This year was both special and different for us. Yes, it was our 10th year. Since we had heard from our attendees that it was perhaps time for something new, we decided to test the waters by throwing a “mini-con” out in Vegas in August, in addition to the Toronto con. So not only did we have the big 4 day con in Toronto, but we also had to take this traveling circus to a new city, with new people. It was going to take a lot of work to have everything be as awesome as we knew it needed to be.

But first things first,

Toronto: July 2010

Traveling to Toronto is always a little difficult getting all my stuff through customs, explaining to the border patrol guard who Rush was. (Why is that always the question?) I knew I would have to get to the hotel right away, because it was the first unofficial day of the con, and heck, I had a Rush concert to go to! Arrived, napped, ran downstairs to meet up with the “crew.”

RushCon organizers Judy and Eddy ponder something important.

The new hotel was nice. Much bigger and fancier. You know RushCon has started when you hear people wearing Rush shirts, referring to others by their “online names.” There was already a group assembled in the Hotel Bar and I could see how happy everyone was to see each other again.

Rob, Brent and Bruce knock a couple back before the Rush concert Tuesday.

After many months of online meetings, I finally saw my fellow RushCon Sisters, Judy, Eddy, Holly and Kristy in person. Even thought we had talked virtually every week for the past 2 months (virtually!) it’s always great to see them in person. We gathered the group of 30 or so, and piled on to the “caravan” bus over to Molson Amphitheatre. We were all so excited to be together and seeing a show. For a lot of people this was their first show of the tour, so those of us who had seen it already had tried our best to keep our mouths shut.

We rolled up in RushCon style to the gate of Molson, most of us rockin’ our RushCon shirts.

We all went our separate ways (hey wait, this isn’t about Journey!) once we got inside, but we would see each other from across the audience, heads bopping, fists pumping, and wave. You are never just a lone fan amongst the crowd when you’re with your RushCon brethren. The show rocked, no doubt. Sprinkled throughout the audience were band family members, and various other local celebrities. Afterward we got back on the bus and headed back to RushCon Central. The team had 2 days to get everything in order for the official first night of the con. We had rooms to prepare, auction stuff to organize, difficult footwear decisions to make, etc.

Friday night rolled around. The hotel lobby was lousy with Rush fans. They (we) were everywhere! So many new attendees this year! The busses took the 100+ conventioneers down to the Toronto docks to board our vessel. It was a stunning evening on the Toronto harbour. Clear skies, warm temperatures.

Before we were about to pull away from the shore, we got some last minute good news that Terry Brown and Donna Halper would be joining our festivities.

Old Friends and Rush staples, Jack Secret and Terry Brown are reunited after many years.

Our guest speaker Tony (Jack Secret) had been a good friend of Terry's back in the day, and they hadn’t spoken in over10 years. So this was a very special reunion we were glad to be a part of. After much chillaxin’ on the upper deck of the boat, I got to introduce Jacob Moon to our group. To be honest, I hadn’t listened to his Subdivisions cover that had made him famous, and the waves were a little rocky at this point, so I was not sure what we were about to witness. Needless to say, he Blew. Me. Away. He was SOOO good. His voice, his guitar, everything. The sun was setting, as he treated us to a couple covers, then finished his set with Subdivisions. It was super cute. He told the story of how when he finally got to meet Neil at the Canadian Song Writers Award ceremony, he was nervous but remembered he had his pocket recorder with him, so he asked Neil to say “Subdivisions” into it, and worked it into his live performance. It was truly truly amazing and we were so lucky to have him perform for us. The crowd was spellbound. He gained many new fans I am sure.

We then moved down to the lower bowels of the boat to hear legendary road crew member, Jack Secret tell his tales. He had a slide show of many rare and unseen photos he had personally collected during his early years with the band. Many candid shots of the boys recording Hemispheres in England, impromptu baseball games, and behind the scenes stuff no one has ever laid eyes on. He told many stories of the early days of traveling on a rock tour, and took some questions from the audience. He was super funny and charming, and such an integral piece of Rush’s history. It was amazing having him in our presence. He even came to party with a bunch of us after the boat ride. I guess Rush fans aren’t that scary, right?

Jack discusses Days Of Yore.

The next morning started the day of our big events. At this point, Dean and Christopher had rolled in and set up the Chromey Room. But I really had no idea how much stuff he had. He rented out a whole other conference room adjacent to ours and it was like a museum! Used sticks, signed drumheads, Neil's original bass drum heads, signed guitars, signed photos. So much awesome stuff! And of course the star of the show, Neil’s kit! Tons of people got their pic behind this super sweet relic. Dean and Chris raised a bunch of money from these photos for our charity- what amazing guys! This added bonus of having all this great stuff on display made this years Con so much better! Hope we can have it every year. :)

The Chromey Museum!

