead. Eventually I stumbled my way back to my hotel to try and get some sleep before having to get up early for the real work to begin!

 

Swearing at my alarm clock, I made it out of bed at roughly 6:30. I was feeling the effect so f the night before but remember thinking that it definitely could have been worse! After getting dressed I headed downstairs to use the free breakfast voucher I had been given the day before. Cereal and yogurt was all they had laid out, which was not exactly what I needed at that point but as it was free I just ate as much as I could before grabbing what I needed for the day from my room and heading over to Olympia. 

 

The queue was smaller than I expected when I arrived which was good. I met up with Raylenth and only had to wait about 20 mins before the gate opened and we were allowed inside to queue. Already having my wristband made the entry easy so it was just a case of walking up to near the front of the queue and finding our spot for the next 2 hours. Looking around I spotted a lot of the usual faces for these events though I‘m not sure if many of them are on this forum or not. The only forum regular I recognised was Chris1970, sitting in the next row over, a little way up from us, but just far enough away that we couldn’t shout to him without looking weird. Queuing is as queuing does in these situations and there’s not much for me to say about during this time, other than we finalised our battle plans for the day. Once we were in we ran as fast as our feet could take usslowly walked up to the signing area, and collected the VQ tickets we needed for the day. Once this was done and we could relax and took a quick tour round the auto area and photo booths to see the layout changes for the year and familiarize ourselves with them. This was when we first bumped into Queen_Sindel and StuartG2198. I have met Stuart many times before but this was my first time meeting QS, and I’m so pleased I have now! It was great chatting with both of them and hearing what their plans were for the weekend (I won’t divulge too much for them on here!). Before the show I had joked with QS about getting her to sign something for me, and I kept to my word:

 

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(Me, Raylenth, QS, StuartG2198)

 

Once we had parted ways it was time for serious business as the guests had started arriving at the signing desks and my first of only 2 photo shoots for the day was a while off, so work was needed to be done!

 

I headed over and saw Jason Isaacs was at his desk and joined the queue. Not much of a problem for me as I had the diamond, but a while into waiting, Adam Baldwin suddenly appeared at his desk a few places over with no queue at all. I hopped out of line and managed to make it over to Adam with only a couple of people in front of me in the queue.  I was really glad to get his auto so early on as I had taken with me the biggest mistake in my autograph-collecting career, my Firefly Celebration book. This book is big and heavy and every time a guest from Firefly is announced for a con I’m equal parts happy that I get to meet them, and upset as it means I have to lug this stupid book with me again! It was awesome to meet Adam and he told me how much he still misses the show as he added a quote along side his cast mates to the book.

 

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Adam's Auto top right

 

It was after this I discovered that Gina Torres had been delayed and panic started to set in as I had hoped I would only have to carry the book for one day of the con, and if I didn’t manage to get her on the Friday, I would have to wreck my shoulders for the Saturday as well! 

 

I got back in line for Jason and was happy to see him chatting away to everyone further up the line from me. This does make queues take longer, but it usually leads to better interactions with the guests all round. When it was my turn, I had brought my Event Horizon print for him to sign. This first led to him telling me how his daughter is a fan of horror movies and has told him that he should do one some day. “I have” he replied,  “Event Horizon”. He then proceeded to tell her the storyline of the film, to which she replied “it sounds rubbish!” and she still hasn’t seen it!  He then told me how much he loved all the sci-fi/gothic architecture in the film and that they had been to the butchers to add a lot of the organic matter that was spread over the ship so the whole set stank for the day, especially when all the hot lights hit it. It was a total pleasure to meet Jason and it was great to see him interacting so much with people. Definitely a highlight guest of the weekend.

