Summoners Storybook

Well Armageddon 2009 is over. The event was massive, having changed venue to the Greenlane event centre, it was expected to be easier to get around, due to the larger space involved. This however, was not too be the case. It appears that Armageddon has almost outgrown the new venue the first year it was there.

Though, it was easier to get around still, particularly the last two days. The usual stalls were there, Sony's rock band and DJ Hero provided event goers much entertainment. There was stalls galore that provided an ample excuse to empty people's wallets of money, it appears that the recession may not have affected the event in the way that other places have been.

Now to the good stuff, the celebrity guests. The main attraction, at least for me, was the inclusion of the Stargate Atlantis cast members, Jason Momoa, Paul McGillion and Joe Flanigan. Joe was a late replacement for the lovely Amanda Tapping, who had to pull out due to work commitments. This was not a big deal, because Joe pulled the crowds just as well (yeah I know, duh).

The other guests included Gigi Edgely from Farscape, who was gorgeous and brilliant, the great Michael Winslow, who sounds greater in person than he does on tv. Michael recounted a story about when he was staying in a friends place, he was upstairs which is where his friends bird is kept and the cat is not allowed up there, so they had to scare it away when it tried to come up. Michael had just been practicing with the sound of a Bengal tiger, which he tried on the cat. As the building had marble walls the sound reflected well and scared the living daylights out of the cat. It never went upstairs again! When asked about it, Michael said that he had gotten a 93% accuracy to an actual Bengal tiger in a test.

The last cast member was Bronson Pelletier, a cast member from Twilight's New Moon. He was a pretty nice guy, who also looked VERY young, and much different to the New Moon posters. At one point, Joe F came out to do a scheduled photo session, at that point there was a scream from the girls in the crowd which caused Joe F to look around before he realised that it was Bronson that they were screaming at. It was rather amusing.

The panel discussions from all the guests were excellent, though alot of the questions did end up getting repeated, so I think everyone got what thay wanted out of it.

A point of note from the SGA guys. At the moment, they have had NO indication that the SGA Movie (Extinction) will go ahead, and that they have not been asked for it. The script by Joe Mallozzi has definitely been written but not a priority.

On a lighter note, Joe F said he got called to his kids school one day because the kids were talking about what their parents did for a living, his kids said, their Dad flew through space blowing up bad guys and saving the universe. The teacher thought he should tell them what he really did, and he looked at the teacher, and basically said "Are you kidding me? Go to hell, my kids think I'm a superhero, how long does that last?" and walked out of the room.

Jason talked a little on the role he was going into next, to which the name escapes me at this time. But it is based on a book and has him fighting and riding horses (he lamented that he hates horses, lol). Jason also mentioned that he wanted to be on Sanctuary, that night I sent a twitter message to Amanda Tapping and Damian Kindler saying this and asking what the chances were. Hopefully, that will lay the seed, but considering Sanctuary's schedules, probably not till season 3 (fingers crossed).

Paul did his final gold/silver pass panel of the event and did a few trivia questions to give away some set memorabilia to the crowd, like his set list, cast notes and a script for 'Intruder'. I could have (and wanted) that script because I knew the trivia answer before he finished asking, but I foolishely let him finish the question and wasn't fast enough. Damn! Really wanted that!

The next AWESOME part of the event was the "Legend of the Seeker" panel and autograph signing. There was the producer, Mark Beesely, Craig Parker, Craig Horner, Tabrett Bethell and the lovely, lovely BRIDGET REGAN. Sorry, about this but I was EXTREMELY excited about her (having taken 28 photos with just her in them). All of the people from Legend of the Seeker were great and friendly, I hope the show goes for quite a while.

Well, that's the main part of the event, so I'm going to finish it with the confirmation that Joe Flanigan, Jason Momoa and Paul McGillion ARE NOT on twitter!! (and Joe did know that someone had been impersonating him).