Sean Harry’s Starfury events have been running for many years now and the third annual Vampire Ball was hosting True Blood’s regular guests Allan Hyde who plays Godric and Mariana Klaveno who plays Lorena. Mariana had cancelled two years previously and I was on honeymoon the previous year so was looking forward to meeting her for the first time as well as Allan who was very funny at the first Vampire Ball.
The venue this year was the Renaissance hotel next to Heathrow airport which makes it easier to get to for con goers outside of the UK. I arrived late evening on the Friday night and bought regular tickets on the door. After checking into my hotel room it was straight down for the opening ceremony in the main hall. Sean Harry opened the con and introduced the guests. His banter with the crowd was great and he joked about the lack of Twilight guests at his cons. Juliet Landau and James Masters were the big names to keep the legions of Buffy fans happy this year.
Mariana Klaveno was the first True Blood guest introduced and she joked that she had kicked Allan Hyde in his privates backstage. Allan came out minutes later doubled up pretending that actually happened. Allan was sporting a beard which I had not seen before so looked a bit older than the last time I had seen him. Mariana had her hair dyed blond.
After the opening ceremony there was a meet and greet for gold ticket holders that I would be missing out on this time. Following this there was a party themed on Sunningdale from Buffy. I went dressed in my Captain Hammer T-shirt with black gauntlets. I met up with Truebie friends I had made at previous cons and we sat at a table together. The party went on late into the night. There were a few people in Merlotte waitress costumes including a bloke in drag as Sookie which was hilarious.
After breakfast the next morning my first True Blood related activity was the photo shoot at midday with Allan and Mariana. I dressed in my Andy Bellefleur sherif costume for this and Allan and Mariana aprreciated the effort I had made with the costume. A little while later in the afternoon they gave the first of their two guest talks together. The talk started a little late as Allan is a big Chelsea fan and had been watching them beat Arsenal on the TV!
Allan and Mariana joked about Godric’s Obi-Wan style comeback as figure in shining white light. When asked what other True Blood character they would like to play, Allan said Lorena and Mariana said Lafayette. Their favourite True Blood episodes were Godric’s death scene and Lorena torturing Bill. Allan talked about how he played someone much older by studying videos of old people and doing less which made him look more wise. If they could appear in other shows, Allan said he would like to be in the Walking Dead and Marianna said she would like to be in Game of Thrones. Allan said he would like to be a chef if he wasn’t an actor. He recounted a funny story of making Bolognese sauce all day for a friend and his friends flatmate making one out of a jar that his flat mates thought was better! Mariana spoke about the infamous head twist scene when she was making love to Bill and how they had to take a dummy life cast of her torso. They would leave it on set naked and she asked them to cover it up so they put a bra on it!