 

 

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Jason's Auto top left

 

After Jason, I headed I took a wander round some of the non-vq guests I had planned to meet over the day, only to find that both Robert Patrick and David Naughton had both had vqs introduced since I’d last checked. Luckily I was within the first 100 for both, but with how much they seemed to be chatting with people, this still seemed like more of a risk than I wanted! With them now out of the question for a while and other guests not at their tables for various reasons, I headed over for my first photo shoot of the day. This was for Robert Patrick. The golds were already lined up in photo area A when I got there, as were the batch 1’s. It wasn’t much of a wait before they all started going in and the shoot began, meaning the batch 2’s were soon in line followed by us in batch 3.  The shoot went smoothly, with Robert greeting everyone coming to see him, shaking hands and seemed to be having a great time. I grew up with the first two Terminator movies so it was great to meet him and I’m really happy with how the pic came out

 

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I moved on from the shoot to join the queue for an autograph from Leslie Easterbrook. I had bee surprised just how long her queue had been, but took my chance to join it as I had a while before my next shoot. If you have met Leslie, you will know, she is a talker! That meant this queue took a while. Unfortunately for me, the couple standing behind me did not agree with my thinking that a talkative guest is a good thing, and constantly moaned for the 45 mins that I was in the queue about why it was taking so long, but then was saying that they hope they get to speak to her for a while?!! The entitlement of some attendees at these events really does blow my mind. When I did eventually get to Leslie, she was an absolute delight! She told me how she hadn’t had anyone bring her The Devil’s Rejects pictures/posters all day and then three of us had turned up at once! She gave me a few stories of being on set including how painful and physical some of her scenes had been to film and then signed my poster for me which I have had to censor here (but she had asked if I minded the swearing). She was happily posing for selfies too and was very upbeat throughout the whole experience. A really lovely guest. 

 

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Leslie's Auto top right

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After Leslie I returned to the photo area for my second and final shoot for the day, which was with Jason Isaacs. Again, the man was a real pleasure to meet as he kindly greeted everyone and thanked us for coming in the photo area. I really can’t say nicer things about him!

 

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With my photos for the day covered, I could focus purely on the autos I needed and headed straight round to find that my number had been called for Robert Patrick’s auto. As with Leslie before, Robert is a talker so his queue was very slow moving, but it was totally worth it as his energy and the way he was engaging people was something else. He was nothing but complimentary for anyone who brought their own pictures for him to sign, saying that each one was his favourite scene from the movie (they can’t all have been!). With me, he loved the Terminator poster I had made and was telling me which other members of the cast I needed to get to sign it and where each of them should do it. Chance and money would be a fine thing (come on SM, you can do it!).

 

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Meeting up with some friends, they told me that not only had Gina Torres arrived but also she had already moved on to vqs and my number had been called which was a HUGE relief!  I trundled over to her queue with that *#@&^$! book in my hands, so happy that I wouldn’t have to bring it back the next day. Gina was such a sweetheart to meet too. I could see panic in her eyes when I handed her the book, as the signed page was now totally full after Adam had added to it earlier in the day. I told her that she could sign on the blank page next to it and she thanked me and I saw the worry in her eyes drain away. She must have been having a rough time before getting there as she looked a little tired but was still so grateful to everyone coming up and meeting her. I was looking forward to seeing her again for a photo the next day.

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I’m not 100% sure at what point this happened in the day, but it was really nice to finally get a chance to properly meet Broo on Friday after only waving at each other last year. As she approached she asked if I’m a hugger, and in reply I just threw my arms round her! We had a nice chat about how are days were going and who we were meeting, and we were joined by the Blemmings as well for similar conversations.  I love meeting people from on here and am happy to say that we all bumped into each other several more times throughout the weekend.

 

Reaching this point in writing the day, I’ve realised that there is one guest I have forgotten to mention up to this point, Bob Gale. Bob had been due to appear at 1pm on the Friday, but was unfortunately delayed.  Throughout the afternoon I kept popping over to his table to see if he had arrived yet, to no avail.  Eventually I saw that they had started handing out vqs for him, so I grabbed one and was told he would be there at 4pm. 4pm roles around, and again, no sign of Bob. I think it was about 4:30pm when I checked his table to be delighted to see him sitting there and signing away. This was where things got confusing, as the crew had implemented a “priority” system with the vqs, but seemed to be confused among themselves as to how it worked.  What they should have done is just hand out vqs normally and those that had been waiting the longest would have had the low vqs and called first, but they had written a silver “P” on some tickets giving them priority. I did not have the “P” but I did have a low ticket number. Some crew said that this was priority, others said it wasn’t. In the end I managed to join the queue 4 times, only to be asked to leave again by a different crewmember. This was incredibly frustrating. Finally one crewmember took pity on me and I joined the queue and was allowed to get my auto. I had brought my Back To The Future poster for Bob to sign, that I had started in 2015 with most of the cast’s autos now on it. Unfortunately my knowledge of posters was not what it is back then and the cheap ink and paper used by the eBay seller has meant that many autos have now faded, but you can still read them for now so I keep adding to it when I can. Bob was happy to sign it and promote the new Back To The Future Musical coming to the West End and despite the ‘No Posed Photos’ sign, he was happily holding up anything he had signed for people to take a picture of him with it, but no selfies.

