Twilight, Travel, and Treats

So last month I posted that I wasn't sure if I should go to the Official Twilight Convention Tour or TwiTour for short.

I can't believe I almost didn't go. What the hell was I thinking? I am so glad you girls all convinced me and broke me out of my lunacy.

The convention ran from Friday May 14th to Sunday May 16th 2010 but I only attended the Sunday events. We bought Preferred Day passes so we'd have front row seats reserved the whole day but that's all you get.

Want to see the schedule for the convention? This is my pic of the program. Seriously not expecting you to read it for real but here you go.




By the way, so glad that I'm already in Italy in June because I am super tempted to go and sit front row in LA. I mean if Mr. TC would have flown home early for NHL playoffs I can fly home for Rob can't it?

Warning - long and detailed posts - what else did you expect from me :)

Location - Sheraton Wall Centre hotel - also where the cast happens to stay when they're in town since you can lock down the floors very securely.

down the escalator - it's coming!

Charity Brunch and Auction with Peter Facinelli and Cameron Bright



So let's cut to the chase. Red_Bella from Victoria (a short ferry trip away on Vancouver Island) came over with her friend for the whole weekend. She was nice enough to save me and MK seats for brunch.

I was expecting a huge room and was surprised there were only 4 tables with 10 seats at each table. Brunch was continental and for 89 bucks we got some hot eggs, bacon, and sausage. They let us eat before the actors got there. Better than the stale muffins I'd heard they'd had at other conventions so MK was pleased to eat a good lunch.

They had 9 of us at each table and left an empty seat for the actor. MK happened to have the empty seat next to her and frankly didn't want it. She kept claiming she wasn't that big a fan (as she was only there to keep me company) and offered to let someone else sit next to the celebrities but in the end no one moved.

Cameron Bright came in first - we were only allowed to take photos for a few seconds.

Cameron Bright sauntered in - oh to be 17

Reminder that this is him in New Moon

Cameron Bright as Alec

Cameron came and sat at our table for 30 minutes. He was in the seat next to MK and on the other side of him was the only child in the room - a lucky 14 year old girl. Cameron is a local to our parts and ended up chatting with all the women at the table about Vancouver Island. He seemed like a typical 17 year old skater who happened to be used to being in the public eye. Well spoken and not too egotistical.

Peter Facinelli came in a few minutes after Cameron - with almost no notice! No good pictures from me - I was way too flustered and I'm still waiting for MK's photos.

PFach really is more handsome in real life - sorry, cameras away ladies!

Peter took his time with every table and the table behind us was howling. Apparently one of the girls asked him to pull her finger and that was officially the strangest thing a fan had ever asked him to do. He got to our table last and at 12:10. We were worried because Catherine Hardwicke was supposed to be starting her Q&A panel downstairs at 12:20. Well, we weren't disappointed with Peter - he stayed for almost 30 minutes with us. Catherine could wait.

He sat down next to MK and proceeded to pick up her sunglasses and put them on. One of the women asked if we could take a photo of him and he was totally fine with it so the handlers stayed back.

He's wearing MK's sunglasses

MK is fully aware that she is never allowed to wash her sunglasses and must now forever wear them with Peter Facinelli's sweat on her face.

Before he could start talking about anything I leaned over since he was just a seat over and told him "my friend Dangrdafne loves you - see, here are the tweets she just sent me." He took my iPhone from me and started reading this out loud

The tweets Peter read out loud to everyone

Sorry to embarrass you Dangrdafne but I'm sure you understand why it was necessary.

He then hands me back to the phone and says "Call her." I looked at him stunned and stupidly said "I don't have her number; she lives in Pennsylvania."
Peter says "send her a DM and ask her."
Oh my god I am so stupid because I think "what if she doesn't get my message? Then this will be wasted and he won't have communicated with her at all. Twitter is a guarantee" so I say "can you send her a tweet for now?"

