True Blood Stars Down Under

True Blood stars headed down under for The Hub True Blood Convention in Melbourne and Sidney, Australia. True-Blood.net forum member, Kestrel, was one of the lucky Aussies that attended the convention a couple of weeks ago. She was kind enough to share her eye witness report with us.

“I thought I might write up a little of what went on at the Hub True Blood convention in Australia:

The location was great, easy to get to, heaps of seats and even had a projector so the people who were further back in the hall could clearly see the guests. Out front were stalls with some great memorabilia, some of which had been brought back from Comic Con.

The first actor to make an appearance was John Billingsley who started walking around the hall with a packet of Tim Tams, handing them out. He was very funny and after he asked if we had the ’10 second rule’ here he challenged a girl who’d called out something about a ’50 second rule’. After he finished his sharing the Tim Tams, there was a brief intro and we settled back to watch Season 2 episode 8 while rounds of photograph sessions were done. Unfortunately said photograph sessions went over and we found ourselves playing a Bill Compton Impersonation contest, a game called Heads and Tails and Celebrity Head. Good point though, prizes were given out in the form of signed ‘Southern Vampire Mysteries‘ books.

John Billingsley came back on stage then and the laughing began. He also made sure every person who asked a question was given candy until he ran out. Something to note, the structure of the question asking was very strict, you had to raise your hand until one of the convention staff members came over with a microphone. They then asked you what your question was and if they thought it was okay, they handed you the microphone. At times we were advised over the microphone to please try to make our questions more interesting. There was no panel as such, just a single guest on stage who was asked many questions. Anyhoo, he told us many funnies including thinking that the nudity waiver was a joke, something involving Jane Bodehouse and a hickey and after seriously making fun of the asker he answered that he would play Jason if he had the, er, physique.

Todd Lowe, replacing Charlaine Harris, was next and unfortunately had a head cold so he wasn’t able to stay on for too long. Even so, he was kind enough to yodel and sing ‘Where Is My Mind’ in German. The latter being how he auditioned for his part in ‘The Gilmore Girls’. Apparently he’d read for Hoyt initially, but got Terry instead and told us that his favorite scene to date was the one where Terry comforts Lafayette. Also, the orgy scenes were shot in 33 degree weather where they had to put ice-cube in their mouths to stop their breath steaming.

There was another break for more photo taking. Season 2, Episode 9 was playing this time, and I must say it would have been nice if the house lights could have been dimmed. This gave way to the charity auctions which raised well over $3000 AUD for the Starlight Foundation. But there was no t-shirt drawing this time. Sad…

Both Kristin Bauer and Sam Trammell were rather shocked when a girl, no more than 12 years old at best, asked each of them a question about the show. Kristin Bauer is hoping to hold an art show some time in the next year if things go well, and she loves animals so very much. She got misty eyed telling us about a whale she saw on a whale watching cruise. She’d love to see some Pam flashbacks and when asked which deceased person she would like to speak to, she answered John Wayne.

When Sam Trammell had auditioned he’d been trying for Bill Compton, but was given Sam Merlotte when they told him that they wanted someone European for Bill. In the dream sequence Sam has about Bill, they all played a wicked joke on the lighting stand-ins, and pretty much the rest of the Q&A session degenerated into lots of joking about Australian women and, for lack of a better word, flirting on both sides. It was joking around flirting, but that’s what it was. And it was rather funny. 😀

The afternoon wound up with a raffle and an autograph in a private room, at which point I headed off. I had fun, but to be honest there was a lot of sitting around and waiting again, people weren’t as talkative with each other at this convention and there was general unhappiness expressed about the activities between Q&A sessions. The awesome girls I was sitting with and myself started to think of how we would do it better. 😉

Oh, one last thing, Sam Trammell told us all that if we hadn’t watched it, we had to watch the ‘True Mud’ skit mentioned in another existing thread here on the forums and also something called ‘At Merlottes: A True Blood Sitcom‘ on YouTube.”

Sounds like a great time was had by all. Thanks, Kestrel