Paleyfest- the fan experience!

[angiebelle]

Sorry I’m a little late with this, but I was still out of town visiting my sister. However, now I’m at home and ready to give you the full report and some photos! (I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos…it was really hard to get pics from where I was, and I didn’t want to spend too much time staring at my camera.)

I woke up that morning at my sister’s place feeling so excited. Paula was still in bed, but I started getting ready anyway. I wanted to had a fully made up face and my contacts instead of my glasses- just in case I got to have my picture taken with someone!

I had wanted to get there at least an hour early to try to get good seats. The sections were assigned but not the seats themselves. Google said the theater was only about 10 minutes away so we left around 11:30. In hindsight, perhaps we should have left even earlier. Even getting there over an hour early, the line to get in was already running all the way down the street! Luckily, we struck up a conversation with a couple of nice older ladies. One of them had even showed us a picture of her taken with Robert Carlyle at an event for his new movie. Lucky duck!

Finally, we got inside the theater and were pointed in the direction of the mezzanine- basically the lower half of the upper section. We saw our friend Lisa sitting in the first row of the balcony section and said hi to her and her friend. Then we tried to find seats for ourselves, but the mezz appeared to be entirely full! I wanted to cry…what was going on? A head usher came over to us and got me excited by suggesting he might take us downstairs. However, it soon became apparent that a number of us with mezz tickets were stranded. They started asking to see people’s tickets, and sure enough, a whole bunch were sitting in the wrong section. The man who was going to take us down sent us to a row of newly available seats in the mezz, claiming that the view was better from here anyway. (Oh, how I wish he’d taken us down! I was far more interested in being closer to the actors than having a good view of the screen!)

We saw a young woman sitting by herself and offered to have her come up to our row and sit with us…then realized we’d probably prefer to go down a few rows to her and be slightly closer to the stage. She was a very enthusiastic Evil Regal who had brought a neat shirt for Lana to sign.

Then the show started…the theater was bristling with anticipation. They introduced us to Paleyfest with a quick montage of show ads- everyone going nuts when OuaT appeared on the screen of course. Then just for fun, they showed us the Snow White Fractured Fairytale from Rocky and Bullwinkle. I’ve always loved those, although I think the Sleeping Beauty one was funnier. The prince decides not to wake her up but rather open a theme park where the main attraction is gazing at the princess.

Next up were Adam and Eddie themselves! They came out and briefly introduced what we would be screening- “The Queen is Dead” followed by the first act of “The Miller’s Daughter.” The crowd got excited. What fun it was watching an episode with a room filled with Oncers! The only downside was between the poor audio and everyone screaming for the title screen and for character entrances, I missed some of the lines. I may have to watch again. It was great hearing live audience reactions to various moments- gasps and such. “The Miller’s Daughter” looks amazing- I cannot wait to see the rest of it! For a full description, check out the thread I posted in the spoiler section.

Then it was the moment we were all waiting for- cast introductions! I practically bounced out of my seat! The moderator gave each of them a funny intro- Emilie was “lost but now she’s found” etc. As each person entered the stage, the audience hooted and hollered like mad- myself include..with such high adrenaline, it was almost a reflex! The Evil Regal next to me nearly blew my eardrums out when Lana entered!

Once the whole cast was out, people starting calling to the actors. “I love you, Lana!” etc. Call outs bounced around the room for a moment. At first it was funny, but then I wanted to go, “Shhhh, let them talk!”

I won’t go into too much detail on the panel itself since you can watch the whole thing online, and there are plenty of other recaps out there, but I’ll mention a few of my favorite moments.

Emilie de Ravin saying, “Belle is lost….” We all cracked up at unintended Lost reference. Then she tried to rephrase it and couldn’t, “She’s…not found.” She is so adorable.

I can’t wait to learn more about Belle’s cursed personality “Racy Lacey!” I am so glad to learn that she is not a blank slate after all.

