Hi everyone, for anyone who's interested I thought I'd share my experience of the day. We attended one talk and five autograph signings so I'll cover each:
Marina Sirtis guest talk:
General admission guests (which included us) were sat at the back of a very large room with half left for the big spenders. Then when the front half didn't fill, they took us row by row to move a little closer. As soon as Marina comes out she goes "Why are you all sat back there? I'm not talking to empty chairs, come forward!". There was a big rush, which I think mortified the staff, but we all got a better view and it brought the energy in the room up.
Marina was excellent. Incredibly outspoken and, as she said herself, does not care what other people think about her. She was very honest about being a bit sick of talking Trek after all these years, but was still game to share stories and answer questions.
Trek related tidbits I can recall... She was made to sign her contract before her final audition so she wouldn't be able to ask for more money, so she consciously chose to not read any of it. She talked about her accent as Deanna and how she'd understood that she was inventing how people from Betazed would sound only for that to be ignored when her parents were introduced. She said her best friend from Trek is Dorn, and she's also still close with Frakes. She didn't enjoy how Picard was filmed as they'd do scenes out of order across multiple episodes, rather than how TNG would be an episode at a time. She also was dissatisfied with how Deanna was mostly stuck with a kid while the other characters did more exciting things.
Carolyn Seymour:
The signing queues fluctuated throughout the day and when we saw Carolyn (who was sat at the table next to Marina) there wasn't anyone behind us so we were able to spend a bit more time chatting. My husband and I basically gushed at her for a while about how much we enjoy her characters and know we're in for a good episode when her name pops up in the opening credits. She seemed very flattered by that. We talked a bit about her Romulan characters and how she's one of a handful of actors to play so many reoccurring roles. We also mentioned that we'd recently gotten married, Marina overheard and shouted across the table "That means they're still having sex, for now! How do you get two people to stop having sex? Get married!" I'm obsessed. Carolyn signed a photo for us and wrote congratulations on it which I thought was very sweet. Commander Toreth says gay rights!
Marina Sirtis:
I was wearing a Seven of Nine tshirt and Marina says "wrong show, you've come to see me and you've worn the wrong tshirt. No it's alright cos I actually really like Jeri." Honestly, her humour is so dry it's a bit intimidating but I'll happily be picked apart by Marina any day. She'd mentioned misogyny being ingrained in Hollywood during her talk and I asked if she thought Deanna's love of chocolate ("Im treating myself to two chocolate sundaes") was sexist like I did. She agreed and went on to talk about how she actually hates milk chocolate, and milk, and then we somehow started chatting about how we take our cereal. She did say that she'd be made to eat all this chocolate but then would get calls shortly after telling her she looked fat, and that there's a producer on the show that she could ruin but she likes his wife too much to do it. She also said something verrry funny and controversial about DS9 where she didn't name anyone but I still don't think I should say. That one can stay just between us haha.
Robert O'Reilley:
My husband was going to get a photo with Robert but we missed the timeslot and got an autograph instead. Glad we did because he was so friendly and talkative. We talked about his favourite Gowron episode (his first appearance) and just generally a lot about his character and what made him so successful. Like Carolyn he seemed to be very touched that we were so keen. At the end of our long chat he added a "Qapla'!" to our signed photo which I'll take as a badge of honour.
Robert Duncan McNeill:
This is when the queues started to get much longer and I found it a bit daunting. Nobody actually rushed us at any point but I can't help feeling a bit pressured. Anyway, because of that I did feel a bit manic speaking with Robert and we didn't really get to chat, but I told him about how much I love Voyager and showed him a tattoo that I have (when else am I gonna get the chance haha). He kindly signed a toy I have of Tom Paris turning into the salaamander thing and we both agreed the episode is underrated. He said the ending was wacky and I said "yeah, it's camp!". I massively regret though that I didn't ask him to write "pepperoni!". Also he was happy to sign a photo too but a member of staff stopped us to say we'd have to pay another £30 (sigh) so I didn't bother.
Tim Russ:
Tim was the most quiet and didn't immediately make eye contact but I get the feeling it might not have been his comfort zone (which I fully get, I was stressed just being the one asking for the autograph). However, I did get to gush at him about how Voyager is my favorite Trek I did manage to make him properly laugh as I was leaving.
Everything else:
Armin Shimmerman and Cirroc Lofton were also there but we didn't meet them as I'm not a huge DS9 person plus the cost really adds up!
To give a brief overview of the venue: It was in a Britannia hotel in Blackpool which, without trying to be too harsh, is a dive. The signage set up by Destination was very poor and it was hard to decipher where things were. The staff, while all very nice, weren't very well informed. Through the day we asked different staff pretty simple questions like "how much is X" and "if we attend X, will there be time to do X" to be told "I don't know sorry". The queue to pay for things was always very long and moved incredibly slowly as there were just 2 staff managing it. Considering it was already £40 each to get in (and to be honest we could have easily walked in without anyone noticing), the only things worth doing were attending paid talks and paying to meet the cast. For us, that's what we expected and were willing to do so I'm not complaining, but I wouldn't recommend anyone going if they weren't willing or able to pay for all those extras.
Anyway, that was my experience. Did anyone else go?
