I’m Not Calling You a Liar – Just Don’t Lie to Me: Recapping the First Vampire Diaries Eyecon Convention

As Florence + the Machine so delicately put, “I’m not calling you a liar/Just don’t lie to me/I’m not calling you a thief/Just don’t steal from me”; for me, these words sum up -  in general - what I experienced at the first Vampire Diaries Eyecon convention in Atlanta, Georgia, which took place from March 25 – 27.

I’ve spent almost a week trying to figure out how to do this, and now I’ve decided that I’m just going to roll with it, because either way, some aspects are not going to be pretty. So if you’re a lover of Eyecon and their supposed glorious work, you’ve been forewarned.

My friend, Erica, & I, have been planning this trip since the tickets went on sale, and I’d be the liar if I said I loved every second of it and that Eyecon was superfantasticawesome. No. That’s not how it went down – at all. As someone who missed a week of university classes and spent scholarship money and savings to go to this thing, I would have to say that I was very saddened by the way the convention was run.

Here’s how it’s going to go: I’ll write up the disappointments and highlights of each day. You should also be warned that sarcasm is my favourite defence mechanism, so y’all (as they say in the South) have fun with that. Also as a heads up, I’ll include in brackets peoples’ Twitter names when I’m referring to them because that’s how we all know each other.

THURSDAY

Let me start by saying that on Wednesday, I flew in to British Columbia from Alberta. That night, Erica (@EricaFabs) & I drove three hours to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and then caught a 6:10am plane to Atlanta, Georgia. When I say I was tired after finally arriving in Atlanta, I’m not exaggerating, but I was beyond stoked for this thing and ready to meet my fellow Vampire Diaries lovers!

Disappointments

-I didn’t sleep for two days.

Highlights

-The Vampire Diaries Fanbolt Party, hosted by the lovely Emma Loggins (@emmaloggins). This event wasn’t associated with Eyecon, but it was rad. A whole bunch of people from the Twitterverse showed up and we got to know each other in person, so that was way beyond cool. Not to mention that there was a panel of extras (including @MJagr26) who told us some pretty cool things about what it’s like to work on the set of the show (and even some stories that involved tempers and repetitive Paul Wesley neck-biting)! Emma did a great job and I had a lot of fun talking to other fans and eating some interesting southern cuisine!  Oh, and I got some great Fanbolt swag. WIN.

-I FINALLY GOT TO MEET DHALYN (@TVDVampDiaries). Omg, we’d been talking on Twitter for a few months and this was just great!

-And this is also where Erica & I met the sweetest convention buddies ever, Maya (@BellaCullen2982) & Kristi (@TVDisneygrl4)! LOVE YOU, GIRLS! Ahem. Back to my review.

FRIDAY

The night of the Carnival Cocktail Party, which Erica and I chose not to attend because we decided that it probably wasn’t worth the money...as it turns out, we were right!

Disappointments

-For reasons unbeknownst to me, we were in seats G14 and G15, even though the email we had received in January said we were in C28 and C29. Can anyone here say rip off? Pretty much we paid that much extra $$$ for a Platinum Pass and it was essentially no different from a General Admission.

-Even though I didn’t attend the cocktail party, people were coming back after only having been there for maybe a little over a half an hour. Um, what? Didn’t you pay like, $65 for this thing? As it turns out, the celebrities in attendance didn’t stay for very long; okay, that’s cool. But usually if something’s good enough, people will still stick around. Apparently not. Because they all flooded back to the vendor’s room.

-THE VENDOR’S ROOM WAS A JOKE. I’m not referring to the people in there, selling their swag; I’m referring TO THE ACTUAL SIZE OF THE ROOM. This was just a regularly sized conference room, not extra special, crammed with six or seven vendors, plus the hoards of people tryin’ to check the goods! I talked to some of said vendors – apparently I wasn’t the only one confused, because moments before the room was supposed to open, the vendors didn’t even know whatthehell was going on! So Eyecon left out a few details about vending at their event – and by a few details, I mean everything. If you want a full review of what it was like to be a vendor, you should probably go and check out the review on vampire-diaries.net (@tvdnews): http://www.vampire-diaries.net/fandom/2011-eyecon-vampire-diaries-convention-fool-me-once. Vee is my hero. Honestly.

Highlights

-On Friday night, I was hanging out with Erica & Jenny (@pinkpuff20) and creeping on Twitter to see how the cocktail party was going. We saw that Vee (@dieslaughing), the co-admin of vampire-diaries.net, was alone and bored at her table, where she was selling her fantabulous book, A Visitor’s Guide to Mystic Falls: Your Favourite Authors on The Vampire Diaries, as well as Crissy Calhoun’s (@crissycalhoun) Love You to Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries (yeah, I’m pluggin’ for them – so what. These books are awesome and if you’re a fan you definitely won’t be disappointed)! We decided to go down.