Lana Parilla was an absolute hoot, with her facial expressions and offhand comments. What a funny lady! She also made a call out to her Evil Regals. I love when Robert almost revealed too much, and Lana said “Just sit there and look pretty!” I also loved Robert’s comment about how they come here to talk but there’s nothing they are allowed to talk about.

I was so excited to finally get the dish on the infamous soup story! (Pun not intended.) I knew someone would ask. I was dying to know. Robert was so cute when he was all embarrassed about having to repeat the story for us. I said, laughing, “You started it! You all tweeted about it!” I wasn’t loud enough to be heard though. Robert’s accent was so thick that I could barely follow the story. I didn’t fully understand it until I got back home and looked up what he had said.

The last thing they did was take questions from the audience. I had a question in mind. I thought I would be way too shy to raise my hand, but I was feeling brave, and I was actually prepared to do it. Unfortunately the moderator was unable to get up to the upper sections, so I never got my chance to prove to myself that I could! I was going to ask them if their characters were familiar with all the different versions of their stories that exist in our world- like if they have seen the Disney movies- and what would they think of them.

The panel then came to an end, and before I even realized what was going on, the crowd started to cascade to the edge of the stage! Ack! We worked our way downstairs, hope against hope that their might be a chance for an autograph. My heart sank as soon as we got to the lower level. It was an absolute mad house! I knew there was no way it was happening. I tried…we inched forward bit by bit, trying to be polite and not shove any body. We climbed over a few rows of chairs…but all that ended up doing was getting us completely trapped. The closest we got was maybe 10 feet away.

We watched helplessly for a while. I tried to just enjoy the fact that I was at least a lot closer to them than I had been in the mezz. Someone actually got a kiss on the cheek from Josh. I had bought a big illustrated book of fairytales to get signed. I held it up hoping to get noticed, but all the actors were focused very intently on signing and didn’t look up. I was about ready to call out, “I’d settle for eye contact! I’d settle for a smile and a wave!” Maybe I should have.

One by one, the actors started to leave. They had a flight to catch. As each actor made his or her way down the line, the crowd surged forward and called out to them. I kept holding up my book, but I didn’t want to shout at them. In their shoes, I would have been a total deer in headlights! I saw Emilie heading out and got a little bolder, “Emilie! Bye!” I think she might have heard me as I did see her flutter her hand slightly in my direction, but I couldn’t be sure.

Finally, only Robert was left, and he was being prodded to leave. I watched him for a bit until he too headed out. I didn’t see if for myself, but I overheard someone say that right before he left, he kissed his pen and tossed it into the crowd. One young boy near us had really wanted something signed but couldn’t get up to him. He was crying. The Evil Regal who had sat next to us had managed to get her shirt signed by Lana by tossing it up to her though. She was flipping out with joy.

So that was that…my heart sank with disappointment. I knew it was going to be crazy…I just didn’t realize how crazy. I had virtually no chance. I kept telling myself to remember how awesome the panel had been and that I had warned myself not to get my hopes up. Maybe there will be another chance in the future.

I hung around outside the theater for a bit, people watching the other fans- lots of homemade shirts featuring the characters and the various character fan groups. I noticed a crowd of people standing at the edge of a drive way and walked over to see what was going on…limos were coming out! The cast was leaving. I think we had missed most of them, but Emilie had her window cracked and was waving. I waved but was still too far back to be seen. Lana had her window open too and was also waving. As her car pulled into the street, she held out her hand in the Evil Regal hand sign- pinky and pointer fingers up- much to the excitement of the Evil Regals.

And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed reliving that with me. Here are pictures:

My “purple magic” nails

My sister and I before the show started. (I’m on the left.)

Out of focus Adam and Eddie

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/858901_10151470268308599_448728405_o.jpg






Emilie and Lana signing autographs

Ginnifer signing autographs

Jennifer signing autographs

Robert signing autographs (I was not this close- my camera was fully zoomed in here.)

