The FedCon sunday

The sunday began with a meeting of the DVD crew. As a reward for the work so far, we were let in the autograph session as the earliest in the morning. Garret Wang was the first I met there - and he was severely tired - pretty obvious after his long stay at the party. Nevertheless, he could get himself to smile and was very polite. Armin Shimerman was next - he was charming and nice as always, quite the opposite character which he played in Star Trek DS9. Anthony Montgomery was still up for some fun, although his voice had suffered severely during the saturday party. We two noticed that we had one thing in common: Both of us didn't get the smoke from the party out of our clothes. Kate Mulgrew was silent as always, but my personal highlight of the autograph session sat at the very end of the queue anyways: Paul McGillion and Laura Bertram. I thanked Paul for the hilarious photo from the earlier session and he signed the autograph with his typical "cheers". Laura Bertram welcomed me with her wonderful smile which she kept throughout the entire weekend. And she had a good memory, since she first of all thanked me for my questions that I asked during the earlier panels. As I had my Force Lance with me, it was obvious that I would rather like her to sign it instead of the photo. She once again looked at it closely and wondered how much time I put into it. In the end however, it was the belt that made more trouble. We continued to talk a bit about the previous party and she uttered that she and her friends had a lot of fun and might return to the convention. A good thing to know that not only the fans had fun!

As I returned to the mainbridge, Orli Shoshan was the first to hold a panel. It was still rather empty as it was early in the morning, and also many people queued up for the big autograph session that I had just come from. As Orli had not much to tell, she had a hard time during the panel. What was surprising to me was the fact that she only required four hours in the make-up to become Shaak Ti. It was particularly surprising since Laura Bertram, with a lot less alien make-up required even 5 hours. Orli also mentioned how tough it was to do the fight scenes for Star Wars Episode II, since the tentacles were very heavy.

The next panel was another real highlight: Jonathan Frakes. This man still had a lot of energy and his panel was even better than the first one right after the opening ceremony. As I was again on disposition for the camera, I sat in front of the right stage camera when Marc B. Lee joined me. He and Jonathan Frakes seemed to have a special relationship, as throughout the entire panel, both were making fun of each other. Of course, the now already well-known Frakes version of "Vooolaaaareeee" had to come again.
A fun highlight was the question of a female fan who took the joke questions of Laura Bertram and Jewel Staite from the previous evening and forwarded it to Jonathan: "If you could choose, what animal would you like to be?" While the question already resulted in massive laughter, Jonathan Frakes surprisingly started to impersonate a monkey on stage. Furthermore, he has shown off some musical skills. A fan brought him a trombone which he was able to play on - very well. During his panel, our crew member Cathrin occupied the right stage camera, when Jonathan suddenly couldn't leave his professional interest in directing - after all, he is not just an actor. He hopped onto the camera platform and gave confused Cathrin pretty much.

Jonathan Frakes was displaced by Avery Brooks after a very funny panel. Avery was quite a contrast programme: Profound as always, he brought us one step closer to his "twilight zone", which he was referring to frequently. As he was answering a question, two little children slowly walked in front of the stage, waited for a moment and then got back to their mother. Mr. Brooks noticed both of them and after having finished his answer, he went into the auditorium, took the children by their hands and walked up to the stage together with both. This was one of the cutest scenes throughout the convention.

After Anthony Montgomery, Armin Shimerman had another panel that I attended for a while. When I saw and heard him on stage, I knew why the fans love him so much. He has a very positive appearance and is outgoing. In the front rows of the auditorium, there were seats reserved for handicapped people. As one of them had a question, Mr. Shimerman walked down the stage personally and handed over his microphone - yet another example of his friendly appearance.

Later, Garrett Wang came on stage with the same small eyes as in the morning. He welcomed us with a "ich bin sehr...mude" which was immediately responded on: "we can see it!". The entire panel stayed this funny. Garrett talked about some uncomfortable encounters with Jery Ryan who played 7of9 in Voyager - or "DoubleOfD" like him and his colleagues would call her occasionally. He also told us the story of how he met someone who carried the name of his Voyager role: The real 'Harry Kim' was ensign in the navy at that time. Garrett took this chance to gain information of how long it would take to get promoted - since he stayed ensign on the Voyager forever, being very disappointed about this. His panel continued with a very funny personification of Kate Mulgrew, until he found an abandoned chips bag on stage. He was so fascinated by the german-spelled ingredients that he started to read them out. You would never imagine how funny a chips bag could be...

In the afternoon, Jewel Staite and Paul McGillion had a nice double-panel. The combined charme and humor of both made this one another highlight. They had a little Stargate trivia with prizes to win and answered many questions. A group of obvious Paul McGillion fans became very loud with some rather artificial sounding laughs. At first it was funny, but after a while, they began to annoy our crew. When their screaming started again, Paul simply looked over in a strict but ironic way and calmed them with a simple "shut up!" which caused some hard laughs from our part.

The last FedCon 16 panel was held by Kate Mulgrew. Again political, but also more comedic than before. When she discovered the chips bag that Garrett Wang put back on stage earlier, the entire mainbridge laughed out loud - much to her confusion. When a fan told her it had something to do with Garrett, she immediately imagined that he would have impersonated her again - like he always does. She took her verbal revenge in a much more mature way - for instance by telling rather awkward stories about him on set as well as to emphasize on his "whining" about wanting to get promoted. Combined with Garrett's panel earlier, this one was a worthy ending for the convention. 

The closing ceremony - the very end of the convention - began with some specials. At first, the best artists from the artwork and model show were awarded. Among them Christian, one of our cameramen. Dirk Bartholomä and his team then announced the FedCon USA, a new project that is intended to bring the unique FedCon style to the USA as well. By accident, Paul McGillion came on stage with them, until he noticed that he was at the wrong place, trying to hide behind Marc B. Lee.
Then, it was Robert O'Reilly's and J.G. Hertzler's turn. While Robert addressed a goodbye speech in Klingon, J.G. sadly announced that the FedCon 16 would be their last convention. At the end of their appearance, they presented a board signed by all the guest stars which would be sold for charity purposes. It achieved around 500 €.
The closing ceremony continued musically. Anthony Montgomery performed some live rap for those who couldn't be at the party the earlier day. He tried to get the audience to sing with him, but it seemed as if Hip Hop was not quite the style of most. As I was still at the right stage camera, the only one I could hear sing along nearby was Laura Bertram, who was relaxing in the front row. But the Germans definately had their problems. She by the way also contributed some music to the closing ceremony. She performed a little funny song in German which resulted in a very cute scene. 

Finally, it was time for everyone to say goodbye. One guest after another came on stage and said some words of goodbye. Jonathan Frakes began with his usual "Vooolaaaareeeee", taking the entire audience with him. As it seemed, he and Kate Mulgrew had a bet running, since after the reactions of the audience were clear, he grinned into the direction of the backstage area and a moment after, Kate came on stage, counting money and passing it over to Jonathan. Avery Brooks celebrated his Star Trek colleagues by pulling one after another to the front again, where they gained yet another tremendous applause.

When all guests left the stage and a sad mood caught many of us, Marc B. Lee had a surprise for us - a very special closing video with a German pun. It aroused so much laughter that everyone was happy again for a while - it become so popular that the FedCon staff has even put it on Youtube afterwards. In the evening, the remaining fans celebrated one more night at the piano bar and several of the guests among us. Finally saying goodbye to all and leaving the Maritim was tough, but we have taken wonderful memories of a wonderful event with us.

• Watch all photos from the FedCon sunday here