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Bob's Auto middle left on the DeLoreon

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After Bob, I made my way over to the last auto I needed for the day, David Naughton. David had had a long queue all day, and finally my vq had been called so I joined the queue straight away. Although he had been talking, it didn’t take too long to get to the front, and he seemed very honoured to be asked to sign my ‘Legends of Horror’ poster that I had created and started last year. As he looked at the picture, he noticed that Kane Hodder had already signed it, and asked me if he had done so that day at the LFCC. I replied that no, he had in fact signed it last year while he was in London. Instantly, David picked up the poster and shouted over to Kane to show him. Kane seemed (understandably) confused but was insistent that he had signed my poster that day. I tried to correct him and remind him of when he signed it, but he said he had no memory of being in London then and that all conventions were blurring into one with him! It was a bizarre little interaction, but it was nice to say hi to Kane again as I hadn’t planned to meet him this weekend. David then signed the poster for me and was also happy to take a photo at the table too.

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David's Auto bottom right

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With my meeting with David complete, I was done for the day. After the night before and an exhausting first day, I decided to skip any social activities for the evening and slunk back to my hotel with a take away to try and get as much sleep as possible before doing it all again on Saturday!

 

I felt much better for having more sleep on Saturday morning. I was awake at the same time as the previous day but felt more motivated to get things done. Today was going to be much harder than the Friday as Saturday is always the busiest day at LFCC but also I was planning to try and get the autos of 4 diamond pass guests, but just using vqs. I didn’t have breakfast to worry about at the hotel so once I was dressed I headed straight towards Olympia. I popped into Tesco to grab a bite to eat in the queue and headed round to the venue. The queue hall doors had not long opened by the time I arrived and most who were there early were already inside, but I was still there early enough to be near the start of the second full length row in the queue so I was happy. Being by myself this time I sat with my headphones on for the duration listening to podcasts. 

 

Once inside it was almost a copy paste of the day before. “Carefully walking” and collecting my vqs I managed mainly low numbers so once again I was happy, but whether or not the guests would make it past their vqs was yet to be seen. With the tickets collected I once again did a full sweep of the auto area to see where the new guests would be sitting and what changes had been made from the day before.  It was while I was doing this that I bumped into DCGIRL 1987 and her friends. We had very briefly met before but it was good to finally speak properly and have a chat about how our cons had been going. After we parted ways, it was time to hit the first auto queues of the day.

 

First up was Hayden Christensen. I was pleased to see he was out so early and was happy that they had managed to sort out the massive queue I had seen at his booth earlier on. It turns out this was because they had not sorted out any vq tickets for him or they had not arrived to the booth on time, so a queue had formed to collect them once they got there.  When these had been handed out the queue shortened and was just filled with diamond pass holders. Once in line I was doing my usual job or trying to sort out the paint pen I was going to use (these involve some prep time to make sure they are working properly before being used), and getting the poster I had made ready. Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. As I turned round the girl behind me was waving at me yet I didn’t recognise her at all. She then said, “I’m VikingGrrrl!” to which my response was similar to what Broo had experienced the day before and I gave her a huge hug! We chatted all while going through the queue until it was our turn to meet Hayden. Although not the chattiest guest I have ever met, Hayden was a really polite and sweet guy. He was greeting everyone, making sure they got what they wanted as their autos and was personalising for those that wanted it at that time.  I was happy with the auto I got but realised later that as I was using a new type of pen for his auto, I hadn’t given it quite enough time and unfortunately it did smudge a little. Not much, but you can see it when up close. Annoying, but not the end of the world.  Here’s the poster (and a close up on his auto). I’ll speak about the others who signed as I got to them. I designed the poster to match my original trilogy poster, which I had bought in 2014. I’ll make one for the new trilogy at some point too, but there’s only one official poster for The Rise of Skywalker at the moment and it’s not in the style I’d want.

