Baltimore Convention Center
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n June 7-9, 2002, Baltimore Maryland fell host to the Charm City Creep Con, one of the few Sci-fi events to grace the east coast, bringing the over 2,400 fans who attended the rare privilege of seeing their favorite actors at one of the foremost convention locales. The Baltimore Convention Center is the premier location, not only for conventions, but tradeshows and expositions alike in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Nestled in the heart of downtown Baltimore, the Center's location is a tourist's dream and a conventioneer's delight. The Center is connected by skywalks to several major hotels and multiple shopping facilities, all within walking distance of the world-renowned Inner Harbor and Oriole Park at Camden Yards to historic Little Italy.
F.o.D. Entertainment & Kaos Films presented their first East Coast show which brought together thousands of Horror and Sci-fi fans from all over the world to gather at this, creepiest of events. Phil Mallon - promoter of Creep Con organized three days packed with all the Horror, Sci-fi and music a fan could handle; from special celebrity guests, to contests, to nightly concerts at The Vault. With this event, Creep Con is hoping to make a name for itself as one of the best and most noted Horror and Sci-fi conventions in the United States. Depending on the show's success, the promoters plan on taking it to the West Coast later in the year and then back to the East for 2003. This event boasted not only Buffy and Angel guests, but also many stars from Sci-fi classics such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Farscape among others along with dozens of merchants and collectors. This was a full-featured convention, which left the fans lacking for little. The graciousness of the guests and the organizers eager to assist with any request was quite overwhelming to convention-attendees.
Mark Lutz
poses with Angel
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Tony Head says,
"Cheers!"
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Andy Hallett and
Mike are all smiles
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Brian Thompson, "The
demon was this big!"
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Joining the fans for the weekend were
UPN's
Buffy the Vampire Slayer actors
Brian Thompson, best known for his dual roles as Luke and The Judge from Seasons 1 and 2 along with one of the most popular cast members from day one,
Anthony Stewart Head a.k.a. Rupert Giles, Buffy's Watcher. Rounding out the
Buffy cast mates was
Adam Busch who this past season became Buffy's lead antagonist, Warren, and who also fronts the NY-based rock band set to appear,
Common Rotation. Another band popular with
Buffy fans was
Velvet Chain who was also set to appear at both Friday and Saturday night's concerts. Over from the
WB Network, not to be outdone, were
Angel actors
Andy Hallett who charms fans not only with his greenish complexion but his wonderful vocal talents as The Host, Lorne and
Mark Lutz, the loveable Groosalugg, who this summer is producing a film with his brother
Steven, a project entitled:
Victor.
Friday Night: Opening Ceremony ~
Baltimore club scene at The Vault
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The place, The Vault, a fairly small venue, was once a bank, and after having been converted kept the name of its former function. The room offers a high ceiling that gives it the feeling of being much larger than it actually is. There were sparsely placed tall tables with stools adjacent to the long bar to one side and an elevated stage at the front of the room that made the concert experience enjoyable. A downstairs offered another much smaller room that contained two pool tables, several couches, a small bar, and a room for the bands to prepare for their show.
As this was the event to get Creep Con rolling, the bands were out in force to entertain. The first band to get things in high gear was Torsion. They had an edgy sound and were interesting to watch as the band's lead singer put on a very good show. Although they were a bit loud for the small venue, the crowd enjoyed their performance and they would be seeing them again on Saturday night. During their performance Anthony Stewart Head joined the small crowd and seemed to enjoy the music. He visited with the fans who came up to him even though they had to shout to be heard.
Rasputina took the stage next. They appeared on the Buffy soundtrack, and were comprised of two cellos and a drummer, a very interesting concept when you think about it. The vocals were done by the two female cellists with quite a style and grace all their own.
Velvet Chain takes center stage
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The sound that they achieve from those few instruments is not what one would expect, their performance was amazing and the crowd seemed very pleased when they played their song from the soundtrack. After several songs, the drummer started a very familiar drum sequence to which the cellos joined. The song was Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll, and it was incredible that anyone on a cello could play that song and make it sound first-rate. It was completely unexpected and a treat to hear them do a cover of that song.
The last band to play Friday night was Velvet Chain and the fans were very glad to see them, not very often do these L.A. bands get to play east. They took the stage and got the crowd going with numerous familiar songs. Erika Amato's performance was outstanding, and she really worked the crowd. Her voice was amazing, and the band did not miss a thing. They took the crowd on a great musical adventure as they, of course, played their song from the Buffy soundtrack, but they played Strong with a much more rocked up version, which took a good song and made it great. Their performance was an excellent way to end the evening.
