After attending 2014 solo accidentally, I decided to head down to the 2015 show with my wife. She was not going to attend the show, but she would spend time at the mall and then afterwards we would go to dinner and do a little joint shopping. Two things messed that up: 1) she needed $600 of work done on her car a few days earlier, severely reducing our available cash and 2) the show put out the schedule and I was basically booked until 6:30pm. So, solo again in 2015 on the Saturday of the show.
I was heading down to get Ingrid Oliver, Paul McGann, Dan Starkey, Burn Gorman and Nick Briggs for myself, as well as another Burn for my friend Mark, another Ingrid for my friend Lew and a couple of autographs for a guy I know on the Rebelscum forum. I accidentally bought an extra Starkey ticket and Ingrid was such a late replacement that Lew didn’t have time to send anything, so I needed photos there.
Originally, Jenna Coleman and Eve Myles were attending and they cancelled after I had purchased their autograph tickets, so I needed to exchange. I read online on Friday that the exchange process was not going well, so I then decided to head to show early (literally probably 3 hours before I would have left otherwise) to make sure it all went fine. They had apparently learned from Friday’s issues and I had zero problem exchanging the tickets.
I decided to head first to the dealer room, where I was going to buy my traditional Big Finish audio and pick up the photos I needed to be signed by Ingrid Oliver and Dan Starkey. Now I remember why I make my own photos - the place I have them made at charges $2.50 and they were charging $6 at the show, and I was not that happy with the image choices. I bought my audio (UNIT: Extinction) and then went over to talk to Andrew Cartmel.
Andrew Cartmel would be on my Mount Everest of Doctor Who script editors. Terrance Dicks, Robert Holmes, Douglas Adams and Andrew Cartmel. So I knew I needed a couple of things signed by him, and pulled two DVD covers from the DW collection. I bought a copy of his book Script Doctor, and we talked a little bit about his upcoming novel and Sight & Sound magazine until someone came up behind me to talk to him. He gave me a signed photo, signed my book, and the two DVD covers for me. The Remembrance of the Daleks cover now just needs Ben Aaronovitch to be complete for me.
Next, I went and sat in on the programming. I usually avoid panels like the plague (fan questions are the absolute worst) but I like the panels at TARDIS. I did especially enjoy the live commentary for The Sarah Jane Adventures with Finn Jones and Katy Manning, but if any people from the show read this - please either raise the mic volume or lower the volume of the show they are doing commentary for. It was hard to hear a lot of what Katy said.
I had a brief window of time before getting to the queue room and went to the dealer’s room to get Nick Briggs’ autograph on an 11x14 I have of Peter Capaldi and the Daleks from the season 9 premiere and got him to sign two items for my Rebelscum pal. Then, into the queue room for several hours of autographs.
First up, Ingrid Oliver. I had my own photo - an 11x14 I made of the 12th Doctor/Clara/Osgood/Kate Stewart promo from the Zygon two-parter - and a photo for my friend Lew.
There was a small issue with Ingrid and I thought I was going to miss her. I was getting Russ Mullan for someone on the RS forum, and we were lined up. The line did not move because apparently someone in that signing group had not showed up, and the Ingrid line was moving pretty quickly. Since I was towards the end already (they line you up by group number) I was starting to worry that she would finish before the other line started - but since so few people were there for Mullan, I was also worried that I would miss him. The woman running the lines in the hall then told us that Mullan was delayed, so I hopped into the Ingrid line about four people from the end. Ingrid was friendly enough, and signed Lew’s photo with no problem. I asked her to add Osgood to mine and she said ‘in case you forget later?’ I am shocked I was the first person to ask her to do that.
Then back to the queue room for Burn Gorman. He was signing alongside Samuel Anderson who I had no interest in (Danny Pink really killed season 8 for me, he was a really awful character). Sam was watching the Klitchko/Fury fight on his phone and drinking pints. He seemed like a lot of fun, and we talked about boxing a bit. Later as he was walking through the hall I congratulated him on the Fury win and he yelled ‘yeah, you don’t know shit about boxing!’ (I told him I thought Fury would lose). Sam seems fun, Danny Pink is still the worst character on this show since Martha’s mum. Burn was a nice guy. The guy sitting next to him made fun of Russell T Davies’ awful signature on Mark’s photo. Now I need Eve Myles and this thing is complete.
Dan Starkey was next. I bought three tickets instead of two for him accidentally. I finally started the Paternoster Gang photo that I should have started with Neve McIntosh at the C2E2 and since I had the extra ticket, I had him sign and personalize another photo to me. He was very quiet when I met him. While walking up to him, I passed a very bored looking Finn Jones and Ian McNiece and felt bad for them, but not bad enough to pay for their autographs.
I then got John Levene for my friend Lew, and got back in line for Paul McGann. Paul was incredibly nice, and spent time talking to everyone. He started to personalize my photo and I stopped him and his signature strayed a bit over the edge of the photo. I stopped him from personalizing because I had an idea for a wall display of autographs - all of my Doctors, matted and framed in order. That can’t happen with this photo now because the matte would cover part of his autograph. So, I either abandon the idea or I get a new Eighth Doctor photo signed. I did tell him why I didn’t want the personalization and told him that I would now have every living Doctor aside from Christopher Eccleston. ‘Good luck’ he told me. I told him how Euros Lyn once told me that CE is the nicest human being in the world and would sign if I met him in public, but he would never do a convention. ‘Of course, they said the same about you, and here you are,’ I added and he smiled and said ‘well, they got it half right’. And off I went, 2015 in the books.
I had a great time, even though it was a little hectic with the autographs all overlapping at the end. The guy in charge of the queue room really has his stuff together and made it an easy process, even with so many groups signing or doing photo ops at the same time.
That being said, I am not planning on going in 2016 unless the guests really blow me away (Arthur Darvill, Jemma Redgrave and Catrin Stewart would do that for sure, as well as Peter Davison again so I can get him on an 11x14 for the project I mentioned above. My current PD autograph is a personalized 8x10). I am going to be hopefully buying a new house in 2016 and need to watch my budget a lot better than I did this year. Right now, my plan is to only attend Comic Con International in San Diego. Wizard World Madison would be a go if they do general admission autographs for David Tennant, and the C2E2 would be tempting if they add Willa Holland or Mike Colter, but my plan right now is no other cons and no getting help from friends or people I know on forums in order to save money. Of course, I wouldn’t be shocked to be writing another of these reports in 2016 but the current plan is to take a sabbatical for 2016.
