Nineteenth Syony

I know some of you have probably already heard this but for those of you who haven't...Sylvester McCoy is comin' to California!! Along with some writters of Torchwood and Doctor Who. The Countdown is on... To Gallifrey One's Nineteenth Symphony: Opus 2008! North America's nineteenth annual Doctor Who and science fiction media convention will be February 15-17, 2008 at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel, within sight of LAX International Airport (and accessible via free shuttle from the airport!) Hotel Discount Block Closed Gallifrey 2008 has filled up our discount room block in the LAX Marriott for this year's convention. If you would like to stay at the Marriott during the course of the convention, you can make your reservations electronically or by calling the hotel (details on the Hotel & Transportation page) but no more rooms are currently available for the primary nights (Friday & Saturday) at the lower discount rate of $115 per night. Last-minute cancellations, however, can occur, and limited numbers of rooms at the lower rate may exist for Thursday and/or Sunday nights. Final Days for Pre-Registration Pre-registration for full weekend memberships to Gallifrey 2008 ends after February 5, 2008. Until that day, you can still purchase membership to the convention via PayPal or send in your payment for the convention via check to the convention address. Mail must be postmarked by February 5. PayPal registrants who pay on or before February 5 will have their name included in our program book membership list. The current rate is $65.00 for a full weekend membership. Your full weekend membership is your admission for every event and function of the convention except one (the guest of honor brunch, which is a separate event and sells out at the prior year's convention). Registration on-site at the convention will open on Friday morning February 15, 2008 at 10:00am. Payment can be made on-site by check or money order (payable to Gallifrey One), VISA or Mastercard; cash is also always acceptable! One-day memberships for the convention go on sale with the opening of on-site registration on February 15, too. Pre-registrants can pick their badges up starting Friday morning as well. Also, don't worry if you haven't pre-registered for the convention... there's no danger of selling out at the door! Our line moves very quickly too (and besides, the convention itself doesn't open until noon Friday so you have plenty of time.) Also, please note that Gallifrey One does not sell dealers-room-only passes or offer press passes; all attendees must possess a full weekend or daily membership. If you have any questions please feel free to email us. January 27 Update More convention updates today: Tentative Schedule Back Online -- The tentative Schedule of Events has been posted again on the website, including several changes made in the past few days. This schedule is probably 99% accurate to what will be seen at the convention, barring last minute guest changes (which, of course, have been coming steadily!) Guest Update -- In our dealers room we are pleased to welcome two new signing guests, Richard Chaves of "War of the Worlds: The Series" and Kathryn Leigh Scott of "Dark Shadows" fame. Both will have tables throughout the weekend. Please note that C. Andrew Nelson and Carrie Dobro have had to cancel, both due to schedule changes. 2008 Charity Benefit Auction -- Gallifrey One is very pleased to announce this year's target charity for our 2008 charity benefit auction: Actors and Others for Animals. Actors & Others was launched in 1971 by late actor Richard Basehart and his wife, Diana, to promote the humane treatment of animals. Since then, this worthy charity has been responsible for animal welfare & education, spaying & neutering to control pet populations, performed emergency pet care for needy families and contributed to the cause of animal welfare rights. As many of us at Gallifrey One are pet owners ourselves, we hope you will support this worthwhile charity and donate to the auction, which takes place on Sunday. Donations of items (sci-fi books, toys, games, collectibles, merchandise, posters, autographed photos, etc.) can be dropped off throughout the weekend at the convention office. Volunteers Needed -- We need volunteers beginning on Thursday afternoon after 6pm to help unload our truck (which includes TARDIS pieces, tech equipment, stage & drape equipment, con suite supplies, art show hangings and more) and collate the 2008 program booklet, then on Friday morning beginning at 8:00am to start setup in the main ballroom, art show and con suite. Drop by the registration desk on Thursday afternoon; it's