By Outlander Fan Event
Orpheum Theatre
Los Angeles, CA
January 11, 2014
I’m sure there have been many posts about this event, but I’ve only had my blog a few months so I’m going to do a post on the event anyway.
I know it was disappointing to so many people that Starz and DirectTV hosted this event in Los Angeles, but I’m glad they did. It’s funny that I only found out how many of my friends from high school love \”Outlander\” as much as I do because of the new Starz series based on those much beloved books. I was only introduced to the books in 2004 or 2005 by a group of friends. I was going to school during that time and reading for pleasure only happened during the summer. Once I began reading the books, I read every book every summer until \”An Echo in the Bone\” came out. That book took me forever to get through because I just didn’t like it. I finally finished it and haven’t read any of the books since. I still love the series, and I’m hopeful about \”Written in My Own Heart’s Blood,\” but I don’t think I could read Echo again.
Anyway, I was really excited to hear about the series since I had heard that the film rights had been sold, but I never thought a movie could do the books justice. They have are too rich and a film would require removing two-thirds of the book. That’s just not acceptable.
I was excited for the fan event and immediately RSVP’d once they were open. The location was changed to a larger venue, The Orpheum in Downtown Los Angeles, and they re-opened the RSVPs. The event was going to involve a panel with Diana Gabaldon (author), Ron Moore (Executive Producer), and stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe, and the panel was followed by a tea reception.
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| The Orpheum |
I was annoyed that the organizers said no lining up early, but there was a huge line when I arrived an hour or so early. Luckily, my friends had gotten there shortly before I did. I do like that they checked us in and gave us numbers so that would save our place in line so that we could get lunch.
Once they let us into the Orpheum, they had bottles of water for us for which I was grateful for because although it was January, we were having unseasonably warm temperatures in Los Angeles. My group was able to get pretty decent seats, and we were happy to sit down in air conditioning. There were two bagpipers playing prior to the Q&A panel which was nice.
Once the panel started, I have to say the moderator was terrible and repeatedly called Caitriona (pronounce Katrina) Caitlyn. Someone finally corrected her, but it had been after several screw ups. This moderator also claimed to be a huge fan of the books, but didn’t seem to know anything about them and kept asking Diana really retarded questions. Who the hell compares Outlander to Twilight????!!!!!
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| Ron D. Moore and Diana Gabaldon |
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| Preview of Claire\’s Surgery |
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| Courtyard of Castle Leoch |
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| Caitriona and Sam come onstage |
A fun tidbit from Sam is that his parents are huge Tolkien / Lord of the Rings fans and that influenced their choice of names for him and his brother. This only leads me to believe that he’s Samwise Gamgee! I admit to geeking out quite a bit at this morsel of information. When Sam first sat in the chair, he flashed the first few rows since he was wearing a kilt in true Scottish fashion.
Apologies if you are reading this, but I was considerate to you in person, there was a woman on my right who got really annoyed with me because of my camera. She was trying to record video and my DSLR makes noise when it takes pictures. She asked me to turn off the sound and I replied that I can’t. She was seriously annoyed with my response as if I was lying to her. What I wanted to say was that I can’t because this is a real camera, but I was trying to be polite. Even though I was polite, there was some tension the rest of the panel.
The event was on Diana\’s birthday and they had a birthday cake for her.
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| Diana and her birthday cake |
There were several large vinyl posters of publicity photos of the cast and countryside of Outlander which were placed throughout the Orpheum giving the guests ample options for photo ops. The food during the tea reception was fantastic, though they ran out of tea pretty early on. The food kept coming, though, and it was great.
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| One of the vinyl posters |
When we left, they handed each of us a “Pocket Jamie” which was a small standee of Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser. You can purchase an official Pocket Jamie and other official merchandise in the Outlander Store. Here is a fan made DIY Pocket Jamie which you can download and print on your own printer here.
I can’t wait for the rest of the season 1 to air on Starz in April, 2015.
TTFN,
V
TTFN,
V
Weird Life of V 
I love the outlander series! It’s really well told. I love a book and once I visited a fan reading in one of the Los Angeles venues and it was really fun. It’s great to find people who you can interact with on something that you mutually feel passionate about. I’d love to attend another book reading in the future.
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