So he takes the phone and tweets to Dangrdafne. He says he can tweet, talk, and drive all at the same time. We politely tell him that's illegal in Vancouver. Some other smarter woman at the table calls up her bff in LA whom Peter proceeds to have a conversation with while texting Dangrdafne.

His phone conversation with the other woman goes "Hi. This is Peter Facinelli. No, it's not Jesus Christ. It's Peter. How are you doing? Oh, I didn't know they were having one [a convention] in LA. Next month? Really, oh well I'm sure I'll find out about that one later. I hope to see you there." etc etc.

This is Peter's tweet from my twitter account cupcakegirl76:


I then proceeded to spend another 5 minutes scouring my email for Dangrdafne's phone number but to no avail. Sorry sweetie!

Highlights of Brunch with Peter:
- he asked us if we watched Nurse Jackie - when we said that we did he asked - "did you guys see the one where I grabbed the old ladies boob? I think it was just on last week" There was a quiet mumble from us since no one could admit we hadn't seen it yet. That thread of conversation died down pretty fast and I kinda felt bad - HBO in Canada is so behind!

- when I asked him if he knew where they're filming Breaking Dawn he replied that he didn't know but will probably find out a couple days before. He did mention that if it was Illinois it was possible because all they needed were sound stages for the interior shots.



- he found out about his read for the part of Carlisle the day before his audition with Catherine Hardwicke and then there was no script for him

- he read all the Twilight books quickly and said he found them addictive

- he spent a month before shooting the suturing scene just practicing and the day of shooting he didn't manage to prick Kristen Stewart once

- he researched the entire timeframe of Carlisle's life and what would have been happening at each place historically

- he hasn't read Midnight Sun but remembers that Rob got an advanced copy. Peter's still waiting for Carlisle's POV :)

After our 30 minutes with him our time was up - he waved and said "see you all later this afternoon" and left. Impression? Handsome, down to earth, and gracious. Frankly I wish every celebrity encounter was that good.

Just in case Dangrdafne and I want to clone Peter Facinelli one day...do you ever wonder if you sat next to Rob at a bar would you save his napkin? Well, here's the answer to that question:

Yes indeed I saved PFach's used Red Bull can - I have no shame

The Auction part - before the actors even came in on the side of the room there were tables set up with auction items. We could bid throughout the brunch until after the actors left and then there'd be a last call.

Want to see what was for grabs? All proceeds went to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Gigantic Edward banner (he's mine now!)

Almost bid on this for you Twired Jen - except Jackson doesn't look so good

Wolf Package

Girls package - Autographed 8X10s under the hat

Guys package - once again autographed 8X10 photos

Each item ended up going for between 75 to 150 bucks. The Jackson poster went for the most money.

I was in a very mini bidding war with a girl for the Edward banner and the Girls package of stuff. MK is so sneaky she told me to let the girl win the package of stuff so she'd be happy when I outbid her for Edward. Totally worked! I got to set my banner aside and pick it up at the end of the day.


Regular Twilight Auction


The Twilight Auction for all the regular convention attendees happened in the afternoon.

Stage set up for auction

Banners autographed by celebrities from the weekend

Banners that were all auctioned off

Jacob went for almost 200 bucks

I am so happy that my New Moon Edward was up for the brunch auction instead. There was a banner of Twilight Edward (not nearly as nice) that went at the public auction for a lot more than what I paid for mine at lunch :)

By the way, do any of you watch the TV show Supernatural? They are filmed in Vancouver and apparently their convention is huge. They sold some autographed Supernatural 8X10 glossy photos and they went for over 250 dollars.

A photo of Bella and Edward in the tree in Twilight that was autographed by Rob and Kristen went for 675 dollars. The woman laughed how she was going to justify this to her husband.


Autograph & Photo Ops

We had purchased our autograph and photo ops tickets online before the conference and picked them up when we registered in the morning. They would have been mailed to us if we had ordered them more than two weeks before the convention.
MK is such a minimalist that she would throw out her autographed merchandise and photos within two weeks after getting them. She generously let me use her signature opportunities for my own stuff.

