The Crusade Convention

The pictures are up!! Click here for the picture page. Also see below for pictures.

On July 25 - 26 1998 another Wolf359 convention, called The Crusade, was held at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel in London, UK.

The guests:

An abbreviated version of this report appeared in And Now For A Word, the fanzine of The Babylon Project, the Dutch Babylon5 fanclub.

What I especially liked about this event was that it wasn't purely an autographs/panel/dealer's room event, a lot was organised around the convention itself. These icings on the cake make the trip even more worthwhile.

In the Beginning screening

On Thursday evening were two screenings of In the Beginning at the Warner Bros movie theatre on Leicester Square. Yep, ItB on the big screen! There was quite a crowd outside before the first screening, which we attended, some people were in uniform and there was even a TV crew (don't know which station though) present to tape this happening. We ate at the (excellent!) Italian restaurant just left of the theatre, where we sat on the second floor, but unfortunately couldn't get the table at the window. So we casually walked over to the window from time to time to take a look at the crowd. A curious sight it is, seeing that many B5 shirts and stuff in the midst of London. Anyway, we managed to get great seats (centre centre), although they were quite a bit smaller than what we were used to here in Holland.

Bruce made a short appearance talking a bit about the movie and stuff and Jerry also made a quick guest appearance. He talked a bit about having himself turned in to a younger version of himself and about other things which I can't remember. Since this first screening also was a press screening with Warner Bros officials present, nothing was said about the way tickets for this event were handled. I read on the net that Jerry did talk about it before the second screening, but I'll come to that later.

The movie itself needs no further comment, we have all seen it, haven't we? I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't the widescreen version, but you can't have everything I guess. I was evident that the source was the video release itself, because the picture quality was blurry at times (video releases clearly aren't designed for big screen projection). The sound on the other hand was awesome, I heard things I missed on my basic TV set. I certainly don't need convincing buying a Dolby Surround, or better even a Dolby Digital, system, it most certainly is worth it! All in all, it was great seeing it on the big screen, and I was glad that I could attend.

The ticket thing...

No report on the ItB screening can be complete without a comment on the row between jms and Wolf359, or more specific Brian Cooney, Wolf's main man. The information I present here is from what I have read on the net, so is by no means substantiated by Wolf, jms, Warner or anyone else. It is what I read, what I have made of it and my comment on it.

From what I understand, initially Warner UK were planning on charging money (20 pounds) for the tickets and Wolf would have the opportunity to sell the tickets to fans attending the Crusade convention. Then some rumours (or maybe this was the truth, I don't know) started floating around on the net stating that Warner didn't charge for the tickets ('donating their theatre for the purpose of a free screening for B5 fans as a gift', jms), but Wolf did. This rumour reached jms, who jumped on the bandwagon and took up the issue stating, in not so many words, that Wolf was being fraudulous. jms checked with Warner US' legal department, who didn't know anything about asking money for this screening.

To further complicate things, there's the issue of where the money would go to. Wolf stated that part of it would go to the actors appearing at the screening and part would go to Warner Bros. jms checked this with Bruce Boxleitner, who stated that he and Jerry indeed were paid to attend the screening, but that it would only be a small part of what the screening would make. According to jms, Warner didn't know anything about money being charged for the tickets. If this is true, where would the money have gone to? Wolf359? Furthermore, when money were to be charged, Warner would also have to pay residuals, royalties and payments to all the guilds involved. According to jms, this would be at least two or three hundred thousand dollars, more than the screening would make.

All this led to much uncertainty, causing rumours that there would be no screening at all, that no actors would appear, that the tickets would not be charged. Amidst of this, no statement came from Wolf, which left everything kind of up in the air. What were we to believe? Then a message appeared that Wolf had a contract with WB stating that Wolf had to remain silent concerning all matters connected to the screening, so this could explain why we weren't hearing anything from Wolf. On the other hand, this could be a convenient excuse from Wolf why they didn't say anything.

