Obviously,
I totally failed at BEDA, and even after it turned into BALA it kind
of fell apart, between the craziness of being in Chicago and then
coming home and getting sick. But here I am again with a super-long
post for your enjoyment.
It's
the first day of September, which means that a new school year has
begun at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In honor of that
I've finally gotten my many, many thoughts on LeakyCon 2011 together
in a cohesive manner. For anyone unfamiliar with the event, it was a
gigantic Harry Potter fan convention that took place in Orlando,
Florida, in the middle of July. I first began counting down to LC'11
somewhere around 500 days before it started. I know. I'm a nerd. I
like numbers. Moving on...
I'll
start with a basic, basic sketch of the experience so I don't have to
explain too much as I go along. The con was held at Universal's Royal
Pacific resort, which is within walking distance of the Islands of
Adventure Park, which contains the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
My roommates included my sister Alicia (or Phish), my almost-sister
Maddy, and my friend Jess from college. (We met at a nerd/wizard rock
concert in October.) We flew from Columbus to Orlando on Tuesday,
July 12th and spent that afternoon exploring the enormous hotel and conference
center. The next morning we attended a special event called Lit Day,
which featured panels, workshops, and other programs put on by
authors, agents, editors, and others from the field of young adult
literature. Lit Day's keynote speaker was none other than Arthur A.
Levine, the man at Scholastic who fell in love with the Harry Potter
books and decided to take a chance by publishing them in the U.S.
Wednesday night we attended the opening ceremonies of LeakyCon
itself, and then we pretty much danced our way over to the theme park
for an event called Open at the Close. The Wizarding World, which
normally closes at 10 PM, stayed open until 1 AM just for LeakyCon
attendees. The next day was filled with all sorts of programs, which
ranged from academic discussions to hands-on workshops to podcasts to
original musicals to film screenings to meetups for various groups of
people. Thursday evening we attended a special screening of Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, six hours before the midnight
release, and then we hurried back to the hotel for a six-band wizard
rock concert. Friday meant more programming, including a dance
workshop led by Alicia, our friend Emily, and me, and there was
another wrock concert that night, this time with seven bands. For me,
Saturday was mostly taken up by the two incredible keynote events I
attended, and Saturday night was the Esther Earl Rocking Charity
Ball. Sunday morning brought a delicious brunch and many tears at the
closing ceremonies, and then a plane ride home.
I've
titled this post “It's Real for Us” because of a relatively new song of the same name by Lauren Fairweather. On one level, the song
refers to a conversation in the seventh HP book in which one
character tries to convince his Muggle-born friend that Hogwarts
really does exist, even though her jealous, unmagical sister wants
her to believe otherwise. On another level, however, the song speaks
to the fan community's collective feeling that it doesn't matter what
outsiders think, because we love this world we've read about and
continue to expand upon. I attended the first LeakyCon, which took
place in 2009, and it was probably the most life-changing experience
I've ever had, even a shade more powerful than the time I spent
studying in Ecuador. I ought to see what other people think about
this, but I'm going to postulate that nothing can ever quite compare
to your first major Harry Potter con experience, the one that opens
your eyes to exactly how vast and diverse and loving this community
is.
Unfortunately,
I experienced several minor disappointments at LeakyCon 2011. At one
point I remember stating that it felt like the “con gods” were
against us. On Wednesday afternoon I lost my phone. It just
disappeared out of my pocket right before the keynote with Arthur A.
Levine, and because I was trying to find it I didn't get a chance to
meet Mr. Levine, something I had been really excited about. I did get
my phone back eventually, but not until Saturday afternoon. At the
Open at the Close event, no one told us that the Forbidden Journey,
the ride inside Hogwarts castle, was going to close significantly
earlier than the rest of the park. We were just getting in line for
the ride at midnight when a Universal employee appeared and told us
that they were going to run the ride one last time and we needed to
come quickly, so we raced through the castle behind her, and when we
reached the loading zone for the ride the employees there told us
that they had shut it down for good ten minutes previously. The girl
whom we'd followed through the castle mysteriously evaporated. I'll
admit I cried quite a bit over that one. I was supposed to take part
in an incredible flash mob during the LeakyMug podcast, but it had to
be canceled because not enough people committed to taking part. On
Thursday morning, Maddy bought her very first wand, a beautiful Lily
Potter model from Whimsic Alley, and as we were walking down the
Universal City Walk that evening after seeing the movie, she reached
into her purse for something and managed to knock her wand out. I
heard it hit the ground, and we started looking for it less than ten
seconds later, but it was gone. We retraced our path four times to no
avail. There were so many people there, and I think it's just as
likely that it got kicked under one of the carts along the City Walk
as it is that someone else took it. I gave her money to buy a new
wand the next day, because I was just not going to let my little
sister lose her wand at her first con, and she went back and bought
the James Potter model. And unfortunately, I ended up hating Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which was kind of the central
event of the con. I won't go into all of that here, because that
could be a whole post unto itself, but I sobbed during the credits
because I wanted so much to like it, but I just didn't.
