Also?

[feliciakw]

If I ever host a con, the festivities will start a day early. The con goers will be confined to a room, while 300 - 500 strangers are brought in to hug, touch, and grope--with the possible addition of coughing and sneezing--said con goers. If, after the last stranger has left, a con goer is still willing and able to project good spirits, laugh, initiate physical contact, and engage in witty repartee, he/she shall get a full refund.

[/sarcasm]

There's a reason the guys get tired of physical contact with total strangers, people. If they initiate it, that's one thing. If they agree to it, that's fine. But if they don't want to be touched, that's their choice, too. Sheesh.

Comments

[ficwriter1966.livejournal.com]

There's wank? Already? The thing just started!

It's like we were saying in DC - they pay their money and they think that entitles them to do *exactly* what they please. With a bloody, fiery doom to anyone who tells them they can't.

*sigh*

[leelust.livejournal.com]

ITA. I'm so tired of nowadays fans behaviour. They think if they paid some money (even if it was solid chunk) they have a right to dictate everything. They still go under a statement that the guests can not go to the con - how would that for fans? The more they pissed about stuff the less con spirit is there. it's sad. They know there are a lot of them hence there'll be queue after queue so why complain? And the hair question is out of question at all - it's Jensen's hair (i love it btw) and it's only up to him how to sport it.
As for no touching - i so understand them. Plus i don't think that with one second touch something would change for fan - most of them didn't even remember if they'd been touching the guys or not.

Aptly-named Asylum

[cecily1880.livejournal.com]

Totally agree, I was spooked by a couple of women I'd met twice at other cons coming up and hugging me. I hardly know these people! I was really shocked when I first went to the US and saw all these complete strangers touching/hugging the actors.

The flu rumour was rubbish, even if there was flu around, just "no touching" wouldn't really help (because passing a photo for signing will do the same for germs). I also didn't hear until now anyone say that J&J had said that, but obviously with 1500 people there, many different comments were bandied around.

The reasons given by staff to people who asked were several different reports of the inappropriate touching (yes, the worst possible "inappropriate" you can think of) they had experienced at some time over the two preceding cons (LA and/or AHBL) and some grabbing in the corridors of the hotel there. There were a thousand people crammed into corridors all Friday evening, and squeezing past them was difficult for anyone, so for a guest, it would have been hell, and many guests were certainly touched or grabbed. I'd guess not J&J in that case, because they had bodyguards, but once it was obvious that the audience was way too grabby, they may have made the rule then.

The ticket fiasco made people hot and sweaty and very pissed off, (I queued continuously from 12:30pm to 10pm, getting my autographs for about 1/2 hour of that) so adding to the general bad atmosphere and fan misery, which then gets passed on in the form of complaints when you finally get to your photo-op and get 10 seconds of time and no touching allowed, or no personalised auto.

I don't blame them at all for wanting to sit down for the photos, Jared had just walked off a (delayed) plane, after a long flight. Friday was supposed to be a civilised 4pm-8pm deal for J&J - about 300 photos and 300 autos, but they were running almost 2 hours late by then. They must have been really irritated but were just reported to be "not very happy or chatty" for the photo-ops, and I think they seemed quite relaxed by the time of the autos. However, by Saturday, I was quite concerned for the entire event; if it had been any other show I would have expected one or more of the actors to walk out, because they were made to do a load more work than was scheduled. I'd estimate 2,000 autos and nearly a thousand photos for Jensen. He certainly didn't sign up for that at first, because it was increased hugely when Jared was signed, so many more were added in. Fitting all that, plus three stage talks and two coffee lounge talks into only 48 hours was really tight and Jensen's last stage talk, which should have been the show finale, was cancelled because he was still signing. But people still complained that J&J weren't personalizing autographs or chatting to people for long enough, and weren't hugging and moving around to different poses for the photos. There wasn't time for any of that, because the tickets for both of that had been seriously oversold. (And I now have a very strong desire to write to them to apologize for their entire experience this weekend, even before I write the opposite letter to the con organizers.)