LeakyCon Day 4

LeakyCon Day 4:

Saturday began at 7:30am, which was a heck of a lot better than the last two nights, seeing as I got in earlier the night before. I was at the Royal Pacific by 8:30, and dropped my dress for the ball off in Sarah's room. Together, we made our way to meet up with Fiona in line. Kelly and Shauna joined us soon after, and we slowly made our way into the ballroom. Fiona and I were the only two who were Rockstar pass holders, so we pushed our way to the front of the room to join up with the other Final Battle people, who had reserved seating in the front 3 rows.

The Warlock's Hairy Heart was performed to an entirely packed house, and I am unashamed to say that I cried when the actors cried and loved every second of it. Tom and Sunny and Gwen, Megan, David, Thomas and of course Lena were all incredible, and I just wish that more people in that audience appreciated what they saw. Starkid fans are, unfortunately, not always the most patient people, and I know that a lot of people were only at WHH to get good seats for the Starkid event immediately after. But Fiona and I loved it to pieces, and getting to see it with our TFB friends was great. Fiona and I are desperate to do a cover of "Trust This Man." (Seriously, HOW DO WE MAKE THIS HAPPEN?)

The Starkid event was next and, as usual, it was incredible, and so, so funny. I couldn't believe Joe Walker performed "Stutter"!! That made me incredibly happy =]

I won't go into detail about the show itself, because you can probably find a million videos on youtube from that day, but I will say that the visit from Firenze Our Centaur Friend was one of the most unexpectedly brilliant things I've ever witnessed. Jim Povolo. How I would just love to stand next to that man so for once in my life I could feel small, and not like an amazon woman xD

The pictures with the Starkids was... well, not as messy as it surely was last year, but it was frustrating enough. At least since Fiona and I were sitting in the third row, we got a picture fairly early on.

We had to extend the pictures almost an hour past when the panel was supposed to end, so the Luna, Percy and the Kids panel didn't start properly until 1pm. This was probably one of my favorite events the entire weekend. We started with the seven young actors first, Young Snape, Lily and Sirius, and James II, Albus Severus, Rose and Hugo.

They. Were. PRECIOUS.



Seriously though, they were all so well-spoken (especially the girl who played Rose, she was basically Hermione, next generation, as she should have been). My favorites were definitely James II (Will Dunn) and Young Snape (Benedict Clarke) because they were the oldest, so they knew the most about the books, but they were so perfectly nerdy about it all, and they couldn't wait to show the world their Harry Potter knowledge to the point that they called out Evanna Lynch early to have a trivia marathon against her, with the audience answering the questions! Even though it was technically for Will and Benedict to be against Evanna, Chris Rankin (who played Percy Weasley in all 8 films) and Rohan Gotobed (who played Young Sirius) were the clear winners of the trivia game. I think it took Evanna, Will and Benedict aback a bit, since they're known for their HP smarts =P

The rest of the panel was great fun, and again, Fiona and I were early on for the picture. I stood behind and between Benedict and Will, and before I walked offstage I told them both "Never stop being nerdy!" They both laughed and thanked me, giving me thumbs up, and I was perfectly happy the rest of the day.

This was when things got a bit messy organizationally. Since we were Rockstars, Fiona and I thought we'd try our luck by getting in line for the Starkid signing. They'd told us that Rockstars would get preference, but what they neglected to tell us was that we had to line up first BEFORE the signing started, we couldn't just jump in the middle of it. Since we didn't know this, we decided to ask one of the volunteer workers if it was possible for us to get in line for the Starkid signing and... yep. We were basically shouted at to get out of the hallway. No answer to our question. Nothing. Just a really rude response to what was a simple question that could have been answered quite easily. It's not like if she'd told us the truth we would have attacked her or anything. We're understanding people. Yeah, we would have been disappointed, but she could have dignified us with the opportunity to be disappointed instead of making us offended and angry. Whatever.

Since we couldn't get into the Starkid signing, we got in line for the HP actor's signing, which, honestly, meant more to me of the two, since I'd gotten most of the Starkid's signatures last year at Infinitus. How often am I going to see 7 adorable children, Evanna Lynch, Chris Rankin and Scarlett Byrne? Yeah. Not nearly as often.

Somehow Fiona and I got separated and I ended up in the first holding room with my good friend Londa, who was in TFB with me. We were in Pacifica 5 (which by then had been cleared of all things TFB related) where they were showing Half-Blood Prince. We waited for probably close to an hour before we were herded across the hall and into the signing room. Luckily, Londa and I were in the very first holding room, so we were in the first group to get signatures. I spoke a little bit with Scarlett, and I told her that I played Pansy in TFB. She laughed and wrote me a little note in my yearbook (which was all I had for them to sign), and was overall really super nice. I wish I could say I had anything articulate to say to Evanna, but I was slightly starstruck, so I just asked her how she was liking the con. She was very sweet in her reply, but I could tell she was exhausted. How could she not be? Every single other person in that convention center was dead on their feet as well.

