A Weekend with The Nightowl

Convention
Name:	A Weekend with The Nightowl (also "Weekend with The Nightowl")
Dates:	1998-1999 (informal gatherings), 2000-2003 (gatherings with the official title)
Frequency:
Location:	Vancouver, British Columbia
Type:	relax-a-con
Focus:	The Sentinel
Organization:
Founder:	Nightowl
Founding Date:
URL:
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A Weekend with The Nightowl was a series of Sentinel fan gatherings held in Vancouver and Toronto.

First, there were informal 'gatherings' held in 1998 and 1999 in which fans would meet at a pre-arranged hotel and rent a party suite. These were also called "house parties," or 'relax-a-cons" and were held in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, where the Sentinel TV show was produced. These more informal gatherings became "A Weekend with The Nightowl" in 2000 and continued until 2003.

1999

"Weekend with The Nightowl, Toronto Sentinel Get-Together -- July 2–4, 1999 Nightowl's annual party that's grown into a full-fledged Relax-a-Con. Videos-watching, chatting and sharing, a Jim meal, a Blair meal, etc. It's still in the planning stages.

Some photos of this event.

2000

information about 2000

con zine for 2000

"Due to popular demand, there will be two (2) Weekends with the Nightowl Sentinel Get-Togethers in 2000. The Nightowl has talked to the other Toronto TS fen, and we decided we're up to two -- maybe three -- The Sentinel gatherings this year.

There were two cons that year:

• June 9–11, 2000 -- 4th Annual TS Toronto Get-Together ("This year's Toronto TS Get-Together will be a TS house-party similar to that held in 1998.")
• October 13–15, 2000—TS Relax-a-con in Vancouver. ("There will be a full-fledged relax-a-con held in Vancouver on the Weekend of October 13–15. Similar to the relax-a-con held at the Neill-Wyick in Toronto in 1999, this event will take place at the Landis Hotel and Suites in downtown Vancouver. We currently have one full floor of the hotel reserved.")

The Sentinel Relax-a-Con

When: Second Weekend in October.

Where: Landis Hotel and Suites in downtown Vancouver, Canada.

Type: Sentinel fandom and zines.

Description: Activities will include a dinner meet-and-greet, walking tours, episode-themed door prizes, games, discussions, viewing, dubbing. Although there will not be a dealers room, people are welcome to sell zines and stuff from their rooms.

2000: Con Zine

This con generated a con zine. It is not a con zine in the usual manner, with fans contributing fiction, art, and poetry to it in advance, but instead written solely by Nightowl, the con's organizer, and published after the con was over.

The zine is over 300 pages and includes:

• Con Reports (of the recent Nightowl con)
• Descriptions of Set Vists
• Biographies of the actors
• Detailed descriptions of the Loft
• Synopsis, a list of cast and crew for each episode
• Detailed analysis of each episode

The non-fiction info canon info is almost certainly a print version of Nightowl's website, which in 2000, was not necessarily available to fans who were not online.

2000: Con Reports

A weekend with the Nightowl 13th-15th October, 2000 Vancouver, B.C.

Y2K is a magic number. Watching the millennium celebrations around the globe on New Year's Eve, a tickling sensation of wanderlust surged through me. I wanted to do something 'big' for vacation in 2000 and the North American continent came to mind. A few days later I went online to chat with some Sentinel fans, bringing up the subject of my travel plans. What was just a thought at first, quickly morphed into a fascinating idea when I heard of "A weekend with the Nightowl". For the first time this annual event was to be held in Vancouver and, if I wasn't tempted before, the imagination of visiting this beautiful city again made the decision fairly easy.

It was a very long time until October, but I got more feverish with anticipation every passing day. Katherin Green of the Con Committee asked me to create the program cover and I also volunteered to do the nametags (with the ultimate input from Rike). Finally, I came up with a t-shirt design as well . It was a lot of fun. (Yes, Katherin, I thoroughly enjoyed it!)

