Flashback Weekend
May 9-11th, 2003
Radisson O'hare - Rosemont, IL

This report was written about a week after attending the con. If you're looking for photos, please click on the above link.

For those who are looking for a transcription of all the Q&A's, believe me, they're out there so I'm not going to bother to add them here in my report. Enjoy!

I know it's a bit late, but sorry. Better late than never though, right? Right???? Okay...so here goes. The con itself sucked. It was unorganized and not well planned. JCB was there and asserted herself over her charges. I ran into Danny Strong and Tom Lenk in the lobby on Friday night but didn't have a whole lot of time with them because they were told to go to their room to sleep. This, of course, was AFTER they were permitted to mingle with the guests at the cocktail party. I missed this part because I was too brassed off about GotR not mingling. Apparently, it was the highlight of the weekend because Tom got up and sang Summer Nights at the karaoke contest with a fan.

The guests didn't interact with the fans much at all...again I blame that on JCB. I was highly disappointed since I shelled out A LOT of money and got very little in return. Everything cost money. You weren't allowed to take photos with the guests unless you paid for them. Iyari was posing for pics at her autograph table for free until JCB yelled at her and started making her charge $10 a pic -- taken with your own camera!!!

You were only allowed 1 autograph from James, Danny, Tom and Mark Metcalf the entire weekend unless you purchased extras. Oh yeah, and Tom's photos were only on sale at his table for an extra $20 so if you didn't have anything for him to sign, you were screwed out of another $20. You could purchase a photo session with James for $50 or with Tom for $30. Saturday night's concert was included in our package but the second concert was not and they charged upwards of $60 for an hour show.

Q&A's on Saturday were 20 mins per person. 20 mins. That's it. George Hertzberg was great and it was a shame we didn't get more time for him. As for Sunday's Q&A's, it was included in our package but for those who didn't have the Gold or Silver package, they could spend $10 for a ticket to the Q&A's. At least on Sunday Tom and Danny had an hour together on the stage. They are extremely funny!!!

Now, one would think that since one had purchased a gold ticket, one would have first dibs on the autograph lines, etc. Nope. We got nothing more but a signed picture of the band and a Mad Brilliant CD. Silver badge holders as well as daily badge holders were permitted to be first in the autograph lines. It was chaos and mayhem. Lines like you wouldn't believe. It was the worst experience ever. Since I stood in a lot of lines, I got to know many people and I thank each and every one of them for helping to keep my sanity. For a lot of them, this was their first con and probably their last. I told them to not let this one influence their idea of what a con is...I told them to make sure that if they ever got a chance to go to a Vulkon Buffy Con...to do it since it is so well organized and orderly.

So there you have my little con report. It sucked. With that said and out of the way there were some highlights that made things a little nicer. I'm sure that by now, the rumors have circulated about who it was that Nim and I spent our time with on Friday night. Yes, it's true. Nim and I played body guard to Steve Sellers (keyboardist for GotR). Steve is a very nice person and a lot of fun to hang out with. On Sunday the poor guy had to play babysitter to the younger band members because their flight had been cancelled due to the tornadoes. Yep, we had REALLY bad weather there. Anyway, Aaron and Charlie are just absolute dolls and a bit on the insane side. I suppose I would be too if I were that young and had all of that energy.

Getting back to what I said earlier, the con itself sucked but I did get to be with friends and I did get to see GotR perform. However, I believe that will be my last con run by Flashback cause I'll still be checking my wallet for holes.

Brat :)