June 2002 CreepCon
*NOTE: This is a rather long review, scroll down to see the pics below if you want to skip the review
This
is a first, I am writing about this convention prior to the
actual convention, (today is May 20, 2002) but there is good reason, and this
won't be posted until after the end of the convention. Well, I
must say that from the beginning this is adding up to be the worst convention experience by
far. My mother gave me the $55.00 to pay for our weekend passes,
and I purchased two weekend passes via PayPal on April 5th for $55.00 ($25.00 each
weekend pass plus the $5.00 processing fee for using PayPal that
CreepCon charged). Well, you can imagine my delight when only
five days later they arrived on April 10th! One problem, there was no
"they". Although the handwritten receipt within the
envelope also stated "Two Weekend Passes" there was
only two tiny tickets in the envelope, one stamped June 8, 2002, the other stamped June 9, 2002. Question marks then
exclamation points immediately went off in my head. So I emailed
Phil, the 17 year old guy (I was told) running the convention (I
found out his age later) and this was his response: "Oh im sorry, you
only recieved 2 tickets total? Thats odd... well ill send another
pair out to you. Sorry about that." Okay, so I waited...and
waited. I began to get worried, and on April 30th, I emailed Phil again
saying that I didn't get them yet, and this was his response: "Yes they have went
out already, you should get them any day now." So on May 8th, I started to get angry,
I emailed him and told him that I needed the tickets now, and
that we were to be leaving for Maryland within a couple of weeks,
I had already paid for the two weekend passes and only received
one, and this was his reply!: "First thing is you have to have
patience. Your tickets were mailed and incase you havent noticed
but mail has been slow since 9/11. You will recieve them soon.
Thanks!" Needless to say that as I type this (it is now May 20th) I still have not
received the owed weekend pass. And I majorly resent him using
9/11 as an excuse, seeing as how I have dealt with the post
office numerous times and have yet to have a problem, and if that
were the reason, why did the original weekend pass only take 5
days to get to me? So yesterday, I did the unthinkable, I
purchased a Saturday only ticket. Now I know you are saying to
yourself "Why in the hell did this stupid girl buy ANOTHER
ticket from this guy?!" I must admit that I am frantic. The
show is only a few weeks away, and my mother doesn't really know
about any of this crap that is going on so far, and I want this
to be a good experience, so I went ahead and shelled out another
$20.00 unbeknown to her and in the PayPal
"instructions" box, I wrote to Phil, "Please, this is for 1
(one) Saturday (June 8th) general admission ticket. I am
paying $20.00 ($15.00 plus the $5.00 processing fee. I have
never received my second pair of weekend passes, which you said
you mailed out April 10th. So this is now a total of $75.00
I have paid for 1(one) weekend pass and 1(one) Saturday General
admission pass. My friend Stephanie said she also has had
problems concerning buying tickets. I am leaving in less
than two weeks (which I had expressed to you before)for Maryland,
and I need the tickets now. Unfortunately this means that either
my mother or I will have to not attend one of the days of the
convention (for which we paid for.) I really wish all this
was not happening." Now, combine this entire ticket fiasco with the
fact that the guest list has almost completely changed since the
first announcement of this convention. In the beginning, included
on the guest list were Corey Haim, Caroline Munro, David Carradine, Muse Watson, David Prowse, Lou Ferrigno, Dick Durock, Tom Savini, Traci Lords, and MANY other people I was excited about
seeing. I even remember at one point, Phil emailed me a long time
ago saying he appreciated me listing his convention on my
website, but there had been some changes, and would I please make
them. After awhile, it got REALLY tiring constantly making
changes to my convention page for his convention. Most of the
time (I think Traci Lords was the only cancellation made note of on his
updates page) guests just disappeared without any mention, for
instance, I only recently realized that Tom Savini is no longer on the
Guest List. The
Return of the Living Dead Reunion is his only saving grace. Especially
getting to meet Miguel, Jewel, and hopefully Thom Matthews if he is available. If that goes through
without a hitch, I will be content, if it does not, I will NEVER
attend another of his conventions, and I know of many, many, many
others who will not as well. He also had a Forum up, which he has
deleted most of the posts from, and I remember awhile ago, there
was one angry poster about all the changes going on in the guest
list, but that disappeared soon after. I honestly hope, however,
that the rest of what I write here will be happy memories. We
will soon see...