As of now, I still don't know what happened. I suspect Warner had planned to charge for the screening and were to sell the tickets through Wolf. I suspect Warner US and Warner UK didn't communicate, so Warner US made different statements than the ones we heard from Warner UK through Wolf. Then the whole royalties thing surfaced and maybe Warner UK realised they couldn't charge for the tickets and didn't want to loose face so kept quiet. Maybe Wolf were planning on charging for initially free tickets and keep the money or donate it to charity. I don't know yet and if anyone can fill in the gaps please e-mail me, I am curious what really happened.

And then came the article in SFX. I haven't read it yet, so comments will be added later.

When I look at this whole issue, only one thing stands out for me. Namely that jms utilised the net by making statements in newsgroups while participating in this issue (much the same as with the Claudia Christian thing). Here we see the power of the net at work, a person with very high credibility, with access to information others don't have, playing an active role in this discussion. While I don't want to comment on whether this was the best way of participating in the discussion or whether jms' dislike (apparent to me) of Brian Cooney played a role in it, or even if all this is a good thing per se, I find it interesting to see how this act influences public opinion on the net. Messages stating 'it comes from jms and because of this it must be the truth' start to appear and people disagreeing are often mercilessly flamed and all balanced discussion disappears. Once again, the image we have of a person and what we would like that person to be supersedes fact and thought.

I personally think miscommunication between Wolf, Warner UK and Warner US led from bad to worse and after jms joined in everything spun out of control. I find it hard to believe that Wolf would charge for the tickets while Warner UK would be against this, since Warner essentially is a law firm and most likely would sue Wolf over this. Maybe jms went more vigorously after this because of personal feelings, but his arguments appear firm and valid to me, although I think he got incorrect information at the very start because of miscommunication between Warner US and UK.

In the end, we got to see the movie, we got to see Bruce and Jerry there and we got to see it for free. The only bad thing which came out of this is that the relationship between jms and Brian Cooney probably is beyond repair and as such we won't see jms at any Wolf conventions any time soon. Which is too bad for us fans, but it reminds us that jms is only human like the rest of us, something some people on the newsgroups seem to forget. They probably think he really IS a Vorlon ;-) (if he is he's a pretty darn well disguised one ;-)

Messages by jms and others on this issue can be found on the left frame.

The tennis match

Wolf359 organised a tennis match between Jerry Doyle and Bruce Boxleitner on Friday at some tennis club in London. Entrance was 15 pounds, the proceedings of which went to the National Heart Foundation.

Bruce and Jerry played one match where, to me (mind you, I know virtually nothing about tennis), Jerry seemed the better of the two, returning more difficult balls than Bruce. Unfortunately Jerry had hurt one of his toes quite badly (we'd later hear him say he broke it), but he still continued playing. Bruce and Jerry had great fun, although Jerry really doesn't like losing ;-)

After the match, which Bruce won, fans had the opportunity to play a doubles game with Bruce and Jerry. As I said, I know next to nothing about tennis, let alone that I could play, so I didn't, but a friend of mine (hi Natasja) did, and did quite well even! She doubled with Bruce while Jason doubled with Jerry. We all had a ball and tool a zillion pictures (see below). Unfortunately Jerry's toe became worse and he had to take a couple of breaks and couldn't be the star player he is (or he believes he is ;-).

And Natasja would like to thank the girl who lend her her shoes, since she wore a coupe of heavy hiking shoes, which weren't allowed on the tennis court, Natasja had to borrow someone else's shoes or forfeit the game. Now that naturally wasn't an option. So some nice person lend her her shoes which kind of made her day :-)

Saturday 25 July - Day 1

We got up early to avoid most of the registration queue, a bare necessity after what we witnessed last year (fortunately, last year we got up early too). There was a very reasonable queue, so we only had to wait for about half an hour.