I’d already met Vee earlier, but now we got a chance to stand around and have a great conversation with her for about an hour or so, while disappointed cocktail attendees slowly trickled in. I just want to say that this was one of my favourite moments of the convention. Vee probably doesn’t know it, but I was totally having a fan-girl fit on the inside talking to her! And let me just say – she’s just as chock full of hilarity as she is on the website and on Twitter! If you’re reading this, Vee, you made Friday evening – as TVD fans like to say – epic!

In addition to meeting Vee, I recognized Shira (@Shirarose1) & we finally got to meet (another Twitter buddy)! You should probably follow this doll from NY – she always has vamp news at hand!

As you can see, the highlight of Friday was meeting fans who loved the show just as much as me, so that was a really awesome experience.

SATURDAY

Welcome to the shit show! Enjoy your stay!

Disappointments

-Um, where the hell do I even start with this? Well, first of all, Paul Wesley’s photo ops got pushed back, but that’s no one’s fault. He was shooting until 6:00am that morning and definitely needed to get a bit of sleep. This information, however, was poorly relayed to the rest of us who were wondering what the hell was going on and where was Paul, etc. They got it all figured out, though, so that wasn’t too bad. Just a bit of confusion, which is to be expected at an event this large.

-I didn’t have a Paul photo op, but I did have an autograph. I was under the impression that while getting said autograph, I would have time to say hi. No. Someone took my autograph ticket, handed my photo to Paul, he signed it, and I think someone else handed it back. This was all over before I could even open my mouth and suddenly I was being pushed out of the room like a criminal who had dared to try to look PW in the eye. This was NOT cool. I was ALSO under the impression that we would get the autograph personalized. Do I even need to tell you that this didn’t happen?

-LARRY – an Eyecon staff member. This guy was gross. Seriously. His t-shirts were appalling and not appropriate for part of the age group there. Ugh. One of them read, “Dead girls don’t say no.” Fucking sick, you goddamn psycho! That’s some serious serial killer shit going on. NOT funny. Anything even remotely related to that is NOT FUNNY.

THE BANQUET

Yes, this gets its own section. The Masquerade does, too. But more on that later. For now, I just want you to taste these words: “Please leave all overcoats, canes and top hats with the doorman/From that moment you’ll be out of place and under dressed/I’m wrecking this evening already and loving every minute of it/Ruining this banquet for the mildly inspiring and...” Thank you, Panic! At the Disco, for having the witty words to describe my feelings toward the banquet.

To put it briefly, the banquet sucked. First of all, we were all lined up like school children according to badge number and tsked at on occasion for not standing in the right place. In addition to this, we didn’t even get to pick which celebrity we wanted to sit with (I mean, we were pretty far behind so we didn’t expect this, but it looks like people at the front didn’t get to pick, either).

We were sat down at the table and then told that the celebrities would come in (Paul, Steven, Michael, and Rob) and take a picture at each table. Okay, fine. But then we were told that if we wanted the picture of them at our table, we would have to pay $10 for it. UM, EXCUSE ME? Didn’t we already pay NINETY-FIVE (here comes the first swear)! FUCKING DOLLARS for the banquet ticket? I’m sorry, but that is RIDICULOUS. That picture should have been included with the banquet.

So the boys came in. I don’t really want to name names, but none of them were really dressed properly for a supposedly formal banquet. Okay, once again, I was able to brush that aside. They’re busy people. But then I noticed the looks of confusion on their faces. Um, so busy people or weren’t told what the hell was going on? I’m guessing the latter.

They all sat at different tables, but we weren’t worried because they were going to come around after and chat it up with us. Once again, this did not happen. WOW. Talk about disappointment! I mean, I’m a pretty collected person, but I was really excited to have a conversation with Paul or Steven. Everyone but Rob left before the dinner was even over (and they were played out, quite ironically, to “Nearer My God to Thee” – you know, the song that’s played by the string quartet as the Titanic is sinking in the movie? I shit you not).

On top of all this, the food sucked and it was cold. Please, Eyecon. Be classier with your frozen tortellini and sketchy-looking salad. The one thing I can vouch for was dessert. That was kind of good.

Funny moment: there was a woman sitting next to me from Alabama and she leans over, upon seeing a certain someone’s cocktail dress and whispers, “Wow. Now that’s trashy.” All heavily accented. My reaction: LOL.

Also – a certain someone’s handler got his food for him. That someone took one look at it and went and got his own food. LOL again.

So dinner barely lasted an hour and then we got the hell out of there to get ready for the Masquerade Ball.

THE MASQUERADE BALL

Okay, so dinner was terrible, but the Ball is gonna be rockin’, right? RIGHT?

No. It wasn’t.

