Joss Whedon crashed the Starfury “Serenity Forever” convention in London this past weekend. One of our readers and fans, Roel, was on hand at this small con, which headlined Jewel Staite and Sean Maher as the main Firefly/Serenity guests. Roel has this report on Joss Whedon’s surprise appearance at the convention’s dance:
Starfury cons in London are always fun, they are small gatherings of a few hundred fans coming together to celebrate their favorite shows with what has become a giant happy family. The three day cons consist of an opening ceremony on Friday, photo and autograph sessions Saturday and Sunday morning and guest talks/Q&As the rest of the Saturday and Sunday. Each of the three days ends with a themed disco party in the ballroom from 9PM to 2AM where the invited actors and writers can choose to mingle with the attendees at the bar or join them on the dance floor, which is always great fun.This past weekend (Sept 13th – 15th) ‘Serenity Forever’ focused on Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and Stargate with Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Nectar Rose, Magda Apanowicz, Aaron Douglas, Leah Cairns, Stephanie Jacobsen, Elyse Levesque and Jonathan Woodward attending the con, sharing amazing stories with the attendees and just having a lot of fun.This con was already amazing, but no one was prepared for what happened Saturday night. Jewel and Sean were not at the disco party, but had chosen to go to their hotel, which is totally fine, no one is forced to do anything they don’t feel like doing. But sometime after midnight the attendees who were sitting outside the lobby getting some fresh air or smoking a cigarette were treated to a very strange sight. Jewel and Sean were giddily walking towards the hotel escorting a man, whose face was wrapped in a scarf. This was such a weird sight that lots of people started staring, which made Sean and Jewel realize their ‘clever trick with the scarf’ wasn’t as effective as they had hoped, so they lost the scarf, and made the hearts of a few dozen people skip a few beats.The man with the scarf around his head was no other than Joss Whedon himself!The trio walked to the bar (with the con organizer running after them desperate to find out what was going on!) where they got a drink and talked to some fans, most of the attendees had heard that Joss arrived, although most of them didn’t believe a word of it at first more and more people started to flock around Joss welcoming him and saying hi. After a little while the trio moved to the dance floor where they proceeded to dance till the hotel staff turned up the lights and announced it was time to clear the ballroom. At which point Joss grabbed a microphone, got up on stage and said a few words to thank all the attendees for being so amazingly cool and welcoming before he left the building with Sean and Jewel while every one in the room cheered his name.When the DJ announced Joss had left the building back stage and asked everyone to kindly leave the ballroom in an orderly fashion so it could be cleaned and set up for the next day every one started spontaneously singing the Firefly theme song in unison, which I for one sincerely hope Joss was able to hear, because it was such an amazing moment to witness, the whole thing brought tears to many a fan’s eye. Though I stand by my statement that I got some dust in my eye… honest! Okay fine, I cried… there you have it.
Afterward the attendees gathered in groups in the lobby, at the bar and outside, sharing their happiness with each other, telling each other the story of how they just shook Joss Whedon’s hand and how sincerely nice the guy was. And he was not a bad dancer either, his robot is simply amazing.The next day Sean and Jewel explained what actually happened, that Joss was in London for work and that he came over to their hotel to hang out, after mentioning that he felt like dancing Sean and Jewel didn’t really know anywhere they could go. Except maybe to the dance party for this con, which is always low key and nice, and since the con is always attended by amazing people Sean and Jewel felt like it would be totally fine if Joss came over to dance.I am so glad that all of the attendees proved them right by being totally respectful and keeping their distance for the most part letting Joss just have fun with his friends without hassling him for photos or autographs. Obviously there were some people to protect him from lunatics or drunk people pushing boundaries, but I am glad that they didn’t really have to do anything because every one was just amazing in respecting the man’s privacy.Without a doubt this con is one the attendees will NEVER forget, a random appearance of Joss is rare, being able to talk to him or dance with him is rare and for a lot of us just a once in a lifetime opportunity. I am truly grateful and honored that Sean and Jewel felt they could trust the lot of us enough to just bring Joss over to have fun, and I am truly grateful that the lot of us proved them right. This is definitely a con I personally will never forget, and Sean got a big hug for making this happen.In the off chance that Joss ever reads this. Thank you so much! You made a lot of geeks really happy, and I hope you had fun. And now I’m going to get a tissue because there is dust in my eye again.
Thanks to Roel for this convention report! So what is Joss Whedon working on in the United Kingdom? Is he preparing to film The Avengers: Age of Ultron, which is scheduled to shoot in London in 2014 (via Screen Rant)?
Starfury Conventions (http://www.starfury.co.uk/) hosts a variety of different genre cons in the UK. Color photo by Bénélie Blanlain, and black & white photo by Jo Leslie.