July 27, 2010 - Crazy like a Fox at San Diego Comic Con
So, back from SDCC, and I have some great stories.But the first that needs to be told is the tale of epic failure on the part of FOX.
It began when I wanted to find out when the Sons of Anarchy cast would be doing signings. As I’ve mentioned before, my friend works on the show (here’s my visit to set) and got me into watching it. It’s a great show and I figured why not go and see the cast. So I’m told by Fox to come Saturday morning and they will be handing out tickets for the various signings during the day. I get there right as they open the Exhibit Hall, and there’s a small crowd meandering around, waiting for further instructions. I again ask someone working the booth what I should do, and they just tell me to wait on one side of the booth. So I do. I figure they’ll tell us to go line up somewhere or something. I’m not a huge autograph collection person, I really just like to meet people sometimes and relay that I respect their work. Most people there seemed to be waiting for Anna Torv from Fringe (an actress and show that I do love) but I wasn’t going to even attempt that. So we all wait, confused.
Then suddenly the Fox booth babes behind the counter at the booth start randomly handing out tickets to people. Of course this causes a huge mosh-pit effect. Everyone rushes the booth, so anyone who was standing there is crushed into a mob of people. And as you can imagine, being a 100lb, 5’1” girl in a mob of overly-enthusiastic nerds doesn’t make for a comfortable position. And yet the booth babes just continued handing random tickets out to whoever can reach over to them.
Now enter the biggest jerk in the history of conventions. Next to me was this guy, 20 something, who was at least 6’5”. Because he’s so big, he keeps reaching over everyone and grabbing these tickets which the booth babes are more than happy to give him. It gets to the point where he has a stack of them. So finally I say to him “Dude, that’s not cool. There are other people here, too.”
His response is “I’m not doing anything wrong!”
His badge is flipped around so I can’t see his name to report him to my lovely staff friends. I try to flip his badge around to see his name. So he grabs his badge away and then with his right arm (I am standing to his right and slightly behind him) comes down with his elbow and hits me in the ribs (and I have every reason to believe this was on purpose). I grab my side in pain while he grabs even more tickets and then takes off before I can even move to do anything. On his way out of the mob, he hits another girl in the face nearly dislocating her jaw. When she informs him that he hit her, his response was “So what?” as he left.
Soon after, the fire marshal shows up with some security guys and they break it up, telling Fox to quit what they are doing. I inform the fire marshal as well as security of what happened. I then go up to the Fox booth people and tell them that what they just did, causing people including myself to get injured. They just dismissed me, not even giving me a sorry.
It was then that I met up with my new friend Jackie, who was the other girl that got hit in the face. Since I had gotten up early just to come to the convention to get assaulted, I figured I’d stick around and wait for my friend on staff to show up so we could report what happened to the higher-ups. Now the Fox people told us that we could wait in line after the ticket holders so if there was time, we would also be able to meet the guests. Jackie was waiting to see Anna Torv, so I waited in line with her. We were the first people behind the ones who had gotten tickets. Then one of the booth babes comes by and kicked us all out of the line, telling us only people with tickets could be in line. Then about 20 minutes later, the same booth babe starts letting other people in the line to wait while we are standing 5 feet away. Luckily, there were some decent people there who understood we had been there first (and had been injured) and let us back in the line again.
So we both met Anna Torv (who is a total sweetie and so beautiful!) and then got ice and had our injuries checked out by the medical staff. By this time, poor Jackie’s face was swelling up from being hit. I just had a red mark/bruise on my abs and was only slightly sore, but poor Jackie couldn’t even open her mouth without pain! So we then met up with my staff friend who took us to talk to all the right people to report what happened. The SDCC staff were wonderfully nice and even though they were of course super busy, they took the time to listen to what happened to us and apologize (even though it was not the convention staff’s fault). They also reassured us that they would be having words with the Fox booth and seemed surprised and grateful that we were so calm in relaying our ordeal.
(First photo by Paul, the second by Jackie catching Anna Torv’s reaction to me telling her about the getting hit LOL!)
The SOA signing was at 2:45pm or 3:45pm (I can’t remember which), so my staff friend took us back down there and spoke to some woman at the Fox booth. While my friend was doing that, myself and Jackie were speaking to another con staff member about the guy that hit us and all that. Then this woman from the Fox booth comes up to me and says how she is going to put me first in line to say hi to the cast, but could I please stop talking about what happened because she will get in trouble with her boss. I was shocked she would even have the nerve to say something like that. The people that were running that booth should be in severe trouble if not fired for what they caused.
So, I’m proud of you if you read through that whole post! My camera broke so I didn’t get much in the way of photos at the con. But aside from the Fox ordeal, it was a great time! More on the good stuff later.