It's not every day you can tinker with Neil Peart's once owned actual kit.

Baskin and Dean Bobisud- Chromey's Owner.

RushCon organizer Kristy gets her Chrome On.

Rush Backstage Club also made us drool with "want!" over their merchandise set up. In addition to all the cool stuff normally sold at the show, they brought this ginormous poster they had for sale of the boys from the late 70’s. It was epic. I'm impressed no one tried to run off with it.

Rush Backstage Club's little corner of awesome.

The RushCon lobby bustles with activity and awesome stuff on display.

Judy, Cathy, and Mary Jo greet everyone at the registration table.

Our convention room was decorated in the theme of Clockwork Angels. We had torches and various alchemy symbols adorning the walls. We started our first game “Countdown” which is a RushCon classic. Dave R. from Canada was the winner, naming more Rush songs by only hearing a short clip, than any of the other contestants.  

6 players compete for the Countdown title.

Our next game was Jeopardy. We had a panel of “semi” experts competing for the grand prize. The trivia was hard this year. But one contestant Tony was victorious.

Next, in order to gear us up for our next marquee event, we played the footage of Rush’s acceptance speech at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Donna Halper had arrived.  The room went pretty silent, as everyone wanted to soak in everything she had to say. She talked a bit about how she helped the boys receive their Walk of Fame Star, the ceremony, and her long history with the band. She emphasizing how kind and genuinely “good guys” the boys in band are, and how despite the distance apart, they all still remain close friends. She had a collection of quotes (some hilariously brutal) from various rock “critics” and their opinions of Rush. Some reviews claiming how Rush would never “make it” in rock and roll and that they were “nobodies.” 33 years later, we all beg to differ. Donna had a good chuckle at this fact. She took a lot of questions from the audience, and we were honored to have her around. Donna is a true gem. 

It was time for us to jump on a bus and head over to a concert - again! I will never get tired of that feeling. A group of us, super excited, on our way to a Rush show. THE BEST. This show was indoors, and it was cool seeing the light show in total darkness. Our boys put on a brilliant show as always. After hearing Jack Secret's speech about his vast responsibilities during the show, I had a new found respect for him as I watched him running across the stage, doing all his set up work. For some reason I felt proud.

Following the concert, the late night sing a long tradition was revived as always, featuring Robert on guitar.

The night continued in various hotel rooms across the building. I’m sure everyone was up until dawn, but I was sound asleep, knowing there was more to do the next day.

Sunday morning was met with Rush fans wanting to peek inside the golden halls of Anthem Records. Judy took an eager crew on the 5-block walk down to Rush’s record label's office. The walls and rooms are THICK with gold records, memorabilia, props from videos and the like. It’s a Rush fans golden wet dream. It's very cool and trusting of Anthem to let us give this tour every year.

Zane poses with some of the many gold records and awards Rush has received over the years.

RushCon faithful Seiji (who flies in every year from Japan) displays the Hollywood Walk Of Fame Star plaque the band got to take home.

I was super nervous about the next event, The Words Of The Profits because it was a new game I made and the A/V set up was more complicated than years past. Luckily, Eddy knew exactly what to do and we got everything working. We pretty much had to beg for contestants, because this was a super stressful, “Everyone-will-make-fun-of-you-if-you-screw-up” type of game. Happily, Tony, Chris, Jill and Beverley were up for it.

Bev and Jill trade clue giving (and cursing!)

   

    

Tony and Chris show their skills at Words of the Profits.

The goal was to get your partner to guess a specific keyword by NOT using any of the banned clue words. It turned out to be super hard, but SUPER funny for those of us watching. And good lord did everyone swear like sailors. Bev and Jill won, but Chris and Tony put up a good fight. (And I was happy my game system worked!)

Another Sunday surprise was that Neil Peart's very first drum teacher, Don George stopped by our convention. He took in all the sights and sounds, got his picture with Chromey, watched some of our events, and even gave an impromptu drum lesson. How cool is that?

Don George (Neil's first drum teacher!) shows us exactly how he taught Neil to 'hit things with sticks.'

Another cool surprise, was that original RushCon founder Phred made us this awesome birthday cake, celebrating our 10 years as a convention. And yes, it was ALL edible.. we all got a bite!

After another multi-media video presentation we started our Charity Auction. We had oodles of stuff that Holly had prepared and organized from donors from all over. Bidding was frantic, and of course lots of sniping.

RushCon organizers (and expert bid snipers) Eddy and Mary Jo.

