Liveblogging ChicagoTARDIS

I care too much about Jennifer and the con to vent anywhere with more traffic than LJ but OMG, one of my favorite parts of ChicagoTARDIS is the Thursday night elbow-rub with the guests and It. Was. A. DISASTER!

None of the regulars were there. No Big Finish. No Tony Lee. No "Winston Churchill. The only two stars attending were "Sgt Benton" and "Cap. Yeats" -- and I had to bail when John Levine (Benton) sat right next to a little girl, said "fuck" about 187 times in 10 minutes, insulted her father's pizza and covered it up ("I'm a vegetarian, that has meat, it's disgusting"), told miserable stories about death and hatred in his family and graphically described a murder and did I mention while sitting *right next* to a little girl?

Wow. The best part of the con, the part I pay a lot extra for, the part I leave Thanksgiving dinner for -- now a horrific miscarriage of time and money.

I'm clinging very hard to the memory of sitting next to Tony Lee and Terry Molloy talking shop at one of these gatherings two years ago, because I sure as hell don't want to think too much about this. I'm not even going to tag it with the con name so it won't hit in future searches.

ETA: Nick Briggs hugged me this morning and apologized for the Big Finish guys not being there. I feel a little better.

Cluster. Fuck. 2015

So, I thought that ChicagoTARDIS had a rocky start and would even out. After all, they have a lot of experience running conventions.

Except. I paid extra for the Alex Kingston reception. Only no one was timing her, so she spent around 15-20 minutes at the first 4 tables of 15. When I pointed out to staff that if she wasn't going to get to all the tables -- and if people did not get what they paid for because of where they sat -- that was a PROBLEM. The response was to rush her from table to table answering a single question -- and I saw security wave off a guy who tried to follow her.

Is this, a roast beef sandwich, and some ice cream worth an extra $100 on top of the second-highest membership? Is "This is the first time we've tried this" acceptable as an excuse on top of the massive screwup yesterday? This is the second night in a row access I paid extra for was not provided.

Have also heard horror stories of people waiting in line for hours. They know better than this.