Reports From Club Members

Carol Simpson - Club President and Multiverse IV Helper
Wow ! Three and a half days of fun, fun and more fun and even less sleep! After months of being planned, the big event was finally here. Friday saw a large group of eager, willing helpers arrive at the Edmund Barton Centre about 3pm to help set up the rooms, get the dealers area ready and the longest part... stuffing the con bags for the convention members. (Boy did I get dizzy walking around that long, long table upstairs.) I think we finally got home about midnight and tried to think of everything that we had to have ready. Another member of the club from Geelong was staying with us and helping to make sure we didn't forget anything and that we all got to bed before 3am.

Saturday was the first big day as far as the attending fans were concerned and they began coming in at about 8a.m. (Some people don't know how to sleep). We got there about 7.30 to make sure everything on our table was ready and to receive our instructions for the day. Being a helper at Multiverse was a new experience for me. I had to get used to where everything was and try to remember what colour passes for what days and which events. The day certainly went quickly, what with being on duty and then sitting on our club table, giving David and Luana a chance to stretch their legs, have lunch and duck outside to get some fresh air. I know I looked in on some panels and listened to Anthony Daniels talk (what a gentleman and SOOOO approachable!). Saturday ended with the Banquet. Didn't catch that one, unfortunately we had to be at a birthday party. It was still a late night (another 3am) while we tried to finalise the video for the B5 panel the next day.

Sunday was much the same, not a lot of time to think and relax. By this time we were all running on adrenalin. Cherie was the lucky one to look after the table with Jason on Sunday. I couldn't get to the con until late in the afternoon, but with some low level flying and lots of green lights I arrived just in time for the second half of the B5 panel. Mark Newbrook, Cherie Kirkpatrick, Robert Jan and the ever silent Kosh were discussing whether or not JMS had used the legends of King Arthur in Babylon 5 (A late Delivery From Avalon ) and Crusade in particular.

The audience was very intrigued and enthusiastically participated in the discussion. Later that night was the famous pizza and trivia night. Having never been to a Multiverse trivia night before I didn't know what to expect. It was a night filled with laughter, confusion, lots of whispering and hurriedly scribbled notes. Oh yes, and Sharon's hygiene stick. Would highly recommend it (not the hygiene stick , the trivia night.) Don't think it is all fan stuff ' cause it is lots of different stuff. Time to go home and another 3am bed.

Monday saw a lot of bleary eyed but still enthusiastic helpers ready for another day of fan fun. It was also the literary day. Lots of writers and those just interested in writing came along. From all reports, the lit luncheon was an event not to be missed. I will have to make point of attending the next one. More panels, more talks by the guests and of course the autographs. People were everywhere, some were attending the panels and talks, others were just happy to catch up with fellow fans that they hadn't seen for some time and others were in deep discussion over cups of sought after coffee. 6pm was, sadly. the end of three and a half days with the closing ceremony and a farewell to the guests, old friends and new ones. With everyone, without exception, saying "I’ll see you at Multiverse 5".

It was a very long 3 1/2 days in some ways and in other ways it went far too quickly. It was interesting seeing the other side of a fan convention as a helper instead of being an attendee . It may have taken a week to catch up on all the lost sleep, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I met so many new people and firmly believe that Melbourne fandom is alive and well and kicking.

PS The key for G28 is still missing... (For those not in the know, click here for the G28 story.)

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Robert Elordieta
I live in the town of Traralgon, so I drove to the con. I have a sister who lives in Melbourne, so I stayed at her place, while I attended the con. Luckily she lives close by to the Edmund Barton Centre. It was only a 15
minute drive from her place.

I went to the con on Friday night to register. I picked up my weekend pass from Sharon. She also gave me my banquet ticket. I had already paid for it all. I saw Anthony Daniels and Virginia Hey walk past that night, but I
didn't see Brian Thompson. I also saw Derek from Multiverse, Shane from the Doctor Who Club of Victoria, Karen from the Australian B5 club and Peter Jordan from Starwalking. I had a quick talk with Shane and Karen. You had
the choice of having drinks at the bar or watching TV shows in the video rooms. I decided to choose the latter. I stayed for a few hours and then went back to my sister's place.

I was up, bright and early on Saturday morning. I saw Brian Carr at the registeration desk. Brian, his wife Adele and their committee organise conventions in Sydney. They are known as Best Of Both Worlds. I had a chat with Brian. I asked him where Adele was and he told me. They had a dealers table. I went to see Adele and she gave me a nice big hug. We had a good old yarn. I missed out on the "Upcoming Movies and Trailers" panel because I was catching up with Adele.

I went to the "Opening Ceremony". We briefly met the guests and saw the opening video, which was good as ever. One of the guys who had done the opening video was H Gibbens.

After the "Opening Ceremony" was the first guest talk. It was Virginia Hey.

She was great and boy, can see talk! I asked her a question about what it was like working with Ben and the rest of the cast from the TV series Farscape. She said nice things about Ben.

After Virginia's talk we could get an autograph from her. I lined up and got her autograph and posed for a photo with her.