Saturday: On the Dealers Floor ~
The lower level of the Baltimore Convention Center was devoted to all the dealers, merchants and collectors as well as housing a genuine Haunted House for the con attendees for both Saturday and Sunday. The BronzeShelter web site was on hand to sponsor several fund raising events over the three-day con; site runners Angela Wing, Barbara Pollak, and Sionell Stewart, along with a nice assemblage of their staff sponsored an auction to benefit the WPI Firemen's Fund. Williams-Pyro, Inc. founded the WPIFF in 1999 after the loss of two commissioned firefighters who were responding on a volunteer basis to a neighboring community. WPIFF is dedicated to providing financial assistance to the families of firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty, volunteer fire departments (for equipment) and other fire victims. The organization concentrates primarily on the volunteer firefighters and is fortunate to have Williams-Pyro as a corporate sponsor, matching outside donations by 2/3. This allows all donations to provide even more assistance to volunteer firefighters and their families.
Erika Amato, looking great after a night of singing
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Velvet Chain had a nice set up to represent the band. Standing by selling their wares and willing to autograph anything the fans offered them were both Erika Amato and Jeff Stacy who got us caught up on upcoming musical and non-musical plans. Erika is continuing to do acting work between gigs and has just completed several stage performances. In addition she'll be trying something new and exciting to stretch her vocal talents that CoA will cover later this summer. Jeff continues to raise the bar creatively as well as keeping VC on the L.A. nightclub 14 -Below lineup. Speaking of autographs, the VIP guest signings were also held in this area and as fans began to line up to meet and greet as well as get a few photos and their own personal items signed we saw the arrivals of Andy, Mark, Tony and Brian. Taking a page from the British cons, where they have turned 'queuing' into an art form, things seemed to run very smoothly and this allowed us to do a little promoting for Inkworks Trading Cards, Inc. by handing out to the fans their first sneak peek at the new Angel promotional cards preceding the Season Three card set available in August. Fans were eager to snatch up the promo cards but a nice surprise was their overwhelming interest in the Scooby Doo promo cards that we brought along. Not surprising though since Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) also stars in the film.
This Season on Angel: What the fans thought ~
Buffy/Angel fans line up to meet Demons and the Watcher
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Typically, we are so busy covering specific events during a convention such as this that we never have the pleasure of spending the time we would like talking with the fans about their thoughts on the current season, their speculations as to where their favorite characters are going and if Joss Whedon and Co. are doing them justice. But Creep Con gave us the opportunity to chat it up with several viewers as they were waiting on line to meet Tony Head and the analytical perspective was alive and well. One major consensus was that the return of Cordelia is in great demand!
"I was completely surprised how it ended. I'm sorry it's on Sundays now but I'm still going to watch it. I can't wait for the next season to come back out." (on Angel having a baby) "I thought that was pretty cool. I was a little shocked when they brought him right up as an adult but I think it moved the storyline along pretty well, I thought it was a really good ending to the series." (on Wesley being courted by W&H) "I think he's going to go the way of the dark side. I can't wait to see how it turns out."
~ Buck from New York
"I loved this season! It was a little darker than I expected, I was really happy with the ending. I want Lorne to come back though, I want the Host back. I'm assuming Cordy is not going to ascend permanently and I'm hoping Connor and Angel can work it all out. He's not Stephen so he's got to discover that Angel didn't do it." (on the darkerer turn that Wesley has taken) "I love dark Wesley!
Fans Liz and Scott chat with CoA's Lilian Holden
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I'm thinking he [Alexis Denisof] just took that and ran with it, it's great. Although he was a little hardcore with Lilah in the bed scene. I was just sitting there, mouth agape, going, 'that's not my Wesley! He can't be saying that.' But he's doing wonderfully playing that really dark and on-the-edge. He's a hottie, yes he is!"
~ Angel from Maryland
"I thought it was good. Obviously the finale was interesting and unexpected. I want to see Charisma come back. It was really interesting because I watch both Buffy and Angel and they kind of crossed over - at the beginning, Angel seemed a little slower than Buffy and then Buffy got a little slower, Angel picked up and then they kept kind of crossing each other so by the end I thought the Buffy finale was a little bit better than the Angel finale but I definitely want to see how Angel gets out of the coffin."
~ Scott from Maryland
Everett David displays the latest Angel action figure
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Conventions also allow us the opportunity to mingle with some of our own kind, those other vampires known as the media, to compare notes and see who's doing what better than we are. It's always great to be able to swap horror stories and we ran into a few of our contemporaries who were doing a great job covering the con and having as much of a good time as we were. One such fellow writer was Tara DiLullo from @ N-Zone.com's web site. While she was waiting to do an interview with Andy Hallett, we discovered our goals, objectives and workload -- pretty much the norm -- no matter who's doing it, had the same common purpose; we all do this for the fans. Plus, we had a few laughs tossed in there for good measure. In addition, SCORE, the developers of the Buffy Collectable Card Game had reps on hand: Ken Myers and Sean Jones set up a demonstration to allow fans to see just how the game was played as well as having the full complete set of cards on display. One of the Angel merchants was also represented in full force; Everett David of Action-Figures Company had a full line of action figures from both series plus a few new items just coming out such as the Anya in-bunny-outfit doll and the Faith of Angel action figure.
