Roadhouse - A 3 Day Supernatural Convention

OK i suppose I should start with an explanation: The Roadhouse is the name of a bar in the CW's Tv show Supernatural. The Roadhouse convention was a 3 day convention organised by Massive Events dedicated to the tv show, with guests from the show doing talks, autograph & photo sessions etc with themed parties in the evenings. 6 months ago I didn't realise these things existed, apart from for real geeky sci fi stuff like Star trek & Dr Who - I've obviously been living under a rock for a few years! Having only been introduced to Supernatural earlier this year by my step daughter, I was instantly hooked and it was a chance internet browsing around the super cool '67 Chevy Impala (don't ask) that features in the show that I stumbled upon details for the convention. After browsing the Showmasters/Massive events forums for a few days I decided to buy 2 ticket for myself & step daughter [SD] the princely sum of £160. As the convention is held at a hotel there is usually a con rate which gets you a discount on the room, which was approx £70 a night for the room (not per person) including breakfast - although the breakfast thing wasn't mentioned at check in, we had to ask to confirm.

So on Friday 3rd September, we boarded a train to Birmingham International for the Roadhouse. We arrived around 4pm, the Hilton hotel is a mere 5 minutes walk from the train station, provided you don’t take a wrong turn at the lake (which is very peaceful and unexpected). We checked in without hitch - the room was fab, the bathroom even nicer but I wont bore you with details, just click through the pic to my flickr set if interested - bathroom was stocked with Crabtree & Evelyn products and Twinings & Douwe Egberts for the much needed morning after supplies!

Uber Comfy Beds

Much needed tea & coffee

We then headed down to register, much like any other sort of convention, you get the pack - obligatory pass (these were very cool), a glossy booklet with the guests in that also doubles as your 'autograph tickets' - you get an autograph from each guest, which is checked off on the booklet (extras available for an additional fee). You also receive a photograph of each guest to get signed, alternatively you can bring your own photo/item to be sighed or buy a different photo from the dealers room (prices start at £1). We also got a 'Metallicar' badge, word-search & crossword puzzle (more on that later). we had standard tickets, silver tickets cost around £135 and Gold £195! Although for this you get special extras including priority seating for talks etc. As we were standard ticket holders we also had to buy our tickets for photo sessions £10 each - I originally bought 2, but bought a 3rd on the Saturday morning. There was an opening ceremony at 7pm where all the guests are brought on stage briefly for introductions, and you get a run down of the weekend, they then go off for the Gold Pass Drinks reception where Gold Ticket holders are in small groups around a table and the guests come and spend time at each table for a chat basically. After this was the World Premier of Hell Hazers II - a fan made spoof video which was hilarious. Later on there was a party with the theme "Hollywood Babylon Bar & Casino" which wasn't quite what we were expecting if I'm honest - there was a roulette table and black jack, but this was packed away at 11pm (and the 'dealer' wasn't playing properly anyway). There was a variety of music played everything from total cheese (a lot of cheese) to Rock (which seemed to go down better with the attendees both nights). The drinks were pricey,even by hotel standards, considered there was 20% discount at the 'Convention Bar' which was really a make shift bar with bottles & spirits available - with 2 vodkas and one bottle of coca cola costing almost £10, this meant we spent most of the night walking out to the main Hilton bar where beer was *only* £4 odd a pint.

Saturday:

Up bright & early (as not to miss anything), we headed for breakfast and it was - amazing, everything from full cooked, to continental (cold meat, cheeses, pastries) and everything in between.
Next we checked out the dealer rooms again, as this was also where the autograph sessions happened. The dealer room was basically stalls selling Supernatural and other Sci-fi type merchandise as well as lots of photos of the guests and other actors from the show that you could get signed. During the day all the events (photo ops,autographs and talks) were well timed,so nothing clashed and there was time to see and do everything. So we got autographs from all the guests: Samantha Ferris,Chad Lindberg, Rob Benedict & Mark Rolston.
Because the event hadn't sold out it meant that there was more time for guests to do everything as well, which meant they could personalise autographs and had time for a brief chat too which was nice and we never waited in line for anything for more than 5-10 minutes which was great. There was also the opportunity for bid on a more intimate experience of having a 'Guest Encounter' in which a small group of people eg.10 spend half an hour/45mins chatting to the guests,however we couldn't figure out the bidding system to didn't bother (also we couldn't think of what we would want to say). As the Hilton food was a bit pricey (they did have an offer on pizza but we didn't fancy it for every meal) we went to hunt down the local Wetherspoons which was supposed to be a godsend. Now, I can appreciate that it's in a train station and at the NEC, so therefore we expected to pay more than a normal wetherspoons but their lunchtime 'deal' was a £9 cheeseburger and chips, more than double the price of their pubs in Manchester, so we weren't particularly impressed, plus the service from the bar staff was pretty rubbish too,oh did I mention the 'free wifi' didn't work either?

So after lunch it was time for the talks. For these the guests are on stage answering questions from the audience either submitted before hand or standing up to ask. Whilst I can't remember details all the guests were hilarious; Sam Ferris can talk for England (although I wasn't surprised at this) and would frequently go off on a tangent about something or other, she was also really good at giving an insiders view of how a film set works. Rob Benedict was very reminiscent of his character Chuck especially with his mannerisms and again fabulously funny (no surprise as he told us a bit about his stand up career).
Chad was also very funny,amusing the crowd with his David Caruso impression (that's Horatio Caine from CSI Miami) but the major surprise awesome guest was Mark Rolston (feedback from other fans after the weekend also backed me up on this). Mark,despite only appearing in 2 episodes of Supernatural as Uber Demon Alistair was very popular, he's had a long career starring in numerous shows,including NCIS, Criminal Minds, the CSI franchises, X-files, the list is endless -however some of his best anecdotes were from working on Shawshank Redemption with Morgan Freeman, he was also very funny. The only downside to the talks was that the stage wasn't high enough and you couldn't always see over people's heads (story of my life, like every gig I've ever been to), although they were filmed and projected on screens the camera was often zoomed in on a guests face so if they were gesticulating or interacting with someone else this was lost. Also the lighting in the room was very subdued with a couple of bright spot lights on the guests, which made taking decent photos very difficult.
After the talks had finished there was an auction of various Supernatural stuff, from the huge banner posters used on stage (that must have been 8 feet long/tall) signed by all guests to the directors chairs they sit in, with their names on, signed. Also auctioned off was stuff from the dealers tables but the auctioneer guy was a bit clueless in that he tried to start the bids off at the prices they were for sale at, next door... I mean really? Anyways, me and SD didn't bid on anything as we had another party to get through, so it was another meal in the Hilton bar/restaurant then off to beautify ourselves before the themed "Ben's Birthday Bash" party.
The Saturday night parties are apparently the biggies, so it was a bit fancier than the previous night, there was also a bouncy castle! which attendees and guests alike enjoyed! However I just felt sick and totally blame if for my bout of hiccups later on!

At the time of the Saturday night party, Supernatural's favourite angel Misha Collins was just starting what would become an immensely long run for charity, I believe he exceeded 50miles (83km) for his Random Acts Charity to egg him on a couple of fans & supporters (who I shall call Pinkpezilla & Doubleshiny) started a twitter campaign to get RunMishaRun! trending, with lovely RunMishaRun signs, they photographed and tweeted as many attendees as possible, including the guests, it was one of my personal highlights for the weekend!

Image © @pinkpezilla & @doublyshiny (on twitter)
The Hilton is quite a bizarre place, with pervy old men at the bar which made me & SD v. uncomfortable, and after a lovely bout of hiccups retired to bed.
But not before firing off a few arty photos of the architecture in the Hilton

The music for this party was again, quite a mix of cheese & rock which would be fine if the DJ could read the crowd, when you've got a dance floor full of people dancing to Guns N Roses, then the floor empties when you play STEPS, you'd think they'd learn, but no, apparently not...

Sunday:
Sunday was slightly more relaxed, as we had all our autographs & photo ops done, and slightly hungover (yet refreshed from the Hilton's amazing breakfast), Sunday gave way to the joint talks. These again were really interesting, the first talk was Mark & Rob, which was hilarious because Rob was almost like his character in that he was scared/in awe of Mark, this was swiftly followed by the Quiz!

This Supernatural based quiz involved audience members joining Rob & Mark on stage in opposing teams (Alastairs Angels & Chuck's Chicks - check facebook for the teams!) where they not only answered hard core fan questions (with audience help) but also acted out scenes, both guests being very involved and hilarious.
Afterwards there was a lunch break then more talks.

So after lunch was Chad & Samantha, who are good friends off set, so they have amazing banter and just really bounce off each other, you didn't even really need questions as they could just keep chatting all afternoon, it really was great to see the guests being so comfortable and natural.
After this talk there was almost a 2 hour gap until the last group talk, at this point though the dealers had pretty much cleared their tables away but fortunately they showed Supernatural S5 episodes on the screens, however after 1 ep someone decided that there wasn't enough time for another full episode, cue 40 minutes later and we're all still sat in silence... sigh!
Until the final talks, which again, were so good, the only disappointing part is finding out that despite filming it all, Massive Events/Showmasters aren't going to release a DVD of the event (even though their rivals are offering DVD's of theirs!)
After this was the closing ceremony and it was all over.

Well for those hardcore fans, who were staying for the Sunday night party! We'd mistakenly thought we could stay and see peoples fancy dress costumes and that there would be stuff to do, but alas no - so we spent the next 2.5 hours in Birmingham train station waiting for a train (and with no one selling coffee etc!)

Not to mention our connecting train at Coventry being cancelled!
We arrived back home after midnight tired but happy!

Roadhouse 2 takes place in March 2011 and will also feature guests from True Blood and the Vampire Diaries.

London Again... Part I

Back in April we took another trip down south to stay with Jen in London. We had tickets for a gig/event so it was not entirely through choice we ended up being there over the Easter Bank Holiday (one of the peak times of the year to visit, bar Christmas). As usual we travelled first to my mum's in Nottinghamshire who would be dog sitting for the weekend, and travelled via Chesterfield - high speed train meant we were in London in a little over 2 hours! Upon arriving in London it was time to buy our travel cards for the weekend and to find out that TfL being as clever as usual have chosen this weekend to close several tube lines, which wouldn't normally be a problem except that in most cases they couldn't be bothered to put on rail replacement buses - which when trying to get from areas of central London, the buses became dangerously overcrowded, more so than I've ever seen before.. very surprised there were no accidents!
On the Saturday, Jen being a member of Liverpool FC's London Supporters Club she was going to a pub to meet other members and watch the game, on the spur of the moment we decided to stay on the train to Kew Gardens. only a couple of minutes walk from the train station through very 'leafy suburbs' (think how London is portrayed in Hollywood movies), we found it very easily: entry is £13 adults, £12 concessions and under 17's free when accompanying an adult (entry to the palace is extra). I think we both had no clue how big Kew was and you could easily spend a full day there (we didn't arrive until lunchtime). Although it was overcast most of the day, there was plenty to see indoors as well as in the grounds

One of my favourite parts was the Japanese area with the pagodas and cherry blossoms, although the tropical/rainforest areas was a close second

There is also a Sky Walk which is basically a rather large platform that you climb around 180 stairs to reach the top, then walk around in a circle ish shape near the tree tops, this is where you might notice that Kew is under a flight path, with incoming planes being so low down you can see the wheels lowering!
We ended up spending a good 4-5 hours at Kew including lunch time - if you're on a budget avoid the 'restaurant' and head for the Café - we paid about £4 for a jacket potato the size of a small melon - very tasty and great value!

Later on that evening we went to the Ether Festival at the Royal Festival Hall to see Royksopp supported by Fever Ray. Absolutely amazing, mind blowing gig - once again Royksopp did not disappoint live, the amazing energy they throw into their live performances always impresses me. They played a selection of tracks from each album, including all the favourites such as Eple, So Easy, Sparks, 49 Percent, Remind Me, Only This Moment - but the gig really got going once the newly released single Happy Up Here was played, it's worth noting that this was a seated venue, but all it took was one man on the front row to start dancing and gradually the whole crowd was up, the security towards the middle and right of the stage were really chilled and people were allowed to get up and walk to the front to dance and take photos, but on our side there was some jobsworth usher who's sole intent that night was to try and ruin the gig for a handful of people. Long story short she kept trying to stop my friend and I from taking photos when Royksopp had specifically asked the fans to take photos and upload them to their website! I'm a reasonable person but when she then happily let the men in front of me take photos and the guy sat behind me film it I was non impressed to say the least! So towards the end we decided to ignore her as it seemed very much like victimisation when at one point I could count 20+ people within 10 feet of me openly photographing the show and still she only singled out us! This was the biggest let down of what was one of my top 5 gigs of all time.

Anneli Drecker joined Royksopp on stage for most of their set and was crazy, really working the crowd up

They were also joined by Swedish singer Robyn who is very popular from what I could tell by the crowd reaction.

One of the support acts Fever Ray were also amazing with some very weird costumes and a great light show

Definitely worth checking out if they come to a city near you!