Large crowd of people singing Beatles songs
Peter Asher performs
Beatles toy instruments
Kickin' booty in the Beatles Trivia contest
I met Peter Asher!
I finally have found the time to sit down and write about this past weekend at the Fest for Beatles fans in Chicago. I think this is the busiest summer I recall having in a long time and tomorrow I am driving down to Louisiana and coming back in time to start work on Monday.
The first thing I want to say is how nice it was to meet several visitors of this blog! I felt like a mini-celebrity at times. But it was very neat to meet some readers in person and hear the nice things they had to say about the blog. I think I met about five people total, so that was cool.
The second thing is that when I started thinking about what to write, I realized that everyone who goes to a Beatles convention will have a different experience. There are so many things to do there, that not one person is going to do the exact same things. So here are the highlights of what I did this year at the Fest.
Friday: My mom and I took the Amtrak train up to Chicago and got settled into the hotel. Once the Fest began, our first stop was the Marketplace to do some Beatle shopping! Even though every year seems to have less and less items to buy, I always manage to find things to spend my money on. We then played "Name that tune" and listened to Jeff Augsburger talk about collecting Beatles memorabilia. I got a few autographs and we looked around at various photo and art displays. The last thing we did was go to the Liverpool (Beatles band) concert where a lot of people were dressed up in 1960's clothing.
Saturday: We started the day by watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. We then listened to David Bedford talk about his book, Liddypool (a must have), Bruce Spizer talk about his book on Beatles records in the U.K., Larry Marion talk about the Lost Beatles photos. We then took a break and got something to eat and did some more shopping. We came back for the end of the Beatles auction and watched Roger Farrington discuss the photos he took of John and Yoko in 1980. Then it was time for the highlight of the Fest, Peter Asher's show about the 1960's. Peter did an excellent job! We heard Tim Riley talk about a new John Lennon book that he has coming out in September. It sounds like a good one! And listened to Robert Rodriguez also talk about his new book about Revolover. Ahhh...so many new books that I will want! And I can't forget that we listened to Bruce Spizer again. After Bruce's talk, I had to buy his book, so we went downstairs and did even more shopping. :)
Sunday: First we watched the Beatles puppet show. Most of Sunday's talks were part 2 of Saturday's talks, so we heard the rest of what David Bedford, Bruce Spizer and Peter Asher had to say. The best thing about Sunday for me was that I entered the Beatles trivia contest and I won first place!!! How exciting is that? My mom and I have never missed the Battle of the Beatle bands on Sunday night, and I was glad that the band I liked the most, Mr. Mustard were the winners. I spent the rest of the night and early into the morning sitting around singing with other Fest goers and just enjoying the fact that I was surrounded by people who love the Beatles like I do.
I am not sure if I can go back next year. It looks like the Fest will sadly be hitting the weekend of when school starts (fest ends on Sunday at midnight and school starts Monday at 7am.). But I had a great time this year!
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