LeakyCon Day 2

If I don't write this now, it won't get written until after my Disney trip, and I don't want to wait that long and risk the details escaping from my brain. So here it goes!

LeakyCon Day 2:
Thursday morning I woke up at the crack of &*^#@*$& (also known as 5am) and woke my poor, poor father up to drive me to the Royal Pacific. 6am tech rehearsal = no fun for anyone. It was our cue-to-cue, and we only got most of the way through Act 1, so needless to say, by the end of the two hours, I was a little bit nervous about the shape of the show. Previously I've had almost an entire 10-out-of-12 to get through cue-to-cue and then do a run-through of the show, but since our con activities didn't allow that, I know I was definitely out of my comfort zone.

At 8am, our rehearsal was over and we collectively went to get in line to pick up our movie tickets, ensuring that the cast would be in the same theatre. Kelly and Sarah caught up with us at that point, and I'm gonna be honest and say that the two hours we were in line were kind of a blur. I was already totally exhausted that nothing went in, but before we knew it, we'd gotten through the line and had our wonderful, beautiful Advanced Showing tickets! I think Kelly and I each had 2 separate heart attacks when we thought we'd lost our tickets for one reason or another. And this is our daily lives xD

We hit up the vendor room again, and this time Shauna and I got the last two pairs of these adorable lightning bolt earrings this one vendor was selling. Beautiful. Shortly thereafter, we headed in to the ballroom for the Finding Hogwarts showing. I honestly knew next to nothing about the documentary when I went in, but I was really pleasantly surprised by it. Each of the people involved in the project seemed to have taken something different but equally as powerful out of their shared experiences, and I can only hope that one day I'm able to traipse around England and Scotland with a few of my closest friends and find Hogwarts for myself. (Kelly, Fiona, Shauna, Sarah? Maybe a trip such as this one is in our future? =P)

After the Finding Hogwarts showing was the live Potion Master's Corner, with the ever brilliant Joe Moses from Starkid filling the role of our favorite Potions Master. I only really remember laughing very hard at the preposterous-ness and hilarity. We stayed in the ballroom after it was over for the live Potter Puppet Pals showing, which was adorable and included my favorite song about Snape. It even had the Mysterious Ticking Noise!!

As soon as PPP was over though, the entire cast and crew of TFB had to rush out of the ballroom and into Pacifica 5, where we received our costumes (if we didn't bring them) and cleared the room as much as we could. We had the main ballroom for cue-to-cue that morning, but since programming was held all day in that room, we were trapped in the much, much smaller Pacifica 5 room, with full orchestra and another taped off stage. We had from 3-5:30 essentially to get all the way through the show, no stops whatsoever, before Lena and Mallory had to get to the IMAX showing of Deathly Hallows at 6.

And guys. It was good.

By the end of the run-through, I think everyone pretty much breathed a huge sigh of relief. We not only got through the show, but we got through it with very minor bumps, and things went really smoothly. It was about that time that I forgot about my lack of sleep and started to get super excited to perform the show with all these incredible people. We finished up at about 5, much earlier than we'd anticipated, so I texted Kelly to find out where she and Sarah had run off to, and they'd already headed up to Citiwalk to get dinner with Gard. Shauna, Fiona and I quickly packed away our costumes and high-tailed it out of the resort.

We met at Moes, which was nice, since it was a little bit of home. We had no idea that we'd be introducing Shauna to her first ever burrito, and she was continually floored by the American sizing for drinks (which is apparently so much larger than in Ireland??). It was quite adorable to watch!

We gulped down our burritos and then headed downstairs to the giant cineplex at Citiwalk, which was to be the scene of what was about to be one of the most heartwrenching and emotionally draining, yet beautiful experiences of my life. We quickly shuffled in to the theatre and took seats a little closer to the front than we would have liked, but as more and more Final Battle people came in, we realized we'd be able to sit all together since the entire front of the theatre was unoccupied. Right before the film started, I asked Kelly to get everyone in a giant Final Battle picture, which turned out beautifully and hilariously. That's Shauna, Fiona and I in the back =]



As the time drew nearer and nearer, one of the greatest things happened: some kids in the back started this massive Starkid sing-along and before we knew it the entire theatre had broken out into Get Back to Hogwarts, complete with all the lines in-between sections of the song. It felt great to just belt out some Starkid with at least 100 other devoted Harry Potter fans right before the final film.

Then the film started.

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to form coherent words on why it affected me so profoundly, or what my feelings were going in and coming out because honestly, I was completely numb by the end. I'd cried away all my feelings to the point that I felt almost gutted in a way that had never happened before from simply watching a movie. I can also say with certainty that I have never, ever, cried that much in a movie before. I would like to take this time to publicly apologize to those unfortunate souls who sat around me at advanced showing because I'm quite certain that my audible sobs were disgusting and foghorn-esque. I really, truly am sorry if I wrecked the film for anyone else. It just was that good, guys. It really was.

After grabbing some TCBY, effectively introducing Shauna to fro yo, we slowly made the hot, sticky trek back to the Royal Pacific to continue in our epic Thursday adventure and end the night with the first Wizard Rock concert of the con. We were all so exhausted by the end of the walk that we sat outside for the first couple sets, laying around in the lobby and signing yearbooks and reading and the like. We walked in for Lauren Fairweather's set first, which was awesome, and then proceeded to rock out to Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Sugar Quills, Ministry of Magic (who just made my life) and finally the very last Remus Lupins set ever.

Alex Carpenter had announced a few days earlier that LeakyCon would be the last live performance of the Remus Lupins, so the fans had steeled themselves, but I think all our efforts didn't matter in the end because we could feel the abounding love in that room for the music and the people on stage at that moment. By the time the last song, Looking for Trouble, was over, every single person in that room had reached up their arms and formed hearts with their hands. Every. Single. Person. It was so difficult not to get emotional in that moment. And we wouldn't just let Alex leave on that note, so we started chanting "One more song!" He eventually come back out to play Alone on Valentine's Day as his encore, and with that, it was over. It was such an incredible feeling to be in that room Thursday night.


More to come after the weekend. But for now, I'm beat. =]

HPRT: Went to see Deathly Hallows again today, on Deathly Hallows day, which seemed appropriate. Cried almost as much as the first time. Although my sobs weren't audible this time. I didn't want to scare the poor Muggles, did I?
Current Book: Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli
Current Song: Severus and Lily by Alexandre Desplat from the Deathly Hallows soundtrack