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Chicago TARDIS recap: Friday
I'd never been to a con before, but I thought this one had the right location and good timing. I live only a few hundred miles away (as it turned out, roughly eight hours by public transportation, due to a few transfers) and was more than fine with not spending Thanksgiving with family.
So I bought a reserved membership, which is like the second tier available. It gave me an assigned seat near the front of the "main programming" room and a good spot in the autograph/photo lines. I totally did the newbie thing and attended just about as many panels/sessions as I could cram into each day.
Programming started on Friday at 10am, and I went to the following:
Chicago TARDIS Fire Up!, which was kind of an introduction to the con. It included the giveaway of con buttons to audience members who had specific items on them, such as a gift card or a hole in their shoe. I coveted a button, but didn't have any of the items in question so I did not get one at that time. I did get a better idea of how the con worked.
The next hour saw me at Regeneration Blues, which was a discussion about, you guessed it, regeneration. With the Eleventh Doctor just around the corner, it seemed like a good session to attend. Among other things, favorite regenerations were discussed, plus people's reactions to the subject.
Then I was off to Torchwood Babiez, which featured both the writer and the artist of the adorable web comic. I enjoyed hearing about the creative process and during the panel realized I have not yet looked at all of the available Torchwood Babiez material. It is now on my "to do" list. Bonus: cookies were given away in this room.
Fanfic Writers Unite! was, of course, a discussion of fan fiction. One author in the room mentioned how she had written a story where the Doctor visits an elaborate dragon world and is himself turned into a dragon. She hadn't yet typed it up, but now I won't be surprised if it ever pops up in the Teaspoon queue. Subjects discussed included feedback, inspiration, and favorite writing topics.
From there, I went to get autographs of Jason Haigh-Ellery, India Fisher, and Nicholas Briggs from Big Finish. This was also my first trip to the Dealers' Room, where all sorts of merchandise was available. Not yet having bought anything special, I just had my convention booklet signed. However! India had brought a selection of four photos priced at $10 each. How could I not buy a picture of possibly my favorite audio companion and get that autographed? Afterwards, I had some time to browse the Dealers' Room and bought the full second season of the Iris Wildthyme audios. I don't know anyone else who has yet heard them, but I'd been wanting them for a while.
It was now 3pm. I went back to Main Programming for the first time in several hours, because at this point it was time for Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso (Grace and Chang Lee from the TV-movie) to be on stage. Initially, I wasn't really excited about their presence at the con but when I attended this panel, they totally won me over. :)
After that, it was back to the Dealers' Room to get my booklet autographed by Yee Jee, Robert Shearman, and Tony Lee. I browsed the merchandise some more, wanted to buy tons of it, and ended up purchasing the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa's recent Big Finish audio Castle of Fear. I also bought some DVDs as a gift for a relative.
To Main Programming again, for the Big Finish panel. That was lots of fun. Many audience members wanted more Charley!
At 6pm, Opening Ceremonies took place. The guests were introduced and came onstage. Paul McGann had just recently arrived.
The game show $25K Pyramids of Mars was very enjoyable. People competed in teams of two. One person gave clues to try to get the other to say a DW-related phrase. For instance, the clue "Exterminate" might be given to elicit the answer "Dalek." Some of the answers were relatively easy, but others were pretty challenging. Highlight: a father and his son (around 13 years old, maybe?) competed. The father fed clues to the son, and one answer was Hal. The dad was obviously thinking of the classic sci-fi movie 2001 in the following exchange.
Father: The computer from 2001.
Son: XP!
Audience: *gales of laughter* :)
I attended part of one feature for Fan Film Friday, then headed to the Children of Earth discussion. Didn't stay there long, though. It was about 9:10pm, and I had been running on snacks for quite a while. I walked over to the shopping center and grabbed supper from Burger King. Then I returned to the con and watched another entry from Fan Film Friday: a very good one called Victimsight.
That was it for day 1, where I attended 11 and a fraction panels/sessions.
