It’s Con Season! Reports on AECON2, Rising Con Brazil, and a Nashville Preview

You may have noticed, but there seems to be a lot of Supernatural conventions going on lately.  It’s con season!  (Kind of like rabbit season but with more pretty).  I’ve already reported on Jus In Bello in Rome and Asylum 6 in England, but two more happened over the last two weeks that I’ve failed to cover.  I have some highlights, including an eyewitness report.  
 
On top of that, the excitement will be working its way back to the United States this weekend.  It’s the first ever Salute To Supernatural in Nashville, TN.  I will be there, as will a few of my fellow midwestern bloggers.  It’s going to be like a rare family reunion, at least until we all get together again in Chicago in October.  I have a preview of this con after I tell you about all the excitement that happened over the last two weekends in two separate continents.     
 
Asylum Europe 2
 
On May 20th – 22nd in Mannheim, Germany, Asylum Europe 2 (AECON2) took place.  Guests included Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Richard Speight Jr., Mark Sheppard, Frederic Lehne, Brock Kelly, and Jason Manns.  
 
One of our frequent visitors (and sometimes contributor) Yirabah, attended the con and sent me some great information, especially about what was said at a coffee lounge that she won with Jensen Ackles.  Here is her report:
 
I was one of the lucky ladies who won the Saturday coffee lounge with Jensen and I think most interesting news came out of that one. 
 
Jensen came in and said that his brain is empty right now he can’t think of anything to talk about and asked if anyone had a question. Nobody moved or said anything so I went ahead and started.
 
“I have a question, well actually I am kind of mad with you. Last year in Barcelona you told us that you approved of the drawings of animated Dean. How could you?” (a puzzled look from him) “Why” “You have such beautiful green eyes and animated Dean has brown eyes.” He seemed surprised at that one and then he said that he thought it is part of the contract he has that anime Dean has green eyes. He will check that when he gets back home again. 
 
Then someone asked if there will be a season 8. Nobody has approached him yet about that. And he went on when he heard that there will be a season 7 he asked Eric Kripke “How long will this go?” Eric: “As long as we want too.”  (It wasn’t clear to me if it was said by Kripke or if that was Jensen’s opinion). “The CW can’t afford to cancel SPN. They need us. The show is doing good in the States and it is doing extremely good outside the States.”  He emphasized extremely.  Just something from me. There are a few shows that didn’t run well in the States but kept on going because they did extremely well outside the states. Like the one with Hasselhoff in a swimming trunk.  Baywatch.)
 
He will not do another movie as long as SPN is filmed.
 
Then he was asked if he will direct another episode. He said yes it will be episode 2 and again it will be the first one filmed. Before episode 1. He has to be back in Vancouver for that on June 26. Since I know how much he loves talking about his work I asked  “Would you like it to be an episode without Dean or rather a lot of Dean?” “Without Dean” came the whole hearted answer immediately.  And then came the longest answer in the whole coffee lounge explaining again how hard it is for him to switch between actor and director mode. He was also asked if you would like to direct a movie and he said he doesn’t know. He feels comfortable doing it with Supernatural since he knows the show and the crew but he doesn’t know if he could do a movie.
 
Another question was about filming with babies in “Two and a Half men.”  And he mimicked how he picked up one baby and it started to cry.  No not this one. Then baby switch. He picked that one up. No reaction from it at all.  So another switch.  He picked that one up and then he just turned and handed it to someone behind saying “You take care of that one. I am not doing that” (it must have had a full diaper).
 
Now, before I get into any Jared and Jensen panel information, there’s an infamous story that came out of this con.  It involves Jared and an incident at the train station in Amsterdam.  He told the whole story during his coffee lounge (attended by Junkerin) and both Richard and Mark told the story in their panel (apparently Richard was there and saw the whole thing).  Of course Richard and Mark played up this story big time to turn it into something epic.  Unfortunately, the video was removed due to an infringement of some sort.  If anyone knows another link, please share!
 
Here’s an eyewitness account of Jared telling the story from @DuckyExMachina via Twitlonger.
 
I won a Jensen coffee lounge but like last week Jared and Jensen wanted to the last one together and we got both of them. I started q-ing quite early because I wanted to sit next to Jensen (I’m not even ashamed I am that obsessed). We sat down in a circle and when J2 came in I was holding on to my glass of water for dear life. They were super incedibly nice like all the time at the con and it felt so much less awkward than I felt at the photo ops.