 

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Hayden's Auto top middle

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Moving back into to the main auto area, I saw Carrie-Anne Moss was at her desk so I joined the queue to grab her auto on my new Matrix poster (I didn’t design this one). I’ve heard others say she was very chatty, but my experience was very quick. I wasn’t disappointed or anything, she was very polite and kind but it was a “hello, nice poster, thanks for coming” job. Although she did try to steal my pen!

 

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That was my two diamond pass autos for the day done, so everything else from here on out was going to be a bit harder. John Barrowman had a sign up on his queue saying that he was only going to be there form 11am which worried me a little as I wasn’t sure if he would get to diamonds, and all other diamond guest’s queue crew kept telling me to come back in half an hour. I kept thinking throughout the day how busy I would be in half an hour as this is when they kept telling me to come back each time! I walked over to the balcony to see some of the smaller guests out there and took my chance to meet Hugh Quarshie. 

 

Hugh is a lovely guy. He made sure I was happy about where he was going to sign and like Hayden, complemented me on the poster I had designed. I pleased to see him taking selfies with everyone as well. I won’t post a pic of the Star Wars Prequels poster again here, just look above and Hugh’s auto is on the left by Episode 1. 

 

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After Hugh it was time for my first of 5 photos for the day. I was at the shoot area a little early, but the previous one had already finished and I more or less walked straight into the booth with my Carrie-Anne diamond pass and was one of the first 10 or so people waiting for their photo. Carrie-Anne ended up running late however, but before she turned up we had a surprise visit from Jason Momoa and his team who came into the wrong photo area! His agent did not look amused. Once Carrie-Anne arrived, the queue moved quickly, and again she was very lovely to meet. I’m not overly pleased with how my photo turned out as I hate my face in it and Carrie-Anne seems to almost be facing up for some reason, but it wasn’t bad enough to warrant a re-take so I’ll live with it.

 

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After a quick check where the diamond guests were up to with diamonds or vqs (for the most part, not mine) it turned out that Christina Ricci had started on her vq tickets. I was excited about meeting her, as the soundtrack to the film Black Snake Moan is one of my all time favourites, so I had brought with me a poster of the film for her to sign. I paid for my auto and was happy, as there was only one person in front of me in the queue. As I took my poster out of my case, the crewmember sitting with Christina looked at it and said, “I’m sorry, she won’t sign that”. I was gutted. I had known that Christina had some issues with some of the marketing of the film, but had researched online and found that she had signed items from it in the past and as there was no warning from SM I assumed everything would be ok. It had taken me a lot of time and more money than I would have liked to source the poster so this was a real let down for me. I hope in the future SM will double check with all guests if there are anything they will not sign so it can be announced beforehand and situations like this can be avoided. I went back to the payment table and selected an Addams Family 8x10 to get signed, which was ok by me as I do like those films, but obviously I was still a little disappointed and due to that, the experience of meeting Christina was vey quick yet still friendly.

 

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Next up I went for Daniel Mays. I had tried his line earlier in the day but got called away when Faerie Tanith arrived to go and say hi. I didn’t mind as his line was never massive and it didn’t take long to meet him when I went back. He seemed like a genuinely lovely guy, and we chatted about the idea of him appearing in a prequel of some kind, including the Cassian Andor series that Disney have announced, but as of yet he has not been contacted about it. After he signed my Rogue One poster for me, I told him I enjoyed his film Fisherman’s Friends that came out earlier this year, for which he was grateful. Nice guy.

 

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Daniel's Auto top right

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After meeting Daniel I was back to photos and was facing the closest thing I could call a clash for the weekend. Five minutes after Hayden’s shoot started, Adam Baldwin’s was due to start, yet Adam’s shoot was only 30 mins long whereas Hayden’s was an hour. As the usual rule of thumb is to go to the one that finishes first, first, that is what I did. As I went up I saw my friend Fred was the red shirt running the shoot so I went to say hi and had a very quick chat as he was obviously very busy with everything going on. The shoot with Adam started on time and ran smoothly. Adam saw my T Shirt and said “Rust City, I like it!” before taking the pic. I am 100% sure he had no idea what Rust City is and 100 points goes to anyone who can comment below what it is without having already been told by me, or looking it up on Google! 