Saturday recap
Sunday recap
So I bought a reserved membership, which is like the second tier available. It gave me an assigned seat near the front of the "main programming" room and a good spot in the autograph/photo lines. I totally did the newbie thing and attended just about as many panels/sessions as I could cram into each day.
Programming started on Friday at 10am, and I went to the following:
Chicago TARDIS Fire Up!, which was kind of an introduction to the con. It included the giveaway of con buttons to audience members who had specific items on them, such as a gift card or a hole in their shoe. I coveted a button, but didn't have any of the items in question so I did not get one at that time. I did get a better idea of how the con worked.
The next hour saw me at Regeneration Blues, which was a discussion about, you guessed it, regeneration. With the Eleventh Doctor just around the corner, it seemed like a good session to attend. Among other things, favorite regenerations were discussed, plus people's reactions to the subject.
Then I was off to Torchwood Babiez, which featured both the writer and the artist of the adorable web comic. I enjoyed hearing about the creative process and during the panel realized I have not yet looked at all of the available Torchwood Babiez material. It is now on my "to do" list. Bonus: cookies were given away in this room.
Fanfic Writers Unite! was, of course, a discussion of fan fiction. One author in the room mentioned how she had written a story where the Doctor visits an elaborate dragon world and is himself turned into a dragon. She hadn't yet typed it up, but now I won't be surprised if it ever pops up in the Teaspoon queue. Subjects discussed included feedback, inspiration, and favorite writing topics.
From there, I went to get autographs of Jason Haigh-Ellery, India Fisher, and Nicholas Briggs from Big Finish. This was also my first trip to the Dealers' Room, where all sorts of merchandise was available. Not yet having bought anything special, I just had my convention booklet signed. However! India had brought a selection of four photos priced at $10 each. How could I not buy a picture of possibly my favorite audio companion and get that autographed? Afterwards, I had some time to browse the Dealers' Room and bought the full second season of the Iris Wildthyme audios. I don't know anyone else who has yet heard them, but I'd been wanting them for a while.
It was now 3pm. I went back to Main Programming for the first time in several hours, because at this point it was time for Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso (Grace and Chang Lee from the TV-movie) to be on stage. Initially, I wasn't really excited about their presence at the con but when I attended this panel, they totally won me over. :)
After that, it was back to the Dealers' Room to get my booklet autographed by Yee Jee, Robert Shearman, and Tony Lee. I browsed the merchandise some more, wanted to buy tons of it, and ended up purchasing the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa's recent Big Finish audio Castle of Fear. I also bought some DVDs as a gift for a relative.
To Main Programming again, for the Big Finish panel. That was lots of fun. Many audience members wanted more Charley!
At 6pm, Opening Ceremonies took place. The guests were introduced and came onstage. Paul McGann had just recently arrived.
The game show $25K Pyramids of Mars was very enjoyable. People competed in teams of two. One person gave clues to try to get the other to say a DW-related phrase. For instance, the clue "Exterminate" might be given to elicit the answer "Dalek." Some of the answers were relatively easy, but others were pretty challenging. Highlight: a father and his son (around 13 years old, maybe?) competed. The father fed clues to the son, and one answer was Hal. The dad was obviously thinking of the classic sci-fi movie 2001 in the following exchange.
Father: The computer from 2001.
Son: XP!
Audience: *gales of laughter* :)
I attended part of one feature for Fan Film Friday, then headed to the Children of Earth discussion. Didn't stay there long, though. It was about 9:10pm, and I had been running on snacks for quite a while. I walked over to the shopping center and grabbed supper from Burger King. Then I returned to the con and watched another entry from Fan Film Friday: a very good one called Victimsight.
That was it for day 1, where I attended 11 and a fraction panels/sessions.
Saturday recap
Sunday recap
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Sounds like you had a great time.
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It was very nice to meet you, too! I hope you had a fun time. It's a bit of a whirlwind, isn't it?
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I did have a great time. It was nice to meet so many people, and I liked all of the events. The plan is for me to make it back next year, possibly volunteer and do a few things differently now that I've been to one con and know more about how things work.