Supernatural Vegas Con 2017 Brought Fans Together Once Again

This past weekend I attended Creation Event’s Supernatural Vegas Con. This was my third year attending, and I will say that I had a lot of fun this year, despite the limited panels that they had.

Like with many Creation Events, this is a more costly convention as attendees pay for photos and autographs along with their tickets, and some of the additional activities like the Saturday Night Special. Though there were not many actors doing panels this year, Creation managed to fill open time slots with photos, autographs, private meet and greets, and other events to fill attendee’s time. Unlike some of the other attendees, I was grateful for the longer breaks as I was able to take a break from convention activities and eat somewhere that wasn’t fast food.

Our hosts, Richard Speight Jr. and Rob Benedict and on stage band Louden Swain were full of energy, raunchy jokes, and kept the crowd pumped up for the guests on stage. They promoted their show Kings of Con and having seen the show, part of their on-stage performance was preview enough of the show.

Friday’s panels kicked off with a very energetic and amusing panel done by Julian Richings, who played Death. Emily Swallow, who played Amara/The Darkness followed after and she talked about how classy the cast and crew were, and how nervous she was at her first convention, after realizing that some fans wouldn’t be happy about her kissing Dean.

Photo Ops and autographs followed this portion and then Gil McKinney followed, and then the dynamic duo Briana Buckmaster and Kim Rhodes closed out the night. I always look forward to seeing Briana and Kim, as they always provide an entertaining, raunchy, and great dose of girl power to the audience.

If you haven’t checked out the Wayward AF campaign, you really should. Kim and Briana are two people who continue to inspire me daily.  They offered up some good advice to audience members and also talked about penises for twenty minutes, so it was basically like attending a typical gal pal slumber party. The panels wrapped up, and then Friday Night Karaoke took place.

This year’s karaoke theme was “Fandom Funhouse,” which involved many costumes and even more jokes. The highlight of the outfits being Emily Swallow’s cute tiger costume, Briana’s lion tamer outfit, complete with a whip. Kim dressed as a knife thrower, Matt Cohen was a crocodile hunter, Ruth Connell was the bearded lady, and there were special appearances by Julian Richards and Rob Benedict.

Karaoke was fantastic and filled with some truly spectacular singers. As is typical with karaoke, there were also a lot of hilarious and inappropriate moments, such as when Matt Cohen shoved a Castiel stuffed doll in his pants and Kim Rhodes helped him remove it. Sorry, I didn’t manage to snap a picture of that.

Briana used her whip a few times on stage and wrangled Richard to various parts of the stage. Julian and Emily ran around the stage, clapping and running through the crowd. Overall, Fandom Funhouse was a lot of fun to participate in and was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. The actors on stage were incredibly encouraging to the karaoke participants and kept the energy up until midnight, where of course the evening ended with “Carry On My Wayward Son.”

Saturday was a full day, starting with Sebastian Roche, who had the entire audience stand and sing “All We Need Is Love,” and reminded people that given the times we are in to keep loving another and to be nice to each other. Sebastian was hilarious and in constant motion, and he managed to answer three whole questions, which beat his previous record.

Next up was Gil McKinney, Briana Buckmaster, Kim Rhodes, and Ruth Connell. At one point during the panel, Gil pretended to strip while the girls all lounged around him. During this panel, the actors discussed being yourself, finding creative outlets for your feelings, and telling people where to shove it when they tell you how to live your life.

Then there was a huge break, where people could do more photo ops and autographs. The Supernatural Fandom is endlessly creative, and some of their photo props and ideas were fantastic. I, unfortunately, was more of the “I showed up in cute clothes,” part of the fandom, and did not partake in creativity portion of things. Also, there is a very long list of items that one could not do with the actors, which lead to so many questions that were left unanswered.

Mark Sheppard’s panel came after that, and his wife and daughter were also at the panel. He carried his daughter around the room, and it was all very adorable. Mark answered questions and was in a great mood, even if he was sarcastic half of the time. He even complimented his fellow actors, which he stated is a rare thing for him to do.  

Misha’s panel was one of the main Saturday events, and he talked about what things have inspired him, telling funny stories from the set, his work with Gishwhes, and I’mAlive. One of the funniest parts of Misha’s panel was when he pretended to be an audience member asking Richard Speight how he keeps the actors safe while directing and then launches into a story about how Richard told him it was safe to do the trick scene, and the truck would be nowhere near him. And then he almost got ran over by a truck.

The best part of Saturday night was the Saturday Night Special, where Louden Swain performed with Rob Benedict. Most of the actors on the show made a special appearance and performed with Louden Swain.

Kim Rhodes performed a fantastic rendition of “Free Your Mind,” that had the crowd up and jamming almost instantly. Ruth Connell performed a salsa version of “Bang Bang” with Louden Swain in a frankly amazing, beautiful red dress. However, the highlight of the evening happened when Jensen Ackles’ came out and sang “Brother” by NeedToBreathe. The minute that man came on stage and sang the first few bars of the song, the crowd there was a complete silence that fell over the crowd. Seriously, find it on YouTube. It’s great!

During “She Waits,” a touching, but sad tribute to Rob Benedict’s mother, members of the audience bought and handed out glow sticks to wave in the crowd during the song, and it bonded the audience together. Rob thanked the audience and was touched by the gesture.

The final song brought all the cast members who had already guest performed, came back on stage with kazoos,  which the audience also had and performed with the band. It was one of the most connecting experiences that there was. Louden Swain came back on stage and played an amazing encore.

For gold members, Sunday morning started with a special thirty-minute panel with Jensen and Jared. Jared spent much of the panel goofing off and breaking things, like the mic stand and making several mic drop statements, where he dropped the mic, and one of the crew members brought out a pillow to save the mic.

Jensen cracked a bunch of jokes, and the boys announced that they were making craft beer and it should be available soon. Jared explained that the best advice he got was from Peter O’Toole, who told him that the tears belonged to his character and not to him, and it was the best advice that he had gotten.

The rest of Sunday passed in a flurry of photographs, and I won’t lie, I paid an exorbitant price to get pictures with Jensen and Jared. The pictures tend to be fast paced and were quickly over, but I still managed to make an ass out of myself by being startled by Jared when he threw his arms around me for the picture. It was one of my finer moments.

The boys came back on stage later in the afternoon and were in rare form. They also offered up some great advice to people in the audience. Jared explained that he had a lot of fun during the “Regarding Dean” episode as he put the post-it notes all over the room.

Jensen gave a touching speech about how he and Jared were best friends and how he didn’t think that was going to change anytime soon, and the most difficult scene that they would have with another would be their last. During this panel, Jared said that one of his dreams was to become a math teacher. Jared and Jensen also mimicked each other wiggling into jeans which was hilarious. The panel ended and then it was the forever long wait for autographs and more pictures.

Overall, I enjoyed this event. You get what you pay for here, and you literally pay for everything. It’s a more laid back convention that was more like a comedy show and concert and was very intimate. The actors and Louden Swain put on an excellent performance, and they told honest and fun stories during the panels.

One thing I love about the Supernatural events is the sense of community that all the fans have with another. I have made friends at these conventions that I’ve still talk to, and that’s part of the fun. However, this is one of the more expensive conventions that I have gone to and this year they did not have as many panels as they did in years past. It was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to attend another one.