GalaxyCon Raleigh 2019 - Friday

GalaxyCon Raleigh 2019 DAY 2!  If you missed Thursday, you can find it here!

FRIDAY: This was Photo Op day! The first year we attended Supercon, we splurged on a lot of the professional photo ops and they were fantastic.  But professional photo ops only give you .000001 seconds with the guest for an average of about $60.  We realized last year that you can get a selfie with the guest for cheaper AND they will actually give you a few minutes of their time.  This year, we opted for mostly selfies, but we couldn't pass up a duo photo op with David Tennant & Catherine Tate.  At the last minute on Thursday, we decided to buy a photo op with Anthony Michael Hall because I hadn't seen any selfie prices on the website and I didn't want to miss my opportunity to meet him, even if it was for only a second.  Which honestly couldn't have worked out any better.

When knew when we got there that we'd have the morning to get all our selfies and meet & greets in because Saturday & Sunday were going to be very full panel days.  Right away we started to see a line for Will Friedle so I wanted to hop in before it got out of hand.  While standing there, I look over and notice that Anthony Michael Hall is chilling behind his table...with no line!! Well! Since Will hadn't shown up yet, we took our chance and walked over to see if we could say hi.  Holy shit was it the best decision I've ever made.  AMH was the BEST! He asked our names, what we did, if we'd been here before, commented on my shirt (I made a Shermer High School shirt to wear hoping he'd notice!) and it was like talking to an old friend.  I told him that we'd be at his photo op later because we didn't realize he'd had selfies available but that we'd wanted to say hi now since those things move so quickly.  Next thing I know, he's asking us to pick out a photo and signed it for us.  Told us he'd see us later.  Somehow we got back in Will Friedle's line but I don't remember it because I blacked out from the awesomeness that was Anthony Michael Hall.

I'm going to save my gushing about Will Friedle until Sunday's post, when I talk about his Q&A panel,  but he was so great.  He also commented on my Shermer High School shirt and gushed about Anthony Michael Hall himself for a minute! After our selfie, I told him we'd see him on Sunday for his panel and that it was a tough decision because his panel was scheduled at the same time as the Rocky Horror Q&A.  He responded with, "What?! Maybe I'M going to go to the Rocky Horror panel!".  I told him to save us a seat 😂.

Now it was time to jump in line to meet Catherine Tate.  When we saw she was back and offering table selfies again, we knew it was going to happen.  Catherine is the QUEEN of Con selfies.  First, SHE actually takes the photos, not a handler like many guests do.  Then, she fills up your camera roll because she's giving you poses and directions and THEN make sure that we each got individual selfies on top of the trio.  Queen I tell you.  We were excited to see her again and told her, even though we figured she wouldn't remember us.  "You're strangers to me as soon as you leave darling" and we all had a good laugh.

She's got selfies down!

"Okay, now let's all look in different directions!"

As we left, we told her we'd see her later for the duo photo op:

"I've already forgotten you love"

Lastly, we grabbed a selfie with Chris Sarandon (Prince Humperdink, the voice of Jack Skellington) which was quick because his line was LONG.  We ended up in overflow at one point!

Now for the professionals! Anthony Michael Hall was our first stop and OMG he remembered us (yes, it was only like 3 hours later, but there's A LOT of people at these things so I don't expect anyone to remember me).  We walked in and he's like "Hey! It's my friends, Lisa & Brian!" and then I blacked out again. I know it happened because we have this picture:

I don't actually remember this happening

Since our next photo op was a duo with David Tennant and Catherine Tate, we knew we had to stick close to the photo op area.  Um, it was INSANE.  The people running the photo ops actually got on the loudspeaker and told us, "We're going to open the line. You will WALK in a line or we will remove you and you will get in the back of the line." Thankfully no one lost their shit and we got a decent spot in line with friends Megan & Mike.  Again, we got there and I have no memory of anything.  I remember thinking that David Tennant is WAY taller than I expected, and then he smiled at me, said something that I think was "Hello", then nothing and then I was picking up this picture:

He touched me! And it was all a crazy blur!

And this was all by 4:30PM!  Originally, our plan was to head into the Clerks Q&A as it was right before David Tennant's panel that night.  Thankfully that morning we ran into the host of that Q&A (he's been at all 3 years as well) and he told us that they were clearing the hall after that panel.  Good thing we found that out! We decided to eat dinner at the tables right outside the ballroom the Q&A's were happening.  I went up to one of the volunteers and specifically asked her when we could start lining up, as I didn't want to miss our opportunity.  I was told they weren't allowing anyone to line up until 6PM (The panel was at 7:15PM).  Around 5:45, we noticed a huge rush of people.  We asked and realized we needed to get in line ASAP because apparently they decided to have everyone line up early.  So much for 6PM!

It was CRAZY! Not only did they cap the line by 6PM, they ended up having an overflow line that was longer than the line to get into the room! I didn't even care how close we were to other people at that point because I knew we were getting in! VICTORY! The best part about that line was meeting Krystal and Jay.  They were cosplaying at Rose and Osgood and we bonded over running and Doctor Who.  I can't wait to run into them at more Cons!

We're finally in, Lily & Cody have joined us, it's complete and utter mayham trying to find enough good seats for the 6 people group we've now formed.  FINALLY it's time for the panel to start and after David is introduced to roaring applause, he decides to make it even better.  Out comes Catherine Tate and the place is deafening.  The next hour is nothing but laughs.

Some of my favorite moments [Again, bear with the filming, it was crazy]:

"All my performances are exactly the same?!"

"Can I just get your deets?"

"I've got a new business"

And to finish the whole night off, David and Catherine came INTO the audience to try and get through as many questions as possible.  Here's GalaxyCon's video of how it went down:

This is not my video, this video belongs to GalaxyCon Raleigh

I still can't believe this all happened in one day and that it was only the second day! We've still got 2 more days to go! Head over to Saturday!