REPORT & PHOTOS OF UNDERTAKER/PAIGE AT AUSTIN WIZARD WORLD
- 10/09/2014 (8:11:33 pm)
- Bob Mulrenin
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I had an AWESOME trip to Austin, TX where I attended Wizard World. I have not been on a plane since 1995-1996. When I found out The Undertaker would be taking John Cena's place at Wizard World due to other commitments I was in. I left from Los Angeles, CA - LAX Thursday morning and had a nonstop flight to Austin, TX. When I arrived I took the free shuttle to my hotel, The Holiday Inn. I had an hour to settle in and then took a taxi to The Austin Convention Center. I arrived around 3:00pm to see no line whatsoever outside. I had a homeless guy ask me for some money to get some food so I took him over to a food truck and bought him some. He was really appreciative and thanked me.
I walked around to the other side and entered the convention center. Ah ha, there was the line. There was about 60 people and it was very Quiet. As I walked down the line a few people recognized me and said hello to me and I waved back. I was headed to the other side of the building to check in. I got in the VIP line, if you call one person in front of me a line, and waited my turn. I showed the lady my printout ticket and told her that I was told that I could upgrade my VIP Undertaker Ticket to the Dual VIP Undertaker / Paige ticket. She then told me to walk around the back of the curtain do get help doing this. I walked around and behind and finally got to a room where I was greeted by a few staff. I let them know that I had spoke with one of their people and was told to upgrade my ticket with them. Oddly enough, they told me that everyone who bought a VIP Undertaker ticket was sent an upgrade email through Ticket Leap to add Paige on. I let them know that I never got this, and I know several others who never go this email. They told me it was in my SPAM folder. I told them that I don't have a SPAM folder, and go through thousands of emails a day from people who visit my website. They were insistent that I received this upgrade email and that was the only way I could upgrade. I let them know that their show promoter I called never mentioned this to me on the phone and told me that I could upgrade at the convention center. After a while they finally figured out how to add Paige to my ticket
and told everyone from this point forward to let everyone know they can't do it anymore. I thanked them and then went back to the VIP line where I picked up my badge, VIP photo op / autograph tickets of Undertaker and Paige, lithographs, a comic book and I left to get in line.
and told everyone from this point forward to let everyone know they can't do it anymore. I thanked them and then went back to the VIP line where I picked up my badge, VIP photo op / autograph tickets of Undertaker and Paige, lithographs, a comic book and I left to get in line.
The show opened and everyone ran inside. The place was so huge that the line of people pretty much vanished as they entered the huge convention center. It was Thursday, so I expected it to be dead. I had nothing on my to do list except to meet Paige. I first had to go to the autograph booth and turn my autograph print outs from home into autograph tickets. Then I had to walk to the other side of the room to turn my photo op print outs from home into photo op tickets. I was informed that Allison Mack had canceled for Friday but would be coming on Saturday. I decided to walk a mile over to the other side to get a refund. I was not going to come to the convention center the next day spending another $40 to get there and back to the airport on a taxi. I then walked back inside the convention center to see all the vendor booths and to my surprise it was empty. There were five booths spread out selling the same type of ninja swords, and weapons. Why does a convention need five vendors selling the exact same stuff? Then there was several other booths selling the same exact toys with a few t-shirt booths. There wasn't really anything to look at. I did spin a wheel and win a cruise but when they found out I was not a Texas resident they apologize and said I did not quailfy.
Finally we were allowed to line up for Paige. There was maybe 15 people at first. Then when the photo op began there was maybe a good 80-100 people waiting in line. As I entered the room Paige was dancing around. I said hello to her, stepped on the mark, she stood to the side of me, we both looked at the camera, the photographer counted off... 1, 2 and right on 3, Paige jumped on me hugging me laughing. They handed my ticket voucher, I thanked her and walked outside. The print out was already done so I grabbed it and then proceeded back to the photo op claim booth to hand them my ticket voucher, my printed out ticket for the JPEG I bought at home. They scanned it, and it was ready to download. I then went to get in Paige's autograph line on the other side of the building. On a side note, one of Paiges fans gave her an odd furry hat to wear, which she kept on for several photo ops. One guy complained about it and retook his photo. LOL.
Paige came out and began to sign autographs for fans. It went pretty fast. I had her sign my photo op. When she looked at it she said, hey, we look like best buds, what's your name? I told her Todd. She said.. Todd.. I'm going to call you Toddy. It is okay if I sign To Toddy? I said, sure, why not. So she signed my photo op To Toddy. I thanked her and had an hour or so to kill until she would do her first ever live Q&A panel.
The panel was fun and went by fast. The WWE is usually strict, and I've heard Wizard World is too, so I filmed the entire panel while trying to cover the camera a bit. I would pretend I was snapping shots. One of the head WWE people sat next to me and I'm glad they were so focused on Paige they didn't notice me recording... or maybe they didn't care.
It was not even past 10pm Thursday night but I needed to get my swollen leg up so I called my taxi to take me back to the hotel room. I organized for Friday, the BIG MEET, finally, going to mee The Undertaker. I then went to bed.
