Saturday morning saw an early start at a local school. Well received by the crowd, mostly kids obviously. We did what we do best - mingle, harass and generally misbehave. It still amazes me what we can get away with - I told one bloke with a video camera that he wasn't allowed to film us, only take photos. He put the camera away! Debra told him later I was only joking.
One of the "stewards" (obviously kids from the school) was rude to everyone and generally being a pain. It was only afterwards that we found out he was autistic - if we'd been informed beforehad, we could have made allowances, instead of thinking he was a complete idiot. Never mind.
An interesting lunch of chips and hotdogs before being shuttled back to the hotel
[Fenwicks]
Short straws for this one - Only Darth and 4 troopers.
This was a book signing for Dave at the toy department of the local department store. We were chauffered from the hotel in a mini bus, with all the kit following along in a people carrier. Teri got the Range Rover! After a slight misunderstanding over autographs (nothing to do with us but interesting to listen to) we went through the tradesmans entrance up to a managers office in the store - more space than it sounds. There was a HUGE queue of people waiting for us/Dave and we emerged to an amazing round of applause from the crowd. Its was very hot and very crowded. Despite the interfering security guard, Teri managed to drag us away from the table to a space where the lifts were for the photos. I had to take a breather half way through it got that bad. Eventually I just stood there and posed there were too many people and too many cameras. When we'd finished, while walking back to the office to get de-kitted I scored my first casualty. Debra was about 2 steps in front of me when I suddenly felt something at knee-level. I stopped, heard a thud followed by WAAAAAAAAAAAA. A toddler (on reigns mind you) had somehow got in front of me and I never saw him/her. I don't think there was any permanent damage, but the poor kid is probaby going to be scarred for life about seeing anyone dressed in white!
[Marriot hotel - meet and greet]
The main event of the day - its was our job to greet the guests arriving for the big dinner ("Mr Dave Potter!") Ok, he actually said Porter, we've just morphed it into "Potter". Sounds better. There was a huge wedding party in one of the adjoining rooms, so that provided an alternative audience. Not many brides have had their picture taken with stormtroopers.
[Marriot hotel - auction]
After a lovely meal at the nearby pub, 4 of the troopers who never got to the toy store volunteered to help with the memorobila auction later that night with the idea of getting as much money as possible out of the bidders.Timing for this was way off, thanks to Dave's rambling speech "Then in 1976 I ....ZZZzzz......" While waiting, we decided to "entertain" basically anyone we could find. Firstly back to the wedding trying to help one little kid ask a girl to dance. That didn't work out, and the only advice the trooper could provide was "buy her another drink". Start them young hey? Then we hit the bar, the foyer and the restaurant. That was brilliant. There was a jazz band playing to entertain the diners - it was almost like something from the Fast Show "Stormtroopers have just invaded... nice" Of course one trooper took it a bit too far (I won't name names) by getting into the kitchen, but he was soon chased out.
Finally making it back for the auction, the auctioneer (who we found out was a local comedian) didn't really like what we were doing and told the troopers to shut up. We left right after that.
[Marriot hotel - meet and greet]
Sunday morning, tired bleary eyed (and in somecases hung over). This was basically the same format as the school event from Saturday. We provided an honour guard for Dave, then did the usually mingling/harassing with everyone else. A fair bit of time was spent outside, where I did my first bit of traffic duty. Loved it. Unfortunately a lot of people saw us from the outside road, came into the hotel grounds to take a picture, then buggered off again! I did a little solo work, trying to get people into the event, and I ended up running into another one of the wedding parties from the previous night. Those girls were just... naughty... Then back into the restaurant with the concierge as the chefs had requested a photo. One of the waitresses even said to me "shall I get on the floor for you" The professional photographer that had been there all weekend kindly took some group shots of us towards the end of the afternoon.
Lunch at the end was really nice, except that was the end. Weekend over. PTD all round
No comments:
Post a Comment