Jared asked whether we all knew the train story and most people did except for a few and I said also said I had heard the story a few times already because my friends had been at his coffee lounge yesterday. It was quite a bit noisy so I think Jared only heard the part when I said “my friends told me the story” and Jared pretended to be angry (angry? I’m not sure what emotion he was playing but he was just kidding) and turned to me and said “Were your friends on the train, did the see what happened, how do they know??”. It seems there had been people who took pictures and Jensen told us to check youtube for a crazy tall American guy who stops all trains. Anyway he said he’d give us the short version of the story, the cliff notes, but of course he did not 😉

So Jared, Gen and Richard were visiting Amsterdam which they absolutely adored and which was so much more then just the red lights district and the drugs everbody talks about in the US. Also Jared explained that drugs had never been his thing although he enjoys a beer or two.

Anyway, I’m not a 100% sure at which train station it happened because they came from Amsterdam but Jared made it look like everybody there was German. I guess it was just a German train.

They had six bags for three people and Jared told Gen he would take care of the bags, trying to be a good husband and all. So he started hoisting all the bags into the train and I think they went looking for their reserved seats.

After they had stowed away their bags Gen suddenly asked where they grey suitcase was. And Jared acted the whole thing out perfectly and he made this panicky face when they were searching for the missing bag. They saw the bag outside on the platform and Jared wanted to open the door to get it — it was right in front of the door and he showed us how he could’ve just grabed it (showing off his perfect ass this way, he he) — so he pushed the green “open” button but the door wouldn’t open. So he pushed the red “closing” butten. He pressed them at the same time but the door still did not open.

There was a woman standing outside who’d seen the bag and looked at it confusedly so Jared & Richard started hammering against he door and pointing wildley at the bag “That’s ours! That’s our bag!”. The woman though just went “Eh” and shrugged which was pretty damn hilarious. So yeah, the train took off and the grey suitcase was still at the platform. Jared said if it had been his bag he would’ve just been like “Duh, silly me” and gotten on with it but it was Gen’s bag and she had all those pretty dresses and shoes and a purse her parents got her for graduation so he couldn’t just leave it there. So things of sentimental value but also things you could sell easily.

The train was moving and he tried to find the conductor so he started running and people had to move out of the way for tall crazy American. He came to the end of the train but then there was nobody in the driver’s cabin! “BUT WHO’S DRIVING THE TRAIN?!”, Jensen shouted at the top of his lungs. It kinda became a catch phrase after that. Apparently “dumb Americans or maybe just this one” didn’t know that there are two driver’s cabins and that the conductor would walk from one end to the other when they changed directions.

Anyway, no train conductor and the train was moving really fast because it was a high speed train. Jared ran back to where he came from and just didn’t know what to do. So there was this glass that said “DO NOT BREAK” so Jared broke the glass, and then there was this button so Jared pushed the button. The train came to a screeching halt — Jared kept on making this eeeeeeeeeeeeeeh noise whenever he imitated the train stopping.

Apparently Jared did not really know what would happen when he pushed the button, maybe there’d be alarms? A train official came running and she shouted “Who’s dying!? Who’s hurt!? Who pushed the button!? What’s wrong?!” “NOBODY’S DRIVING THE TRAIN!!” Jensen shouted again & Jared agreed he should’ve said that. Instead he replied meekly “I left my wife’s bag at the platform”. It was so funny how he told it in this small voice, adorable <3 The woman explained that he had not only stopped this train but ALL the trains (so they wouldn’t crash into each other) and they were already kilometers away from the train station. I don’t know what Jared was thinking, well, not too much I suppose, because what did he expect them to do? Turn around the train?

The woman told Jared that he’d have to pay a fine of €150 and Jared got those big eyes and said “150 THOUSAND?!?!” but no only €150 xD In his panel Richard said “That’s a parking ticket in LA!”. I’m not sure who said what but either Jared or Jensen said Jared should’ve pretended to be on The Vampire Diaries to get out of the whole ordeal and then the other J said Jared should’ve said his name was Ian Somerhalder. Maybe he should’ve said he was Canadian? Jensen thinks that by now they are almost as good as Canadians. But Jared had been so high on adrenaline he couldn’t think of this cunning plan.

