C2E2: The Not So Epic Waiting in Line for Peter Davison's Panel
I know, I know, it's been awhile since C2E2 and even my last entry about the convention. It has come and gone. It's old news. Ah well, hopefully I can provide a perspective that no one else has had or put out into the world.
Besides, I've been in something of a bad head space for the last couple weeks.
I guess this whole C2E2 review thing has become something of a serial. Today's entry will focus on waiting in a lne.
I didn't get to do too much after the Futuristic Fright panel with John Scalzi and Alex Hughes before having to go save spots in the line for the Peter Davison panel. Even at that time I thought that maybe I had gotten a little paranoid about not making into a panel, but it was Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor, after all. Not an opportunity to miss.
My worries had merit. I had gotten near the front of the line. Finding the front made for a trial of wits, in itself. Outside of the panel rooms, in the hallway, I found a small group of people who thought they made the front of the line. Like me, though, they worried that we had the wrong idea. All of us had already dealt with enough line messes in the last day or so. We knew we couldn't make any assumptions about where lines started and ended.
Good thing we kept our eyes and ears open. Asking questions of C2E2 assistants and staff helped. We ended up getting herded into one of the panel rooms and told to form a line on one side of the room. The other side of the room already had a formidable line formed for some other panel. I counted myself lucky that I had gotten into the first layer of line.
I plopped myself onto the ground and pulled out my mobile devices. The panel wouldn't start for another hour or so. I hadn't the patience to just sit around with my own thoughts or try to make friends.
Rumor spread or I overheard that the people in the panel before us wouldn't have to leave. Anyone who wanted to stay, could stay and keep their chair. That didn't and still doesn't strike me as entirely fair. People like me who sacrificed time to be in line could get screwed if everyone already in the room wanted to stay. Heck, couldn't someone in their group have stayed outside to save space in the line, like I did for wife and friends?
Didn't turn out half bad, though. Wife and friends arrived as the line had started getting long and excited. I breath a sigh of relief that no one got rowdy or worked up about me saving a spot in line for wife and friends. Elementary school lunch line politics could have come into play easy with just a little spark. Someone could have easily yelled "No cutting" or started some fisticuffs.
After both fortune and internalized drama, we all got into the panel room. Our little group didn't get the best seats. We sat off to the right side with middling distance but closer to the back. Having gotten close to the front of the line proved disappointing after getting suboptimum seats. Still, happy to have gotten in considering people who attended the panel beforehand didn't have to leave if they didn't want.
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