*******************************************************************
Okay, it is
now May 28th and I am still waiting
for the Saturday pass I ordered (will wait until this Friday,
then I will call Phil). The reason, however, that I am writing
today is because there have been yet MORE changes in the guest
lineup (this is why most conventions list people ONLY when they
are definitely confirmed, I understand
cancellations, but this is so frequent with this CreepCon it is
unbelievable.) First, I noticed that Bill Moseley is gone, but he is replaced with Ted Raimi (who I love, but am not
excited about meeting, because I am very leery at this point as
to who will definitely be there, I have given up anticipation.) I
really wanted to meet Bill too. It said in the "NEWS" section that
Bill is unable to attend
because he is wrapping up House of 1,000 Corpses. I am probably being naive here, but
wasn't that movie finished long ago? Just looking for a
distributor now? Mybe Bill has to shoot some more scenes or something, I
don't know. Also gone, is Miguel Nunez and Beverly Randolph from Return of the Living Dead. I wanted SO BADLY to
meet Miguel! It is also confirmed
that Thom will not be there. Here
is Phil's write-up in his "NEWS" section: "May. 27, 2002
We have gotten several cancellations due to professional and
personal reasons. The following guests have cancelled: Bill
Moseley (In order to finish house of 1000 corpses), Remy Marks
(To attend a model shoot in LA), Beverly Randolph (Personal
reasons), Miguel Nunez (Personal reasons). Not to worry, we are
currently looking to fill those slots. We have announced actor
Ted Raimi. He will be a headliner for this years show and will do
a Q&A. Sorry ROTLD fans but Thom Mathews has notified me that
he will not be able to attend this year but wishes the best. The
reunion will still be awesome! See you in June."
My feelings
have gone from bad to worse.
*******************************************************************
Well, it is May
30th and I
did recieve my Saturday pass today, but alas no Weekend Pass owed
to me or a refund. NOT very good business handling. Next up will
be my review on the convention after I have attended. I honestly
hope that this has a happy ending or at least some salvaging!
*******************************************************************
Well, the show is over. While I apologize for the length of this
write-up, I really felt, it needed to all be out there. Now as
far as the show went, the first thing I will say was for who I
met and how they treated me, it was worth the hell I went
through. However, I must include here before I write on that
others did not show up as well, while meeting John Philbin, I learned from him that
Jewel
Shepard
would not be there. And, although I know Reggie showed up, I have no
idea where he was or when he came. Here is the sequence of
events: my mother and I arrived just before 11AM and went to the
ticket line. Amusingly, the man next to us in the double line was
saying to the ticket taker "You people cashed my check, but I never
recieved the tickets." although tempted to stay and find out what
happened we went ahead into the convention after recieving our
wrist bands. The convention hall was huge and a zillion tables
were set up. Directly in front of us were all the vendors, or so
we figured. I could see the massive lines for the Buffy stars against the wall
to our left. We went past a bunch of rows of vendors, and came to
what appeared to be a line of celebrity tables. The first person
I noticed was Brad Dourif. I almost died! He looked so adorable (I LOVE his
eyes!)! So I went to his table, and asked for one of the
pictures, and at first he was kinda cool and professional, not
rude, just a teensy intimidating, but then when I asked if I
could have my picture taken with him, he jumped right up and said
very warmly "Sure!
Of course!", and all the intimidation went away. From this
point on, I can't tell you which ones I saw next in which order,
but I know I went to Linnea's table, and chatted with her a bit and purchased
one of her videos I had been wanting to get for awhile. I also
asked her if she knew where Stephanie was because I was supposed to meet her there and Linnea said Steph hadn't shown up yet. I
then noticed James
Karen, who
was behind my mom, and I told her, and when she turned around and
looked at him, I swear she had tears in her eyes, she was so in
awe. He was just amazing. Around the same time I noticed Don Calfa, and started getting
auto's and my pics taken with them, and the sweetest thing was
that after all that James began walking around the convention (I think with
his wife), and he just looked so in awe and went by all the
vendor's tables. He had said to me prior that he didn't plan on
setting up a table. I don't think he realized how many people
were there to see him, and later he became so overwhelmed and
swamped that John
Philbin had
to get a table set up for James. I think he had just figured he would putter
around the conevntion and when people approached him he would
meet with them sign and pose, but he ended up being swamped! I
then talked with John Philbin for a bit, there will be a video snapshot of him
below soon, because I didn't have my picture taken with him,
because I got a bit confused, and couldn't remember if I did or
not. But he was soooo cool! I kept telling him that he was not a
geek like his character (Chuck) in Return, but he ended up
signing the pic "I AM a geek!" He said a lot for my
video camera which was really fun! I then met Allan Trautman who was the Tarman in
Return and he was extremely warm and friendly. He had gorgeous
8X10's too. I noticed my mom was at the Conrad Brooks table and went there.