on the bottom floor of the hotel toward the western side of the building (signs will be posted). Hotel Bookings Update -- If you are attempting to book your hotel room at the Marriott, Saturday and Sunday nights' blocks are being noted by the online system as 'full'. It should hopefully be fixed by Monday afternoon; we've run into the limit on our room block and our hotel liaison must have our Marriott sales rep expand the block numbers. Email us if you continue to have issues after that time. January 23 Update So much going on with Gallifrey 2008; things are changing almost daily! Here are all the latest convention updates: Hotel Reservations -- HOTEL ROOMS ARE STILL AVAILABLE for the rate of $115 per night. Now is definitely a good time to make hotel reservations for the convention... don't miss out on a single event; much of our fun takes place at night, and we have a masquerade, Mysterious Theatre 337, late-night video, a rock dance, karaoke, the Buffy Sing-A-Long and Temporal Vortex Theatre, and much more planned! Visit the Los Angeles Airport Marriott page and make sure you use the group code GALGALA to get the Gallifrey 2008 discount rate -- not only for yourself, but because using it credits the convention so we don't have to pay for the facilities! (See "Booking the Hotel" below for more details!) Programming -- Please note that our program is now completely full; there are no additional slots for panelists or fan video presentations available for the convention. Speaking of which... The Tentative Schedule has been taken down for a couple days, and should be back up by January 27. The most recent revision (on January 22) resulted in a number of conflicts with guests' schedules, so a lot of things are being shuffled around. (None of the evening events, just daytime panels, etc.) Join the Strike! -- So to speak. On Monday of the convention, Gallifrey One has been invited by a WGA strike captain to join the picket lines for a few hours and show solidarity with the Writers Guild of America. (Yes, that's right, invited). Everyone still on site is invited to come down (the march is at 11am, we'll be gathering around 9:30 or so in the lobby). This is still tentative due to two reasons: one, there may not be a protest that day due to the holiday (the February schedule isn't posted yet, we'll keep you posted) and two, of course we hope that by then the strike may be over. If not, please join us and support the writers of your favorite shows. New Guests - Over the past two weeks weeks have confirmed a bunch of new guests, as follows: Sean Gallagher, who played 'Chip,' the henchman of Cassandra, in Series Two's episode "New Earth", sponsored by Tenth Planet James Moran, writer of this week's Torchwood episode ("Sleeper") as well as episode two of the forthcoming Doctor Who fourth series (set in Pompeii), and who's doing his first-ever US Doctor Who convention with us! Rob Shearman, our long-time friend, who penned the script for "Dalek" during the first series Andy Lane, long-time Doctor Who novelist whose latest work includes the BBC Books Torchwood novel "Slow Decay". Gary Russell, the writer of the new Doctor Who comic books and the Doctor Who Encyclopedia, will be back again... in fact we've just confirmed him in the past hour! Mojo, well known to Gallifrey attendees of old, who brings along with him a presentation on his most recent project, the visual effects of Battlestar Galactica Long-time publishers and friends of Gallifrey One David J Howe of Telos Publishing and Lars Pearson & Christa Dickson of Mad Norwegian Press will all be along again this year. Jennifer Rhodes, who played Grams in "Charmed," and Luca Bercovicci, long-time character actor you might remember from guest appearances in "seaQuest DSV," "Time Trax," "Amazing Stories," "Airwolf" and more -- both are the first two local actor guests who will have tables (and more are on the way) Please note: we do have a couple people who cannot make it this year: the trio of stuntmen who were coming to bring us their show (Curtis, Jason & Tom) won't be able to make it due to work, so we hope they'll be with us next year; and we've been unable to confirm David Gerrold at this time. Also Jerry Pournelle has had a schedule change and cannot make it. Autographing -- Gallifrey One has a policy to restrict autographing in session lines to only two items, with no exceptions, and to not allow photographs with the guests taken over the table unless the guest specifically states that they are okay with it. The autograph sessions have gotten quite long, and therefore we have decided to enact these policies in order to keep the line moving. Should you wish to have more items autographed, you