 

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As smooth as things went for Adam’s shoot, the same cannot be said for what was happening over at photo area C for Hayden’s shoot. As I say, this was meant to have started 5 mins before Adam’s yet when I arrived no one had gone in yet. There didn’t seem to be many crewmembers around and the one I saw seemed to be overwhelmed with all the people trying to find out what was going on. It was clear Hayden hadn’t arrived yet, but for some reason they hadn’t called the diamond pass holders in batches, they just called all diamonds. They probably hadn’t realised how many there were for him because not only was the queue area for the shoot full, there were still a load more of us diamonds who hadn’t managed to join it yet. I spoke VikingGrrrl who had been there longer than me, but she was just as confused as I was about the situation! After about 30 mins, the line began to move so Hayden had arrived, but also 2 new crew members arrived and started to properly organise the crowd. They tried to get anyone with a normal batch number to move away for a while and as the queue slowly went down and had some space, they added the remaining people with diamond passes in in batch order. It really should have been obvious that for a guest like Hayden, this is how it should have been done from the start. Just before I went into the booth, they started calling up the gold passes. The shoot itself seemed to run smoothly, but I could see some people were trying their best to spend as much time with Hayden as possible, going for hugs after the photo was taken and the security guys having to peel them off him from time to time to speed things up. As I got up to the front, the red shirt who was the “step up to the line” person in the booth was telling people that there were only 8 mins left of the shoot and they can’t over run. No way were they gonna get that done! I warned her that they were still on diamonds at the moment and there were still a bunch of batches to do after us. She shook her head and I went up for my pic. Hayden was just as sweet as earlier but I moved along ASAP to try and help them get us all through. As I was waiting for my pic to print, some of the crew had taken Hayden and his people off to the side for a chat. I think they were saying that they need to do things quicker as all I heard was Hayden saying “I’m going as fast as I can!” but then I left the area to get out of the way. I have no idea how things were handled after that. I hope that everyone got their photos. As of writing this I haven’t seen anyone say they didn’t.

 

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It may have been a little frustrating having to wait around for Hayden’s photo but it did help out in killing time for my next vq number to be called. I was well aware of a lot of the health problems Val Kilmer has had over the past few years, so was not surprised that they had kept most of the queuing out of his booth, to allow more space inside. Once in, I was still a little shocked to see his condition though. The man did not look well at all and it’s a real testament to him that he had turned up to see his fans. He was my first on-screen Batman and I was really looking forward to seeing him but as I approached his desk, I could see he was obviously very weak, and not quite with it. Some crew were behind him trying to sort out some power in the area and he obviously didn’t like it. With every small click or bang they made, he flew a mile and in the end he asked if they could just stop and leave. He was wearing a big scarf and after seeing him touch it and hearing the electronic voice come out, I’m fairly sure he now uses a voice box to talk. His assistant had to remove the pens from his hand and place the new one in to change colour for people. It did make me feel sad, but again, I was so happy he’d made the effort to be there. I had noticed that he had signed fairly small on some people’s posters but I was glad that when handed mine he went a large as he could across the middle as that was what I wanted. He pointed to my pen and gave me a thumbs up (it was metallic blue and looks great!). After handing me the pen I got a double thumbs up from him, I thanked him and left the area.

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I spoke to a few other people who had also met Val and they agreed that he was not in a good way but made the effort to make it a great experience for everyone. I even convinced StuartG2198 to go and get an auto as he was saying that he’d go next time Val comes. Unfortunately, I do not think Val will be returning.

 

I moved onto my photo with Christina Ricci, and I had gotten over my disappointment from earlier. She was really sweet and engaging in the shoot (as much as you can be in these things!). I was also surprised just how tiny she is! This was not something I could tell from her being behind a table earlier.

 