What a character he was!! Just like an old time movie guy, a fast
talker, extremely friendly and fun to be around! My mom wandered
off again, and I then found her at the Ben Chapman table. Behind him was
the card all of us had signed at the Horrorfind for him when he
was injured, which was real nice. He had a ton of stuff that he
gave away with each autograph, including a copy of his original
movie contract. Very cool! After that I met Edwin Neal, and he was a real
gentleman. He also had fabulous 8X10's, and even told us some of
the behind the scenes stuff on TCM. After awhile we realized that
we could not find Warwick Davis, Ted Raimi, Kane Hodder, and others. With some major turn of luck, we
spotted some of them BEHIND the Buffy line against the wall. If
we hadn't walked over to the right spot and looked over at a
certain angle, we would have never seen them! I immediately got
in the Ted line. I was SOOOO
excited! He looked so cute and nice! When I met him, I observed
that there were no pics from Evil Dead 2 on the table and I said
that out loud along with "You should have pics from Intruder
too!"
and he looked shock for a second and said, "Intruder, WOW, you
ARE a fan!!" It was soo hysterical! He was so funny and nice
it really made my day! He talked me into a pic of him in this
detective getup because he thought he looked more dashing in it
and on it he wrote "Bon Jour and other sexy French Stuff!" He was great. While I
was in line I noticed at Brian Thompson's table to the left, he had a big sign
behind him that read "BRIAN THOMPSON WILL NOT BE HONORING GOLD VIP
TICKETS"
I don't think a lot of Buffy fans were happy about that. I didn't
meet him, but he seemed really nice when I obserevd him with the
fans. Must have been a misunderstandiing between him and Phil.
Also while in line to meet Ted, I got into conversation with a couple of guys
who weren't too happy with the way the convention had been put
together. After that we met Warwick Davis, who was a true gentleman, and had an excellent
selection of pics to choose from. A bit later I finally met up
with Stephanie and her family, and a
short time later we left. I also want to make my apologies here,
for I was invited by Stephanie to dinner after the convention with her and her
family, Linnea, Amy Lynn Best, and several others, but
I couldn't make it, I wish I could have, and I feel so terrible
about it! Hopefully Steph will invite me again (HINT HINT! LOL!!) or I
could invite her to dinner perhaps at the Horrorfind in August,
which should be a smash!
In closing, I don't want to completely bash Phil because he is
young and this is his first convention. Far be it for me to
criticize, I have never put on a convention, and I am sure it is
overwhelming (although here is a warning, Steph and I plan to put one on
someday!!). My biggest complaints have to do with his treatment
of me and others prior to the show. I don't like the way the
guests were mixed with the vendors maing some of them very hard
to find (I never did find Reggie and also never noticed if Brian Peck was there), I think all
the celebrities should have been against the wall encircling the
vendors. I think he should have hamdled announcing guest
cancellations better. I have never asked for full explanations of
a guest cancelling, I just think it should be made note of. A lot
of people just disappeared from the list as close as within days
of the convention without a word in the update section, only a
few were mentioned with reasons why. I think (this is not a real
bad criticism, just a suggestion) he should have a mailing list
to notufy people of things like guest changes and stuff. I will
say some positive things, I think his vision was great and the
choice of celebrities he asked was great. I think he meant well,
and I came away feeling it was worth it. Also, I have to say, it
was laid out (to me) better than the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors
I attended which definetely says something positive about Phil. I
never met Phil (to my knowledge) and I honestly hope he does this
again, and is very successful.
Video Snapshots Coming Soon!
Brad Dourif:
LOVE those Eyes!!!
James Karen & Don Calfa:
One of the biggest thrills of my life!!
Conrad Brooks:
Mom and Conrad!
Ben Chapman:
Ben Chapman, a beautiful man.
Ben's Link: http://www.the-reelgillman.com/
Edwin Neal:
What a gentleman!
Edwin's Link: http://www.dreamcatchersfilmsinc.com
Ted Raimi:
I think I'm in love! Swoon!!!
Ted's Link: http://www.tedraimifan.com/
Warwick Davis:
An incredible man.
Warwick's Link: http://www.warwickdavis.co.uk/
The Man Who Met Andy Griffith:
Actually, he did meet Andy Griffith, but he was there to sell his great horror magazine which you can find a link to below.
The Man's Link: http://www.areyougoingmovie.com/
Stephanie:
On the left is Steph and her mom and on the right is me and Steph.