Abbie Sedgeman

Staff Writer

@the_sedgetable

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend Starfury’s Glee convention and had the honour of meeting all the attending guests. But before I get to that, for anyone that has not been to a Starfury Convention before, let me explain exactly what it is.

Starfury’s G4 is an annual convention celebrating the popular TV show Glee, and this year celebrated Team Starkid and was held in the Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel in Heathrow. G4 was the fourth Glee convention, and there have been no formal decisions as to a G5 yet, but you can keep up to date on these decisions on the Starfury Twitter account.

There were 10 guests this year, and seeing as I was a Gold ticket holder, I was lucky enough to meet them all at the Meet and Greet. The guests were: Max Adler, Curt Mega, Dominic Barnes, Dylan Saunders, Brian Rosenthal, Joey Richter, Joe Moses, Brant Cox, Jeff Blim, and Darren Criss. Before I go into too much detail, I would like to just say how wonderful all of these guests are, especially under the jetlag they must have felt. The effort they put in was truly phenomenal!

The Meet and Greet itself consisted of tables of around 9 attendees, and each guest would visit your table for a few minutes to talk. Naturally they could not stay at a table for too long, but they really did make the most of the time they had. For example. Curt asked about where we lived and what stereotypes do not apply to us. We found out that even though Curt comes from Dallas, Texas, he does not own a pair cowboy boots! As one guest ran late- yes, it was Darren!- it ran longer than expected, but nobody was particularly concerned, as by the end of the night, we had met our idols!

The photo opportunities were also incredible, which began on the Saturday morning, starting with Team Starkid. It was busy, but with the 6 who attended and everyone wanting a picture, it was bound to be. What was really nice, though, was the willingness of them all to pull funny faces upon request; there were piggybacks, scene re-enactments, or just cute hugs, yet I never heard a single complaint. And the Glee actors were just as lovely as they stood there and smiled over and over again. The final sets of photos were taken with Darren Criss. Almost every attendee bought one with him, so he must have taken around 400 pictures, yet he looks just as happy in the first as he did in the last.

I was lucky enough to get a picture with every guest, and it amazes me how down-to-earth each of these guys was.

Each guest except for Darren also did autographs, which were free for Gold Ticket holders such as myself. The Glee guests even personalised every signature when a name was provided, which struck me as a really nice and meaningful touch.

The highlight for many was Darren Criss’ Acoustic Set on Saturday evening. Darren played old songs, such as “The Muse,: Disney Songs, and even pulled the Warblers onstage for a beautiful rendition of “Teenage Dream”; but my personal favourite was “Goin’ Back to Hogwarts,” where he brought the Starkids onstage for a loud sing-along, encouraging the entire audience to sing with them.

With the talent and costume contests, the Glee and Starkid fandoms were shown to be very talented group of people.

Throughout the weekend, there were also Q&As and here are some important nuggets of information I learnt:

• Dylan Saunders’ album Confluence is almost ready for release, with artwork all completed.
• Curt Mega is going to be a very busy man, with the release of the Buffering finale and his new horror themed project he has been working on.
• If you have not had the chance to see Team Starkid’s new projects yet (Ani and Trail to Oregon) they will be live-streamed, and then will be subsequently posted to YouTube.
• Darren’s A Very Potter Sequel song ‘Guys like Potter’ was originally called ‘Guys like Peter’.
• British slang has a very different meaning in America.
• Darren hopes to someday return to Starkid.

Overall, the weekend was an incredible success, and is likely to stay one of my fondest memories. I would like to say a massive thank you to Sean Harry and the Starfury Team, as well as the guests, all of whom put in such a large effort with all the attendees, as together they created a truly magical weekend for everyone.

Keep Up With PopWrapped On The Web!