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Syfy Press Tour 2012 – Part 1 – Welcome Dinner

Nov 12, 2012 Posted by in Features, Set Visit | 2 comments

Every year, Syfy hosts a Digital Press Tour event in October to talk about some of its upcoming programming. For the past three years, this has taken place in Orlando. However, this year, they switched things up and held the event in Toronto, and included some set visits. This was the first year I have been invited to cover the event, and I was really excited to get to see the sets of Defiance and Warehouse 13.

I’m going to break this coverage into 3 parts—first, this short introductory post, talking about the welcome dinner, and then two follow-up posts covering each of the set visits. I took over 600 photos at the set visits, and some audio and video recordings during some of the panels, so those posts will be a lot longer!

 

Sunday, October 14

6:00pm Welcome dinner with Dave Howe (President, Syfy), Mark Stern (President, Syfy Original Content & Co-Head, UCP) and cast members from Haven and Being Human.
(6-7pm cocktails, 7pm seated dinner)

 

This year’s Syfy Digital Press Tour started with a welcome dinner at the c5 Restaurant Lounge, above the Royal Ontario Museum. I took the elevator up to the restaurant, and when the door opened, I found a table with name badges and DVD screeners of the Haven Halloween episode. It was cocktail hour, and people had already formed into groups, talking with one another as well as the casts of Haven and Being Human. I found a group with folks I recognized, including Jason @TheTVAholic and Daniel @TheTVAddict—sounds like a TV watcher support group! We talked for a while until they started to bring some of the talent to talk with us. We got to briefly speak with the cast of Being Human (and get some pictures) before everyone was gathered for a quick speech by the Syfy folks. Then we headed into the dining area.

For dinner, we sat down at tables of 8 or so, with one actor per table. At our table was Eric Balfour. He immediately kicked things off by introducing himself to each of us (though it really wasn’t necessary) and ordering shots for the table. (Note: I only had the one shot, despite how I look in that photo with Eric—and that was taken an hour later!) Throughout the dinner we talked everything from politics to Eric’s other projects with his production company, and just TV, movies and pop culture in general. Eric showed us his great skill of being able to take his own picture with a camera so any time someone wanted a picture with him, he asked if he could take it himself.

It was a nice, fun night, getting to mingle with the actors and talk with them in a more informal setting. The dinner was a great way to kick off the weekend’s events, and to meet up with fellow TV bloggers I genrally only see on twitter or Comic-Con.



Look for part 2 tomorrow, where I’ll talk about our visit to the set of the upcoming Syfy series Defiance.