The Official Supernatural Convention Pittsburgh 2016 – Saturday Report

After Mark’s panel, it was another break…

(Loved watching the trains go across this bridge all weekend)

Eventually, we got to the Rob, Richard, and Matt panel!  For anyone who hasn’t seen their panels, it’s really more of an hour of random conversation.  There were some questions asked, and strangely Matt was getting most of them!  I guess a lot of people wanted to know about his new role on General Hospital, a sex-loving priest who is also a neurosurgeon.  If we ever think that the SPN writers are hacks, just look at General Hospital. 

Rob did get a question about how he reacted to finding out he was coming back to “Supernatural.”  Robbie Thompson called him and told him the news.  He had heard last season that they might be bringing God back.  “I hoped it would be me.”  Needless to say, Rich had a lot of fun with the whole Chuck as God thing.  He introduced Rob as “Sometimes he plays God on television.”  Rob even got to give “words of wisdom” before they parted the stage when the panel was over.  “Kids, there’s always something to learn, but sometimes you learn there is nothing to learn.”  Yeah, pretty deep stuff.  🙂

While the panel was going on, it was Misha’s turn to take the long walk through the glass hallway.  He stopped a few times to make faces at the crowd and most definitely at the panelists on stage.  Here’s a nice grainy picture of his back from up there!

 

Eventually our Overlord arrived and took the stage.  Despite his “rock star” type entrance his panel started immediately with him talking about his kids.  I do love how his panels, as well as Jared and Jensen’s, come with so many kid stories now.  It’s amazing how that has changed through the years as they’ve gotten older.  It reminds me how much they’ve all grown up since this show started!  Misha’s latest parenting fiasco comes from his daughter Maison, who somehow has contracted head lice.  Misha decided to share his misery as a parent by rubbing heads with other fans earlier today.  He wanted to share!  Somehow, I don’t think any fans objected. 

Misha’s panel, as well as Jared and Jensen’s, were part of the new lottery system.  Inside of fans forming ridiculously long lines along the sides of the ballrooms, they had to submit their questions in a box in the lobby and they were drawn randomly.  In this next picture, they show which fans had their questions selected and in what order.  Turns out, there were still more questions then time to answer them, so even those that were part of the lottery at the back half of the lines missed out. 

Here’s some of the highlights of Misha’s panel, which as usual was a memorable one!

– Misha shared some more stories of cooking with West and Maison.  He had to move one of the episodes out into the driveway, because whatever disgusting concoction they came up that time was so solid and hard it wasn’t meant for a kitchen.  He has a hard time keeping it clean as it is.  He said that whatever they created ended up becoming mortar in between the bricks.  He joked about how one of these solid things ended up in Maison’s room and she was trying to eat it.  These kids are constantly grossing him out.

– Someone asked a Castiel question as if Misha was Castiel, and he got cheeky with her!  He had to break the news to her, he’s an actor.  Castiel is what they call a work of fiction.  He sensed her disappointment though and offered a refund. 

– Somehow, and I have no idea how the conversation strayed to this, Misha started addressing this whole gathering as a religious experience.  He tried to explain we’re not as much a church as a cult.  He promised we would start communion soon.  Someone asked about Team Freewill and Misha objected.  “That’s not part of our cult.” 

– How did Misha like played Casifer?  He loved it.  He was just so grateful to do something different and appreciated the challenge.  “I was afraid that the only thing I could play was Cas.  I was afraid I was broken as an actor.”  Naturally, those words were said in a self-deprecating, joking manner, aka typical Misha, but it’s hard to know the context when just reading quotes. 

– Misha was especially floored over the fact that they start shooting season 12 on Tuesday.  He has no idea how they’ve gotten to this point.  He theorized that The CW must not have any other shows so they keep making theirs. 

– Any spoilers for season 12?  Yes, Misha said it will be the “chicken soup” season.  Lots of healing, lots of hugs, lots of talking things out over soup, checking each other for head lice… (I love when his dingers pay off). 

