Official Twilight Eclipse Convention LA!!! 6/12/10 (Part 1)

*Note to all: The grainy crappy pics are from my camera. In part 2, I will use some other peeps pics & of course give credit to the rightful owners.

PART 1.

Sat morning I awoke at 6:30am with a sh*t eating grin plastered across my face...a rarity at that hour of the morning. It was the crazy type of grin that only thoughts of THE PRECIOUS could evoke. Sure I barely slept that night, if at all, but I was ready to rock n' roll. As I stumbled out of bed & wandered towards the bathroom, I was horrified at the image that stood before me. I'd gone to bed with perfect hair and awoke with bangs that had been smooshed in half on the side of my forehead. I proceeded to yell at my bangs, "F*ck you! Of all days you decide to look like ass, you choose ROB DAY? Bastards!" Meanwhile I receive a text from Elusive S that simply says, "7:30?"...I had planned to pick her up at 7:15am. It was fine with me...gave me 15 more minutes to tame the bangs.

Eventually I found myself running out the door & miraculously made it to ES by 7:25am. We stopped to get coffee prior to getting on the freeway....we needed it big time. Thankfully there wasn't much traffic and we only stopped once in Orange County to go to the bathroom (hello coffee!) About 3/4 of the way there, I started to panic. Lisa texted me that Twilove01 was already there, and had asked where we were. WE... were still about 25 minutes away...Traffic started to build and I was overcome with road rage. The Cullen panel was due to start about 10:15am, and damn it if I was going to miss it. Believe it or not, we got there, registered & made it to the ballroom with a few minutes to spare.

As we walked in and found our seats, we were pleased to find that they were closer than we had anticipated. They weren't great, but they were good. The Hillywood Show was in the midst of doing a New Moon skit (I think..lol) and then proceeded to ask us to welcome Peter Facinelli, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene & Elizabeth Reaser. At that point I realized my pictures were going to be crap. It was pretty dark except for the stage lights.

Front to back, Peter, Nikki, Hillywood Jackson, real Jackson, Ashley & Elizabeth walking on stage.

This was pretty much our view. The Hillywood show sat off to the sides of the stage to
ask audience submitted questions.

Sorry for the big font...blogger is being a b*tch and it's either large or small...no medium.

ES & I had never been to a Twilight Convention before, so we weren't sure how the panels were run. It turns out that the audience has the opportunity to submit "appropriate" questions prior to the panel. The Hillywood Show goes through and asks a handful of them over the course of about 40 minutes. As for the Cullen panel, I thought it was pretty cool. Peter is really cute & sort of takes on the patriarchal role. He seemed very down to earth. Nikki smiled a lot and seemed to genuinely enjoy the fans. Jackson is charming, funny & kind of a smart ass in a sexy way, but we already knew that :) Ashley Greene is absolutely flawless, soft spoken & very sweet. As for Elizabeth, she didn't talk too much. She seemed very friendly and sweet. After the panel the group walked off to the side of the stage to sign the huge banner/poster right in front of us. They kept the lights low, so they all ended up looking like the Volturi in my pics...

Elizabeth, Ashley & Jackson waiting for Nikki to finish signing.

Nikki was the only one that turned to talk to the fans, which was really cool. Ash & Jackson are to her right. I must admit that in a lot of Robsten FF...they portray Nikki as the attention whore...hmmm???
Nah, she seemed super cool.

After the Cullen panel was the Bad Vamp panel with Bryce Dallas Howard & Xavier Samuel. Elusive S asked if I wanted to check it out...I shrugged and we stayed put just to see what it was all about. I'm glad we stayed. Of course like many of you, I'm a HUGE fan of Rachelle LeFevre. However I was so impressed by Bryce. She's truly a sweetheart...so grateful and humble. And let me tell you, the girl is STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL in person. Photos do not do that girl justice. As for Xavier....HAWT! He sort of has this snarky Aussie boy attitude. Plus he seems really novice to the whole fan thing. Just sayin'... I didn't take any pics of this panel because I was scared to death of wasting my battery pre-precious. LMAO!

