Buffy The Vampire Slayer

From the day “Showmasters” announced James Marsters as one of their guests at Collectormania11 I was looking forward to seeing him there. Since they also announced Charisma Carpenter, George Hertzberg, Mark Lutz and Anthony Head the event promised to be a real blast and absolutely worth to go.

After a long wait the day I left for Milton Keynes finally was there. I picked up my best friend at her place and we headed to the airport in Nuremberg. The flight to London was short and we arrived in the early evening. Since we decided to keep this trip as cheap as possible we spent the night at the airport in Stansted and after a long night we caught the first bus to MK. The trip was about two hours and was spent with chatting about what to expect and trying to get some more sleep as well.

As the bus arrived there one hour later then we’d expected we couldn’t check in at the hotel first but had to hurry right to the photo shooting with Tony we’d booked beforehand. We arrived just in time, put our suitcases to the luggage table (Showmasters were really well organized!!) and queued for the shooting. Gosh, what a hurry!! Good thing was there wasn’t enough time left to get nervous and so we managed the first photo shooting of the weekend pretty well. Right after that we discovered a friend of ours who was already queuing for her shooting with James and so we decided to wait for her, had a little chat and met her friends who came along with her from Sweden.

Afterwards we finally headed over to our hotel which was just a couple of minutes’ walk away from the shopping centre where the convention took place. We didn’t know what to expect since we never had been there before and we were gladly surprised as we found out that our room was friendly, clean and comfortable. After a short shower we went back to the con, picked up some autographs for some friends back home and tried to get a glimpse of James on his signing table. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible as he was isolated behind high walls. Same for Charisma. So we decided to get our autograph from George. Man!! He’s hot!! I never saw him without his Adam make up before (shame on me) and didn’t expect that at all. *ggg* And he’s also nice and funny. It was great to chat with him and he and Mark Lutz who was sitting next to him marked our home town on their “little Britain” card they had drawn and pinned up behind them. After posing for photos with George and each one of us and a short talk to Mark (we already got his autograph and pics with him last year) we left.

One of the great things at Collectormania is the huge merchandise area. Since the next day would be packed with photo shootings, James’ talk and the con party in the evening we decided to do our merchandising right then. Since my friend is all into trading cards and stuff some time went by. Afterwards we picked up our Photos with Toni which turned out pretty fine despite the lack of sleep the night before and went back to the hotel. We wanted to have a calm evening there, preparing for the next day and enjoying some Buffy episodes to get into the right mood. Sometimes portable DVD players are really great! *ggg*

Well, sometimes things turn out differently. I hadn’t slept much the night before and also during the bus trip so I got tired pretty fast. OK, some beer and drinks helped a bit. But my friend had slept a lot and so she wasn’t tired and decided to go for a short walk with some of James’ music on her mp3 player. But somehow she ended up in a discotheque and came back at 5am the next day. Little drunk and pretty happy after a fantastic party night.

So some hours later I left alone to queue up for a ticket for James’ autograph. Fortunately there weren’t as many people as I’d expected and so I finally got my ticket and could manage to get one for my friend as well.

Then I met up with two other friends from Germany who came over from London since they already had spent a week there and visited the James Marsters Spring Fever Event and the concert on Friday. Lucky them!! Time went by fast with chatting and so I hurried back to the hotel to get dressed for the James and Charisma photo shooting. In the meantime my best friend also got up and we headed over to the shopping centre all exited and nervous. Maybe I have to mention that my friend and I have a tendency to get into embarrassing situations when meeting up with our stars. So no wonder we were joking around what could happen this time. Which really didn’t help to get our nervousness under control. But this time we really were on our best behaviour and nothing bad happened. Go us!!! James was all cute and nice and lucky me got two photo ops as the photographer decided that the first one wasn’t that good. Yay!! Three or four seconds more for me in James’ arms. Right afterwards we re-queued for Charisma and everything went fine, too.

Then it was time for part two of our “meeting James Marsters mission”. So we queued again. This time to get his autograph. Since the photo shooting went that well we weren’t that nervous anymore and my friend even managed to have a short chat with James. Not me! That’s what I’m aiming for next time I meet him... Say something nice besides hi and bye. Usually I don’t have problems with that but somehow the moment I’m standing right in front of him there’s a big black hole in my brain and I can’t do anything else than smile, smile, smile. LOL After some sandwiches and some more merchandising we met up again with our German friends and together we headed over to the Hockey Stadium where the James talk was supposed to take place.

Two years ago we also were at the James talk at Collectormania and I have to say I was pretty disappointed when I realised that the talk would take place at the same horrible location. Back then we had seats pretty much in the back and so we couldn’t see or hear anything. This time “Showmasters” organized everything way better.

(Except the fact that they should have told the fans beforehand that ticket holders would be divided into badges depending on the time they ordered the tickets) Lucky us were badge B and so we ended up with pretty good seats in row 4 or 5. The acoustics there were fantastic and the view even better. The talk started with Steve (James’ manager) asking James some funny questions and both of them were joking around a lot. After that the fans had the chance to ask their questions. Some really interesting, some funny and also some odd questions were asked and James looked like he had as much fun with the Q&A as we had. Unfortunately, time went by too fast as usual and James said his thanks and good byes and left stage.

Time for us to hurry back to the hotel and change for this night’s party.

The reason for us to buy tics for this event was that Anthony Head would sing some songs there. He really did a good show and for me the best part was when he asked for a volunteer so he could sing a part of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show”. One girl was brave enough to help him out and it was really great.

After Toni’s performance George Hertzberg announced Michael Winslow and he entered stage and started his comedy show. Gosh, I think I never have enjoyed a comedy show that much before. This guy is just hilarious!! Most time of the show I had to cry because I laughed so much. Also time went by pretty fast and after chatting with our friends we left for the hotel. Pretty exhausted but happy.

The next day was pretty relaxed since we just had to pic up our photos with James and Charisma...which turned out really nice. The rest of the day we spent with more shopping and in the evening we started our journey back home.