I think Richard had said that Jared only got off easily because he is “tall and gorgeous” and if he’d been the one who pushed the button officials would’ve tackled him to the ground.

So at the next stop they had decided Gen would get off and take a train back to gather up the bag (they were afraid Jared & Richard would be too late). The woman had called the train station to tell them about the bag. In the end Jared & Gen wanted to meet up again (don’t ask me at what city). They said they would meet at platform 5 because he had been on the one end and Gen had arrived at the other. Jared walked by platform 5 but there was no Gen so he kept walking towards Gen’s direction. Gen’s mobile was running low on battery so communication became difficult. They talked again and Gen said she was at platform 5 but where was no Jared. After a moment or two they figured out that one of them was at the airport’s train station and the other was at the main station. Everyone was laughing so hard because we all knew how complicated traveling can be and because everything that could go wrong really did go wrong.

I believe they only met up at Mannheim train station — where the con was. On the train Jared had tried to take a nap and Richard was nice enough to move so he could put up his enormously large feet (which costs €40 as a train conductor told me yesterday -__-). There were two open beer bottles on the table in front of Jared and when the train stopped he heard the moving over the table and grabbed them instinctively.

It really wasn’t his day, his hand was bruised and cut, he has lost his wife and now he had almost soaked himself with beer. Apropos beer, I found it very funny that they drank beer on the train, like they would use every chance they got to drink beer in public since it’s not allowed in the US.

Mark’s reaction when he heard the train story was kinda like this: “YOU BLOODY IDIOT! I´ve lived in Europe my whole life and always wanted to do it and you´re only here for like two weeks and get away with it!”

So what we’ve learned from this con was “PUSH THE BUTTON!”, that was Jared’s advise for all of us. He thinks everybody should do it. We decided that whenever a train, the tram or a bus comes too late Jared once again PUSHED THE BUTTON.

I won’t complain or anything because I got to oggle at Jensen AND Jared but I would’ve rather we had a proper q&a. Again, this is not me complaining. Even now I can’t say if I’d rather have another j2 coffee lounge or a Jensen one.

Jensen & Jared are even more gorgeous in real life, I know it’s hard to believe. 

At the Jared and Jensen panel when asked what the stupidest thing (but good) they’ve done.  “I pushed a button to stop a train,” Jared answered, and then showed off his cut and bruised right fist for the big screen camera.  Jensen certainly got a kick out of the whole thing.   “For those of you that don’t know Jared stopped a train in Amsterdam and it ruined everyone’s vacation.”  Jensen then answered the original question.  “Probably get on stage with this moron.” 
 
There are plenty of great video links and tweet notes at Supernatural Wiki (http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Asylum_Europe_2) sharing the fun about the panels.  Here are some items I saw that caught my attention:

When asked what they would name a new set of monsters, Jared answered “Justin Biebers.”  Watch out Jared, Sera is listening…  Jared – “He (Bieber) out hairs me.”  Jensen – “No one out hairs you!”    

Here’s an interesting factoid:  The sound on the Impala on the series is actually a Mustang.  I knew I loved that hum for a reason!  

Jensen in his solo panel talked about filming the scene when Sam had that seizure in “When The Levee Breaks.”  He had nothing put praise for Jared in that scene and admitted he caught himself watching when he should have been acting because it was so compelling to see.    

Jensen said that season six, especially the first half, was his most challenging season.  Second was season four.  

Someone asked in a roundabout way if Dean saw himself as Captain Kirk, and Jensen joked that he sees Sam as Spock.        

Jared was asked in his solo panel if there was insurance for his hair.  No, but the wigs they have for the stunt doubles, they cost about $5,000 to make.  It takes a very long time to recreate them.  “Insured, I don’t know.  $20.”
          

This was Jensen showing a fan’s reaction when he was recognized in a castle.  The lives these guys lead!

Other than Richard and Mark’s very amusing panel, I didn’t get much information about the other ones.  From the reports I got overall AECON2 was a big smash and it’s again so exciting to see something that big in a place like Germany (of course I knew that considering the large amount of Germans that frequent this site).  Supernatural is really a big International sensation.  
 
Rising Con Brazil
 
This past weekend, on from May 28-29, the Rising Con convention took place in San Paulo, Brazil.  Convention guests were Misha Collins, Matt Cohen, and Chad Lindberg.  It went something like this:
 

 
Got to love those enthusiastic Brazilians (and Argentinians I believe too!)
 