The line for Catherine Hardwicke's autograph was surprisingly short since we went to the 10:20am session before the brunch.

in line waiting for autographs

snapped this pic right before we were told no photos allowed

Catherine Hardwicke has her critics and she comes across on the Twilight DVD as a bit fluffy. But I was very excited to meet her. A successful female director is to be celebrated and meeting anyone who has been that integral in my life is definitely worth a few bucks.
While you're in line they'll put a sticky note with the personalization you want on the item ahead of time. Catherine was really nice and when I asked her to make it out to "Dr. TC" she asked what kind of doctor I was. Told her I was a family doc seeing mostly women and babies. Then I handed her Mrs. P's avi and told her the story about Mrs. P's travels. I didn't have time to tell her that Mrs. P already had Jackson and Peter's autographs. Catherine said "you've never met this woman?" She genuinely seemed baffled that we have this online blogging community that are almost like modern day penpals.

My copy of the directors notebook almost a year old.

It's odd that the only copy of Twilight I could find for her to sign was my Hong Kong edition. Betcha she hasn't done that before.

We had Catherine's photo ops session later that day. You show up with your ticket and you are allowed two people in a picture per ticket. When you are about three people away from the actor there is a long table for you to put your stuff down on. Everyone is very trusting and just leaves their purse and all their precious Twilight belongings but it's only a couple feet from the photographer. Then you're rushed in and literally have the celebrity's arms around you for one shot. You are with them for all of 5 seconds and hope the photo turns out. The photographer briefly checks their screen and I'm guessing just to make sure the actors eyes are open. That's still 5 seconds of a celebrity hugging you :)

After we did our photo with Catherine she yelled out to me "the doctor right?" and waved. MK and I couldn't believe she remembered me hours later after meeting so many fans.

Peter's photo op line up was longer and even then we only waited about 15 minutes. Nothing different from Catherine's photos otherwise.

Since it was the last day of the convention we couldn't pick up our photos. We will have to wait until May 31st to go online and get our photos sent to us.

The last thing we did that day was line up for Peter's autograph. They called up the Gold Pass and then the Preferred Weekend ticket holders row by row first. People who had won banners in the auction that also won an autograph ticket with it got in line early as well. After about 20 minutes they opened it up to people who had bought autograph tickets.

Peter's forte is not the signing session. He was totally flustered and barely looked up.

love that he signed Dr. TC with Dr. Cullen and tried signing P Facinelli

then he gave up and signed PFacinelli at the bottom of Catherine's disc

He got flustered - tried to use a black sharpie then had to change to a silver one

Q&A Panels with Peter Facinelli and Catherine Hardwicke

We are stage right front row

The panels were held with the official stage but I think it was slightly dismantled since all the banners were about to be auctioned off.

We arrived at Catherine's session quite late since we were busy having brunch with Peter.

Seriously once again no pictures. They are sticklers for no audio and videotaping and MK and I were too stunned to take out our cameras for her.

Highlights of Catherine Hardwicke's talk:
- the thing that stands out of course is about how she really did warn Rob that "in our country the legal age of consent is 18 [which it is in Oregon] and that he was expected to toe the line." She said she definitely felt the chemistry between the two of them right away which is why they chose him in the first place.

- she used the phrase "now that they are together" once in the day referring to Rob and Kristen

- lots of stories about Nikki Reed as a 13 year old - like how she would spend 2 1/2 hr in the morning before school getting perfect model hair and makeup ready

Peter's Q&A

The Question box at registration for Peter

This was the highlight of the event for most people. He was so easy going and open to questions that it just felt like fun for him and us. Very humble and also proud of acting as an art.

Yeah he was pretty frickin close to our seats :)

He spent most of the time on stage answering questions submitted to the box collected over the weekend. Then he went around the room and answered peoples questions on the spot.

