What We Did

Fan Table in Birmingham 13-14th August 2005

Browncoats took the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, UK by storm this weekend. With one small table, stacked with goodies provided by a dozen different people, we attracted a three or four people deep crowd solidly for 2 days. How? Well we had one big shiny trailer to show. I wish I’d had a little camera to shoot all the gawping faces as they stood and watched the hilarious and gripping scenes. Once people had recovered from the trailer, Browncoats were on hand to shove promo leaflets and matchbooks into their sweaty hands and cajole our hapless punters to purchase badges, magnets, keyrings, stunning artwork, Jayne hats and even replica pistols. We also had comics. We had first prints of comics. We sold them at £3 each not £30 (which is the amount other stalls were asking for them). This sums up what we were about. A bunch of random people, some of us strangers on Friday night, but certainly not by Sunday, who came together for one purpose – we want Serenity to fly and fly. We weren’t there as a business to make profits, we were the best damned publicity machine Universal couldn’t buy.

After our marathon on Saturday a stunning shindig was laid on in the hotel. One highlight being the very pretty boards provided by Universal. In one there is a number printed on the side of a part of a ship with the characters ‘H8’ spookily the same as our stall number! The other stunning event was the raffle. A signed picture of Nathan Fillion was about the 8th prize down; he just must not cut it anymore! Serious prizes included tickets to conventions in London and Los Angeles and tickets to the Big Damn Premiere in Edinburgh.

Throughout the weekend Washosaurus stomped, or maybe that’s shuffled, around the hall. An incredible feat of endurance for the person inside the costume and the kids and storm troopers loved it.

The organisers were inspired by fan tables that have taken place in America and I hope we played our small part in encouraging people to go out and promote the film. Most of all it was clear that we Browncoats are a humble bunch but we’re just gonna keep talking about Serenity until October 7th. Its time to rise again!

-- By Beccy Reese

Check out pictures of the event here