I have headed back to Austin, TX for my annual TV camp experience. It’s Season 15 of the ATX TV Festival, and I have been coming to this event since Season 4! This year I headed in a day early, getting up at 3am to head to the airport. Once in Austin, I checked into my hotel and headed over to the Omni (this year’s new HQ venue for the festival) to pick up my badge and tote bag. This season, the tote sports the logo for HBO’s House of the Dragon on the back, and my bag also contained a bit of swag, a Servd card game and a pin (usually that’s reserved for those with Camp-level badges). I reunited with some TV Camp friends, scoped out some of the new panel rooms, and then headed back to my hotel to prep for the first day. Before going to bed, I grabbed some dinner at P. Terry’s, a reasonably-priced burger chain in this area.
The next morning, my day started with a press preview of BrtiBox’s 4-day activation, Unbox BritBox at the Omni. When visitors arrive, they face a large box-shaped set of doors. These are opened and you proceed through a curtain to find TV screens offering a trivia challenge. I didn’t realize the whole session is timed, giving you only 60 seconds to answer as many questions as possible. So I only managed to get through 6 questions, but got 4 of them correct. Most were British entertainment themed, though I did get one about a Drew Barrymore rom-com, since her co-star was British.
Around the corner was another station to get an AI-generated picture of yourself in a British mystery. You were first prompted to take your photo, aligning your head in the on-screen shape, and then it prompted several questions such as classic or modern mystery, comedy or cozy mystery, cinematic, and so on. Afterwards you were shown your generated photo along with options to text or email it to yourself. I was shocked by how well mine came out!
Around the final corner was a row of four boxes, which you open to reveal a prize. The prizes will rotate and change throughout the weekend, but the offerings when I went were a tote bag, a pair of socks, a pin set and a notepad and pen. For this preview we were allowed to open all 4 boxes and choose, but in general you will just get to open one. I chose the notebook, which looks fantastic! For the press preview they also offered us donuts and drinks.
Next I headed downstairs for the return of the Pluto TV Badgeholder’s Lounge in it’s new location in the Omni.
They had several stations set up. The first was a memory matching game, and if you scored high enough, you could win a pin depicting one of the many shows that are now streaming for free on Pluto TV. It took me two tries, but I finally won, and chose an X-Files pin.
Next to this station was an AI photo booth. You could select from five different shows—Arrow, Hart of Dixie, The X-Files, CSI Miami, and The 100—and it would generate a photo with you as the star. There wasn’t really any line, so I did all 5, and the results were a bit mixed. I saw some other folks had done photos with multiple people, and I was impressed by the way the AI integrated all of the participants into the single themed photo.
The second half of this lounge included a large spread of giant chocolate chip cookies and emoji sugar cookies, as well as a selection of drinks. There were lots of fellow campers I recognized from years past, and so I spent some time catching up with them while enjoying the refreshments.
I’m sure I’ll be stopping by this lounge many more times throughout the weekend!
The first panel I attended this year was the annual “Welcome to TV Camp” with ATX TV Co-Founders Emily Gipson & Caitlin McFarland. This panel is designed to help new festival-goers learn how things work, and address any logistical questions people may have. After a short introduction to some of the other folks working behind-the-scenes, and a plug for some of this year’s merchandise, the ladies brought out festival regulars actress Adrianne Palicki and casting director Felicia Fasano (Better Things) to talk about some of this year’s panels.
As I exited this panel, I got back in line for the same ballroom for “Investigating the Legacy of Procedurals presented by NBC100”. The panel was moderated by Emily Longeretta (Variety), and featured Kelli Giddish (Law & Order: SVU), Miranda Rae Mayo (Chicago Fire), Sarah Ramos (Chicago Med) and Kyle Secor (Homicide: Life on the Street). These are not shows that I have watched, but I still found the panel to be quite fun and interesting.
The participants talked about making shows now in the time of instant social media reactions versus Kyle’s experience with Homicide, how most procedurals today are resolved within 40 minutes but in the case of Homicide how things were often left ambiguous and unresolved. Sarah talked about playing an initially unlikeable character. Kelli spoke about how SVU is female forward and not a typical man/woman lead, while Kyle mentioned how Homicide was originally going to be men-only before they added Melissa Leo instead. The actors talked about the struggle of leaving the heavy material at home and Kelli mentioned one time when she played a character who had to hold a gun to a pregnant lady’s belly that as a mother herself was particularly difficult to shake off. The actors also discussed crossovers and having fun playing on other sets, how the city is a character in their shows, the rough Chicago winters, and what types of villains they’d like to play. They also talked about how they bonded with their ensemble casts, and Kyle shared a crazy story about gathering the actors in a van to go witness a real drug buy.
Next, I headed down the hallway for “I Know You!: How Familiar Faces Drive Fandom presented by NBCUniversal”, moderated by Daniel Fienberg (The Hollywood Reporter). He talked with panelists Christine Cowan (SVP, Talent & Casting, Bravo, NBC and Peacock Unscripted) and Rob “Boston Rob” Mariano (The Traitors, Survivor). Boston Rob talked a lot about his original Survivor audition and how he’s always been his authentic self. He spoke about how things have changed with people trying to create a character or plan for their next competition experience rather than the current one. He also said people don’t really change, and joked about putting on a House Husband persona for his next reality competition. He also mentioned that he still hasn’t received his check for The Amazing Race.