Highlights of Peter's Talk:
- first of all I realized that Twilight Lexicon was sitting next to me in the front row. They were tweeting their updates and it was surreal to witness that as those gals are celebrities in their own right. I couldn't help but send them a tweet too from my seat. I know that they tweeted some of the things below but I'll still mention them.

- I have this part sneakily videotaped but won't post it - when asked if Rob really doesn't shower Peter answers "well, I've never actually been in a room with him and said dude you really need to shower. I think it's just a sort of new grunge thing. I've never asked him about his routine" and then laughs.

- in response to "Which werewolf would you choose to be?" he responded "Obviously Jacob because then I'd get to be buff. But I'd also have to fall in love with a baby and that's just gross. In fact I think you'd go to jail for that in most states."

- he remarked how it was odd that Carlisle never happened to be around when they really needed him.
Like right when Edward finds James but has to fight by himself in the ballet studio, Peter commented "weren't we in the same car together? You're telling me you ran faster from the parking lot by that much?"
Or when Bella goes into labour he just happens to not be there - Peter laughs "what Edward - you had to chew the baby out?"

- someone asked what kind of medical training Peter had to learn to be Carlisle - he couldn't recall anything specific except he had to learn where her leg injury was for the ballet scene. He then lamented that the only thing he was supposed to do was apply pressure to the wound which seemed like such a boring thing. Peter found it funny that he couldn't help Edward suck out the venom because he was too busy applying pressure to her leg - another case of Dr. Cullen not being useful according to him.

- he drank a Starbucks on stage saying that while he was in Vancouver he had to have one of these. When someone in the crowd tried to correct him by saying he should have a Timmy's [Tim Horton's coffee] he said "but you have one [Starbuck's] everywhere. You sometimes even have two on the same corner." Totally true of that on Robson Street.
He also proceeded to knock over his coffee saying that it was another embarrassing moment for Peter Facinelli.

Peter picking up his knocked over Starbucks

- it was great to hear his stories of being a shy teenager. Apparently he wouldn't get in the cafeteria line for the first three years of high school and only ate from the pretzel cart on the other side. Three years of pretzels for lunch!

- another embarrassing story - he was in a yoga class once and was toweling off his mat after a particularly grueling pose. The girl next to him leans over and says "excuse me but that's my towel." He sheepishly handed it to her. Then at the end of class after the relaxing on the floor part the same girl leaned over and said "you're lying on my towel again." He proceeded to peel the sweat sodden thing off the ground and ask if she wants him to wash it. She responded "no that's okay, I'll just sell it on ebay."

- when he was walking around one of the little girls asked him what his favourite colour was. Apparently it's blue.

- when asked what actor (dead or living) he would love to act with he answered Paul Newman

- off the record he admitted that he almost dated Tori Spelling. Apparently when he first got to LA he got her number from a party. Then he ended up going off somewhere and when he came back he met Jennie Garth instead and never had a chance to call up Tori. He swears that he didn't watch 90210 and didn't have some plan to date the whole cast.

standing room only in the back

- he has three daughters and assistant coaches a softball team and also goes RVing a lot with the kids

- when someone asked if Peter had any advice for her husband as a father of daughters he answered "no, but does he have any advice for me?" He then went on to say what a great mother his wife is and that if he just follows her lead that he thinks he'll be fine.

- when he filmed Eclipse in Vancouver he was also flying to New York to film Nurse Jackie and flying back home to LA to be with his family. Sometimes he'd fly from Vancouver to LA just to have dinner with his girls and then fly back to Vancouver in the same night.

- when asked where his favourite place in Vancouver to film was - he answered to be honest he didn't know. As an actor you get the call to be down at 5am so he gets up at 4:57am. At 5am they pick you up from the hotel and throw you in a white van. When they get to the first set he joked they just kick you out and sometimes don't even stop. You act and then you get back in the white van and go back to your hotel. He doesn't even know where he filmed most things.