So we all got dressed in our best and were prepared to rock out in style with our new friends and the celebs at the ball. We lined up at the door and were slowly let in and as I’m checked out the venue, I noticed that the room appeared to be getting smaller and smaller. Um, WHAT THE HELL, EYECON? That room was WAY too small for that many people! Can we say it all together now: FIREHAZARD. Okay, I thought, maybe this shitty venue will be worth it because I get to party with the stars!

Sigh. It really is getting tiresome with all of this negative energy.

Paul was brought into the room and paraded around like an animal and then that was the last we saw of him. Erica yelled, “Hey, where’s your mask?” (he was dressed casually) to which he responded, “I don’t know; no one told me what was going on.” WOW. Are you trying to tell me that no one bothered to tell Paul the protocol for the event? Huge friggen FAIL, Eyecon/publicists, etc!

After this incident, we were told to line up and then we would be brought into a room to mingle with the celebs. Um, wasn’t the mingling supposed to happen on the dance floor while we were all dressed up and drinking and having fun? I should have known by now that this wasn’t going to happen. So, like the loyal fan I was, I lined up to talk to boys. I mean, it is what it is.

But then we were told, after waiting in line for an hour, that the celebs would come out and mingle. And by celebs, they meant Rob (no hatin’ on Rob - he’s pretty freakin’ awesome. But it was hard to get near him in there, too).

Basically everyone dispersed after that. The room was hot and the event was bullshit. It was time for freakin’ bed in hopes that Sunday would be decent because guess what: that’s the day everyone was waiting for. Know why? IANSOMERHALDER.

HIGHLIGHTS

Hah! You probably all thought I was going to go straight into Sunday without listing any highlights from Saturday. Well, guess what – there were some and I’m surprised, too!

-Meeting Ruthie (@tvdfansonline), the awesome admin of Vampire Diaries Online. This woman is AMAZING. Her website is PRIME! 

-Erica & I did an impromptu interview for Romancia (@romancialove) & Defenders & Warriors (@GenaDefenders) and it was so fun! Also – I LOVE the “Tweet Me If You Love TVD” t-shirt! My first credit card purchase ever!

-Meeting Amber (@PirateVRO), co-founder of Vampire Support (@VampireSupport). This girl is SO cool & I LOVE MY VAMPIRE SUPPORT T-SHIRT!

-Steven R. McQueen trying to pose with a piece of cake in our banquet photo (whatthewhat)?

-I got to meet Robert Pralgo and talk to him. I fan-girled for like two hours after this happened. He’s the nicest and funniest guy ever. At the banquet, he came to our table and actually talked to us and he had me laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. And I quote, “I’m sorry! ... Are you gonna choke on the cake?” LOL. 

-Robert & Paul’s Q&As were phenomenal and really showed off their personalities. Seriously, if acting fails to provide, either one could do comedy. No lies. “ROSCOE’S CHICKEN AND WAFFLES.” Paul. I DIE.

-Josh, the emcee, totally rocked it and stayed calm during the Q&A. Loved randomly running into him at Ruby Tuesday’s on Sunday. Best: him calling Paul Wesley “Damon.” HAHA.

-Candice Accola & Matt Davis showed up randomly during the Nova Echo’s concert before the Masquerade. THAT IS FREAKIN’ AWESOME. Erica & I were at the top of the escalator and we looked down at the hotel bar, and we’re both like, “Um. Is that MATT DAVIS AT THE BAR?!” And it was. So we started to go down and as he was coming back up, we all just kind of met in the middle. He proceeded to grin, nod his head, and toast his drink to us. I think a part of me died on the escalator.

-Talking with Chloe (@TVD_Chloe) & Jessica (@jesstravisl). These girls are awesome! PS – Chloe’s mask was beautiful. I kind of wanted to steal it – not gonna lie.

SUNDAY

Sunday mostly made up for all the shit that went on. Really. It did.

DISAPPOINTMENTS

-Erica & I ordered a reprint of our Steven R. McQueen photo op and didn’t get it. Seriously? PISS OFF. That was FIFTEEN BUCKS (because we got the .jpg as well). While I’m at it, the .jpg guy was a DOUCHE. Seriously, maybe if you stopped showing up hung over in the morning you would be more pleasant.

-The Miss Mystic Falls Pageant was a legit joke. Because the Con was running about two hours behind, some people had to leave in the middle of it or were already gone. They appeared to have randomly thrown Carina MacKenzie (@cadlymack) into co-hosting the event with Rob Pralgo. Eyecon also asked her to do the trivia portion without having given her any questions to ask. And I must say, I congratulate her for sticking it out. You go, Carina! I would have been so done with that BS after the first two minutes.

HIGHLIGHTS

-Meeting Ian Somerhalder. My photo ops with him went great and during the autograph session, he took the time to personalize the picture and have a bit of a conversation with me. I don’t really know how else to describe it, except that it was really special. Not only does he look exactly like his pictures (haha), everything I’ve ever heard about him is absolutely true: he is the sweetest, most genuine guy ever. Seriously. Favourite moment, hands down.