I have to admit, I’m at a bit of a disadvantage with this con.  When I started scanning through all the tweets, a majority were in Portugese.  Yes, I’m an ignorant American that knows one language and has some brief recollection of four years of high school French.  That’s a lot of tweets to run through Babelfish!  From all the smiley faces and punctuation, I can tell everyone had a great time.  Either that or they screwed up royally.  I’m thinking the former.  
 
Misha’s panel was the one that I was most interested in since you know someone was going to ask the big question.  Will he be in season seven?  “I have no interest in calming people down,” was the initial response.  Actually, the answer is disappointing, but understandable in this stage of the game.  He doesn’t know.  He hasn’t spoken to the writers yet.  It doesn’t look like he’ll be a series regular.  
 
He explained that they were paying him last year for a lot of episodes he wasn’t in, and at the same time he couldn’t pursue other projects because of Supernatural.  It sounds like not being a regular opens him up to things as well as spending more time with his son.
 
Someone brilliantly asked, which is fun considering how much Jim Beaver and Mark Sheppard have played this up at conventions, that since Castiel and Crowley made a deal, why didn’t they kiss?  “How do you know we didn’t kiss?  Not everything that happens is shown on the show.”  I don’t want to know!  
 
Misha did say that at the beginning of season six he was told they were going to kill him. (Crowd awws).  “But they said they’d turn me into God, which is kind of interesting.  And then I thought ‘Aw shit, how do you play God?'”  I’m hoping he’ll elaborate more on that in Nashville, that is assuming he was serious.  You can never tell from Misha.  Either that or I’m grilling Kripke, Edlund, and Gamble at Comic Con.  Me and a hundred other journalists.  
 
Anyway, for more on these cons, including pictures, links to articles, video clips, go to Supernatural Wiki.  It’s really exciting to see South America get a con finally and I hope that next year Jared and Jensen can go!  
 
Rising Con Brazil – http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Rising_Con_Brasil_2011
 
 
Preview Salute To Supernatural – Nashville
 
This weekend, June 4th-5th, the first ever Supernatural convention in Nashville takes place.  I’m not sure what floored me more, the fact that a con was actually coming within decent driving distance of my home or that it was at the most spectacular Gaylord Opryland Resort!  This place is an oasis of lush gardens, an actual river inside, shopping, and tons of southern charm all under one roof.  It easily beats all of the airport hotels that the cons have been at before.
 
This con is also strange because of the schedule.  It is only a two day con (although they did add a special karaoke session and a Steve Carlson concert Friday night).  Jared and Jensen day will kick off the con on Saturday, rather than close it out on the traditional Sunday.  Misha gets to do that.  If they can get him out of Brazil.  
 
Here are the confirmed guests:
 
Jensen Ackles
Jared Padalecki
Misha Collins
Richard Speight Jr.
Matt Cohen
Chad Lindberg
Corin Nemic
Brock Kelly  
Steve Carlson
Jason Manns (yes, both musicians at the same con!)
Guy Norman Bee
 
Wait, what’s that?  A DIRECTOR???  Yes!  Guy Bee has embraced the fandom all throughout Twitter and Facebook, and he has already attended the Salute To Supernatural Con in LA.  In Nashville, we get our chance to ask all the details about his directorial turn with “Frontierland.”  He’s actually the guest I’m looking forward to the most, because I’m a damned junkie when it comes to production stuff.  
 
My daughter again will be attending this con with me.  She’s 13 now (as opposed to 12 at the last one) and promises to bring the cute seal hat from San Francisco.  For all of you attending that want to find me, if you see a redhead with a pretentious long blond haired 13 year old wearing a seal hat, you’ve found us!  Heaven help you.  🙂  Oh yes, my daughter still wants to hassle Jared about his hair (In a good way, she really does love it), but I don’t think she’s going to have as easy a time with it this con.  It seems like it’s going to be a much larger one.  
 
I’m going to do my best to live tweet panels.  Follow me at @WinFamBusiness if you’re interested.  Of course I tried to do that at C2E2 with The Vampire Diaries and Chuck and made all sorts of typos.  So you’re getting your grammar and spelling warning now.  It might not be pretty.  
 
For more information about Salute To Supernatural Nashville, including the tickets and prices still available (they’ll be available for sale at the door), go to www.creationent.com.  Have a great weekend everyone!