Armed with 26 t-shirts I left Germany on a rainy Thursday morning. 14 hours later, at 6:29PM, I arrived in Vancouver where our Party of Five, Erin (Washington), Judy (Texas), Sally (California) and Karen (London, England) took over. Well, not right away, because Karen's plane had been hit by lightening and we had to wait two hours due to the delay. Never mind – we were in Cascade aka Sentinel City aka Vancouver! At the Landis Hotel we met Kay Lynne and the rest of the Gang, goofy and in good spirits. Room 1224 was ours, by the way. A knock at the door the first evening drove me to the silly act of shouting "Put your hands in the air" (in my best Ellison voice). I thought it was one of the girls but...oh dear... it was just the poor hotel boy who wanted to deliver more towels! He grinned at me strangely while I hid behind the door, shaken by laughter. (How should I know that my roommates had called the front desk for more towels??).

The weekend began with sightseeing tours around Vancouver. Former filming locations like the Lighthouse Park ("Storm Warning"), Capilano Suspension Bridge or the famous fountain at the University of British Columbia ("Sentinel Too") took our breath away. Photos were taken at Canada Place ("Foreign Exchange"), the Art Gallery ("The Killers", "Red Dust") or Lonsdale Blvd ("The Real Deal") where Erin drove like Jim Ellison chasing the bad guys. At Colette's (the loft exterior) I bought a colourful winter coat while my friend enjoyed the sight – of the building, of course.

On Saturday evening the con attendees met at the Milestone restaurant in Yaletown. The fabulous Nightowl had managed to invite some guests of the Sentinel cast and crew. With applause and cheers we welcomed Ryf van Rij, John Sampson (Richard Burgi's stunt double), Ricardo, Domonique and Melanie (please forgive me for not remembering your surnames).

Karen, Erin and I were lucky enough to sit at Ryf's table, and we had a nice conversation about "The Sentinel" and the fact that the fandom is still so alive and full of energy. Ryf was very surprised about that and his confusion was clearly visible when Karen told him that she had gotten hooked on the show without having seen one single episode. In Great Britain, "The Sentinel" was never shown. Indeed, it's hard to explain. Ryf recognized me from a previous visit to Vancouver, seemingly pleased to see that I had travelled so far again in the name of the show. I don't know if my travel plans bored him or not, but as I chatted away about my up-coming trips to St. Louis and Milwaukee, he kindly listened -- and commented on my glasses [grin].

Earlier this year one of the con girls, Lucy, had been falsely announced 'dead' due to some unfortunate circumstances. Known as a big fan of Ryf's character on TV, Lucy had travelled from South Dakota to meet him. During the course of the evening Ryf joked around, "I'm seeing dead people" – much to Lucy's embarrassment, of course. He was very kind allowing photos to be taken and extending hugs. The photos were taken outside the restaurant where a bright streetlight provided the necessary illumination. I thought it was very nice of Ryf to pose for pictures. A tour group from Australia that dined outside even recognized him from "The Sentinel".

Unfortunately, Ryf had to leave quite early due to a filming commitment.

Back inside, our little group had a nice, relaxing conversation with John Sampson. Someone pointed out that I had made the nametags for the convention and I received a sweet compliment from him. John gave us a little insight on his job and his previous work on "The Sentinel". Even today he still shockingly resembles Richard Burgi. Laughing, John told us that he and Richard had fooled Robert Vaughn in the episode "The Real Deal" by switching places. As a matter of fact, a scene was filmed before anyone of the crew noticed! We talked a little more when all of a sudden John looked at me and said, "I like your glasses". I grinned broadly. Two years ago Richard Burgi had used exactly the same words – although I never knew that a compliment like that required a stunt double ;-).

One of the fun things about having the Relax-A-Con in Vancouver is they are filming all over the place. I and many others were able to catch the filming of Dark Angel walking distance from the Landis Hotel.

Dinner on Saturday night was a blast. They were able to get Dominique Albasha-Adams (Bruce Young's stand in), Ryf Van Rij (Richard Burgi's stand in and Lt. Rafe), John Sampson (Richard Burgi's stunt double), Melanie Angel and Ricardo Scarabelli (Special Skills Extras who worked on The Sentinel). It was great of all of them to take time out of their busy schedules to have dinner with us. All we needed was Maureen Caine and we would have all three stand in's.

Dinner was at Milestones in Yaletown. There must have been over 50 people attending the dinner. Some came as far away as Germany and Scotland. The get-together started at 6PM and didn't end till after 10PM. The guests were very accommodating willing to take pictures with all the "crazy" fans. Sharing stories about The Sentinel and show biz in Vancouver.

