Meeting the Mythbusters – My “VIP” experience

Being a fan of the Mythbusters for about as long as the show has been running, when I first heard Adam mention in June on his semi-regular podcast (Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project) that the Behind The Myths Tour was coming to New Zealand, I immediately began looking for tickets online.

Initially I was disappointed as only the Australian tour dates had been announced, but I remained hopeful that it wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, and that the tour was going to come to Auckland. Finally on 10th July the dates were released for the New Zealand Mythbusters show. Two shows only, both on 6th September at Vector Arena.

Browsing the various ticket options the “Mythbusters VIP Meet and Greet” option caught my eye. It was expensive, at $400 including all the usual Ticketmaster fees, but I decided it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Jamie and Adam without even leaving town.

The show itself has been well reviewed by a better writer than I (who I believe I was seated next to me for the show), and families had come from as far south as Dunedin to see the show!  My aim is to review the “VIP” experience. Bare in mind, any nitpicking I make from here out is against the venue and the promoters, the show itself is top-notch!

A small selection of photos from the show. Like a good audience member I spent my time watching the show rather than photographing it.

 

The Mythbusters Tour “VIP” Experience

The VIP part started with a goodie bag for those who paid for the top two tiers of tickets. We were initially allowed into the venue to collect our VIP swag. This consisted of food/beverage vouchers (which I didn’t use), a glossy magazine program for the Mythbusters tour, signed poster of Jamie & Adam, lanyard with VIP identification, and the special one-of-a-kind gift.

The special gift in this case turned out to be a small re-usable glass coffee cup which had been cheaply printed with a Mythbusters Tour logo (similar to something a small company would get branded for clients’ Xmas presents). The ladies handing them out alluded that they were unbreakable, but I couldn’t read anything on the packaging to back this up. It was mostly extolling the virtues of non-disposable coffee cups, and being “barista approved”. This seemed a little bit of a cop-out, I had been expecting something a little more unique or mythbusteresque, like one of the Jamie & Adam bobble head dolls which I’ve seen stashed away in Adam’s latest man-cave tour. Or maybe a piece of shrapnel from one of the Mythbusters many explosions (although that might have been too much to hope for!).

Still, the magazine program and the signed poster were well worth it, although somewhat annoyingly they did not provide any bags to store these items in, meaning you would be carrying around a large booklet and coffee cup for the remainder of the evening.

After claiming our swag, we were then sent back outside for 15 minutes (who knows why) then invited back in for the early-entry. This mostly consisted of waiting around for 30 minutes until the general-entry doors opened, giving you time to order some food and get first dibs at the merchandise stand.

Initially I wasn’t going to bother with buying any Mythbusters Tour merchandise, the t-shirts and hoodies on offer wouldn’t have been in my size in any case. However I needed a bag to hold my swag, and I saw they were giving out plastic bags with the merchandise, so I decided to purchase a $10 keychain, the cheapest item on offer. It turned out though that there was a $1 charge to get a bag. The woman at the stand seemed most embarrassed by this (“it’s kind bad that they make us charge you for that” she said), but lacking any other option I paid this surcharge on what was an already overpriced keychain.

More waiting. The early entry was at 6pm, the general-entry was 6:30pm, and the show didn’t start until 7:30pm. The doors into the seating arena opened at 7pm and I made my way to my seat; Row 2, Seat 26, front and centre. Given the price of the ticket, I would have expected something a little better than the usual stadium seating, maybe individual chairs, something with a higher back and bit more leg-room. Then again, I’m a big guy, so I’m a bit picky about my choice of seat. I did feel sorry for whoever was sitting behind me (who would have paid around $250 for their seat) as I was probably blocking their view. In hindsight I should have requested an aisle seat.

There was a couple of rather excitable kids in my row too, both of which got to go up on stage during the show (probably due to their sheer enthusiasm). One little boy was nearly having visible conniptions when they first called for volunteers, even though their first request was for a mother and daughter.

The show itself was top-notch as I’ve said, although having watched all of the Mythbusters episodes, and all of Jamie and Adam’s interviews, talks and Comic-Con panels on Tested.com, most of their anecdotes I had already heard. This didn’t detract from the enjoyment of seeing it live however.

Once the show had completed, those with VIP passes had been given instructions to remain seated. The audience departed and the 30-odd VIP ticket holders were ushered around to side room. After a minute or two of awkward silence, Jamie and Adam arrived. I’m surprised they didn’t make us wait a little longer, given these chaps had just put on a rather energetic two-hour show, but they didn’t seem too phased by this.

We started with questions, I was lucky enough to get a question in as the allotted question time turned out to be only 10 minutes, and only five of the thirty people got to ask questions. My question (which I had composed in my head a few days earlier, in the event I only got one shot) was whether Jamie and Adam thought there was likely to be a renaissance of practical effects over CGI in the film industry as directors got tired of shooting everything on green-screen sets. Jamie’s answer boiled down to “using the right tool for the right job”, which was Adam’s opinion also. As they are both from prop-making and practical effects background, they said they would love to see more of it used in filmmaking, however there is a place for CGI when practical effects got too, well, impractical. Adam cited Peter Jackson and Jon Favreau as two directors who were proficient at seamlessly merging the practical with CGI.

After this all too brief question session was up (there were so many more I could have asked!), we were asked to line up for photographs. I was about mid-way though the queue, but it only took a couple of minutes before it was my turn. I had handed my phone to one of the handlers who was taking the photographs, shook hands with Adam then Jamie, and then posed for my two photographs (one of which was a little over-exposed). I thanked them both very much, and then that was end, make way for the next VIP ticket holder, and out the door. Thus ended my Mythbusters VIP experience.