Next up, ES & I went to peruse the vendor area, and also to see if we could find Twilove01...As for the vendor area, I thought it was just....eh. Twilight Cupcake would probably disown for me for saying that... They had good deals on cardboard cut outs...aka FSE, they had Twilight make up, Eclipse shirts, 8x10 portraits etc. I guess I expected to see things that you couldn't get elsewhere, and a much bigger collection. I don't know, maybe it's just me....I'd rather get an inconspicuous Cullen baseball hoodie from Cafe Press. Again...just sayin'. [pondering it now, I realize that many people may not have the opportunities that we do in CA, so maybe this was a huge collection of Twi stuff to them...and I'm glad everyone got to experience it.] I did walk away with a free "Victoria Barbie" bookmark and a Venom bite mark fake tattoo!

Oh look! It's F-Kat, Twilove01 (Sue), Twired Jen (me) & ES in front of Bella's truck!
(It was so great to finally meet Sue in person, as we'd been twittering/emailing back & forth)
This was actually taken later in the day, but I'm too lazy to arrange the pics.

"THE Motorcycles!!!"

Lion & Lamb!!! Oh, and ES in the background on the Eclipse Red Carpet.

ES & I had barely eaten anything all morning, so we decided to take a break & grab some lunch at the Pink Taco, located in the mall a couple of blocks from the hotel. The place was hyped up quite a bit online as being super trendy Mexican...but surprisingly, ended up being delicious!

Lunch had to involve some refreshments ;)
I think ES was texting Lisa...

After lunch we went back to catch a panel that was supposed to be the 2nd installment of the mornings Eclipse Press Kit panel. Too bad I'm a big fat spoiler whore, because I'd seen everything they were showing online already...prior to the convention. We also happened to catch a bit of the Stump the Experts panel. We ended up walking out of that one because the guy that was hosting it was a total douchebag. He was really rude to fans when they got the question wrong and he was super pompous. I had heard that this was the first convention that Summit had total control of...not sure if that's true, but I wouldn't be surprised.

In the afternoon ES & I had some serious time to kill, and were starting to feel the afternoon slump. It was about 3pm and we had 3 more hours until the Wolfpack panel and 4 hours till the Motherload...aka Rob, Kris & Tay... So, ES suggested that we sit out by the pool and enjoy the sunshine.

I don't sparkle in the sun...but I might blind you!

After a few "cocktails" & some great convo, we made our way back inside for the wolfpack panel. These pics came out really crappy, so I'm not going to include them. The Wolfpack panel included Alex Meraz, Julia Jones & Chaske Spencer. They all pronounce it "Chas-kay"...whereas I thought it was "Chas-kee." Hmm...Anyhoo, these 3 were great! Alex Meraz is hysterical, & both Julia and "Chas-kay" are very cool! They seem to have a great dynamic, and appreciation of the fans. At one point, Alex Meraz was asked to dance ballet...and after some hesitation, he broke out some sweet break dancing moves. I'm sure if you search for it on youtube, it's there. The boy is talented for sure.

After the Wolfpack panel, we rushed off to the bathroom to squeeze off the last possible bit of pee prior to The Motherload. They were due to go on at 7pm...the crowd was a buzz. They staff had to bring in extra chairs for all of those with general admin tickets. I swear you could feel the electricity in the air. I couldn't sit still & we were super freaking excited.

Twired much?

As the fans waited...squeals would erupt every time someone walked out from the side of the stage...Eventually it was announced that they would be running late. They'd had the official Eclipse Press Junket interviews all day and were subsequently held up. It only made the anticipation worse. To entertain us...as if we needed it, they started playing clips of Eclipse...most of the stuff that you can see online. At this point the crowed was screaming every time Edward or Jacob came on the screen. At one point, someone initiated the wave. It was hysterical and went on for a good 5 minutes. People also chanted "We want Rob!'

The rest is continued in the next post! Don't worry, it's almost finished...it will be up before you finish this one :)