can either get back in line (thereby letting the people behind you go ahead and not wait so long) or return for another autograph session later in the weekend. (Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Andrew Cartmel, Lisa Bowerman, Moya Brady, Sean Gallagher and the TV writers will all be signing all three days; Daphne Ashbrook will only be with us on Saturday.) More details in our last update, below... January 2 Update Gallifrey 2008 is only a month and a half away, and we have some big updates to share: Registration -- As of January 1, membership rates are now $60 per adult for the entire weekend, $35 per teen ages 12-16, and children under 12 free with adult. These rates are good until January 31; after that, the at-the-door adult price will be $65. Daily admission will be available on site (admission for a single day cannot be purchased ahead of time, but you can do so at the convention with cash, check, VISA or MasterCard). The PayPal registration system has been a great success... if you'd like to register for the convention using a credit card, make sure you do so immediately by clicking on the buttons at left. Please note: if you are purchasing a membership for more than one person, please put all attendee names into the "Message" field as you finish your registration; otherwise our member coordinator has to contact you for this information after-the-fact which delays the process. Membership List Online -- A full list of our attendees registered to date is now available on the Members page. If your name is not on the list, we have not yet received your registration (this list is accurate as of December 31 for PayPal, and as of December 22 for regular mail). Dealers Room List and Art Show Forms Online -- The Dealers Room and Art Show page is updated and includes a full list of Gallifrey 2008's dealers in our Dealers Room, as well as a brief about this year's Art Show. Also available on that page are two forms for the Art Show, the complete list of rules and an art show display registration form (both in PDF). Guest Update -- We are pleased to welcome a bunch of new guests, including two guest actors from the new Doctor Who series: Moya Brady, who played Bridget in "Love and Monsters" and who has an extensive repetoire of television appearances in the UK, and Derek Riddell, Sir Robert from "Tooth and Claw" who has also made appearances on UK and US television. Brady's visit is being sponsored by Tenth Planet UK, while Riddell will be appearing alongside actress Carrie Dobro and producer Andrew Sewell to talk about the new "Blake's 7" Audio Dramas that are now in wide release. Meanwhile, we welcome back Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz, visual effects guru, whose many Gallifrey appearances have featured behind-the-scenes looks at television series such as Star Trek and Babylon 5; Mojo has a great presentation to give on the visual effects of the new Battlestar Galactica series. We are also pleased to welcome Curtis Rivers, Tom Lucy & Jason Hunjan, three stunt performers who have done extensive work on many UK series including Doctor Who and Torchwood (Rivers was John Barrowman's stunt double), who will be discussing the work they've done on the shows. Dr. Jerry Pournelle, famed science fiction novelist, space sciences consultant and lecturer, will be joining us on Saturday for one of his rousing talks. Novelist Andy Lane, whose Doctor Who works date back to the classic Virgin New Adventures books and most recently completed a "Torchwood" novel for BBC Books, returns after several years' absence to Gallifrey One, while Arne Starr, illustrator and comics artist, returns after a year's absence with his great 'insider' slide show. Thomas Powers, author of "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: The Discerning Fan's Guide to Doctor Who" from MacFarland Publishing, also joins us. They join a lineup which already includes the seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, his companion Ace, Sophie Aldred, and their era's script editor Andrew Cartmel; the 1996 TV movie companion Grace Holloway, Daphne Ashbrook; Doctor Who series writers Steven Moffat ("Blink") and Paul Cornell ("Human Nature"); Big Finish Productions producer Jason Haigh-Ellery and actress Lisa Bowerman; the Doctor Who Restoration Team's Steve Roberts; classic series composer Mark Ayres; novelist David Gerrold; actor/speaker/dealer Bob May from Lost in Space; writers Simon Guerrier, Caroline Symcox, Keith Topping, Scott Alan Woodard, Dr. Arnold T Blumberg and many more. And that's not all! Our local convention talent rep friends have begun working on signing guests for the weekend; Gallifrey traditionally