Friday was here, and I left for the convention center. I got there around 1:00pm, entered at 1:30pm, and the place was completely dead. I headed to the photo area and was pretty much first in the unofficial Undertaker line with a few other people. We bonded, and chatted for a while. Wizard World employees kept walking up to us telling us that the Undertaker line was not started yet and we had to move. So we moved enough and continued our chat about various things. It's not even 2:00pm on Friday, and pretty much nothing is scheduled. It doens't make sense. All my stuff that I needed to do was so close to each other. Why didn't they being the photo ops sooner? The Charmed Dual Photo Op with Shannon Doherty and Holly Marie Combs was at 4:15pm. The Undertaker Photo Op was scheduled for 4:30pm. The Undertaker Autograph Session was scheduled at 6:30pm but my Bruce Campbell photo op was scheduled at 6:00pm. Also, you need to get in line 30 minutes before the scheduled time. I had a photo op with Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker at 7:00pm, and another photo op with Summer Glau at 7:40pm. I let the photo op people know this so they helped get me to the front of the line.
While my buddies were waiting in The Undertakers photo op line they put me in front for the Dual Charmed photo op. First they did the Three Charmed Photo Op for Charmed, and then I was next. I took my photo op with Shannon and Holly and then took off to pick up my photo op and turn my JPEG receipt in so I could download the image. I then went to the front of The Undertaker line to meet up with my buddies. I had VIP for The Undertaker.
Finally it was time to meet The Undertaker. I first asked him if he could pretend to choke slam me, he looked at the assistant and she said no choking allowed. The Undertaker then said, there is enough choking going on in the NFL right now anyways. I asked if he would roll his eyes back and he said he forgot how to do that. I laughed and asked him for a normal shot, a shot with me holding the urn, and asked him to put his thumb up to his throat. We took the pics, I thanked him, and left to pick up my photos that were already printed. I then went over to turn in my JPEG tickets so I could download the pics. I proceeded over to The Undertaker autograph line which was huge already. I found my buddies I was talking to and got in front. My leg was acting up so I asked one of the Wizard people to get me and chair, and they obliged. His autograph session would not start until 6:30pm but I had a photo op I needed to take with Bruce Campbell at 6:00pm so they held my space and I went over to Bruce's line and let the photo op people know I needed to get back to the Undertaker so they put me first in line to get Bruce Campbell. It was 6:15 and I hear everyone sceaming. The Undertaker began to sign fifteen minutes early. I was getting freaked out that my place held in line would not be there.
Finally Bruce showed up on time, but he ran around greeting everyone. I went in, got my photo with Bruce, thanked him, and proceeded to go back to The Undertakers line. Thank goodness my buddies were still in line but only about ten people were in front of them. I pulled out one of my Undertaker photo ops that I just took, and my WWE Undertaker Urn, and he signed both. Man, the autographs were so awesome. He took the time to sign them nice, and asked where you wanted them signed. I thanked him and then went back over to the photo op area to pick up my Bruce Campbell photo and to turn in my JPG receipt so that I could download the image.
I then headed over to get in line, which already began, for the Dual Norman Reedus and Michael Rooker photo op. As I entered I saw Norman and Michael goofing around. I shook their hands and asked for a triple middle finger pic. They both smiled and were happy to oblige. Norman danced around flipping everyone off and they took the picture. The photographer said, wait, I need to take another one, I was focused on Norman's finger. So we took another one.
I thanked them and the guy handed me two tickets. I ended up getting two photo ops for free. I picked up both my photos and went over to tell the guy what happened. I told him I only paid for one JPEG. He said he would give me both since they took two. I thanked him and proceeded to get in line for Summer Glau. I got there in time. About 60 people were behind me in seconds. I took my photo with her, thanked her, picked up my photo op, took it over to get the JPEG download, and decided to buy a photo op with Rebecca Mader. I loved her in Once Upon a Time.
I had some time to kill so I was walking down the isle and saw both Shannon Doherty and Holly Marie Combs sitting at their booths with only a couple fans in their line. I thought, hell, I might as well. I took off to the other side of the room to buy autograph tickets for them, to get them to sign the photo op I took with both of them. When I showed Shannon the photo she got pissed due to the photo was so redish orange. She said it looked like they gave all three of us a spray tan. She took a photo of it and sent it to Wizard Photo people complaining. She signed it, and I thanked her. When Holly saw the photo she said the samething. She didn't like the photo. I told her that Shannon already took a photo of it to complain to them. She laughed. I had her sign it, and I thanked her.
I then went back to get in line for my photo op with Rebecca Mader. There was maybe ten people who took photos with her. It was my turn to take the photo and Rebecca reached out to shake my hand. I took the photo, she thanked me, and I walked out to pick up my photo op. I then went back over to buy the JPG download and I was done. It was getting late and the show was about to close. I called my taxi and went back to my hotel.
I packed everything up getting ready for my flight tomorrow and went to bed. The convention was over, and I was going to be flying home but my photo ops were not done yet. When I was on the plane I saw Christopher Judge walk on and I took a quick photo of him. When my flight landed in Dallas I got off the plane and sat down. Everyone walked out of the plane. Finally I saw Christopher walking out last. I got up and asked him if I could please get a photo with you. He looked around, and said, sure, as long as it's fast. I handed my camera over to a guy asking if he could please take my photo and he did. I thanked him, and thanked Christopher. When I got on my second flight I saw Christopher again. We both showed up about ten minutes after boarding had begun. I told him I'm glad we didn't miss out flight to Los Angeles. He laughed and we got on the plane. A few hours later and I was back in Los Angeles.
The main reason for going to this event was to meet The Undertaker. Everything else was a bonus. I had a great time.
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