The convention is just days away

Hey folks, the convention is just a few short days away. In four days I'll be leaving my cold, wintery Northern Indiana climate for the beaches of Southern California. Last year, my plans to do daily reports kind of fizzled. I think it happens when running around and hanging out with friends.

So, with that in mind I'm thinking of "tweeting" from the convention. Yes, you heard me... tweeting. Last year, I didn't get cell phone service in the basement of the convention hall. I'm hoping my new phone will have better reception, but I'm not holding out much hope. In any case, I'll still tweet important notes if necessary. Though, I doubt anything interesting will come out of this year's convention.

My twitter page is http://twitter.com/jlzellers.

I also plan on posting daily photos. This year, since I invested in about SEVEN 8 gb SD cards for my camera, I'm going take photos in both RAW and JPG format which will allow me to post images hopefully faster without the conversion crap that I have to do with RAW. You will notice that my images will be watermarked with WHOSYER PHOTOGRAPHY across the middle part of the photo.

Also, I plan writing up a series of articles to be published on the Xena Online Website. I'm going to interview peeps at the convention each day. We'll see that goes.

Peace.

Special friends and great times

On Thursday, I started hearing a rumor about some special surprise planned for Sunday (the last day of the convention). Earlier, I had thought that wow... Joseph LoDuca and Rob Tapert appearing at the convention... there was no mention of a "Legend of the Seeker" panel (though I suspected as much). Once I got the schedule, I realized that there was indeed an "LotS" panel--so that shot down a very unlikely (yet, plausible theory) of a word on a "Xena" movie.

Sunday rolls around and Lucy is on stage. She's talking about stuff and mentions that she has an special friend she'd like to introduce...

None other than Claire Stansfield. I can't remember the last convention she's been too. I know the last time I saw her was in January 2002 at the Chicago "Strong Women of Sci-Fi" Convention in which Claire and Alex Tydings appeared.

It was truly a special treat. Claire just simple rocks on stage and I wish she'd appear more. I dont' know why she wasn't asked. (There was a mention about not knowing her phone number or something... I don't know.) Claire called up Creation and asked to appear.

Doesn't matter that she took some of Lucy's stage time... it was just AWESOME seeing Claire on stage. (Yes, she did the Alti voice.)


Claire gave us a rundown on what she has been doing since she last time she 'saw us.'

(She was originally scheduled for the 2005 convention, but had to pull out at the last moment because of a business matter relating to her company. I don't recall who exactly replaced her, I want to say Bruce Hopkins (Hoskins?) who was a good friend of Kevin Smith's and also appeared on several episodes of "Xena" and "Hercules".)

She had a company called C & C that made designer t-shirts, but she has since sold that company. The company really took off after Oprah featured the shirts as part of her "favorite things" episode a few years ago. Claire is no a consultant for Oprah's "favorite things."

Seeing Claire and Lucy on stage provided me with some of the best shots that I took at the convention. There's also a couple of really good shots of Lucy and Renee on stage as well.

(A caption to the photo on the left would be... quick, they have cameras let's get a goofy expression!)

Claire didn't mention whether or not she's working as an actor anymore. (Or if she did, I don't remember.) Anyways, it was definitely a surprise and one that tops Lucy and Renee popping out of the stage cake at the 2005 Convention.

Check out More of Sunday's Photos from the Convention

2010 Convention News and 2009 Convention Report

Creation will start selling the 2010 Gold package tickets today (around 3 p.m. eastern time). They are $479 (up $20 from last year). So stay tuned.

The XOC is already working on it's 2010 Convention meet-up. Right now, we have a post for people looking for roommates. We'll post news and updates concerning the convention to this thread on the XOC.

We'll eventually launch the Official 2010 XOC meet-up thread.

Here's an image from our 2009 meet up (this is from Sunday, the last day of the convention). We have a nice little banner that uses the Journey Logo that Aurora Goddess (back row, on the right) created for the forum. The text on the banner is from our "Xenites" icon that we some times use in promotional material. We could start our own little United Nations with this image... really!

Check out more of my convention photos at my Flickr page.

I had a blast at the 2009 convention. I'm still working on my report, though it is available on the XOC in the Conventions Forum. (Just search for xwpweb and you'll find my postings.)

I'm also working on getting all of my images up and onto the website (in both the photo gallery and another section of the website) in the coming weeks.

The XOC Guide to Xena Conventions is also getting a retooling and will be available either later this spring or early this summer. I'm going to kick it out of MS Word and format it Adobe InDesign. I'm also gonna do a brochure to have available at the convention.

Stay tuned for more updates!