In
all honesty, I was a little disappointed by parts of the actual con
and some of its staff. Registration was a total and complete mess. If
you can't handle 3,000 people's registration, then don't let 3,000
people register. There was no excuse for the literally hundreds of
badges that were missing. I missed the two Lit Day programs I most
wanted to attend because I had to stand in one of several conflict
resolution lines for over two hours, and I know they kept telling Lit
Day registrants to just go to our programs and take care of it later,
but I was afraid if I got out of line and came back I would miss
either the Arthur Levine keynote or the opening ceremonies or not
have time to change into my costume for Open at the Close. Also, in
addition to calling the hotel's lost-and-found every few hours, I
asked about my phone every four hours or so at the Leaky staff desk
in the conference center, and I unfortunately discovered rude Leaky
staffers for the first time ever. Most times the people were very
nice, but there were a few occasions where I was made to feel like I
was wasting people's time because they had to turn their attention
away from their conversations with friends to listen to my quick
question.
However.
However, however, however, even when things kind of sucked, I was
still at LeakyCon. I got to walk through Hogsmeade sipping butterbeer
and eat at the Three Broomsticks with my sisters and some of my
closest friends (all of whom I've known for less than two years). I
had my picture taken in front of Hogwarts with Alicia and my
dear friends Emily and Jordan, just as we did when we were at King's
Cross Station four years ago. I waltzed with my friend Philip and a
good chunk of Team Starkid during “Total Eclipse of the Heart” at
the ball. I got to talk to my friend Elisa, whom I met last year at
Wrockstock, and I got the chance to have a real conversation
with Jordan for the first time since we graduated college. I also met
a few friends whom I'd never before met IRL. In fact, I met my friend
Jodi when we randomly wound up sitting next to each other while
waiting for the LeakyMug to start, and we talked for probably fifteen
minutes before realizing we tweet each other all the time!
The
program Alicia, Emily, and I did, which was called “Dance Against
the Dark Arts,” ran perfectly smoothly and we had two or three
times as many participants as we were hoping for! I was sad that John
Green had to go home because he got sick, but I did get to meet him
at LC'09, and I got to see Hank run around the room with swords and
sing “Protons and Neutrons” in the dark (because the lights went
out randomly), and Maureen Johnson trolled the Nerdfighter gathering
the whole time via Twitter. I laughed and cried and laughed during
the amazing Very Starkid Event and high-fived Joe Walker during the
photo booth session. I learned that Benedict Clarke (young Snape in
the film) is afraid of lemon meringue pie, and I watched my sister
stump Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) with a Harry Potter trivia
question. I got to tell Stephanie Perkins how much I love her first
novel, Anna and the French Kiss. And the wizard rock – oh my
goodness, the wizard rock! Bands/artists that deserve special
recognition for mind-blowing sets that I will never forget include
Tonks and the Aurors, Ministry of Magic, Hank Green, Gred and Forge,
Harry and the Potters (just for having Evanna come out and play bass
during their encore) and of course, Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls
and The Remus Lupins, who were playing their last shows. Seeing Alex
Carpenter tear up stage was really evidence of how far this genre of
music that began as a joke has come. Speaking of Alex, it was really
wonderful to get a chance to talk to him in the Room of Requirement
on Friday afternoon without being surrounded by a crowd of people
also wanting to talk to him. When he's not swamped by a hundred
people and can actually hold a conversation with you, you know that
he is really glad to talk to you and is honestly interested in what
you're saying.
And
of course, there's the one thing that I can never manage to express
adequately, no matter how hard I try, which is the sense of love and
acceptance and community that you can practically grab out of the air
when you're at an event like this. Harry Potter fans, the wonderful,
nerdy, totally insane ones who spend their hard-earned money to go to
LeakyCon, are the most amazing group of people with whom I've ever
been associated. There's no way to replicate how I feel inside when
I've got my arms around sweaty, hoarse-voiced people I don't even
know and we're all swaying back and forth and singing “We're
wizards, we'll party forever! This night will never end!” at the
top of our lungs, or when Melissa Anelli announces that we've raised
$120,000 for Book Aid International, the Harry Potter Alliance, and
the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation. It's because of those feelings
that I was literally sobbing by the fourth note of “Days of Summer”
at the closing ceremonies.
As
Lauren says in her beautiful song, “It's real for us, it's real for
us. It doesn't matter what the Muggles say, 'cause it's real for us.”
I am so blessed because I do get to live in Harry Potter's world, or
at least as close as anyone except Jo Rowling can possibly come, and
I know it's real because it has its ups and downs just like any other
part of life. Even when things in the wizarding world are less than
perfect, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.
