CONVENTIONS

 

Wolf GateDays

October 29 - 31, 2004 | Location: Frankfurt, Venue: Relaxa Hotel | Teryl photos | Paul photos

 

Con report by Anikó

 

I got the chance to go to a Stargate convention first time in my life and I had a hell of a good time. The con was held in Frankfurt, on the 29-31st of October, 2004. I live in Hungary, Miskolc, about 200kms from our capital, Budapest; therefore it was a 5 days event for me.

I went to Budapest on the 28th, to sleep at a friend's place, so I can actually catch my plane, 'cause there's no way to get to the airport that early in the morning from Miskolc. I arrived to Kata's around 9.30pm, and went straight to bed, 'cause a long day was waiting for me.

On Friday I had to get up at 3.30am 'cause I had to be at the airport by 6.15am. A diet coke helped me to actually wake up by the time we got there. We were a little early, I checked in at 6.01am. It was my first ever time flying, so I was a little nervous. After getting through passport control, and the metal checker, I had not much time till boarding, I got on the bus with the other passengers, and we were driven to the plane, a Fokker 70. It’s not a big plane and it wasn't full. We got seated then we took off. At the first few minutes it felt like someone stole the ground from under my feet, but then that feeling was gone. I really enjoyed the whole trip; it was a wonderful feeling to look down to the ground. About 35minutes before landing the captain explained that we were flying at 7500ms and our speed was about 750km/h. We landed in Frankfurt at 9.30am. I hope no one was actually looking at me at any time during the flight because I had this quite stupidish grin at my face. The feeling of a first flight.

A friend who is at now university in Frankfurt was waiting for me at the airport, which was a great thing as the airport is extremely big for someone who's never been there. Not to mention that I don't speak any German and it wasn't an easy thing to actually find the English signs I needed. But eventually I got there. I got to the hotel with the help of my friend around 11.15am, and I finally met Adele in the hall. I got my key at the reception and we went upstairs to our room. In the lift we met some people who went "Are you Gaters?". And of course we answered yes. As it turned out, they were the Matchbox Orchestra minus Ronny Cox. Got my bags sorted, and then we went back to the hotel hall, where we sat down and talked to a few people who were there. One of them was part of the con-team and she got Sib for us who gave the steward cards to us, so we didn't have to look for anyone to get those sorted. We were sitting there when Ronny Cox appeared, he said good morning (it was over noon!) and he sat down a little away from us.

The first video presentation was Heroes, which we didn't watch. Once was enough. After that we got to registration, got our tickets (they misspelled my name, and I just had to point it out, I'm Anikó, and not Anika...), bought photo tickets for Teryl Rothery and Paul McGillion. After that we were sitting around for a little longer then got upstairs to get ready for the Opening Ceremony and the Meet&Greet party. Took a shower after the whole day traveling and hanging around, so I was ready to meet the guests of my first ever Stargate convention.

The opening ceremony was short, and there was not enough light to take good photos, but well... I was there!!! It took me some time to believe I was actually there and wasn't dreaming the whole thing. Either that; or I'm still dreaming. Who knows!

At the Meet&Greet we were standing/sitting in small groups around the hotel hall, and the guests were walking around talking to everyone a little. The first to get to our small group was Ronny Cox. As he said, he was to be followed by the coffee spots he left behind. He was very polite and nice to all of us, after those few words of his I was really looking forward to his panels and the concert. The next one to visit us was Teryl. She was great, wonderful, lovely, sweet, adorable... and everything else; I can't come up with now. I had the chance to give Teryl the bag I had for her. There was the savejanetfraiser.com shirt in it from Katie, a print of the new Rothery page of Abydos Gate from Mesh and some Hungarian chocolate, túró rudi (a sweet, cheesy, chocolate covered dessert), a chocolate Santa, a Janet bracelet and a letter from me. She seemed to be really happy about it. Then she left and promised to be back later if there's time. Next was Paul, who looked really shy, like he wasn't really sure what to say. He told that it was his first con and that he hoped at least some people saw some of Atlantis so they knew who he was. And at last, Douglas Arthurs arrived. He was fooling around with all the girls. He kissed every girl, and was counting how many kisses they got. Then Teryl was running around again, we saw Paul, too, and Doug was still kissing girls for a little longer.