– Someone claimed that they have watched the show from the beginning and Misha was plenty skeptical.  He looked at the woman and she was so young.  He figured she started watching at age 5, which is not a very appropriate viewing age for this show.  He then took a poll in the audience, how many have watched the show from the beginning.  A lot of hands when up, so he knew they misunderstood the question.  How many have been physically watching the show since it came out in 2005?  There were far fewer hands.  Then he asked how many have binge watched in the last three years?  A majority of the hands went up in the room!  I don’t know who was more surprised, Misha or myself.  It just goes to show, this show is being adopted by a whole new generation. 

– What are some of Misha’s weirdest experiences with fans?  Misha was a little thrown at first, because of the terrible sound (he complained about it couple of times) he thought she said weirdest fantasy with fans.  Once he was done laughing over that, he said that when he’s recognized in public, sometimes fans don’t realize that he doesn’t know them.  “Sorry, but TV is one directional.” 

– One fan was very tearful as she asked her question, because just being here and asking a question was taking her way out of her comfort zone.  Misha was very sweet and encouraging, and commended her for being brave enough to be emotional in front of 2000 people.  He told a story about times where he had to go outside his comfort zone and while it’s extremely terrifying, once you do it a few times, it becomes rewarding and energizing as well. 

– It all ended with a brain twisting Jimmy Novak vessel question!  I couldn’t really hear all of it, but the gist was how could Jimmy’s vessel hold Castiel and then Castiel become Lucifer’s vessel and contain them both without exploding?  Misha yelled out in agony as though his brain had exploded.  Since there was really no time to explore the question, the fan gave him an out.  “The answer is blue.”  “Yes!” Misha answered.  And that was our panel. 

Now it’s time for autographs.  For those of us Copper ticket holders that had no autographs, that meant that we had a 4 hour break in between the panel and the concert.  4 hours!  Luckily, we had things to do.  I’m not sure how many of you left on this site remember Ardeospina, our former admin and original creator of the Motivational Posters, but we keep in touch and she lives in the Pittsburgh area.  So we drove to the suburbs and had dinner with her!  It was great seeing her again and her kids are growing so fast.  I marvel over how long I’ve actually known her because of this show and the friendship continues.  This fandom can do amazing things.  BTW, she stopped watching “Supernatural” in season nine. 

Then, we managed to get back to downtown Pittsburgh just in time for the bicentennial fireworks!  They are quite spectacular to see over the point of the three rivers.  We had a birds eye view from the convention center so for once, our location worked to our advantage. 

Right after the fireworks it was time for the Saturday Night Special.  I’ve seen three of these now.  I rate this one second best.  Nothing can top the concert in Chicago last year (Jensen, Robert Singer), but this was light years better than the show in Toronto last year.  The show was hampered a bit by technical difficulties and overall coordination, but the music was fantastic.  Everyone who performed was on top of their game.  There was no appearance from Jensen, but everyone else did an amazing job of “Whipping Post” without him.  Mark was having a blast at the drums! 

Considering how far away I was from the stage, not to mention the poor sound, I only recorded one performance.  I did this for Nightsky because I know she’s a huge fan of this woman’s singing.  Here’s most of Briana Buckmaster’s stunning performance of “Valerie.” 

{mp4}Cons/BrianaPittCon2016{/mp4}

The number that brought down the house though and got a standing “O” was Rob’s solo acoustic performance of “Fare Thee Well.”  The amp for the acoustic guitar wouldn’t work, so Rob did an un-mic’d performance.  It was a little hard to hear further in the back, but it was still wonderful.  I hope to see it again someday under the proper circumstances. 

That ended our day, rather late I might add.  We went back to the hotel and crashed hard.  Luckily, since we didn’t have any photo ops, we didn’t have to be back until 2pm the next day.  That was the big “J2” day.  I’ll have all the details in my next report. 

Here is the tweet summaries of all the panels via SPN Sil (these include most of my tweets).  There’s some really great photos in these, as well as lots of other tidbits I missed.  (See the Storified tweets on Page 3.  Warning, it may load a little slow.)