I am sitting in the airport. I am waiting for my flight back to Columbus. There is a woman sitting in front of me who is entirely too old to wear a tube top and mini skirt, but is doing exactly that. These things make me extremely sad because this past week was, quite possibly, the best week of my life. This past week was LeakyCon.
For those not in-the-know, LeakyCon is a giant Harry Potter conference put on by a website called The Leaky Cauldron (Visit it! You'll love it...unless you don't like HP, in which case, I don't think we can be friends anymore). The first LeakyCon was held in 2009 in Boston, which my sister attended. That was where she saw her first wizard-rock show and really started getting involved in the HP fandom. This time LeakyCon was going to coincide with the release of the second part of the seventh HP movie and I knew I HAD to go!
This post is mainly a list of my favorite 10 moments – kind of in order, kind of not – of the last five days.
10. Opening Festivities. At the opening ceremony for the conference Melissa Anelli asked a “randomly chosen fan” to come up on stage to “help with something”. When the fan got to the stage her boyfriend came out from backstage and proposed. After all the marital cuteness there was a video chronicling the journey that the HP fandom has taken from the very beginning. Between sections of the video there were live performances from Harry and the Potters, Hank Green, Starkid's Joey Richter and Lauren Lopez singing “Granger Danger,” and a live performance by The Potter Puppet Pals.
9. Open at the Close. This was the private overnight event at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This part of the park is designed to look like Hogsmede, including an owlery, Zonko's joke shop, Honeydukes candy shop, the Hogshead pub, the Three Broomsticks pub, and a 1/6 scale model of Hogwarts.
8. Closing festivities. On Sunday morning there was a huge brunch in the conference center. On stage the Starkid cast came out and started singing “Days of Summer.”
I don't wanna see you go,
But it's not forever, not forever!
Even it was,
You know that I would never let it get me down.
You're the part of me that makes me better,
Wherever I go!
So I will try
Not to cry--
But no one needs to say goodbye...
I, and everyone around me, was crying when they sang it. Then the Leaky staffers came out when they broke back into “Going Back to Hogwarts.”
But it's not forever, not forever!
Even it was,
You know that I would never let it get me down.
You're the part of me that makes me better,
Wherever I go!
So I will try
Not to cry--
But no one needs to say goodbye...
I, and everyone around me, was crying when they sang it. Then the Leaky staffers came out when they broke back into “Going Back to Hogwarts.”
7. Starkid t-shirt issues. In the vendor room the Starkid merch table was constantly surrounded by a huge crowd of fangirls, so my friends and I decided to wait until the Starkid signing time-slot to get our Starkid merch. However this meant that they had started to run out of a lot of their shirts, which they were printing on-the-spot. When I was second in line and ready to ask for my small black V-neck with a homemade darkmark design, the girl in front of me was getting the regular silver Starkid logo, also on a small black V-neck. However, the shirt came out with a splotch of silver beneath the logo so the t-shirt guy tossed it aside and re-ironed it on the LAST small black V-neck that they had. When I told him what I had wanted, he took the messed up shirt, and placed a small Pigfarts crest transfer over the splotch and then re-ironed it. It wound up looking cooler than the shirt I had originally wanted, so he offered it to me and comped a pair of pink Starkid sunglasses too!
6. The last Oliver Boyd performance. Christian Caldeira retired as Oliver Boyd and the Rememberalls last November at Wrockstock. However, he wound up getting talked into coming back to play one more show at LeakyCon. His performance was amazing and he even played a re-worked version of one of his most popular songs called “End of an Era” (which I played a cover of at Senior Spotlight).
5. The Nerdfighters gathering. I got to do a “GOOD MORNING JOHN IT'S WEDNESDAY!” greeting for the beginning of a Hank video, which is something I've always wanted to do. I got to hear an excerpt from John's book that comes out next March, which I've already pre-ordered on Amazon. I got to hear Hank play A Song About An Anglerfish, and several others, live. I got to join a bunch of other nerdfighters in following Maureen Johnson's instructions via Twitter (including randomly standing up, jumping up and down, and laying on the floor all while Hank talked). Also, Hank explained colonoscopies. It was an incredibly fun experience.
4. The Ministry of Magic show, and The Remus Lupins' last show at the Deathly Hallows after concert. At one point during the Ministry of Magic set, I was right up against the stage and Mark Jennings was leaning way out over the crowd – doing that thing where they hold the microphone out to the crowd, like it'll actually pick up our voices – and leaning right over me. I had to cease my fist-pumping/jumping to avoid punching him in the face. Also, a couple weeks before LeakyCon my favorite Wrock band, The Remus Lupins announced that their show at LeakyCon would be the last show they would ever play together. This was the most energized show I have ever seen! The cheering, and screaming, and clapping was deafening! After their last song, after Alex and Tyler walked off stage, the entire 3,000 people in the audience began chanting “One more song! One more song!” until Alex came back on stage to play...one more song. The love and sense of total community I felt in that room, at that moment, is just indescribable!
3. Deathly Hallows Part II. The movie!!!! Because we were at LeakyCon we were able to see the movie a little more than five hours before the midnight release. Granted, a lot of the Leaky staffers had already seen the movie weeks or days prior, but it was still amazing. Several of the actors from the movie, including Ellie Darcey-Alden (young Lily), Arthur Bowen (Albus Severus), Will Dunn (James Potter II), Ryan Turner (Hugo Weasley), Rohan Gotobed (young Sirius), Benedict Clarke (young Snape), Helena Barlow (Rose Weasley), Scarlett Byrne (Pansy Parkinson), Christopher Rankin (Percy Weasley), and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) were at LeakyCon, and one of the kids commented that seeing the movie with Leaky fans was much better than the London premiere.
2. The Weapon. The one song that basically HAS to be played at any major HP event is a song written by Harry and the Potters called “The Weapon.”
And there's
One thing that I've got
One thing that you've got inside you too
One thing that we've got
And the one thing we've got is enough
To save us all
One thing that I've got
One thing that you've got inside you too
One thing that we've got
And the one thing we've got is enough
To save us all
The weapon we have is love
At the end of the Harry and the Potters show on Friday night they began to sing this. Every single person in the audience joined in and began linking arms with the people next to them, and we created a huge circle. At the end of the song everyone jumped and ran back into a giant mosh-pit of love and Harry and the Potters went right into their song “Smells like Harry Potter” with Evanna Lynch on bass!
1. Frak. Frankie Franco III, is a member of Pottercast, was one of the Leaky staffers, and is also my favorite artist. People call him “Frak” because the way he signs “Frank” on his artwork looks like the N is missing. About 2 years ago at Christmas my dad got me one of his sketchbooks, and my sister filmed me opening it and flipping out. Frak saw the video after Madeline posted it to Youtube, and retweeted it. So when we met him at LeakyCon we mentioned that I was the girl from that video, and he said he was really excited to meet me! *insert fangirl moment here* I went to his art workshops (which were so much fun!) and he signed and looked through my sketchbook! *insert more fangirling here* That was basically the most epic moment ever!
