First Convention: the nervousness is unreal

[Kenimowy]

Hey guys! Wasn't sure if I should post this in the real world category or not but since it's mostly related to myself and not the convention I decided to post it here!
I am getting ready to go to my first convention this weekend! I'm 30 years old and I feel like a kid on Christmas eve. It's ridiculous! I'm incredibly nervous! I have enough money to either get an autograph/post op from either James marsters or Eliza dushku. I can't decide! One minute it's him then it's her and the idea of both of them make me so stupidly nervous! Lol I'm afraid I'll meet one of them and they will attempt to speak to me and I will make a complete fool of myself! Any advice from the seasoned convention goers?
I can't wait! I even got me a Buffy shirt to wear so I can let my buffy nerdiness shine! 🙂
Oh also, assuming they have some Buffy comics there I intend to purchase some to finally join the comic world of Buffy as I haven't joined that train yet and I'm beginning to feel left in the dust!

 

[Still a Scoobie]

I've never met a celeb before but I know the fear you speak of when comes to the meeting and the potential for having to do that talking thing. I had the chance of a photo with a sporting hero of mine once but chickened out for that self same reason (weird sidebar: my brother did get a photo with him, even though he's not into sports at all). However, I do have some advice, which is advice I give myself occasionally in case I meet somebody who's likely to make me feel starstruck because I don't want to chicken out again (it's rare but sometimes I am in a situation where it might happen, anyway I digress again). The advice is in two parts: 1) if they make you nervous, they probably make others nervous too and by now they're used to/are prepared for weirdness and general nerdgasming, so don't worry, they'll be cool, 2) find a strong opening line, something complimentary and possibly not related to the reason why you are nervous of them, it'll help you to see them as human if you lead with something not about their acting career. Then you can begin to gush a bit but hopefully you'll have calmed yourself down enough to keep it under control. An alternative for part 2 of the plan is just to immediately say the most embarrassing, nerdy thing you can think of, and then make a little bit of a joke of it. That one's more of a high-risk strategy and requires much more prep work (working out what to say and how to make it funny is going to be hard). Due to lack of testing in the field, this may be really terrible advice, but pitched right and with a well-disposed recipient, I believe that either the non-career-based compliment or the nerdgasm-leading-to-joke could be great icebreakers.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

The closest to a celebrity I've met is tennis player Andy Roddick, I made him a sandwich. lol. I totally know how you feel though. I went to my first convention earlier this year and I was so nervous just looking at James Marsters and Julie Benz from a far that I was too chicken to go up to talk to them. I'm hoping next year when I go I will have enough courage to go up to Eliza's booth. The only thing I could suggest is take a friend with you that you trust, not someone who will tell them embarrassing things about you. lol. I know I am more comfortable and less shy when I'm around family and friends. Have a great time with the convention though! 🙂

 

[nightshade]

Just remember that they are people too, but they are used to fans being nervous about meeting them. Even if you just manage a hello, they will say hello to you! Also make a note of the time the talks start and make sure you get there early!

 

[thetopher]

The closest to a celebrity I've met is tennis player Andy Roddick, I made him a sandwich. lol.

Sounds like there's a story there.
Were you a waitress or something? Or did Andy just point at you at some party and say; 'Woman, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!' 😛

I think the second one's funnier but that's just me.

My claim to fame is when I was 17 or so and I was out walking my dog, saw an old friend of my Dad's talking with somebody (didn't see who) and called out a hello.
Turns out that the man he was talking to was Patrick Stewart! 😱

Ended up having a ten minute conversation with him. Ended up calling him 'Charles' by mistake once. 😳 ...'cause of the X-men movies...
But otherwise he was a really cool, laid-back guy. 🙂

Back on topic- obviously if I had the choice I'd pick Eliza, I've seen from some interviews/Cons that she loves nerd-tastic, geeked-out fans and knows how to handle them/put them at ease.

Let your freak flag fly!

 

[Silverspike]

If you're shy or nervous then the best person to meet would be wee JM. He's simply brilliant with fans, particularly the shy ones. 🙂

 

[Taake]

Oh, never been to a convention, must be so exciting!
And that's a hard pick! From convention stories it seems to me that both JM and ED are very nice people to meet. Maybe go with the one that has the shortest line? 😉

 

[Skanky Vamp]

they will attempt to speak to me and I will make a complete fool of myself!

With your nerves so bad, etc, when you go to speak you could just vomit on them. On the surface to everyone else it would appear that you would have made of fool of yourself but in reality, in five, ten years time you could walk up to them in the street and say 'remember me, I vomited on you at X convention' out of all of the suckers in line I am sure they would remember you! You would have made a lasting connection to them. And really.. isn't that the most you could ask for?

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Sounds like there's a story there.
Were you a waitress or something? Or did Andy just point at you at some party and say; 'Woman, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!' 😛

Turns out that the man he was talking to was Patrick Stewart! 😱

Back on topic- obviously if I had the choice I'd pick Eliza, I've seen from some interviews/Cons that she loves nerd-tastic, geeked-out fans and knows how to handle them/put them at ease.

Let your freak flag fly!

I was working at a sandwich shop down the road from where the tennis tournament was being held. But yea that would have been funny and I probably would have done it cuz I had a crush on him at the time. lol.
That's so cool you got to meet Patrick Stewart. I haven't seen Star Trek:TNG so I know him from X-Men and also his voice work on 'American Dad'.

James or Eliza? That is a tough one. I would pick Eliza just cuz I love her a lil more. But yea I've seen her con panels and she's really cool about nerdy fans. They both seem like really friendly, respectful, awesome people though. I really wish they would work on something together, like he and Charisma did on 'Supernatural'.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

The first famous person I ever met was Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. He had been invited to our church to help finance a permanent ministry presence there (which he understandably turned down because they were asking $500,000 for it when there was already a chapel in the hospital). He was quite the character - he showed up in church in the white suit and string / bolo tie you see in the ads and sat in the front row but was too decrepit to stand up for prayers or hymns. This was 1978, two years before he died. He handed out autographed pictures of himself to children after the service and I got a chance to talk to him. He had a cane with three trapped balls carved into cage work in the cane. I asked him about it and he said that it had been carved by an unemployed Appalachian coal miner over the course of a winter. He had a gift for being able to make you think you were the only person in the room when you were talking to him. He had been a major contributor to our local hospital which had a larger-than-life portrait of him on the walls. He lived in a nondescript bungalow with Claudia, his daughter, at 1337 Melton Street about four miles south of where I live now and in spite of being the most instantly recognizable American, he lived in Mississauga, Canada (where I am, about three miles west of Toronto) for 19 of his 90 years. He had signed the church guest register as being from Shelbyville KY.

His story was interesting - he had owned a hotel that was almost fully occupied until he was 66 (in 1956) and an interstate highway bypassed his hotel and dropped occupancy to 25%. He ditched the hotel at a loss and went out on his own with his only asset - a recipe for fried chicken. The rest is history. He spent the last years of his life suing the company he started for claiming to use his recipe of eleven herbs and spices. It used to be a lot better than it is now.

I didn't know exactly what to say when I met him, but the cane offered a good conversation starter, so if you are meeting someone famous, you can start with something they can talk about right away - clothes, how they pictured their character, anything you can use as a conversation starter. They came to meet people - you are not imposing on them.