So this past Saturday I had the chance to "work" as a volunteer for TNA at the Lockdown Fan Interaction. For those unaware, TNA had put out a call on Facebook through the TNA Nation page for volunteers to help out and in exchange for helping, I received a free ticket to Lockdown and a Lockdown T-shirt. And so I thought I would just share a little about my experience there.
Basically my job was to stand at the front of one of the lines and take pictures for people with the wrestlers and to play the bad guy so to speak when people would start talking to the wrestlers or ask for a ridiculous number of things to be signed and just keep the line moving. For anyone who was at the Fan Interaction, I was with Chris Sabin for the first session, then Crimson (I took a quick lunch break during this session, so if you remember a blond girl being the one taking the pictures, she was only covering for my break and that was not me), and for the final session, I was with The Pope, D'Angelo Dinero.
Overall it was pretty awesome being able to have that kind of access with the wrestlers, and while I didn't have to much time to talk with them, as being "staff" I had to try and stay professional, but I did get to have some brief conversations, and see a few little inside things most people there were unaware of. For example, during the second session while I was with Crimson in his line, the line right next to him was Mickie James, and as the second session was ending, we were getting the signs and 8x10's out for the next session, in the same spot where Mickie was, Madison Rayne and Tara were going to be signing next. And even though no fans were close enough to really see this, Mickie took one of the 8x10's for Madison, and one of Tara and decided to draw on them and add like devil horns and stuff and wrote on them and left them on top for Madison and Tara to see when they got there.
And then during the last session with The Pope, next to him was Devon and Tommy Dreamer, and the Pope and Devon throughout their time decided to keep a bit of a running thing were the Pope would talk bad about ECW, and how Devon and Dreamer were living in the past, which would get Devon up and "confront" the Pope a few times during the session, and the Pope being a heel would go running. Of the three guys that I worked with, The Pope was easily the most entertaining of them, as he pretty much stayed in character for the whole thing, although he was also the only guy I worked with who was criticizing my picture taking pretty much the whole time, about taking to long to take them, and taking them to far back, wanting me to make sure I get close ups and that kind of stuff (which wasn't really my fault in the first place, as most digital cameras that people brought had to flash at least 3 times before they would take the picture, and you have to hold the button down for like 10 seconds before they would go, and the zoom on some of them was already so far in I had to stand kind of far back to get everything in the picture, but I digress.)
So anyways, it was overall a pretty awesome experience, and I was surprised that only like 4 of 5 other people actually took TNA up on this offer, and would suggest in the future if TNA is doing a PPV close to where you are to look into this to see if they are offering the same thing. And if anyone reading this was there, and I screwed up your picture, I apologize, but some of those cameras were just ridiculously complicated, and some people did a poor job on telling me about how to use them right, so sometimes it was a guessing game on using them.
(And if anyone thinks I am just making all this up, there is a video on the free section of the TNA on Demand website labeled a virtual tour of Fan Interaction or something like that, and you can see me in it in about the first minute or so, taking pictures in the Chris Sabin line, and I have posted a couple pictures of myself here in the forums a while back if you really want to take the time and effort to check whether I am lying or not.)
Basically my job was to stand at the front of one of the lines and take pictures for people with the wrestlers and to play the bad guy so to speak when people would start talking to the wrestlers or ask for a ridiculous number of things to be signed and just keep the line moving. For anyone who was at the Fan Interaction, I was with Chris Sabin for the first session, then Crimson (I took a quick lunch break during this session, so if you remember a blond girl being the one taking the pictures, she was only covering for my break and that was not me), and for the final session, I was with The Pope, D'Angelo Dinero.
Overall it was pretty awesome being able to have that kind of access with the wrestlers, and while I didn't have to much time to talk with them, as being "staff" I had to try and stay professional, but I did get to have some brief conversations, and see a few little inside things most people there were unaware of. For example, during the second session while I was with Crimson in his line, the line right next to him was Mickie James, and as the second session was ending, we were getting the signs and 8x10's out for the next session, in the same spot where Mickie was, Madison Rayne and Tara were going to be signing next. And even though no fans were close enough to really see this, Mickie took one of the 8x10's for Madison, and one of Tara and decided to draw on them and add like devil horns and stuff and wrote on them and left them on top for Madison and Tara to see when they got there.
And then during the last session with The Pope, next to him was Devon and Tommy Dreamer, and the Pope and Devon throughout their time decided to keep a bit of a running thing were the Pope would talk bad about ECW, and how Devon and Dreamer were living in the past, which would get Devon up and "confront" the Pope a few times during the session, and the Pope being a heel would go running. Of the three guys that I worked with, The Pope was easily the most entertaining of them, as he pretty much stayed in character for the whole thing, although he was also the only guy I worked with who was criticizing my picture taking pretty much the whole time, about taking to long to take them, and taking them to far back, wanting me to make sure I get close ups and that kind of stuff (which wasn't really my fault in the first place, as most digital cameras that people brought had to flash at least 3 times before they would take the picture, and you have to hold the button down for like 10 seconds before they would go, and the zoom on some of them was already so far in I had to stand kind of far back to get everything in the picture, but I digress.)
So anyways, it was overall a pretty awesome experience, and I was surprised that only like 4 of 5 other people actually took TNA up on this offer, and would suggest in the future if TNA is doing a PPV close to where you are to look into this to see if they are offering the same thing. And if anyone reading this was there, and I screwed up your picture, I apologize, but some of those cameras were just ridiculously complicated, and some people did a poor job on telling me about how to use them right, so sometimes it was a guessing game on using them.
(And if anyone thinks I am just making all this up, there is a video on the free section of the TNA on Demand website labeled a virtual tour of Fan Interaction or something like that, and you can see me in it in about the first minute or so, taking pictures in the Chris Sabin line, and I have posted a couple pictures of myself here in the forums a while back if you really want to take the time and effort to check whether I am lying or not.)