It's kind of sad writing about the end of LeakyCon because it was honestly one of the best weeks of my life. I met new friends and celebrities, bought some amazing merchandise, and I went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at night. It was pretty cool to say the least.
On Saturday, I spent the morning in Disney with my family and some friends before heading to the convention center to see the Joe Moses Showses and a reading of Starship Requiem (a sequel to the Starkid musical Starship). They were both hilarious and I wish that Starkid could stage Starship Requiem for them to put on YouTube for everyone!
The cast of Starship Requiem after the reading
Later that night was the Esther Earl Rockin' Charity Ball. It is in honor of Esther Grace Earl, a girl who had thyroid cancer and died when she was only sixteen. August 3rd was her birthday and it "has become a holiday that reminds us to verbalize our love for friends and family, the important people in our lives who we might not remember to say “I love you” to very often" (HERE is the link to this quote). So the charity ball ran from the night of August 2nd to the early morning of August 3rd. At midnight, we watched a video about Esther and then sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" as a group. It was pretty emotional and people were crying, but we came together as a community to celebrate the life of an amazing girl.
We were all given mini flashlights when we came in the door
They shot off some star shaped confetti
If you want to learn more about Esther and what Esther Day is, you can visit the organization that is in her name called This Star Won't Go Out which helps families with children with cancer.
I also was able to get pictures with Joe Moses, Nick Lang and a Weeping Angel before and during the charity ball.
Sorry for the blurriness!
Pretty scary!
On Sunday there was only the closing ceremony where we were given Esther Day postcards to send to a person that we love, I sent mine to my sister! They also announced that LeakyCon would become GeekyCon and it would happen every year at the Orlando Convention Center. In addition to GeekyCon there will be a LeakyCon, but it will be smaller and devoted to only Harry Potter. GeekyCon will expand to all things fandom: Sherlock, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, etc.
I don't think I like the name "GeekyCon." I think it is a kind of stupid name because people have been bullied with the word geek. "GeekyCon" sounds like a name ready to make fun of. Even though I do not like the new name, I will most likely be going to a GeekyCon in the future.
Crowd after the Closing Ceremony
Thanks for reading! Now that I am done with posts from the summer, I will continue with posts about what I have done so far in the school year. I have been having an amazing time at school and I can't wait to write about it! Thanks for reading!
Day two and three of LeakyCon were just amazing! Well, day three was better. Thursday was mostly panels including the Tampa Bay, Nerdfighteria, Doctor Who and Tumblr meet ups. This is a picture of the Doctor Who meet up where there was a cosplay fashion show.
But I also had a chance to explore the Marketplace, which housed all the vendors and artists. During my time at LeakyCon I bought a lot of gifts for others, and some things for myself including a Game of Thrones sweatshirt, a LeakyCon t-shirt, stickers for my laptop, a poster, bracelets and probably more things that I cannot remember. The size of the Marketplace was astounding, there was something for everyone there.
There were also life-size cut outs of Black Widow, Falcon, Iron Man and the Hulk! I REALLY wanted to buy one, but I restrained myself. I don't think that it would fit in my dorm room.
Friday was great. I got up really early to get in line to get tickets for that days autographs. The LeakyCon website explains their autograph process here: "access to all autograph sessions will be granted via drawings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings. Attendance at this drawing is the only way to assure your spot in the signing." It was a really good idea and I got tickets to meet YouTube sensations Hannah Hart and Team Starkid! I was beyond excited! It was a dream come true.
First was Hannah Hart, and she was super duper nice. She stood up the entire time, shook everyone's hand and introduced herself to each person. It was really easy to talk to her for the brief time I had the chance. I chose to have people sign my LeakyCon programming guide and I love it!
Later in the day, me and a friend got to meet Team Starkid. Starkid is responsible for A Very Potter Musical,A Very Potter Sequel, A Very Potter Senior Year, Starship, Twisted and other musicals. I do not have any pictures of them because I did not bring my camera that day and I temporarily lost my phone. But I got it back! It was an emotional fifteen minutes but everything was alright in the end.