Also, judging by how slow the line moved and how behind the convention got, I’m pretty sure Ian took the time to personalize the picture and talk to every single person at his autograph session. Wowowow. Just...no words. That’s phenomenal.

As a side note, the photo ops were rushed and not how they were described at all. We got to say hi and that was ab0ut it. But seriously, kudos to Ian, Paul, Steven, etc., for trying to have convos with us during the pictures even though we were being yelled at to get moving.

-Rob Pralgo. This guy ROCKS. He made himself so available to people throughout the entire convention and even took pictures with us afterwards (one of my favourite pics from the convention is the one I have with him). And he was charming and funny. BEST.

-Steven R. McQueen – Erica & I walked up to him for our photo op and he just shouts, “Oh, wow. Now you’re just spoiling me!” I think I mentally fainted. What a charmer!

-Meeting Marilyn (@XoMarilynoX) Haha it was only briefly, but she’s a total sweetie!

-I can’t vouch for Paul or Michael, but as far as I’ve heard, they were pretty great, too!

-The Q&As were, once again, EXCELLENT. Ian’s was awesome and I really loved that most of the questions were about his foundation or about him in general, and not just TVD related. Steven & Michael have great chemistry on stage (yeah – I said that) and could probably have their own comedy act!

-The auction after Ian’s Q&A. Carina was a rockstar with her mad auction skillz. $3000 for a baby that looked like Ian Somerhalder and $1700 for a copy of TVD Season One, signed by the entire cast.

-Devon Haas. This little girl is amazing. Look her up. Erica & I were quietly weeping when she came on stage (haha).

-Meeting Carina MacKenzie! Seriously, her Twitter is flippin’ hilarious. And it was relieving to talk to someone who actually curses! Haha, people in Atlanta are so polite. It’s almost eerie.

OVERALL

Would I go to an Eyecon convention again? Maybe. I mean, it really all depends on if they changed the way they organized things and maybe found some nicer staff. Seriously, the staff were rude and treated us like children, when in fact most of us are adults. There were a few volunteers who were lovely, but that’s only a few.

Was it worth it? Yes. Because if I hadn’t have gone, I wouldn’t have met all the people I’ve been gushing about – Elena (my favourite Italian!), Dhalyn, Maya, Kristi, Vee, etc, nor would I have met Ian, Rob, etc. But seriously, the fans were the best part and that part was just SO AWESOME and made that aspect of the convention worth it.

I would really love to see another company do a TVD convention, though, because as it stands, I think they would do a better job than Eyecon.

I’m done my rant, but I just want to say a few things about the fandom charities because they played a HUGE role last weekend.

CHARITIES

Ian Somerhalder Foundation – Ian & Co. are rock stars. Seriously. Be sure to also check out the ISF Kids Army. http://www.isfoundation.com/

Vampire Support – Chloe, Amber & Jessica (of Mystic Falls Tours) – WOW. Just wow! It was such an honour to meet you three, seriously. The work you’ve done is simply amazing. What continues to boggle my mind, though, is the fact that Chloe is only 17. I wish I was that cool when I was 17! But seriously, girls, keep up the great work. http://www.vampiresupport.org/

Defenders & Warriors – Romancia & Co. – you are some of the hippest people I’ve ever met. Seriously. LOVED your booth & I love my “Team Delena” bracelet & my TMIYLTVD T-shirt! http://www.defendersandwarriors.org/

Paws2MakeaDifference – Carrie, Ella & Marilyn – GREAT JOB! I’m currently in love with the auctions you have up but can’t bid on... : ) http://paws2makeadifference.org/

Paws4aCause – Natalie – you have done so much for ISF & St. Tammany’s! Give yourself a GIANT FREAKING pat on the back! I’m bummed we didn’t get to meet this weekend but I will for sure see you at Unleashed! http://paws-4-a-cause.org/

I know there are probably more, and I’m sorry if I forgot anyone. Anyway, thank you, everyone, for reading through my Eyecon rant. If you made it this far, you’re a freakin’ trooper! I just thought it was important to share some of the most rewarding things that have come out of the TVD fandom – I hope you’ll go visit their websites. : )

And, as a side note, I’m so very pleased to announce that Erica & I will be attending Unleashed 2011 (hosted by Mr. Somerhalder himself)  in November as representatives for the The Official Whistler 100 Foundation (W1OOF), in support of the St. Tammany Humane Society in Louisiana. Hope to see you all there!

Let me just officially close off with this quote:

“You’re the liar, Eyecon. There’s something going on between the two of us and you know it...and you’re lying to me, you’re lying to the other fans, and most of all...you’re lying to yourself.”