Heated bidding war over a signed Snakes and Arrows lithograph, our pal Baskin was the proud winner, with a bid of $800.00!!!

Some of the most sought after items were hand-made Rush themed jewelry, from Lisa. These pieces were stunning, and everyone wanted them! The auction ended after 2 hours, and we headed over to the movie theatre around the corner. Lots of people hadn’t seen the Rush Doc, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, and we were pleased to present it in a real theatre for those virgins. It was especially exciting for us, because RushCon 7 and 9 were featured in the DVD extras. So it was incredible for us to show the RushCon footage, to the RushCon attendees, at RushCon. Lots of these now famous documentary movie stars were sitting amongst us in the audience. Loved it!

Finally, we headed over to the Parliament building, which is famous for being on the cover of Moving Pictures. Took a couple group photos, and since this was our last event, sadly the con came to a close.

Festivities did, of course, continue over at the Orbit Room (another of RushCon's many traditions.)

It was great having our 10th convention in Rush’s hometown of Toronto. Or should I say, RushCon’s hometown of Toronto? As much as we wanted to rest and relax and bask in the aftermath of a successful convention, we had only 24 days until our NEXT convention… this time across the country in Las Vegas. We took notes from Toronto and decided what events we wanted to do in Vegas. We knew we only had one short day to win over the hearts and minds of a whole slew of newbies. I personally had not been to Vegas in over a decade, so I just had to trust that everything would be OK.

Las Vegas: August 2010

I rolled into Hooters, the official hotel and was a little intimidated. Usually we just have to compete with a couple vending machines, and maybe an ATM for the attention of our attendees, but this time, we were smack dab in the middle of a ruckus casino. We only had one day to get everything ready. On Friday afternoon we finally got a sneak peak of what would be our convention room, the Night Owl Lounge. I LOVED IT. It was so awesome. It housed the hotels nightly Prince tribute show, and the stage was draped in a big purple velvet backdrop. And it had a real honest to goodness stage! Tons of seating and tables, and it was awesome. Super swanky! Much better than a standard hotel convention room set up. I was officially excited. We then headed off to the Rush Lounge in Old Vegas. It was super old school. Very fun.

Man, Vegas was packed! The amount of silicone and spray tan was a little frightening. We got to the Rush lounge and quickly began to look for the infamous indicator of the RushCon attendee, the Rush t-shirt. They started popping up out of nowhere. LOTS of new faces. We handed out badges, introduced ourselves and kicked off the convention proper.

I sped off with a couple others to the Porcupine Tree show at the Hard Rock Hotel. Rocked out hard. I told myself I could NOT scream or get rowdy, because I needed to save my voice for the convention. But I broke both my rules. (HAD to.. it was Porcupine Tree!) We had a blast, and then headed back to RushCon HQ (my hotel room!) for a team meeting to try to get everything ready for Saturday, Rushcon day. There is always lots of last minute work to do.

Much to my delight.. (sigh) - it turns out the room adjacent to mine was the official RushCon nighttime party room. I think at a point there were 25 people over there? I got to sleep by 2am anyway.

The next day was show day. We had 2 hours to turn this Paisley Park, into a Prog Rock Playhouse. Everyone ferociously took off to do their tasks. Mary Jo set up the RushCon merchandise. Kristy had to pinch hit for Holly (airplane delay) and set up all the auction stuff. Judy and RushMom (Cathy) set up registration, Eddy and I set up A/V. In addition to our t-shirt booth, and Rush Backstage Club was back again with a giant spread.

Mary Jo tends to the RushCon shirt booth.

Cathy (wo)Mans the door.

The room looked awesome, we were cranking some Rush videos on the giant stage screen, the clock struck 11, and there was a line around the lobby to get in. Holy crap! Everyone streamed in. So many new people! The room was PACKED. I was actually nervous!

We handed out a killer game that Holly had created where you had to guess song names that written in all synonyms. It was hard!!! Not surprisingly there was only one winner, Team Robert and Jeremy won the prize!

We welcomed the new crowd, and fired up the first game, Countdown. These were some serious contenders! It got whittled down to long time RushCon attendee Ryan, and Jaime Hall. Jamie pulled ahead in the last round and won.

We didn’t give her grand prize then. That was yet to come. We showed the RushCon clip and some additional DVD footage while we set up for Words Of The Profits. We had so many people sign up; we had to choose randomly for contestants. I kept it boys vs. girls. It was Carla and Mel, vs. Ryan and Jason S.

Carla and Mel try to stick it to the boys team in Words of the Profits.

The two teams duke it out for to win the respect of fellow Rush fans. (And much more!)