After the Meet&Greet there was supposed to be a "1969 Party", with 1969 style costumes, but I think, there was maybe one person who dressed up (she won, of course), and the party wasn't really a good one, people didn't stay. Not that I did, I'm not into partying, but others said, no one was there, and they didn't play the music of the '60's and '70's anyway. We were talking in the hotel hall to the other people, and then we went to bed. I was so excited, it took me some time to fall asleep, but then managed somehow, and the next morning came pretty fast.

Saturday morning we didn't get up too early, didn't go to the video presentation as it was the Atlantis pilot and we already so it, not long ago.

The first panel was Ronny Cox's and we found seats only somewhere in the background, but I still enjoyed the three songs he played and sang. Then he answered some questions about his other movies and series, about how it was to work with Arnie. He told a story about a certain someone "who's initials shall not to be said, only R. and A." (his words, not mine) playing a joke with him which ended with him having a bunch of trash all over him. He said, he's still working on the revenge. When asked about the possibility of a season 9, he mentioned the baby situation the Stargate cast has, RDA's daughter in LA, AT expecting a baby, MS's little daughter and CJ and his lady friend expecting a baby too (I guess, that's a news I didn't read or hear anywhere else, so congratulations to them!).

The next panel (before which we found two empty seats in the second row, so moved there) was Paul's who still seemed a little nervous about the whole talking to a lot of fans thing, but then he found his voice and every time a girl asked him a question, he listened to it and then like he was about to answer it, said: "I'm single". He talked about how the Atlantis crew has fun at the shootings. He said, David Hewlett is a really funny guy, but the big fun- maker of the cast and crew is Rainbow Sun Francks.

He also said, that he was the first actor casted to the show and that they wanted an older person for the role but then they decided he was the right guy. I asked him if he knew who came up with the name Carson, as Adele keeps telling me there's no one called Carson in Scotland and he said we were right. It was probably Brad Wright's idea but when he first saw the guy's name, he was already called Carson, and back then he wasn't Scottish yet, but more likely an international mixture and they changed it to Scottish later. Someone asked him, who's the smarter doctor, Dr Beckett or Dr Fraiser? He said: "Me!". By the end of the panel he really seemed to enjoy it.

After Paul's panel there was a break with the photo session, I bought the tickets for the previous day. My first shot was with Teryl. While we were waiting in line for the camera being ready; she walked around, saying hi to the people and she noticed my t-shirt. I had a Jack one on, with a great wallpaper of Linz , which I got from Spanky about a year ago, and it says: "One Man, One Hero". She went "It's supposed to say One Woman, One Hero! I'm the hero, I died!" The next was Paul and I got a hug from him while taking the photo. The pic of Paul and me somehow got lost. It was nowhere. As the organizer I was talking to said, Paul signed it, but it just disappeared, they had no idea what happened to it. So the next day they printed a new one, Paul signed it again and even drew a heart on it.

After the photo session was Doug's panel, and he was talking about his other roles, that he always gets killed. He mentioned Butterfly Effect (which I saw, I loved that movie, but absolutely didn't remember him) in which he played a prisoner who got killed by the main character. He also told how hard it is to even move in the Goa'uld costumes, they are so heavy, hot and tight. He also talked about his visit to Tibet and China.

After Doug the next was the auction which was a short one. There were only about 200-250 people at the con throughout the 3 days, so there were not many things to be sold, but Teryl was great at it. When she was done with the auction, it was time for her panel. She told the Puff and Ruffle story which most of us either never heard about or wasn't really sure what it meant. Now it's crystal clear! She told the story of Heimdall as well. I asked her about Jack/Janet, she answered pretty much what I expected but at least she didn't say no to it. When she said, she believes there's something between Janet and Daniel, I went "But Daniel is in love with his books!" she didn't really agree, but she didn’t seem to be too mad either. Someone asked her how it feels to be on the stage, talking to the fans, how it feels to be in her shoes. So she called her up to the stage, took off one shoe (pretty high heels) and asked for the girls’ shoe. They swapped shoes and then she went "there, tell us how it feels to be in my shoe". She was hilarious. She even danced to the "Hey Big Spender" song.

The autograph session followed Teryl's panel, where we were stewarding. While Adele was taking care of the queue inside the room, I was giving back the bags of people who just finished and left, and let in the people who were waiting outside. I was working on the bags with Steffi, with who we later discovered that we know each other from one of the lists.

When the autograph session was done (there were about 25-30 people who had to be sent away till the next day, as it was already too late), we went to the "Fancy Dress" Stargate costume contest. There were five people who dressed up, a serpent guard (she won, and she was walking around as Hathor all weekend by the way, that was a great costume as well!), a Daniel (he got the second place), a Jack and a Tok'Ra with a Tau'ri (they got the joint third place).

When it was over, all the chairs were brought closer to the stage for the concert of Ronny Cox and the Matchbox Orchestra. They played 14 songs, and Ronny told a story with every one of them. He told a story about ice fishing (at a skate rink), and the story of an old lady who was waiting for the Baltimore bus in California. One of his songs was called Christmas and he said, he wrote it as Senator Kinsey. It had this line: "The fat terrorist in red will be replaced with UPS." Everyone was laughing at it really hard. For the last song he invited Teryl to the stage and we all sang a slow song. It went like this:

"May the road carry you safely home
May the road carry you safely home
No matter how far or how long you go
May the road carry you safely home"

At the end of the concert people could buy their CDs and DVDs and get autographs from the band (one of the band members was Ronny's son).

After the concert the next was the party. People didn't really go there, for some reason it was silent. We were sitting in the hotel hall, talking, when Bryan showed up and told us, if we don't go to the party, Teryl won't come to it either. So we all went, at least to fill the room. Then Teryl arrived and she was dancing with Ronny's son. They even played "Hey Big Spender" for her. Then she left and the party went dull. That was the time when I went to look for Adele; we had a drink and then went to sleep. We had to get up early the next day; it started with Teryl's panel after the video session!

On Sunday we got up really early. I mean, really early. At 7am, cause we wanted to have a seat in the first row. This was the only thing I didn't like about the con. The promised first row seats for stewards just didn't work. We got there quite early, but by the time they let us into the room, half of the first row was reserved with cameras, and other objects. We were lucky to find two empty seats and we were watching New Order and Zero Hour.

After Saturday's t-shirt thing I decided to wear the savejanetfraiser.com shirt I got from Katie. I didn't want to wear it because Adele forgot her one at home, and we wanted to wear them together. But then I didn't want to wear the other O'Neill one I had, 'cause I had the Jack one on on Saturday. So I chose the Janet one. In one minute I was sitting there in the first row, watching Zero Hour, and in the next minute there was Teryl. In the exact same t-shirt!!! She wore the savejanetfraiser.com shirt and when she went on the stage she said to the audience: "Look what I got! Where is the lady I got it from? Oh, there she is! And she has the same shirt!" Something like that. I wasn't really conscious from the fact that she actually was wearing the same t-shirt I did! It was really unbelievable. Then he turned and told people to see what the back said! "She’s like a real doctor... only smaller." She really loved it! Oh and she was wearing the Janet bracelet, too! I was very happy!!! She was in a really good mood, she shared the duct tape story (many people never heard about it) and the birdcage story which was a really good one, too.

After Teryl it was Doug's turn again. He talked a little more about Tibet. Someone asked him if he was religious. He said he's Roman Catholic and that he went to a school run by nuns and that for a long time he wanted to be a priest.

There came the usual break, with the photo session. Adele got a ticket for a shot of Teryl and the two of us. She held my hand so strong, I wasn't sure she wanted to let it go. She was so happy about the t-shirt! As Adele forgot her one at home, Teryl told her to stand at the middle, and told me to salute with my free hand. I think it's a great photo.

When all the photos were done, the next was Paul's last panel. He felt way more comfortable on Sunday then at the previous days. I think he got into the con feeling (so did I!). He talked about the second half of the first season of Atlantis. He's in 17 episodes out of 20, which is great. They changed the uniforms a little 'cause the jackets were quite uncomfortable. Someone asked him if there was anything between Teyla and Sheppard or Weir and Sheppard and if he would write an episode. He said, there was something between Teyla, Beckett and Weir and that he would want to write that one. He was in the middle of an answer, when the tech guy took one of the microphone cables, and brought it outside the room, behind the door. When Paul finished his answer, the tech guy asked something about how he gets ready for the medical babble and then when he started to answer, everyone heard Teryl from outside, from behind the door: "I have a question!" Paul laughed hard and Teryl continued. "Who's the smarter doctor? Dr Beckett, or Dr Fraiser?" Then she came in and Paul answered: "You". Teryl went to the stage and tech guy started to play "Hey Big Spender". Teryl wanted Paul to dance but he said he couldn't. At the end he was singing it and Teryl was dancing.

The last panel of the con was Ronny's. He was talking about Kinsey a lot. He portrayed Kinsey after an Oregon senator, and someone else who I don't remember. He talked about his music as well. Some of his songs can be downloaded from his site btw.

After his time was up, there was a raffle, they announced the awards of the two costume contests (1969 and SG) and the Art Show, then there was the Closing Ceremony with a lot of "Danke"s (that's all I understood of it, and well, some names).

The last autograph session was after the closing ceremony. There were only about 30 people left, so we didn't have much work to do, and at the end we got our autographs, too. We even got a special photo taken only for the organizer team members and the stewards. It's a really great photo and I got it signed by all four of the guests.

To end the day, Steffi invited us to go to dinner. Adele was tired so she went upstairs to our room and I went out for dinner with the others. Steffi translated a lot to me as everyone except me was German. They told that Teryl was really happy with the t-shirt and that when she opened the bag on Saturday, she was running around half the hotel to show to the people what she got. After dinner I got back to our room and we both went to bed, we were so tired.

After a long sleep we got up on Monday around 9 in the morning, packed all our stuff and checked out. Then we just sat around in the hotel hall. Teryl, Paul and Doug were running around, all three of them waved, said bye. They left way before we did. I was sitting there with Adele and I was wondering if all of these things actually happened or I was just dreaming? I guess, it really happened because there's no way someone would dream the same dream for this long... Around 2pm Adele had to leave to her airport so I went to mine with the help of the same friend who helped me to get to the hotel. I sat around watching planes landing and taking off until I could finally check in. I was the second passenger to do it, and as it turned out later, I was quite lucky to be there early. A lady from British Airways checked me in, and when I asked for a seat by the window she was really kind and said, sure I could get one. When I was done, I went to the gate, got through the last package and metal check and walked to the gate, with a man who was the first passenger to check in. He wanted to invite me for a coffee. I said him I never drank coffee, so he went that I could drink tea as well. I though, fine, it can't hurt to have a tea. We were sitting there, he was telling that he planned parts of the airport, he worked there in Frankfurt. There were about two hours till the departure of my flight when suddenly... the whole airport went dark. I mean, completely dark. It took about half a minute for the emergency lightning to get to work, and it was about 2-2.5 hours later when the computer systems were back enough so they could actually open doors so we could get to our flight. At first no one knew what happened; only that it had to be a blackout and that it had to be serious to make an airport that huge go completely dark. Then someone said something about a fire at the electricity company. Still have no idea what happened, but the man who invited me for the tea went on like what if it's a terrorist attack. When he didn't stop and I was really annoyed already, I told him that it was a terrorist attack; we all would be already dead. Then he went silent. The whole thing was so bad, that most of the passengers for my flight couldn't even check in for hours. They were standing downstairs in lines; some people were stuck in lifts, and all that kind of stuff. I was really lucky; I had a nice, comfortable seat by the gate. I was just worried because Kata was supposed to wait for me in Budapest. So I texted her telling that we were late and I had no idea for how long. Then I sent another message when we finally got on the plane. We had to wait 20 more minutes before we could take off, but then the flight was all right. We got to Budapest in 1hour 10 minutes.

Kata was waiting for me and I was really lucky she did because we missed the last metro which meant we had to take nigh time buses, so we got to her place a little before 2am... And I was supposed to check on the dubbing translations of Nightwalkers and Abyss the next day before going home. Had to get up at 9.30 and we were finished with the two episodes by 2pm. Then we talked a little (had to tell her all - or most - of this story, which meant that I could come home with the 7pm train only.

Some people were asking about Abydos Gate and the SJF site, I was really happy about that, too. People were really friendly, even some Germans tried to speak some English just to chat a little. I really do wish I could go to another con. But well, I guess it won't happen in the near future. Some day, maybe. It was great fun. Thank you to all of my friends who made it possible for me to happen.

And... Thank you Adele!

Anikó