I also joked around with Will, Benedict and Rohan again. Arthur (who played Albus Severus) and Benedict were shoving each other around playfully, fighting for a spot behind the table to claim as their own, and they were just super sweet kids. All of them.

By the time I was out of the wait line, it was just after 6, and I rushed over to Jake's restaurant, where Sarah's mother had made us a reservation earlier in the day, just to make sure that we all ate! I met up with Kelly, Shauna and Sarah and it was just then that I realized how much I'd missed them all day, since I hadn't seen any of them since before Warlock's Hairy Heart at 9 in the morning. I sent a quick text to Fiona telling her where to meet us, and the five of us settled down to enjoy a really fantastic meal. The sandwich I got was on coconut bread. COCONUT BREAD. WHO MAKES THAT? It was delicious.

Fiona left early to get ready for the ball back at her hotel, and a couple minutes later Gard showed up at the table. We stuck around so he could at least get his food, but Sarah left to get ready soon after that. As Gard ate, he, Kelly, Shauna and I all had what turned into a super deep conversation about our country's politics and the differences in culture between the US, Ireland and Norway. It was incredibly fascinating, and it was finally so wonderful for Kelly and me to be completely honest about the way we view our country with people who had no idea what it was like here. It was similarly wonderful to be exposed to what Shauna and Gard experience every day and compare how wildly different our lives are in relation to theirs. We certainly didn't anticipate the conversation going in that direction, but we spent probably a solid 30 more minutes talking about literally everything.

We said goodbye to Gard to go over to Sarah's room, which was where all 5 girls congregated to change and put on make up. We took a group picture and flounced back through the halls to the ballroom for the Esther Earl Rocking Charity Ball.



And it was truly a great evening! I went around the room, getting pictures with every Final Battle person I found, and even forced my way up to the front of the crowd against the stage with Shauna. The HP kids came out and went around the crowd giving high fives and were generally super adorable. We rocked out to everything from Lady Gaga (for which Mitchell and I did the Bad Romance dance in the center of the TFB circle) to the Pokemon theme (for which Kelly and Sarah did not know the words and it was cute) to Total Eclipse of the Heart... 3 separate times. It was great the first time, kind of funny the second time and then... well... Whatever. It was a great time. At about 12:30am, Melissa Anelli came out on stage and tried SO HARD to end the ball, but every time she said goodbye, the crowd would come up with something else to chant to keep the night going.

She lost it on two separate occasions. The first was when, after the second play through of Total Eclipse of the Heart, the crowd started chanting "Esther!" after the wonderful girl the ball was named after. Melissa broke down into tears and said, "Fine, one more. For Esther!" and put on Alex Carpenter's HP version of Tao Cruz's "Dynamite." I remember we were dancing right behind a couple of the Starkids, Julia Albain, Brian Holden and Brian Rosenthal to name a few, and when I sang the lyrics to Alex's version, (which include saying "Lumos," telling people you're a Gryffindor and raising your wand for Dumbledore rather than saying "Ay-o," letting go, and lighting the club up like dynamite,) I think I saw Julia turn around and look at me with a highly confused look on her face, but then she just went with it. It was rather amusing.

The second moment of the night when we filled the room with so much awesome that Melissa couldn't handle it was after all music had stopped, the crowd started linking arms and swaying, bringing back the song from the previous night, the Whomping Willows song that had brought the house down.

"We're wizards. We'll party forever. This night will never end!"

I was standing with Shauna on my right, and Richie on my left, harmonizing and swaying back and forth, letting the moment soak in. It really kind of hit me in that moment that even though LeakyCon was going to end the next day, the memories that I was making and would carry with me the rest of my life from that one weekend were immeasurable and irreplaceable. I'd made so many incredible friends that, even though I'd barely gotten to know them, I knew I would keep in touch with all of them, and miss them terribly.

And in that moment, I almost joined Melissa in the tears.

Final installment coming soon! Thanks so much for reading =]

HPRT: I saw Deathly Hallows Part 2 again two nights ago. Seriously. The amount of sobbing I've done in the last two weeks cannot be healthy. Give Alan Rickman his Oscar already!
Current Book: I finally finished Harry, A History, and am now working on my BFA summer assignments. Next play up is Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare.
Current Song: It All Ends/All Was Well by Jimmy Wong