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With the shoot over, I headed back to the signing area and into the queue for John Barrowman. I had been looking forward to this one! I’ve heard many stories about John over the years but never had a chance to meet him myself. I’m not a fan of Dr Who/Torchwood or Arrow, so he wasn’t an important meet for me, but would be a fun one. His queue was fairly sizable but moved quickly enough. As I got up to the front desk I had my pen and poster ready, and the lady sitting next to John let out a huge scream of excitement when she saw my poster! It was for Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. Now, I’m a fan of bad shark movies. And I don’t mean films like Sharknado, where they are trying to be bad (though it’s not without it’s charms). I like films that are trying to be good, but just fail miserably, and Shark Attack 3 fits that bracket perfectly. The effects are terrible. They used real shark footage, then green screen the people to make them look smaller, and shrink them further to try and make them look like they are falling into the shark’s mouth, but you can tell the shark is regular size. I’m fairly sure there’s been a few memes from scenes in this film over the years. I asked John to write a certain quote from this film on the poster for me (which he was happy to do) but I can’t tell you what that quote is due to it’s content (18+ people, just Google it!). As he was doing so, the security guard behind John started laughing, John heard this, and began telling the story, as there were no kids around us. They’d had a particularly difficult shoot, with no small part being that his co-star had not exactly been the best actress in the word when it came to emotions. The director took John aside and said to him to just come out with some insane line that would shock her into a reaction. That was where the quote came from. She still didn’t react in any way but they kept the line in the film!

 

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With John done, I only had one auto and one photo left for the day. The auto was from Ian McDiarmid and he was proving to be the hardest of the diamond pass guests to get without the pass. Many times throughout the day I had tried to find he was still just on diamonds. Eventually, around 3:45 they opened it up to vqs, but it would take a good half hour more before my number was called. I felt really sorry for the crew member working his queue (sorry, I didn’t get her name) as she was doing an amazing job, especially in that heat, and was trying her best to keep everything organised and upbeat all day. Unfortunately, there were some idiots who obviously didn’t know how things worked as there was one woman who was practically screaming at the crewmember because her vq number hadn’t been called yet. I just quietly moved over and mentioned that maybe she should have gotten there earlier to get a lower number and she stormed off in a sulk. Again, the entitlement of some people amazes me! Once in the queue we did have a small hold up in a large number of Funko Pops were brought out for Ian to sign for the Preorder service, but that’s all part of these things and it wasn’t long before we were moving again. I had met Ian back when he started doing events back in 2014, so this time I asked for him to sign my Star Wars Prequels poster and he insisted on adding ‘Emperor’ when I asked him to add ‘Palaptine’, which I didn’t mind.

 

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Ian's Auto bottom right

 

I was happy that I had collected all the autos I needed to for the day. Then I looked at my watch and realised I had two and a half hours until my final photo of the day!! I was glad to see that Adam Baldwin had just started his free talk though so I went and sat in the main stage to rest my feet and listen to his stories. Adam has had some great roles over the years so it was great to hear him talk about them with such love and passion. One of my favourite moments was when someone said to him that he was well known for his tough guy roles, to which he just replied “Acting!”  I have watched Adam in Firefly, then Chuck, and more recently The Last Ship and I was pleased to hear him tell stories from each and praise all his fellow cast members in those series as being professional and fun people to work with.

 

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I then spent the remainder of the time walking round stalls talking to different people, including several forum members and found the time passed quicker than I expected and I hadn’t even managed to look at the comic artists and artist alley stalls yet! I knew I’d get a chance the next day though.

 

Gina’s shoot was at the end of the day but you wouldn’t know it to look at her as she still looked stunning and was just as sweet as she had been the previous day. I know she has not done many cons before (or possibly any?) but you wouldn’t know it, as she seemed like a con pro with how she handled herself and all the attendees there to see her. Great guest and all round lovely person.

 

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The relief and feeling of accomplishment overwhelmed me after the shoot and that meant only one thing, time for the pub! That evening was spent sharing stories and comparing experiences over many much needed drinks. A few people had been to the Sheen talk and came back raving about it, but said it was not without it’s issues, but that’s not for me to discuss.

 

Having accomplished everything I had on Friday and Saturday, I gave myself a little lie in on Sunday. Nothing too late, but I got up at 8am which definitely helped after the drinks the night before! Gina’s photo the day before had been the last one of the con for me so Sunday was just focused on the last few autos I needed, and my first ever LFCC cosplay! It surprised no one that it was Ghostbusters related, but I left my flightsuit at home for a slightly different character. Louis Tully (or Viz Clortho/The Keymaster). I don’t exactly have the same build as Rick Moranis but I don’t care for these things as I just do it for a bit of fun. I got dressed into my outfit for the day and made my way to the con to arrive just as people were let in to the con from the queue hall. This did mean I still had to walk round the whole of the snaking area as we were let in, but there was no stopping and waiting as the queue moved the entire time. As I got inside, there were no vqs to collect straight away but the two main guests I was after already had large queues so I decided to return a little later. I spent much of the morning bumping into friends, many of which were unsure if it was me or not at first, which was quite fun! I then decided on having a bit of a laugh and took a couple of prop shoot photos.