Wolf most certainly learned from the chaos of last year. The group was split in to two (a red and a blue group) and the panel schedule was arranged accordingly, meaning that there were panels where only the red group could attend and panels which were for the blue group. I read on the net that some people considered this treacherous, since now they only were able to attend half of the convention. I disagree, because otherwise it would have been a lot more chaotic and now everyone got to see Bruce and Jerry twice, which IMO is enough. The autographs were held in a large air conditioned room, which was a pleasant relief compared to last year's tropic temperatures, although this time it was a bit on the chilly side. Chairs were put alongside the queue, so people didn't have to stand for hours, which was a splendid idea which made queuing much more pleasant.

I was able to get autographs from Bruce, Jerry and Mira, which now proudly hang on my living room wall. Although queuing was handled well this year, it still pays to queue early, since there is much more time to chat with the actors. When you're in the rear part of the queue, after about two thirds through the designated autographing time, the stewards notice that the queue is moving along much too slow, so everything gets hurried along with no time to chat and sometimes (although not this time) no personalised autograph. I queued early for Mira and Bruce and chatted a bit with Mira, which was very nice.

Jerry's panel

Jerry was quite clear on why he wasn't in Crusade, they wouldn't pay him enough. The standard procedure is that they make a proposal, which Jerry looks at and if reasonable specifies which items he would like to have changed. This then goes back and forth a couple of times until an agreement is reached. But this time, Jerry outright rejected the proposal, so there even wasn't any room for discussion (I got the feeling Jerry was even a bit insulted by the proposition he was given). This also was the case with the movies he isn't in, although Bruce mentioned that Jerry goes in to the negotiations as a hardened business man 'and negotiated himself right out of the movie'. Anyway, it seemed to me they both would have liked to be in Crusade, but the conditions were unacceptable.

Jerry talked about when he first auditioned for Garibaldi. He came in and was asked for which part he was in. jms and John Copeland were there, among others. Jerry answered 'for the part I'm gonna get' and jms said: 'that's Garibaldi' and so he got the part. Also the Dance Theatre of Harlem part came up. Jerry put this on his resume as a joke, figuring people would get it, since the Dance Theatre if Harlem is an all black group. Funny enough, no-one has ever made a remark about it. So now he uses it to check the people he auditions for out, if they don't mention is, he knows they don't know their job that well and he is in control.

His previous careers as a Jet salesman and pilot and Wall Street broker came up (he knew he was in a bit of trouble when the TV show 60 Minutes came by to ask him some nasty questions on insider dealing). He decided it wasn't fun anymore and made a career change to acting. He had acted a couple of years before on Moonlighting, where they were making an episode with Bruce Willis lookalikes. He liked that a lot so he decided to give it shot. Jerry thinks acting is the best job in the world. You get in early in the morning and someone asks you what you want for breakfast. Then they tell you what clothes to wear and what to say. And if you goof up, you get to do it again.

Bruce's panel

Bruce was asked about not being in Crusade and it still seems to hurt him that he isn't in it. The conditions weren't right, so that probably means they wouldn't pay enough. Bruce asked us to give Crusade a chance, though. If I remember correctly and correctly read between the lines, Bruce got the impression that the current actors weren't being considered to appear in Crusade at all, which created some bad feelings, since they all would have loved to be part of it.

In retrospect...

The general feeling I had from both panels was that the relationship between Bruce and Jerry (and probably other actors as well) and jms has deteriorated quite a bit over the last year. This not only seems to be caused by the way Crusade was handled, but also storywise. Bruce mentioned that he would have dome some things differently during the season 5 and he sounded a bit bitter about it. But then, this all might be a by-product of the end of series blues.

The party

Last year's party, well what can I say, exactly the same music every evening with a lot of Star Trekkin' kind of music with those annoying little dances (they're funny for the first three songs, after that they become ridiculous). This year was a lot better (I only went the first night, so I don't know about the second). The music was pretty decent, lots of 70's and disco 80's stuff, and even some Aqua which is great to dance to. There also were lots more people there, which is improves the atmosphere a lot. I had a ball, dancing all night until I nearly dropped at around 4. Next time I hope those guys at the bar remember to stock much more Grolsch beer. Hey, there were about 15 Dutch people there, guess what they'll drink, uh? I think were drank the hotel's complete stock of Grolsch before we were forced to Miller...