Pictures were taken outside of the restaurant and there was seating area outside. Some of the people outside were from Australia and not part of the Con. They were looking at Ryf and John. And asked aren't you from The Sentinel??? This is a small world.

Ryf is Jonathan LaPaglia's stand in on Seven Days. John Sampson has worked on Dark Angel

A cute little story. When I was watching the filming of Dark Angel, there was a crew member wearing a Sentinel jacket. My girlfriend, Janice and I told him he could put the jacket up for auction on e-bay or something like that and make a ton of money. He said he never sell it because it had sentimental value for him. I think that says alot and how I feel about the show.

Can I be a big fangirl and say "I touched Ryf van Rij's shoulder!" Eeeeee! I never really saw the point of being a Rafebabe before-- I mean, he *was* just a minor character on the show and all, but yikes, the guy is *grrrrrrrrowl* really yummy in person. Great voice.

When he walked up to the table we were at, Kira BJ said "Now, I've never been able to hear the accent," or something like that, and Ryf said "Accent? No way, I don't have an accent!" in this pure American voice. Then he said something else in the accent. *grins* He was also really nice. *Everyone* from the show who came to the dinner was super nice.

I also got to meet Richard Burgi's stunt double, John Sampson. Wow. He is a *handsome* guy, even without the startling resemblance to Burgi. (Although John has brown eyes and darker hair, a bit.) He's kind of a cross between Burgi and Doug Flutie, maybe. I've been looking around and I can't find *any* pictures of him that do justice to how handsome he is in person. And what a nice guy. :)

John told us all at the beginning of the dinner that he's a little hard of hearing in one ear, so if he missed something, he wasn't ignoring us on purpose. Someone asked if that came from an explosion or other stunt work, and he said (can't remember the name or age specifically, so this is a *very* paraphrased quote) "No, that was Billy Smith throwing an ice ball at me when I was ten. Damn that kid!!" With a big grin.

On Monday night I got to meet Garrett Maggart's stand-in for the first three seasons, Maureen Caine. (Yeah-- Garrett's stand-in was a girl. I didn't know that before, so I had to giggle when I heard. But it explains a lot about those "angel shots" where he just looks so adorable-- apparently because of his facial structure, for close-ups & such they'd light him like a woman.)

Maureen said that when she first got the call to work on TS, she didn't want to, because she'd heard that it wasn't a very good show, or something like that. I think she said it was Ryf who called her up and said "Come on, just work for one day, see how you like it," so she did. Now, she says that TS was the best job she ever had, she'd go back to it in a second, and if the opportunity came up, she'd drop whatever she was doing and work for Danny Bilson again in a second.

2003

• October 12–13, 2003, Vancouver, billed as "The Third Annual" event

See: Weekend with The Nightowl: 2003, ^{Archived version}.

"There will be only one Weekend with the Nightowl this year, and it is being held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The Vancouver Relax-a-con will be held at the Landis Hotel and Suites as usual, and will be very laid-back this year. The group dinner, walking/driving tour(s)/door prizes will be the usual, with fandom focus on Smallville and The Sentinel this time around, although other Vancouver-filmed fandoms are also welcome. Vision (president of the John Sampson fan club) will be the Nightowl's co-host, as Hauntfox will be unable to make it this year.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Registration sign-in and social activities More events -- TBD

FRIDAY EVENING: TBD

SATURDAY MORNING & AFTERNOON: Walking and Driving Tours of Smallville and The Sentinel film sites

SATURDAY EVENING: GROUP DINNER: Celebrity guests for group dinner: Currently actor/stuntman John Sampson and actor/screenwriter Craig McLachlan have expressed interest in attending the dinner. We are also extending invitations to other guests. A reminder, however: we make no commitment that any specific celebrity will appear, as their attendance is subject to their work commitments and good will. Location -- TBD Cost -- The meal is included in the con membership. Alcoholic beverages non included.

SUNDAY MORNING: Drawing for door prizes (fandom focus on Smallville and The Sentinel) Invitation to try the infamous Blair Sandburg Algae Breakfast Shake"