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After that, I bumped into another forum member. The bear! I had seen him a couple of times over the weekend, but usually one of us were in a rush so there were just enough time for a few insults before moving on. Having a chat with him this time was actually really nice and he only threw in the odd grumpy comment here and there. He did offer me the chance to grasp his wood but I politely declined! I think I have the first Nate-selfie I have seen on this forum but forgive my hair as my cosplay had pretty much ruined it by this point!

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When I came back to the auto area, both the guests I had been after had been put onto vqs and I was lucky to get low-ish numbers for both. While I waited for my numbers to come up, I made a quick visit to Andy de la Tour, who seemed very confused about my cosplay but was still very polite. He made a great addition to my Rogue One poster (see below). After Andy I made a sweep around the stalls and went to visit my friends at the UK Ghostbusters. It was great to see a couple of us in GB cosplays that weren’t our flightsuits (as much as I love them!).

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The first of my vq numbers to be called was for Guy Henry. I had been a bit surprised that his queue had been so long and that he had been put on vqs but as soon as I met him, it was clear why. What a lovely man he is! I had to explain to him that my cosplay was from Ghostbusters for which he thanked me as he didn’t know, but he kept telling me how much he loved it! I asked about how he found playing Governor Tarkin in Rogue One to which he replied “terrifying!”. He then proceeded to tell me how much he’s always loved Peter Cushing and stepping into his shoes was a daunting task. After he too signed my Rogue One poster, he again told me how great he thought my cosplay was and I shook his hand and left. He’s definitely a great guy to meet, and I regret putting it off for so long.

 

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Andy del la Tour's Auto middle left. Guy Henry's Auto top left

 

After meeting Guy, I noticed Ross Beadman was at his desk, after being absent every time I had checked up to that point. Ross was polite yet very quiet. He did write a long quote for me on my 8x10 though.

 

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I still had a while before I could get my last auto of the weekend, so I headed off to watch Carrie-Anne Moss’s talk. It was really great to hear her talk about her career, especially the Matrix. Where she explained that very little green screen was used to make the movies and she did as many of her own stunts as possible.

 

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There was more hanging around to be done but eventually I was able to join my last queue for the weekend to get the autos from Lisa and Louise Burns who were the Grady twins in The Shining. Now, I’m not a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s work at all, and although that does still include The Shining, I find it to be one of the more tolerable films of his. Saying that, it can’t be denied that the film is a classic horror movie and the Grady twins are more than an appropriate fit for my Legends of Horror poster. The Burns sisters were having a great time at their desk, chatting with everyone who came up and taking photos. So much so that their agent had to tell them to speed things up a bit as there were still a lot of people waiting to meet them. As with the other guests, my cosplay confused them, but I found their responses rather comical and they were very kind in making sure they wrote what I wanted on my poster.

 

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Lisa & Louise's Autos top right

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With the heat inside becoming too much while in my cosplay I decided that I would take the chance to slope off back to my hotel and change. I was happy that I had achieved everything I needed to auto and photo wise for the weekend and wanted to get rid of my poster case as well. When I returned in a much more comfortable shorts and t shirt, I finally managed to spend my time looking at all the artist stalls. I bought a couple of great prints from an artist called Kazaih. I loved the colours used in these as well as the overall designs.

 

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I also picked up a great Nightmare Before Christmas print off an artist whose name I unfortunately don’t remember (if anyone does know, please tell me as I’d like to give credit). One of my friends had purchased this earlier on in the con and I knew that I wanted a copy because of how cool it looked. After I paid, I was looking down to put my change away, when I noticed another picture of a very familiar character, Slimer! What then caught my eye is that this wasn’t just a print, but some original artwork and he was only charging £20 for it! There was no way I was going to let an offer like that go, so I bought it straight away. Very happy with these purchases.

 

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With my tour round the artists and comic areas complete I was finally done for the weekend. I took a final stroll round the building and said my goodbyes to any friends I bumped into then made my way down to the pub. We had a few drinks down there as we waited for people to trickle in as they had their last photos or got the last autos they needed for the weekend then a load of us headed into central London where we had our annual goodbye meal.

