The Daily Dragon staff misses everyone already, and so we wanted to leave you with a little something to nibble on until next year. This reporter stalked the Walk of Fame on Monday to ask many of the guests about their experiences at Dragon Con 2015 and the craziest/weirdest/favorite thing they saw over the weekend.
Aaron Abrams: “It’s been great to interact with fans in a way that Scott [Thompson] and I rarely get a chance to do. Hannibal fans are great fans to interact with. They’re creative, so crafty, amazing, and just very excitable people. Their energy is very infectious. Craziest thing I’ve seen. I like any hybrid costumes. Actually, there was a storm trooper Bob Ross, a painter from the 70s, so it was a storm trooper with hair coming out of all of the holes. He walked around with an easel. There was a seven-foot nightmare stag walking around on the second day. They had little stilts. It was massive, terrifying, and kind of weird at the same time. Those were my two favorite things.”
B.J. Britt: “Oh my gosh, the energy here at Dragon Con is probably the best part. I mean, by far the biggest con I’ve been to, and it is ridiculously fun. Love meeting everybody. I’m just so excited to be here, and everybody screams here and I scream too. I don’t know why. It has nothing to do with me, but when they scream, I scream for some reason. So if you were to scream, I would scream with you for no apparent reason. The craziest thing I’ve seen. Oh my gosh. Me in the mirror at seven o’clock when I walked in this morning from last night.
“No, let me see. I will tell you the most exciting thing I saw. I saw a whole [The] Walking Dead impression with a girl dressed as a zombie and a guy dressed as The Governor. He had the long pole that held the walker at arm’s length away. They had it all going. It was ridiculous. I was like, ‘Oh shoot, they recreated this whole scene.’ It was insane, so I got to give them props on that one. That’s the one that stood out to me the most. There were so many. Just go out at two o’clock in the morning. After eight o’clock [at night], you can see anybody in anything, which was a shocker for me because I have never experienced anything like that. I did wear a little mask and got a chance to walk around and see all of the good stuff.”
Garry Chalk: “The one thing I like about Dragon Con, well there’s several things. It’s been a very exciting weekend. We got to meet a lot of old friends and make a lot of new friends. See a lot of fans. It was pretty exciting. Saw some great costumes and some really weird ones. The weirdest one I saw was when I was going back to my hotel about 11 o’clock at night on Friday. There was a very drunk woman who walked into the lobby wearing nothing but underpants and a bra, and not like PG-rated, like very flimsy underpants and a bra and high heels. I thought, ‘And so it begins.’ That was about the oddest thing I’ve seen.”
Melissa Fahn: “I’ve had a great time here at Dragon Con. It has been just wonderful. The fans are amazing. I have never been to a con of this capacity, and it was truly an experience. I’ve seen some crazy, crazy cosplay costumes. I’ve seen such smart, inventive costumes. It’s mind-blowing, but I’ve had a great time meeting all of the fans. The staff has been so wonderful. You guys have all been amazing and taking such good care of me, so I want to thank you for that. My best experience happened about a half hour ago when we rode down the service elevator with Nichelle Nichols, and she was lovely. We chatted just very briefly. It was great. It was kind of a ‘that-never-happens’ moment. That was just the icing on the cake for the last day here. Thank you Dragon Con! I had a fabulous time.”
Bill Farmer: “Dragon Con has been a blast. It’s almost overwhelming. It’s the best con I’ve ever been to because it’s fan based, and the fans here just get into the spirit of things. The costumes are incredible. I’ve never seen any better. What’s the craziest thing? Wow. That’s tough. You set the bar pretty high. There were so many great costumes. They were all great.”
Peter Hambleton: “My favorite thing, maybe meeting the fans. And I love the fact that some people bring their kids. A part of me is left hoping that the stories and movies are passed on to the young ones. [The craziest thing?] We’re guided through the corridors from one room to another, and along came behind us the lady who played Lieutenant Uhura [Nichelle Nichols] on Star Trek, and behind her, also being guided along, is the guy who just played Chewbacca [Peter Mayhew]. It’s wonderful random moments right there, the mix of people that are here.”
