People attend cons for a variety of reasons. Personally, I enjoy soaking in the atmosphere of the entire site – it really is electric – costumes, exploring the exhibition area, commissioning a piece of art from one of the many artists in the artist’s alley and of course, having the opportunity to meet the people behind my favourite movie and television characters. I have been waiting for a year, and the day is finally here! I donned my special “T-Shirt of the Day”, hopped on the 97 and headed out to the EY Centre!
This year con organizers developed their own app – which worked really well. I reviewed the schedule all week and had a pretty good idea what I hoped to do each day.
First Up – Celebrity Vehicles
This year, three celebrity vehicles were in attendance:
- Supernatural’s 1967 Chev Impala (OMG what a car)
- Back to the Future’s 1984 Delorean
- Ghostbuster’s Ecto-1 – a 1959 Cadillac Ambulance
Animation Screening
Next was a screening of the Canadian Animation Celebration sponsored by the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Did you know the OIF is the longest running animation festival in North America? The show was excellent! Highlights included:
I’d recognize Richard Condie’s voice anywhere!
Panel 1 – John De Lancie and René Auberjonois
The first panel of the day followed: 50 Years of Star Trek Q&A with John De Lancie and René Auberjonois. Both were gracious and good-natured with fans who for some reason asked the same question over and over again.
John De Lancie is known for portraying Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. I was surprised to learn he had roles in Charmed, Torchwood, Breaking Bad, Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica (1979), Days of Our Lives, The Twilight Zone, Matlock and MacGyver, among others series. As a voice actor he has appeared in Batman: The Animated Series, Assassin’s Creed (video game) and in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
René Auberjonois is known for portraying Chief of Security Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Col. West in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) Clayton Endicott III on the comedy series Benson (1979), and as Paul Lewiston on Boston Legal. Recently he appeared in The Librarians. As a voice actor he has appeared in The Last Unicorn (1980)(The Skull), Superfriends (Desaad), Little Mermaid (1989)(Louis) and the video game Skylanders: Superchargers (Pomfrey).
A short interview with the two actors at the con can be found here.
Geek Universe Concert with the OVMF
Montreal’s L’Orchestre à Vents de Musiques de Films closed Day 1 out with an excellent concert. 50 musicians under the direction of conductor and arranger Jocelyn Leblanc took the audience through the soundtracks of video games, movies and television. The playlist included:
- Skyrim
- Halo
- Star Fox
- Zelda vs Final Fantasy
- Contra
- Rey’s Theme
- Lando’s Theme (Bespin)
<Intermission>
- Doctor Who
- I am the Doctor (11th Doctor)
- All the Strange Strange Creatures (David Tennant)
- Am I a Good Man? (Peter Capaldi)
- Star Trek (new)
- Our Shore (Fellowship of the Ring) Medely
- Zelda a link to the past
<encore>
- Captain America – The First Avenger
- Game of Thrones
- Avengers
It was a wonderful way to wind up Day 1 of the Ottawa Comiccon – 2016 Edition.