- he remembered liking the Japanese restaurant Tojo's in Vancouver and then joked that if they film Breaking Dawn here all the fans will be at Tojo's

- apparently all the men in the cast spent a lot of time at the gym while they were in Vancouver. Partly to avoid the paparazzi crowds as well. They'd end up doing exercises everywhere. He recalled one time he was in the elevator and it opened and there was Kellan doing push ups on the floor. He said "you win" and got right back in and went back to his room to go back to sleep.

- if he wasn't an actor he would work at Blockbuster because then he could work with movies all day - a girl in the front row said she worked at Blockbuster and he asked her right away if she gets discounts and free rentals.
Apparently he did some schooling in pre-law and told a story about this lawyer boss he worked with who had no hands. He went into great detail about how this guy was able to do everything and had so much power despite his disabilities.

- he skypes a lot with his daughters when he is filming. Apparently when his three year old was watching the hospital scene of Twilight she was upset that daddy wasn't answering her back because she thought he was on skype and was asking him questions.

- when asked what he said to Rob right before he bit him in Twilight he retold the story that he was sure we all had heard - that he said "I'm sorry" then "Be reborn my son" and lastly "Rob, you're so sexy" The last one apparently made Rob almost laugh and you can see him about to smile on the take they used in the film.

- he talks a lot about Carlisle's scarf (in fact he planted one of us from brunch to ask this question during the Q&A) - it's not in the book or script but Peter thought it made Carlisle look more like an old world gentleman but then had to figure out how to incorporate it into Eclipse because he didn't think it would be smart to be wearing one during the fight scenes.

- lastly, at the end someone started asking him for hugs and eventually about 5 women had asked. The organizers advised "no more hugs" because they were running out of time.

The Vendors




You all know I LOVE to shop so I was in heaven here. Firstly the official 8X10 glossies from Summit went for $5 each.

photo courtesy of Inside Vancouver.ca

There were autographed 8X10's as well of some supporting actors going for 20-30 bucks each.

New Moon and Eclipse make up artist Leslie Graham offering vampire makeup for $35 (photo courtesy Inside Vancouver.ca)

The vampire makeover looked interesting but didn't think I could stand next to Peter in my photo op with me in full vampire makeup and him looking all normal and handsome.

Our local big pharmacy London Drugs had the Volturi makeup on display. Heartbreaking that the Team Jacob line was way more wearable (bronze, browns, taupes) than the Team Edward line (pink and blue glitter).

Official merchandise from NECA




There was a huge Hillywood booth as well and official Twilight Convention T shirts but only L/XL left.

So what kind of Twilight stuff did I come back with?

smells tropical like coconut

They had The Wedding, Isle Esme, The Cottage, etc. Tempting to get them all

Absolutely positively in love with my giant Edward banner. So glad this was auctioned off at brunch. Don't know if I could have beat out all the other crazy women at the public auction.

Here it is compared to my Twilight piano book

Can you see my toes and hands peeking out? Seriously 6 ft tall banner

I have a thing for umbrellas. This was their last one.

I also bought all the 8X10 glossies that had either Edward/Bella or just Edward or Bella on their own. No other way to have such big pictures in such high quality.

So sigh that it's over. Thanks for reading this super duper long post but for those of you who LOVE details it's all here.

What did I miss? Red Bella attended the whole weekend. She said Daniel Cudmore (Felix) was the best and Jodelle Ferland (Bree) was super cute. The Vampire Ball was apparently too well attended and there weren't enough seats so she and her friend left.

If they ever come back you know I'll be first in line buying tickets. Now if only I could get to LA in June...
*********
Post Update - after I tweeted this post I was found by RobbedMyHeart who happened to be sitting right across from me during brunch. She was kind enough to send me a few of her photos - so Lisa this is all you get until my photo ops pictures get here. Damn I think I'll be in Italy already.

Peter swaggers in

Peter with MK's sunglasses and the infamous Red Bull can

RobbedMyHeart had a great view of Peter