Next was the Anthony Daniels talk. He was superb. He controlled every aspect of it. He liked to embarrass the fans. He talked about what it was like being on location when doing Star Wars. It would seem that R2 had it in for Anthony. He went into the back of Anthony a few times. Anthony still remembers some of his lines from that movie. Apparently, in one scene, R2 crashed into a Death Star console and Anthony was secretly pleased about that. That wasn't meant to have happened. If a fan had a question for him, Anthony would go to where the fan was seated and hold a microphone for the fan to speak into.

After the talk I had a quick bite of lunch and then lined up to get an autograph from Brian and Anthony. I also posed for a photo with each of them.

I then went to Brian's talk. Brian has a very dry sense of humour. He talked about what he did on Buffy, The X-Files, and other TV series he had been on. He also talked about the feature films he had been on. He had an interesting story about Sylvester Stallone and Bridget Neilsen on the set of Cobra.

After Brian's talk was the "Chocolate Panel". That was great. I have a sweet tooth and I love chocolate. I had a try of Glen's mash potato chocolate and it wasn't bad at all. I also tried Glen's, Katherine's and Karen's hedgehogs. They were all YUMMY! There was also chocolate port.

During that day I also met the president of the Doctor Who Club of Victoria, Peter Rosace, and one of the committee members, Phillip. He was a really friendly person. Shane introduced me to Peter.

I went back to my sister's place to get ready for the Indiana Jones Banquet. I had a great time at the banquet. The set that was built was great. The opening number was an re-enactment from the first Indy movie. It was when Indy was after the small gold statue and when he removed the statue the boulder went after him. Anthony played Indy's arch nemesis. After dinner was finished there was a costume parade and dancing. There was also a closing ceremony. It was an re-enactment of the second Indy movie. It was when Willie Scott was doing the number, "Anything Goes", with the Chinese dancers. George Ivanoff was in a dress and lip synching. There was also some ladies dressed with Chinese hats on, in it.

On Sunday I went to the "Upcoming Movies and Trailers" panel. We saw some trailers of upcoming movies and the panel talked about the movies. Jeremy Sadler was lucky to see a preview of The Shrek and he said it was funny. Derek so a preview of Atlantis and said it was good. Katherine is looking forward to the Harry Potter movie. She has already read the books. The Lord of the Rings looks good. So does Cats & Dogs. We even saw the closing number from the banquet that George did.

Next was John Cook. He talked about the comic strips he does like Sev Trek. We also saw some of the Sev Trek movie that John and his mates have been working on. It's all computer animated. It looked good.

After that was finished I went over to the Doctor Who table and had a chat and listened to some excepts from the Big Finnish audios. I also had a early lunch. I also had a chat with Adele that day and Shane too.

I went to the Brian Thompson panel which mainly talked about Buffy and The X-Files, and Brian's involvement.

The next panel was with Virginia Hey and it was talking about the creatures that the Jim Henson Company have created for Farscape. That was very interesting. We also complained about Channel 9 not giving Farscape a fair go. We agreed that Farscape is definitely not muppets in space.

Next was Anthony again. This time he had us humming the main title music of Star Wars. He got various people on stage and each played a different part. One was the drums, one the trumpets, one was Darth Vader's voice, one the breathing, etc. In the end we had the 20th Century Fox fanfare, the music, and an intro of Anthony using Darth's voice. After that was over Anthony went into his talk. His talk went into overtime but we the fans didn't mind.

I stayed for the next panel but it wasn't interesting so I left it. I went to the video room and saw the second half of the Dark Angel pilot episode. That was good. I can't wait for Dark Angel to come on TV.

The "Females in SF" panel was great. Women are finally getting some strong meaty roles at long last. They are the heroes instead of the men for a change. Let us hope that there will be more like that in the future.

6:00pm was the pizza/trivia night. The pizza was late because it was such a large order! It was a great night, but very noisy. It got very rowdy towards the end. The team tables were close together. Our table came 4^th in the end. The table I was on had three guys by the name of Glen, Chris, Carol, Shane, Karen, Louise, and another lady. In between rounds one person from each table had to come to the front. When the group was assembled a question was asked. The first person to put their hand up and get the question right, could pick a prize from the prize pool. I had a go and I got the answer right. I picked a blooper tape of the TV series Red Dwarf.

By Monday morning everyone was feeling tired because of lack of sleep. There wasn't as many people on Monday as there had been on the weekend.

I went to the "Characters We Hate" panel. Towards the end we were picking producers, writers, etc, as well as characters.

I went to the Virginia talk at 11:00am. That was good.

At 12:00pm it was Anthony again. He did a slide show with H Gibbens and Cameron. That was different.

At 2:00pm was Brian's talk. He talked about how he tried to get the part of Kull the Conqueror. He didn't get it in the end but he did get a part in Dragon Heart. It was interesting how he got the part in Dragon Heart.

I caught the last half of a talk on "Writing Fantasy" which was very interesting. It was part of the literary stream that George Ivanoff had organised.

I then went to the "Internet vs Fandom" panel. These days a fan get information about their show from the internet. Before they could only get that information from fan club meetings. It has changed a lot. Fans who have been around a long time have seen the changes.

At 6:00pm was the closing ceremony. We saw the guests one last time all together. The guests had fun as had the fans. We saw the opening video one last time. It was all over now. Time to go home.

I went back to my sister's place. We had dinner and then I drove back home to Traralgon. I got home at about 9:30pm and felt very tired. I had a good sleep.