 

The next morning, I woke up with the con blues already in full swing! It’s the social sides of the cons that really make it for me and I was already sad that I wouldn’t be seeing everyone everyday like I just had. As I packed up all my belongings in the hotel, I began to start planning this essay out in my head, although I didn’t manage it for too long as I’d left the door to the bathroom open, and although it had been a good 15 mins since I’d finished in the shower, it seemed there was still enough steam about to set off the fire alarm! It was localised to my room, but I didn’t want to go and fetch anyone as the room was a state, what with me being in the middle of packing! So I did the only thing I could and opened the windows, and shoved all by belongings into my bags as fast as I could and got out of there! Of course I did tell the hotel staff what had happened as I was checking out so that they could sort it.

 

And there it is. That was my LFCC 2019 experience. Well done to you who made it this far reading, as I know that I struggle with large amounts of text like this! I hope you enjoyed at least some parts and it didn’t drag out too much. Looking at my word count I have absolutely smashed the length of any Wround Up that has come before this, and almost trebled the first one I ever wrote!  I want to say thank you to all the guests I met this weekend, as they were all amazing and was a pleasure to meet them all. I also want to thank SM for doing a great job of LFCC this year, nothing’s perfect but the show has come on a long way since I first started coming in 2016. Thanks to all crew who were working this year as you were all amazing and may helped me in ways I can’t write here! A big thanks to all you forum people that I saw or met for the first time this year (including our amazing mods who never get as much praise as they deserve), you help make the build up to these events good fun and it’s so good to put faces to the names! Another thanks to all my other friends that I go to these cons with, some of you may read this and it’s you guys who really make the cons what they are for me, you’re awesome! And finally, thank you to you dear reader for making it this far, sorry if I wasted your time!

 

Edited by Wrong Name
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Great stuff as always. Was good to get to say a brief hello to you somewhere in all that madness (was it Saturday?) and I loved the cosplay. Brilliant. You walked right past me at one point wearing it and I pointed you out to my partner saying how original it was having no idea it was you!

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1 minute ago, Ravogd said:

Great stuff as always. Was good to get to say a brief hello to you somewhere in all that madness (was it Saturday?) and I loved the cosplay. Brilliant. You walked right past me at one point wearing it and I pointed you out to my partner saying how original it was having no idea it was you!

Saturday sounds right! It was good to meet you too. Sorry it's not included but it's hard to try and remember everything across the weekend. Thanks, I know I'm not even close to be the first one to cosplay Louis, but it is good fun!

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Most of Stanley Kubrick's movies improve on second or third viewing.  I've seen them all except his debut 'Fear and Desire' from 1952 and whilst there are a few I wouldn't want to see a second time, the likes of Dr Strangelove, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange all improved on second/third viewings.  Full Metal Jacket was a classic straightaway - I'm still trying to persuade myself of the merits of 2001 though...

For any film buff, the exhibition on him just down the road from Olympia at the Design Museum is an absolute must.  Adam Baldwin and the Burns sisters have visited it!

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Great read, thanks for sharing! :) Was awesome to hear how you spent your con weekend and seeing your photos with the guests and the autos you got too :) and of course it was brilliant getting to chat to you in person, hope to get to do so again at next year's con :)

Oh also, I was gutted not to see your cosplay so I particularly enjoyed seeing your pics dressed as Louis, so an extra thank you for sharing those!

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Wow, before I knew it I'd read the whole thing. Really enjoyed your Wround Up.  Last year's was my first con ever, and I enjoyed this year just as much (especially with that experience of how things work with VQ's, photoshoots etc.) I've become a lot more active on this forum and have really enjoyed the family and community feel of LFCC. All of us sharing our individual stories and experiences from the weekend. Can't wait for 2020!

For the record, I couldn't agree more with what you said about the lady in charge of Ian McDiarmid's queue. I already wrote a piece on her on the crew appreciation thread but again I have to say she was fantastic. She was walking up and down that line, in that heat, for 7+ hours. Still smiling, still being positive and being optimistic for those who arrived late and got lower VQ's. I thanked her personally on the day after I got Ian's photo but I just wish I got her name. Hopefully she's there next year, she's a wonderful crew member. 

Edited by bazza96
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