Kris Holden-Ried: “My experiences have been nothing but fantastic. It’s crazy. It’s frenetic. It’s chaos. Very well-organized chaos. Thank you to the organizers. You know everyone here is a good group. They’re just so interesting. They’re so passionate about what they do. I’ve never seen so much cosplay. So much amazing cosplay. Yeah, I got bit by the dragon last time I was here, and I learned my lesson. I was in bed by at least 2AM. Most crazy thing here—staying up for about 56 hours straight and then doing a panel at the end of it.”
Stephen Hunter: “My experience at Dragon Con has been amazing. It’s by far the biggest convention I’ve ever been to. It’s been really good. I’ve enjoyed going outside and seeing a little bit of Atlanta. There’s some great food. … I think that people have been really, really friendly. The most insane thing I saw was when I came in on Thursday night and the place was going ballistic. It hadn’t even started yet! It was even busier last night. It’s just on fire. I wish I was younger and could have stayed up later.”
Eddie McClintock: [Since he had already related his Dragon Con experiences during a press conference, he was asked what it is like to be here a couple years after Warehouse 13 ended and still have a line out the door.] “I think that it’s a testament to the show. I guess I didn’t expect it. I’m always surprised when people show up for me generally, you know? I’m like, ‘Really?’ It’s nice. It just shows that our program had something, [that] there was something there. I was proud of it then, and it makes me even more proud of it now that it’s been two years since it ended. [The weirdest thing] I guess I saw [was] a 400- or 500-pound slave Leia. That was pretty crazy. And it was a dude. That’s what made it even more crazy. So, like, a 400-pound, male slave Leia. It was in my room! I walked in, and that person is my father.”
Dean O’Gorman: “I had a great time at the convention. Everyone is really lovely and polite, and they called me ‘sir.’ I appreciated that. I saw a woman who’s tatted my sword on the back of her leg, and I thought that was pretty amazing. Nothing really crazy. I mean, everyone is dressed up. There are a lot of people, quite surreal.”
Zoie Palmer: “My experience at Dragon Con has been amazing. It’s been nothing but love the whole weekend long. I think the craziest thing I’ve seen is the sheer number of human beings walking around with either no clothes on or clothes on. It’s sort of one or the other, though. I’ve had a complete blast. I love it. I would absolutely come back.”
Charlie Schlatter: “My experience always has been awesome. The fans here are some of the nicest people that I’ve met. As far as the most interesting or craziest thing I’ve seen, somebody shaved their 14-year-old beard off of their face for the Lymphoma [Research Foundation]. I thought that was pretty awesome…. Everybody was contributing money to him to shave his beard, and they donated that money. [Also,] I did get hit by a ceiling tile, on my head, in my shower. That happened this year.”
John Wesley Shipp: “My experience has been great. I think this is absolutely one of the top two or three con experiences that I’ve had since [The Flash: The Complete Series] DVD came out in 2006. Just the fact that it is so big and yet it’s still an audience experience. It’s not a press tour. It’s not corporate. I loved seeing people dressing up and being as much stars as we are. The most startling things for me to see are the crowds and the people interested in The Flash. We had 1,800 people in our panel, and our lines were still out the door. It’s really heady stuff. I’m trying to think of something strange that I saw. There’s a lot of flesh. That’s not strange. It’s Atlanta’s Mardi Gras.”
Anna Silk: “The experience has been amazing. It’s my first time here, and I anticipated meeting a lot of different people, but I don’t think I anticipated how many personal stories that people would share with me. I know it takes a lot of courage to open up and share that kind of stuff. It’s actually been emotional. I’m overwhelmed by it all, but it’s been really lovely that they’ve been able to share. I’m glad that Lost Girl and Bo inspire them. It’s a touching thing. We don’t really get to meet people one-on-one like that when we’re shooting, so that’s been amazing. It’s been amazing to see the cast. I haven’t seen some of them since last October. The craziest thing at the panel, I think, is the girl who bought my used tissue. Now, it only had a tear in it. She brought it back to me yesterday to sign the bag that it was in. She bought it, and the money went to charity.”
Carroll Spinney: “It’s been a really great experience. I’ve never seen so many fans. A lot of people came because they knew I’d be here. I was very happy being here. [The most interesting thing was] the woman with two heads. One was actually alive.”
Scott Thompson: “It’s been a fantastic experience. The craziest thing I’ve seen was John Barrowman in heels. It’s not really crazy, but I didn’t expect it.”
