GH/PC Fan Weekend Event Recaps and Pictures:

I've been fortunate enough to attend several GH fan events. The following pages detail some of the adventures my friends and I have had at these events. 

Desi Geestman Charity Event (9/14/2003)

The Ivar was only a few blocks away and when we drive up I know its the right place as there's this long line of people in dresses.  Interestingly enough several of the guys were wearing casual clothes, even blue jeans, despite the dress code being cocktail attire. Almost every woman, including me, is wearing black. People who already had tickets were suppose to enter the front but there were two lines against the side of the building. So, we pull up to the valet parking section, which is in  front of the first line area and get out. 

Natalia and someone else, I think Chad, were in the car before us and I ended up behind them as we're walking to the door. I mean literally, they stopped several times for photos and it's a miracle I didn't trip into them. There's people everywhere taking pics and stacey and I are trying to stay out of the pics. Right behind us is Ron Moss and Wynsor Harmon [Hammon?] from B&B. More actors are getting out behind them. I could have just whipped out my camera and gotten great, close up pictures but decided not to. Too crowded and I figured I'd just take pics inside instead.  

So we find out that the second line, which naturally is further back, is for ticket holders. The first line is VIP people- now, there was no VIP tickets sold so these people must have connects or be friends of the actors. I was amazed how many people I recognized from the GH weekend were there that night. So we stand in line and wait and wait while ahead we keep hearing shrieks and cameras going off. Finally 20 minutes after the event was suppose to start [note it's only a 3 hour event and we had to be OUT by 10] this lady comes by and informs us we are all about to go in and... no cameras and no picture taking inside. Uh huh. People are not happy about this. 

So, we get to go inside and it's packed. Supposedly there were only 400 tickets available, not counting of course the actors and their entourage. We're given this drawing of the nightclub- two rooms are listed GH, there's a photo booth, a B&B space, etc. We have no idea what the hell to do with this thing and since the entrance area is packed, we head to the bar in the back, grab drinks and go into one of the little "GH" rooms. The rooms are like intimate seating areas with beads and other things that come down to give it a wall like feeling, so we can still see around the club. 

In our area, there's a booth on each side of the aisle, three booths deep. We end up chatting with two nice ladies who are in LA attending a PeopleSoft conference and our friend and her hubby join us. So we sit there for like 30 minutes and try to figure out what's going on. The actors are all upstairs on the second floor where they are doing photo ops and have their own bar. No one knows what we're suppose to do or what the "photo booth" is. 

Finally, they announce the names of all the actors and yes, Tony Geary's there!!!! I flew all the way just to meet him so I was a happy camper. The actors are suppose to be coming down, so we wait. Finally Sarah Brown suddenly appears but chats to the people on the right side. Naturally, we're on the left side. I think the idea was the actors would move counterclockwise in the area but it was too packed. Cynthia Preston sits down and chats with us. She's so nice! She joked about them trying something new with this cocktail format and maybe there's a reason why other events aren't done this way. We're all thinking other events aren't done like this cuz it doesn't work. Cynthia's such a doll though! 

Someone finally explains what the photo booth is. Apparently the idea for no cameras was that the charity foundation had their own photographers working the room with digital cameras. If you wanted a picture with the actors, you told the actor and photographer and they'd take the picture. Then you'd go over to the photo booth where you could see your picture. If you like it, you paid $20 per copy. All the money went to the charity. Even so, a lot of people still whipped out their own cameras. 

A lot of the actors start showing up in our area- the girls who plays Gia and Lydia, Chad and Greg Vaughn. Maurice shows up, starts down the aisle but in less than 5 minutes backs up very quickly. Too claustrophobic for him. So he stands just outside the entrance signing autographs and taking pics. One of the Peoplesoft ladies gets upset since he's the reason she came and we get one of Maurice's people to autograph something for her. She and friend then scuttle off to mingle. 

Tyler literally climbs across the back of our booth chair chat to someone on the other side of the curtains. He's literally right behind me, if I moved back even an inch I'd have bumped up against him. Finally we all get up and mingle as just sitting there isn't working. We chat with Ron Hale, who's trying to sneak out for a smoke; Ted King who's very nice and soft spoken; run into Alicia with whom we joke with about Courtney kicking Alcazar's bodyguards butts and she tells us she's into kickboxing; run into Vanessa who's standing on stage behind the photo booth. She's taking pictures with fans like crazy, she alone probably made the charity a large portion of its photo sales that night. She looked gorgeous and was so nice. Actually she's always been nice the 3 or 4 times I've met her.

It was weird just mingling among all these actors without bodyguards and people with headphones on them blocking your access. The actors did have people with them but it was much more casual than at the GH weekend. We ran into Leslie and her fan person [Kay?] and we joked about how none of us knew what we were suppose to do. Both were really nice. Okay, actually all the actors were really nice that night  :} 

Let's see, also ran into Tamara, who wasn't suppose to be there. She literally got off a flight from where she and Rick Hearst had just come back from some fan event on the east coast and she decided to pop in for a bit. Maurice left probably within an hour of getting there. It seems that quite a few people also left too since we can move around fairly easily after about 8:30 pm.  

We run into Natalia, Chad and Greg again. Several of the actors were huddled into groups chatting with each other. I hadn't seen Tony Geary at all, so I figured he left already and was really bummed out. Many of the actors hung out upstairs, where the fans couldn't go. I'd say about a 1/3 of the actors we never ran into or they left fairly early. 

Finally about half an hour to closing we run into our friend Joan near the front. She tells me Tony's outside and is coming in. A friend of Joan's, I think his name was Scott?, is a professional photographer and he chatted with us. Poor guy seemed to be losing his voice. Tony then walks in and we get to chat with him. He was so nice and soft spoken. Shook each of our hands as we introduced ourself and asked where we were all from. As Tony's walking away, Joan calls Scott over and I rush over and ask Tony if we could have a photo with him. Scott's right behind us and he too asks Tony for a photo of the group. So I got my photo with TONY GEARY!!!! Yeah baby!

After that, it's almost closing time so we headed outside to the alley area. The actors are slowly leaving and those of us left are just chatting. I did finally take two pictures with my camera as everyone else seemed to be doing it. I took two pics of Tyler and Andrea (Gia). Looking back I should have just whipped out my camera and taken pics like others but at the time I afraid they'd throw us out if  I tried using my camera. But overall, I had a nice night and got to see friends.

Links to other recaps and pictures of this event:
  *Cynthia Preston's website
  *Tamara Braun's website
  *Soap City's pics