Every year, Syfy hosts a Digital Press Tour event in October to talk about some of its upcoming programming. Last Year we got to visit the sets of Defiance and Warehouse 13. I was fortunate enough to get invited again this year as they continued that trend with visits to the sets of Being Human and the upcoming series Helix. Both of of these shows will air on Syfy in January.

Since the Digital Press tour was held in Montreal this year, it was actually a driveable distance from Massachusetts. So a few of us decided to make a road trip of it. Early Sunday morning, Keith (@gudlyf) of CliqueClack.com picked me up at my home and then we drove to the Manchester, NH airport to pick up Jason (@theTVaholic) of TVaholic.com, who had flown in on a red-eye from Seattle. Then we continued North to the border. I made sure I was properly dressed for the trip in my Sharknado t-shirt.

It was a long drive, but the time passed quickly as we talked a lot about TV, past Syfy Press Tour events and other set visits. Five hours (and a few interesting rest stops) later, we got to the hotel, checked in and had a couple hours before the weekend’s events began.

I’m going to break this coverage into 3 parts. In today’s post, I’ll talk about the welcome dinner, and over the next two days I’ll follow up coverage of the set visits. I took over 750 photos as well as audio and video recordings during some of the panels, so I’ll be posting a lot of fun material over the next few days!

 

Sunday, October 6

6:00pm

Welcome dinner with Dave Howe (President, Syfy), Mark Stern (President, Original Content, Syfy) and cast members from Defiance, Haven, Ghost Hunters and the director of Sharknado & Sharknado 2. (6-7pm cocktails, 7pm seated dinner)

This year’s Syfy Digital Press Tour started with a welcome dinner at the Auberge St. Gabriel in Montreal. This was one of the oddest restaurants I have ever seen—from the giant whale bone in the lobby to the sculpture of two headless moose bodies sewn together, and moose-leg tables on the wall.

During the cocktail hour the talent in attendance mingled with everyone. In attendance were Stephanie Leonidas, Jessie Rath and Trenna Keating of Defiance, Lucas Bryant, Eric Balfour and Adam Copeland of Haven, Jason Hawes, Steve Gonsalves, Amy Bruni and Adam Berry of Ghost Hunters and Anthony C. Ferrante, the director of Sharknado & Sharknado 2. It was fun trying to get some spoilers out of the folks from Haven and Defiance, but there always seemed to be a Syfy representative close by to keep them from spilling all the secrets.

For dinner, we sat down at assigned seats at long tables seating 6 or so, ensuring that each had a good mix of press, network representatives and talent. At my table were two other bloggers, two Syfy representatives, and Adam Copeland. Before the meal, the president of Syfy made some announcements, including news of an upcoming Face Off-like competition series involving Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. The dinner was a four-course meal, and it seemed like forever inbetween courses—I guess things are a little more laid back in Montreal. That, combined with the seemingly bottomless wine glasses led to some interesting table conversations. It was an enjoyable meal, and Adam shared some interesting personal stories. He talked about the end of his wrestling career, what it’s been like working on the show, and his pending first-time fatherhood. During the meal they had given us a screener of an upcoming episode of Haven, so a lot of folks were interrupting him to autograph their DVD insert.

As the meal was winding down, we got another chance to mingle with the the cast who were present. So I took that opportunity to get some pictures with the Defiance cast, who look so different out of their make-up!

Then we all walked back to the hotel, led by a “spirited” Eric Balfour and Lucas Bryant.

To be continued in Part 2 tomorrow, where I’ll talk about our visit to the set of Being Human.