Sunday 26 July - Day 2

I actually don't remember what happened during the day, I know I got up early to queue for Bruce's and Mira's autograph, but my memory ends there. I did the panels and I guess did some more shopping, but I don't have a clear recollection of it.

The SFX awards

Contrary to last year, where tickets for a seating at the SFX Awards (each table had one actor) cost 30 pounds, this year a place at the actors table was determined by chance through raffle tickets which cost 1 pound each. I bought ten for Mira's table, but as always, was out of luck. Seating (theatre style) was limited to 400 people, which was determined by chance also, but free this time. Although we only had tickets for two people, just before that award ceremony started, someone came in to the Polo Lounge (which is the pub at the hotel) and asked people sitting there if they wanted to attend the SFX Awards, because they wanted to fill up the standing space in the back. Lucky for us, since our group was the first one they asked. The award ceremony was less grand than last year and without a blockbuster surprise guest appearance by someone like Gareth Thomas (Blake from Blake's 7), but the guy who played Darth Vader in Star Wars and the actor who played Willow were there, as were Mira and her husband and Jerry and Bruce, of course.

The Polo Lounge - or - how I got a hefty bar bill

After the SFX Awards we decided to hit the bar, which, much to my surprise, wasn't completely crowded as I would have expected, knowing Jerry and Bruce (who didn't appear, probably because he was extremely tired) would make an appearance. I guess lots of people went home, since they had to work on Monday.

We had a lot of fun together with Gareth and Jason, a couple of Brits we met at the queue which was forgotten last year and again met at the tennis match this year (hi guys!). Jerry did come to the bar and spend his evening surrounded by groupies consisting, as always, of a group of lush, young pretty (well, some of them) girls. And Mahib, or whatever his name is, you know, the fascist looking and acting Indian security guy dressed in black, who was the annoyance of last year's convention and lived up to his reputation this year, was there too. A friend of mine tried to offer Jerry a drink, but was threatened by you know who with blasphemy and damnation and the police if he wouldn't leave Jerry alone. A typical case of a big ego problem; he's to be pitied though. Anyway, I hope he won't be around next time.

Monday 27 July

My body was in shutdown mode after a weekend of only a couple of hours sleep, fast food and lots of alcohol, so I was a zombie on Monday. We were planning on going to the city and get some autographs at Forbidden Planet, where Jerry and Mira would be signing. After saying goodbye to some people (hi Sarah! Could you mail me the picture you took at the entrance of the hotel?) and checking in our luggage at the airport, we arrived after a horrible ride with the underground (hot and shaky, imagine that after the night we had) at an enormous queue in front of Forbidden Planet. We decided not to queue, since we had a plane leaving around 5. We did some shopping at Forbidden Planet and took some quick pictures of Mira and Bruce torturing themselves. I heard they signed from 12:00 until 16:30, whereas it was planned to end at 13:00. After a bit of shopping it was back towards home, plunging in to convention blues.

Epilogue

For those of you who don't know of convention blues, imagine the feeling you have the morning after you threw a great party, where all your friends were there, some of whom you hadn't seen in a long time, and everyone had the time of their lives. You come back downstairs the next day and you have to clean up the battlefield all by yourself. You know the feeling? Well, extend that feeling to lasting a couple of days, slowly decaying through the next couple of days. Well, it lasted around three days this time, which was far better than last year, where it only started to subside after a week and lasted a whole three weeks. Now, that's a hefty amount of emotions to last for so long. Needless to say, this year was a great convention, but last year's was absolute bliss and nearly impossible to top.

I had a great time and hope to see all the people I met again next year! See ya then!

This page was last updated on 11-10-1998.

Please send comments to Jan Willekens.