Christine talked about how they are always looking for ways to blend fandoms, especially with a show like Traitors. She talked about how they work with talent to find what they are interested in doing, and are constantly finding ways to build synergetic relationships across both scripted and unscripted. She talked about casting reality folks on St. Denis Medical arcs, casting Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir on Traitors to coincide with their Olympics coverage, and more. It was a really interesting conversation.
Next, I had originally planned to go to the “ANNA PIGEON First Look presented by USA Network” and even had a fast forward ticket for this panel. However, I was confirmed for a roundtable interview with Brooke Shields & Amalia Williamson, the stars of Acorn TV’s new series You’re Killing Me, so that took precedence. I headed over to the Hyatt Centric where there were about a dozen of us split into two groups to talk to the actresses.
The cozy murder mystery series You’re Killing Me premiered a couple weeks ago on Acorn TV. It stars Brooke Shields as bestselling mystery novelist Allie who finds herself paired up with much younger aspiring writer/podcaster Andi, who end up solving murders in the small New England town of Founder’s Cove. There’s a generational gap between the two women, and both think they know better, but they start to appreciate and respect one another and become friends. Also new to the town is cop Jack (Tom Cavanaugh).
The series has a Murder She Wrote vibe mixed with some Only Murders in the Building and Hacks mixed in. Despite being a murder each week, the show remains light and fun, with the murders usually happening off screen. The two actresses have such amazing chemistry and play off one another perfectly, giving a lot of humor and heart. This chemistry was instantly evident while talking to the actresses about the series. It was a really fun interview and panel. I will be posting the interview soon. I’ve watched all 6 episodes of the first season, and this show just keeps getting better—it’s definitely worth checking out!
After the interview, I headed over to 800 Congress where Acorn TV was hosting a panel for the series, moderated by Hunter Ingram (Variety, Emmy Magazine). Due to us running over time with the actresses, it was standing room only, and the panel started a bit late. But Acorn had also turned this into a Happy Hour, offering drinks and food, so no one seemed to mind.
At the end of the panel Executive Producer Brooke Shields revealed that the series had been picked up for a second season, which was a surprise to her co-star Amalia Williamson.
Next, I headed across the street to the Paramount Theater for this year’s opening night event, “HOUSE OF THE DRAGON: Season 3 First Look presented by HBO Max”, with panelists Ryan Condal (Showrunner / Executive Producer) and stars Steve Toussaint (“Lord Corlys Velaryon”), Abubakar Salim (“Alyn of Hull”), Harry Collett (“Prince Jacaerys Velaryon”) & Bethany Antonia (“Lady Baela Targaryen”).
They didn’t want to give anything away about the new season, which premieres June 21, so there was just teasing as to what’s to come. However, the panel was a lot of fun with constant joking and laughs. The panel opened with a behind-the-scenes clip of the big sea battle, the epic Battle of the Gullet, that will open the season. There were also several short clips from the premiere throughout the panel.
I had to duck out of the panel a little early in order to make it to trivia night—it’s one of my pet peeves that they always seem to schedule these two events to overlap instead of just pushing one of them 15-20 minutes earlier or later.
My final event of day one was the annual TV trivia night. This year the trivia was at a new location, The Dead Rabbit, to give it more of an authentic Pub Trivia Night feel since it was being presented by BritBox. While waiting outside there were people dressed in costume handing out flags and inviting folks to attend BritBox’s panel for The Other Bennet Sister.
I met up with my same team from the past three years, hoping to at least get 3rd place like we did in 2023. The four rounds this year included British TV shows (some of the questions were from older shows like Poldark), TV shows with sports, TV shows with House in the name, and TV theme songs. We aced the TV theme songs, but had quite a bit of trouble in round three, getting only 5 out of 10 of those correct. Just before the trivia started I was talking with some of my teammates about how in a previous year I would have aced an animated category because I was a fan of The Simpsons and Futurama. However, this quickly came back to bite me when Futurama came up in round two, asking what sport replaced baseball in the 31st century, and in round 3 when we were asked what Simpsons season introduced the Treehouse of Horror episode (I should have gone with my initial gut of Season 2). Overall, we finished 5th out of 25 teams, but were out of the running for the prizes. First place received a free Camp Badge for next year plus a BritBox prize pack, second place received an extra Fast Forward ticket for this year, and third place received a set of ATX shot glasses. Personally, I would have rather won the 3rd place price instead of the 2nd place prize. Hopefully we can rally back next year!
After the trivia, I headed back to my hotel to get some sleep after a non-stop day.
Each day there are more panels than you can possibly attend, with some tough conflicts to decide between. Some of the other panels I wasn’t attend on day 1 were for shows Everyone is Doing Great and Anna Pidgeon, and topical panels like “The Doctors Are In: Proving the Impact of Medical Accuracy on TV”, “The PBS Process”, and “AMA with Casting Directors Felicia Fasano & Bonnie Zane”.
Most of these ATX panels will eventually make their way to the ATX TV YouTube channel/Podcast, so you should be able to watch/listen to them in the near future.