Lana signing autographs

The outside of the theater

Bonus photos from Disney’s California Adventure:

Regina’s costume from the pilot

Malificant

Charming

The book

Snow White’s wedding dress

(These were very difficult to photograph as they were behind glass.)

[RumplesGirl]

OMG. The book. Steal it!!! It has all our answers!!

Sounds like you had a great time. Thanks for all the scoops!

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[TheGoldenKey]

Oh AngieBelle! So happy for you and equally thrilled that you had such a good time! You had a great panel up there to watch, that’s for sure 🙂 😀

Keeper of Pandora's Box & The Yellow Brick Road.

[obisgirl]

Thanks for sharing with us. Never realized before how big the theatre actually is.

[Phee]

Thanks for the recap, AngieBelle! I could feel how excited you were as I was reading it. 😀 Must have been such a great energy in the room, with all of those excited Oncers watching the show together.

Sorry you didn’t get any autographs, but maybe just consider this a research mission, so you can be prepared if you get the chance to do another similar event in the future. 😉

[spinninggold]

OMG love love love the costume pictures. What an intricate buste line on Regina’s corset, whoever made that does great work and the collars on the robes, fantastic. *Write me up for the OuaT costume pattern book, seriously*
Thnk you so much AngieBelle!

[angiebelle]

Glad you liked it!

I know the saying goes don’t cry that it’s over, smile that it happened…but I can’t help it- I’m feeling so sad that it’s over, especially since I wasn’t able to meet them. I want to be in their company again. What an awesome group of people! I’d give anything just to be able to hang out on the set with them for the day.

I wonder if any of them will be at the D23 Expo this year- the big Disney fan convention. I have tickets and plan to wear my blue Belle dress that my mom made for me back in college.

[spinninggold]

Plan a trip to Stevenson? I’m sure there are forums (fora?) that keep an eye on when they are there… Might be a spur of the moment thing though.

[Phee]

@AngieBelle wrote:

I know the saying goes don’t cry that it’s over, smile that it happened…but I can’t help it- I’m feeling so sad that it’s over, especially since I wasn’t able to meet them. I want to be in their company again. What an awesome group of people! I’d give anything just to be able to hang out on the set with them for the day.

That whole “smile because it happened” thing can be so much easier said than done. I’ve been to North America twice in recent years on fangirly business, and also did a similar trip around my own country, going to multiple concerts of my beloved NKOTB, and every time it’s over, it SUCKS. In the fandom, we actually label it “post concert depression” because the comedown from the fangirly high is such a bummer. *sigh*

But ya know what, even though you didn’t get to meet them, (this time ;)), you still got to be a part of something really special that only a small chunk of the fandom has been lucky enough to experience, and once the “post Paley depression” passes, you’ll be able to look back and do the whole “happy it happened” thing properly. 🙂 It’s a bit silly how excited we can get to just be in the same room as celebs we admire. I think that part of wanting to be in their presence is so they can see how much joy they bring to your life through their work, so that’s why we crave the personal connection, even if it’s just a fleeting moment, we just want them to know, directly from us, how much we love what they do, as our way of saying, “thank you for being awesome”. I hope one day you get to meet some of them face to face.

I wonder if any of them will be at the D23 Expo this year- the big Disney fan convention. I have tickets and plan to wear my blue Belle dress that my mom made for me back in college.

That sounds like the perfect place for them to send some of the cast!

[laurieanne]

AngieBelle, you described it perfectly! I’m so sorry we didn’t get a chance to connect – we got to move down to the lower mezzanine when a bunch of people with balcony seats had to leave. Next year I am trying for the orchestra so I can get closer to the stage. I only got about 3 feet away during the autograph part and was being crushed the whole time!! What an incredible experience- to see so many people so passionate about the show. Watching the new episodes with a huge theater full of Oncers was my favorite part of the event! I got some good photos too – but I don’t know how to post them. If someone can let me know, I will try to post today.

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