Instead of pictures of Starkid, I do have a picture of all the autographs that I collected in my programming guide.
I think they all look pretty cool, right?
I also met Mary Kate Wiles (Lydia Bennet) and Maxwell Glick (Ricky Collins) from the Lizzie Bennet Diaries in the Marketplace, and they were so nice! I tweeted them the picture after LeakyCon and they both responded and it was amazing. By the way, I am cosplaying Marty McFly from Back to the Future.
Friday ended with me meeting the one and only . . . JOHN GREEN! I waited in line for a while, but it was totally worth it. I met some new friends and got John to autograph my "Don't Forget to be Awesome" poster that is now hanging in my dorm room. He must have met at least a hundred people that night and he could not have been more friendly. We were moved along at a pretty quick rate, but I wouldn't have traded it for the world.
And that was the end to Friday! Saturday was filled with Starship: Requiem and the Esther Earl Rocking Charity Ball and a whole lot of fun.
Well hello everybody! Sorry that it's been a really long time since my last post. It has certainly been a whirlwind for the past month. At the beginning of the month I went to LeakyCon in Orlando (more on that later), then I spent a week in Boston with the family, and finally I moved to Washington, D.C. to start college!
First, however, we will be discussing the amazing-ness that was LeakyCon. It was five days of pure nerdy greatness. I met new friends and hung out with old ones, I had the chance to meet some of my favorite YouTubers and fangirled with 5,000 fellow geeks.
Day one was check-in day and Open at the Close. On July 12th at 1:00 pm, I was lucky enough to get one of the 1,500 tickets to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter until 2:00 am. After waiting in line for four hours and eating a Nutelle crêpe, I boarded the bus and headed to the WWoHP for my adventure!
My friends and I decided to rush through the park to Diagon Alley to ride Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts.
You can see Gringotts in the way back
It was breathtaking to walk into a world that I had read about and seen in movies. The attention to detail was astounding and there was music playing . . . It was honestly one of the best days of my life.
The four of us waited in line for about five hours before finally going on the ride. The outside portion of the ride was boring, but the lobby was amazing. There were goblins moving and acknowledging people in the line and Griphook was at the back of the lobby talking with guests as they moved on by.
The ride itself was definitely worth the wait, even though there were some audio problems during one of the scenes. But it was okay because I told one of the employees and she put us back on the ride! So even though we waited for five hours, we got to go on the ride TWICE!
Next on the list was taking the Hogwarts Express from London to Hogsmeade. The inside of Kings Cross was really cool and had the advertisement from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince that Dumbledore and Harry look at in the beginning of the film. My friends and I kind of freaked out when we turned the corner and saw this!
Before getting into the room with the Hogwarts Express, you have to run through the wall like Harry and his friends do in books. And Universal has come up with a way to do it that is amazing!
Being in one of the carriages looking out of the "window" at the passing landscape and watching Harry, Ron and Hermione (which totally was not Emma Watson) in the hallway was one of the most surreal moments of my life. This video is POV video of the ride going both directions.
At this point in the night, it was too dark for me to take any good photos outside. But over the next few hours we rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (the Hogwarts ride) twice, ate our free dinner (included with our ticket), went shopping for HP merchandise and sang Happy Birthday to JK Rowling and Harry Potter at midnight on July 31st. We also met Joanna Sotomura from Emma Approved and Mary Kate Wiles from The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Here are the rest of the photos that I took that night and early morning.
This is a very dark photo of the Knockturn Alley sign.
Now this is what its supposed to look like. Link to Photo.
Open at the Close ended at 2:00 am, when we herded back onto the buses with our aching feet and heavy shopping bags. Due to some unforeseen difficulties (the bus did not drop me off near parking) I ended not getting back to out hotel in Disney until 3:10 am.
The next day at LeakyCon was pretty busy with a lot of meet ups and wandering around the Marketplace, but you will hear about that in the near future.
Again sorry about the long hiatus between blog posts, hopefully I will be able to write about the next two days of LeakyCon this weekend. But I hope that you enjoyed!