Ryan takes his turn guessing the magic word.

Jason was an amazing clue giver!

The game went really well and again was super funny. Less swearing this time. (In Vegas, who knew?) However the boys trounced the girls with their quick answers and expert clue giving. (Piano Tears? Come on!) So we gave some awesome "runner-up" prizes to the girls, but we had grand prizes to give away to the boys. We called Countdown winner Jaime back up on stage, and had the 3 of them huddle around the monitor, for what I told them was a “bonus” question. All it said on the screen was: (main word) MEET AND GREET PASSES, (clue words) what you 3 have won for tonight. The crowd burst into applause as the 3 winners tried to make sense of what they were reading. When they finally “Got it” Jaime burst into tears and they were all overwhelmed with excitement and shock. It was really touching. 

But it turned out that Jason already had a pass through his job, so we got to use the 3rd pass as a give away door prize. We pulled a number and Ron from Los Angeles got to meet Geddy and Alex along with the other two. Super thanks to Anthem for giving us these passes to give away at RushCon. Awarding a chance to meet the band to a RushCon attendee is always my favorite and most rewarding part of being involved in this convention. It really warms my heart.

Ron, Ryan and Jaime pre-meet and greet. Pre-pants wetting.

We then launched into the Charity Auction. We had no idea how many people were going to participate and we caught a little short on bidding “Stars.” We also got a lot more items then expected. What was going to be a “scaled back auction” now became “a mega-super-huge auction.” I had to move everyone into the seats right in front of me so I could see all the bidding numbers.

We had a lot of awesome items. More handmade jewelry from Lisa, a lot of cool Rush clocks from Pat Tinney, a couple of Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage posters signed by filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scott McFayden, a drumhead signed by all the RushCon Toronto guest speakers (Terry Brown, Donna Halper, Jack Secret, Jacob Moon, and Don George), but the coolest items were donated by official band photographer, John Arrowsmith himself: three amazing individual shots of the boys from this tour. (I know I say “Amazing” a lot, but these were truly spectacular. Not your standard “Neil behind the drums mid hit” shot.. They were unique captures of the boys with unique lighting and shadows and.. ahh.. you just need to see them!) And each guy signed his photo that morning. Those really brought out the intense bidding. The Neil one went for the most (it always does!) with a final bid of $430.00.

Holly presents the John Arrowsmith donated photos, signed by the band.

Artist Richard Carter presents his donation of 3 beautiful paintings of the band members. This set sold for $350.00.

The auction was a great success and everyone had a good time. We brought in over $3000.00 for our new charity, food bank Three Square in Las Vegas. Always proud to be a part of that. 

Judy hands out some cool door prizes to a lucky winner.

Sadly, we had to wrap up this convention and move everyone over to the MGM across the street for the main attraction. The show was really good! The audience was, dare I say, bananas? Top notch as always. Does Rush ever disappoint? After the show I was running on empty at this point, but there was an awesome after party to attend! Julie & Casey were our gracious hosts.

Kristy and party host Casey take in the sights.

Steve, Judy and Paul discuss Rush? Beer? Rush flavored beer?

Tons of us went up stairs to the party room, which was on this beautiful deck over looking the strip. Super nice. Got to catch up with old friends. The perfect end to a perfect weekend.

RushCon organizers Holly, Eddy and MaryJo make it all look effortless.

I felt that Las Vegas went really well. The venue, the people, the team, everything worked out. I had a great time hosting this one. Something felt more special than usual. I am very glad we took the risk of bringing RushCon to a new crew.

Huge thanks to all our regulars who made it out to BOTH cons this year, and special thanks to all the newcomers. We hope you had fun, and we hope to see you again real soon!

Special thanks to the wonderful Cathy Staley who always comes out to support and help. We love you!

Much love to our slew of helpers who always are able to jump in and lend a hand, foot or brain- Booter, Zane, Baskin, Phred and Kam, Rodney, Max, Todd, Steve, Jeremy, Robert, Eddy Hernandez

Huge thanks to Hooters Hotel venue staff, Rick, Matty, Connie and Mark who were more than helpful, and totally awesome.

Always in my heart will be Donna Halper, Jack Secret, and Jacob Moon.

And always on my mind will be how to make next year better and more fun for you wonderful people I am lucky enough to now call friends. See you next year!

If you have any feedback on this year's convention, or you can't sleep and you want to talk about Rush, drop us a line, info@rushcon.org. We hope to hear from you.

(and Thanks to Barney Rebel, Christopher Schneberger, Kristy Williams, Richard Carter, Melanie Haylock Bichener, and Seiji Harada for the great photos!)