features a host of guests who have autograph tables in our dealers' room, and we should have more information on that soon. We are also bringing in some science-related programming this year and we have people working on that as well. Expect more names in the next week or so! Tentative Schedule Posted -- We've now posted a highly tentative schedule of events on our Schedule of Events page. This is an extremely early version of the schedule and does not include such things as the video track and autograph schedule. There are holes in the schedule as we await word from various people about scheduled items. Costumers, please note that there is a slight possibility that the Saturday night Masquerade may move to Friday night as we're currently working on a special event for Saturday evening that may or may not happen. Hotel Reservation Update -- Some of our attendees attempting to make hotel reservations may be told that Sunday night is sold out at the convention rate. We are working on getting this fixed... very simply, every time we hit the limit on our room block, our friends at the Marriott must go in and add rooms manually, and they haven't done so yet due to the holidays. If you make a reservation by phone, tell them you want the convention rate; if Sunday night is quoted at the regular hotel rate, please book it and then email us. Our hotel liaison will make certain your reservation rate for that night is adjusted while we are on site at the convention. Meanwhile, now is definitely a good time to make hotel reservations for the convention! Don't miss out on a single event... much of our fun takes place at night, and we have a masquerade, Mysterious Theatre 337, late-night video, a rock dance, karaoke, the Buffy Sing-A-Long and Temporal Vortex Theatre, and much more planned! Visit the Los Angeles Airport Marriott page and make sure you use the group code GALGALA to get the Gallifrey 2008 discount rate -- not only for yourself, but because using it credits the convention so we don't have to pay for the facilities! (See "Booking the Hotel" below for more details!) Fan Programming -- Our fan panels are now included on the Schedule of Events. If you are interested in participating on our panel programming, please contact us via email as soon as possible, as space is limited. Please note that there is no guarantee of anyone being added to fan programming, and some panels may not occur if we have other events that take priority. Fan Video -- We have reserved space for several fan videos, which we didn't feature at last year's event. If you've already contacted us, expect to hear from us very soon; if not, please email us immediately so we can program your fan video. First-come, first-served! A Gallifreyan Wedding -- As many of our attendees are already aware (from the discussions on our forum), two long-time Gallifrey One attendees and forum participants, Ed "Eddad" Comstock & Jenny "JennyMom" MacDonald will be getting married at our convention this year! The Comstock/MacDonald wedding is on our schedule and will take place at 6:30pm on Saturday, immediately after the end of main programming. All convention attendees are welcome! Our friend Dan Harris at the Sci Fi Sea Cruise, which immediately follows from this year's convention, is also sponsoring donations to bring the happy couple on the cruise; click here to find out how you can help! Hotel Directions -- On the Hotel and Transportation page is a handy guide to the LAX Marriott Hotel along with directions to the hotel for people driving in. If you're flying in, you're in luck... it's at the airport, via a five-minute free hotel shuttle ride! Registering for Gallifrey 2008 Memberships to Gallifrey 2008 are now on sale. (An attendee purchases a 'membership' to a fan run convention, not a ticket; you won't get a ticket in the mail, only a member number.) As with many other conventions, we operate on a sliding scale; the earlier you register, the cheaper it is. As of January 1, full weekend memberships to Gallifrey 2008 are $60.00 US for the next week; after that, it's $65 from February 1 to the door. Two other rates are fixed: $35 per weekend or $20 daily for children 12-16; children under 12 are free with parent attending. (Note that we are not selling supporting memberships this year due to some technical difficulties behind the scenes.) Register Online! You can currently register for FULL WEEKEND ONLY memberships via PayPal by visiting the following links. If you choose not to register electronically, download our Quick Registration form, fill out and mail with check or money order (US funds only) PAYABLE TO GALLIFREY ONE to the address at left or at the bottom of this page.