This past weekend was Creation Entertainment’s Salute to Supernatural convention at the Pasadena Convention Center. The weekend consisted of exclusive panels with cast members, photo ops, a concert, and tons of official Supernatural merchandise for sale. Though I was unable to attend all three days, I did make it out on Sunday, the last day of the event (and arguably the best).
Sunday morning began with Coffee with the Kostermans, offering attendees a preview of the upcoming 10 episode series and an exclusive Q&A with the show creators. Those who wanted to wake up bright and early were able to enjoy this event and get a glimpse of what the Supernatural fandom is really like. VIP ticket holders were also treated to a private panel with Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles (Sam and Dean) that morning, while the main convention opened its doors later on that day. Programming for Sunday began at 2pm, but I arrived early to scope out the scene. Upon entering the convention center and checking in, I headed to the vendors area to see all the available merchandise for sale. Though small, the vendor’s area had a decent amount of official and unique merchandise sure to please any Supernatural fan. There were Funko Pops of the boys along with buttons, magnets, T-shirts, and more. Some vendors offered custom jewelry related to the show like angel wing earrings and character specific charm bracelets. I even snagged myself Castiel’s grace! (A necklace that glowed like angel grace from the show). People took pictures with life size cardboard cutouts of Dean and Sam as well as a pretty cool looking custom made Castiel puppet. Also cool was a 13” replica diecast of Dean’s 1967 Chevy Impala that too could be yours for the low price of $70. After I picked up my grace and did a double walk through of the vendor’s area, I made my way to the theatre since the programming was about to begin.
Yep. Pretty lifelike.
Around 2:15pm Rob Benedict (Chuck) came out with his band Louden Swain and Master of Ceremonies Richard Speight Jr. (Trickster/Gabriel). The band treated the attendees to a mini concert with Speight occasionally taking on lead vocals. Fans cheered as the Los Angeles rock band played loudly and frontman Benedict ran around the room. Speight and Benedict then proceeded to sing to the crowd the rules and regulations of the convention to the tune of My Generation. After a fun energetic few songs it was time for the first guest of the day.
With the recent announcement of his upcoming role on The Walking Dead, Jeffrey Dean Morgan aka John Winchester was welcomed to the stage with a roar of applause. He expressed how excited he was to be there before taking fan questions from the audience. Morgan played the character of John Winchester, Sam and Dean’s dad in the first two seasons of Supernatural. He spoke about how much John meant to him being one of his first big opportunities acting and crediting it and his role of Denny Duquette on Grey’s Anatomy as really launching his career. However not before inviting a fan onstage who got cut off from asking her question at the Las Vegas convention. JDM talked about his upcoming role of villain Negan on The Walking Dead and said that when his agent asked if he was interested in auditioning for the role Jeffrey asked “Is it for fucking Negan?” and his agent said he didn’t know. He then went on to say “It is fucking Negan! I’m fucking doing it!” A fan then asked him what he thought Supernatural would be like if John Winchester hadn’t been killed off and was still on the show today? Morgan felt the show would be drastically different saying “It’d be like The Waltons” as he laughed, only to then follow by stating the crowd was probably too young to even know of the 70’s drama. On the subject of his favorite episode, Morgan stated it was Shadow (Season 1, Ep. 16), where father and sons come together and the audience’s introduction to the yellow-eyed demon Azazel who kills John’s wife/Sam and Dean’s mom Mary Winchester was his favorite. Fans continued to ask him more questions like “What was your favorite scene?” and “Would he do more conventions in the future?” Morgan spoke about how he would want to play Negan (The Walking Dead) or The Comedian (Watchmen) in the Supernatural world before his TV sons came out and crashed the stage to greet Morgan with a hug.
Louden Swain rocking out!
A sea of camera and phone lights and screams erupted as Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles took the stage. They bid Morgan a fond ado and then took their seats preparing themselves for the next hour of questions and story telling. Long lines of fans formed on both sides of the room with mostly females anxiously awaiting to get the chance to ask the TV brothers their questions. Ackles and Padalecki answered things like “What was the most emotional scene you had to film?” and “What was the sexiest scene to film?” in which Jensen replied Baby, episode 4 from this past season which is told entirely from the impala’s perspective. Jared answered a question about how his hair has changed over the seasons and Jensen joked “Yeah Jared, did you want to go from skater boy to fashionista?!”. Both spoke about their biggest fears, with Padalecki telling the audience he was afraid of snakes and bears while Ackles expressed not being able to get to his family in a time of crisis is his biggest fear. More creative questions were asked like “How would Sam and Dean handle themselves if they were in a horror movie?”, more specifically the remake horror movies each men starred in 2009, Friday the 13th and My Bloody Valentine. Jared exclaimed “Jason would be dead!” if Sam Winchester was in Friday the 13th, while Jensen said if Dean was in a tunnel and ran into a man with an ax Dean would blow his head off. They also joked they would end the zombies on The Walking Dead.
Fans continued with asking the guys what their favorite season finales were. Padalecki cited the episode Sacrifice at the end of Season 8 in which Sam and Dean finish the trials to close the gates of hell and Sam has to make a huge decision. Ackles chose the episode Swan Song (Season 5, Ep. 22) where Chuck tells the history of the Impala and Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) uses Dean as a vessel, as well as the season 9 finale Do You Believe in Miracles? where Dean deals with The Mark of Cain and we find out more about Metatron. The duo talked about the use of contact lenses in the beginning the series used for demon eyes versus now using CGI to create those same effects.
Each of the men spoke about parenthood including the joys and difficulties of being a dad. Jensen told a story to the crowd about how a friend of his sent him a meme that said “Guns don’t kill people, dads with pretty little girls do.” and how he looked at it and said “Yup!” (Ackles has a 2-yr-old daughter). Padalecki recently becoming public with his deals of depression and creating his Always Keep Fighting campaign that assists others with mental health issues, said he hoped his children would never give bullies’ negativity worth and value. When asked if the boys could be any other character on the show who would they be, both answered Cas being that Misha Collins’ schedule isn’t as demanding as the two main stars, with Jared adding Rowena (Ruth Connell) as well so that he could give Mark Sheppard (Crowley) a hard time. Another creative question from a fan was “If there was a Supernatural theme park, what would it consist of?” Jensen insisted that the roller coaster cars be modeled after his character’s infamous Impala and there also be a nutcracker stage where you can get your nuts cracked. Jared said there would have to be lots of salt circles and joked that a Crowley impersonator would be walking around talking nonstop in which that experience would be called “hell”. One of the last questions was “If each were not an actor, what would they be?” Padalecki said he would probably be an engineer while Ackles said he would have went to college and got a degree if he wasn’t acting. The duo’s panel closed with them bringing out Cain (Timothy Omundson) to answer who his favorite guest star was. Louden Swain played as the crowd left the theatre while Jensen Ackles sang on the first song.
Mark Sheppard closed the evening taking questions from fans and talking about his character Crowley. He even went out into the crowd and interacted with the fans while taking questions. Sheppard spoke about fan fiction and what happened between Dean and Crowley during their bromance in Season 10, as well as what’s in store for Crowley in the future. Louden Swain then took the stage to end the night by singing “It’s the end of the con as we know it.” to R.E.M.’s It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).
Though small and lacking a good amount of vendors, Salute to Supernatural is a must do event for any diehard fan! It allows the audience to get more up close and personal to the cast versus a larger convention like Comic Con. Next year’s convention returns to the Burbank Marriott in Burbank, CA and Jared, Jensen, Misha, Mark and Osric are already confirmed.
For more information on Creation Entertainment’s Salute to Supernatural, head here.
Supernatural airs on Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW.