Posted by Pitstain at adsl-66-123-52-101.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net on July 21, 2003 at 16:43:10:
In Reply to: San Diego Con. Probably the longest post you will posted by Hardly Clerkin on July 21, 2003 at 11:25:54:
left my house at about 8:30, hit the oceanside WALL of traffic, found a *really good* parking
space (for $15) and walked up to the convention hall at about 11:45. They pointed me to
the line so i followed it to the end... which was about a mile away (not an exaggeration).
From the moment i got in line it took 2 hours to get inside the building.
So i went to see what i could of kevin speaking... but the room was full and they wouldn't let
me in. Then i went to try and get an autograph... but they cut off the line about 5 people in
front of me.
The real pisser though is that the people manning those autograph lines changed stories as
suited them. While i was still waiting in that little line of people cut off from the kevin smith
signing a guy asked where the line for the Hugh Jackman / Van Helsing people was and he
was told that they weren't going to let people line up who didn't have the "thing" that they
were going to be given after attending the Van Helsing panel. I went to the panel and go
the big ol' 4 page Van Helsing booklet thing and went to stand in line. I was about 50th in
line with that brochure, but they had already filled the entire queue AND a staging area with
people who didn't have those booklets... and then passed the booklets out to everybody
who was already in the line. So i stuck around for about 40 minutes to see what was up and
then when the cast finished with the initial line (about 100-150 people) they bailed. The
people in the queue got a quick visit from Hugh Jackman which was pretty cool of him.
After the Van Helsing panel and that little bit of crowd interaction, i'm a pretty big fan of
hugh jackman the person... well done, hugh.
The people who organized the convention, however, are on my list of people i strongly
dislike. there is NO reason for a 2 hour line to get into a facility.