The following was written by Erin, detailing everything that happened on Aug. 26, 2009
My day began at 5:30am. Woke up, got ready and drove to the Go Train station. Got on the Go Train to Union Station in Toronto. Listened to the Degrassi Goes Hollywood soundtrack the whole way there. Once I got there, I got on the subway to Bloor St. This was the first time I’ve traveled to Toronto by myself, so I was a bit nervous but also really excited. And finding my way around was surprisingly easy.
I got to the hotel really early (like 10am) so I decided to walk down Bloor and find the theatre. It was a lot smaller than I expected. When they say that it’s a vintage theatre they mean it! Nobody was there yet, so I took a picture of the Degrassi Goes Hollywood sign out front. Everyone on the street was giving me weird looks but I didn’t care. Heh.
After that I headed back to the hotel to see if I could check in yet. They said I had to wait until 11:30 still. So I wasted some more time, walked down Bloor St. in the other direction and went to Sephora, and then came back to the hotel where I met Joa. We got a room, came upstairs, and played around on our computers for like 3 hours. We weren’t sure how early we should start lining up and nobody was being very helpful on Twitter. Finally at about 4 we decided to head over.
When we got there, there was already like 10 people lined up. We weren’t sure if they were just lined up to get wristbands (we were already guaranteed them) but we decided to line up anyway just because there was nowhere else to go. So basically we waited and waited and waited and waited. More and more people started lining up behind us. We stood there waiting for like 2 and a half hours. Soon the media started to come and they laid out the red carpet. CTV News filmed us in the lineup and so did ET Canada. Then they interviewed a bunch of fans in the lineup. Unfortunately they didn’t interview us, however. Boo
As we were in the lineup, Judy Jiao walked by and then Tyler Kyte walked by later too. But we didn’t get to talk to them then.
Then once the cast started to come it was MADNESS. I thought it was going to be really low-key and that there wouldn’t be very many people there because it’s Canada and all. But it was sooo crowded! Like the cast could not walk through the lobby to get to their seats.
At first Joa and I decided to stay outside to get pictures. We didn’t want to go inside to sit down we wanted to meet people. So I took some pictures of Miriam and Charlotte and Jessica outside. But then they started yelling at us to get off the street and to go inside if we have wristbands, so we went inside.
But at first we stayed in the hallway, so that we could get pictures as they would walk by. But once again someone told us that we weren’t supposed to be there!! We were so annoyed. So we just stayed in the lobby to get pictures. That’s what everyone else did. It was packed, but we didn’t care. It was fun.
We got pictures of SO many different people holding my Degrassi-fans.com sign. I can’t even remember them all. You’ll be able to see all the pictures in the gallery soon. But here were some highlights:
-Dalmar & Ray wearing Studz t-shirts
-Argiris was like “wow you actually used my real name!” hahaha of course I did Argy!
-AJ was standing beside me for the longest time before I noticed he was there to take a picture. Rotfl
-Ryan was sooo hard to get because he was SWARMED by fans. He was there with his girlfriend who is sooo pretty! When I showed him my sign he said he would check out the site and leave a message (I’m waiting Ryan… hahahaha) he was so nice!
-We got to meet Action (degrassi producer, that’s his name in Vside). We spotted him and Joa was like “ACTION! ACTION!” so he knew who we were right away. We took 2 pictures together. He was so nice!! We introduced ourselves and chatted for a bit
-I was tweeting with Scott beforehand and I told him that I would get a picture of him holding my sign.. so when I asked him he was like “hey you’re from twitter!” and then after the movie we saw him outside and he was like “so great to meet you!” he was so sweet
-We talked to Stephen and told him that we were the ones who won the wristbands. I was like “I’m Erin” and he even remembered my last name too!
-I congratulated Stacey on her Gemini nomination and she said thank you multiple times and told us it was a nice birthday present!
-JAKE. OMG JAKE! He was the one we needed to get so we could get the picture for Nicole (we made a You Rock Nicole sign and got him to hold it). We told him that Nicole is from Craig-Ashely.com and a huge Craig/Ashley fan. Then I decided that I NEEDED to get a picture with him because I love him. So Joa took a picture of me and him together. Am I the new Ashley? Lol. But the best part is that I was wearing my Hell Hath No Fury shirt and I was meaning to tell him about it but I forgot. But instead he was like “Omg your shirt!” and he told me this story about how his friend got one and wears it all the time. It was amazing!! LOVE HIM
After we got Jake we went inside the theatre. Almost all the seats were taken but we managed to find 2 on the balcony. Stefan came out and made this introduction and then he invited the cast on stage. I recorded the whole thing so you will get to watch it soon! Then before the movie started they showed a trailer for Vampire Diaries as well as the new season 9 CTV PROMO!!!!!! I was thinking fast and I recorded it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’ll be on youtube ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!
In terms of the movie, that was the first time I saw it because I’m Canadian. I like it in a weird way. If you don’t take it seriously, it’s good. It’s just stupid fun basically and you just have to take it for what it is. I’m not a Crellie fan but I actually liked Ellie and Craig the most out of all the characters in the movie. I thought the suicide attempt scene was good and shot in a really interesting way. So it was great, better than I thought. And it was soooo much fun watching it with a huge crowd of Degrassi fans who would cheer, laugh, gasp, etc. at all the big parts. When Craig and Ellie ran to each other to kiss at the end, there was a HUGE cheer from the crowd. Lol
After the show, we got more pictures! Some more highlights:
-Sam Earle is ridiculously good looking in real life. He’s soooo tall!!!!! We took the picture and then he asked us how we liked the movie. Joa told him that she came up from the US and he thought that was cool. Then for the rest of the night he kept smiling at us like we knew each other from that short little conversation!
-Melinda was sooo nice! I think she was the nicest cast member we talked to. She knew who we were!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so cool! She was talking to us like we were her friends. And later when we went to get a picture with Samantha she was like “don’t you know who they are???” as if we were famous or something. HAHAHA
-I got a pic with Landon and I told him that his episode of Flashpoint is my favourite. When I said that he put his hand to his heart and was like “really? I had so much fun with that” or something along those lines. I heart him.
-most of the cast would be like “what does this say?” when I asked them to take a picture with my sign. LOL they didn’t want it to say something bad.
-Joa told Cassie she liked her new haircut and Lauren that she liked her shoes
-towards the end of the night, Scott and Ray were hugging so I tried to take a picture and they were like “hey!” so I put my camera down but then they were like “no lets take a picture and starts some rumours” LOL so we did. ONTD here we come!
Eventually they all left for the after party. We found out where it was and took a picture outside but we didn’t go in. Even though they were treating us like friends by the end of the night we felt like we weren’t really invited so we shouldn’t go. The whole night was amazing though. We were jumping up and down like crazy people from excitement.
What a night!