Now that the dust has settled and the bank holiday weekend is truly over, I thought I’d write a few things in here about how it all went and what everyone got up to.

I drove over to Blackpool on the Thursday night mainly just to say hi to a few people and to check the place out before it became totally overrun with Buffy and Angel fans. One thing I’ll say about Blackpool is that it has to be the single most frustrating place on earth to drive. There are speed cameras literally everywhere, and it’s all 30 (even on the bypass heading back to the motorway).

Anyway, so yeah I turned up on the Thursday and met Tasha, Anna, their friend Katie, and also Hayley and Zara. I just chilled for a bit, drank some beer, and then next thing I know I’m being dragged away as I’d been put forward as a guest liason. Luckily I had Kel, Zara and Hayley to look after me so it was all good.

The guest I’d been assigned to was Keith Szarabajka, who played Daniel Holtz in S3 of Angel. The fun thing is that I haven’t actually watched Angel since S2 so I didn’t really know who he was or what he was about, but of course I found out over the the weekend. I need to get the DVD now so I can catch up :)

Being a liason basically means you have to shadow one of the guests the whole time they’re at the hotel. You have to sit with them during signing sessions (four hours is a loooong time to sit signing an autograph), photo shoots, and so on. You also have to be on hand if they want to go anywhere to ensure that random convention goers don’t hassle them for more signatures and stuff. This sounds a bit lame, but it’s actually pretty cool. The upside of it all is that you spend the whole weekend with the guests themselves, seeing how they are in real life and not just how they appear on stage or on screen. There’s a fair amount of self-importance too as you have free run of the place and everyone thinks you’re someone because you’re hanging with the stars all the time.

The downsides to this are that it’s actually pretty hard work, you don’t get to spend too much time with any of your friends at the con (unless they’re liasons as well), and you probably won’t have time to get very many photographs and other things signed. Personally I’d say all that is a small price to pay for the honour and opportunity of being a liason - I totally enjoyed it, and I’m hoping I’ll be asked to do it again.

As for the guests themselves, they were all great fun to be around and I didn’t really see any trace of over-inflated egos or attitude. Keith was a totally sound bloke, very easy going and good fun to talk to. It was his first convention so he didn’t know what to expect, and I think he was surprised at just how many people turned out and how popular his character was.

Andy Hallett was probably the star of the weekend - how that guy keeps up I have no idea. He was partying every night until stupid o’clock, and up again the next day looking a bit worse for the wear but still bright and stoked to be at the convention. Him and Mark Lutz on stage are just too funny, and had everyone in the place in stitches most of the time.

As I was so busy I didn’t get chance to have many things signed or to have my photo taken with some of the guests, but I did manage to get a picture of the utterly gorgeous Amy Acker autographed. She was fantastic and sort of like her character on Angel in that she was very quiet and shy. Saying that though, it was surprising just how similar some of the other guests were to their characters on the show - Alexis in particular was a hell of a lot like Wesley.

That’s about it I guess. I did take a few photos - mainly of Lisa and Kellie ( :p ) - but there are a couple of the con though taken at the closing ceremony on the Sunday. Check them out here.

Back to work!