Dude Attends Roma Drama

Don't judge me!   Yes, I attended Roma Drama this past weekend.  

What is Roma Drama?  This is where people go to meet stars from the Hallmark Channel movies.

Don't look at me like that.  I went okay -- and -- I enjoyed it.  Everybody has their interests.  People attend Broadway Shows, Comic Con, Gun Shows and events which interest them.  Hey, I have watched a LOT of Hallmark movies over the years so I have gotten familiar with some of the stars.

My wife and I bought one-day tickets to the event.  They were about $60 each just to get in the door.  You could buy a 3-day ticket or even a VIP ticket but those were as much as $799.  Nope.  Not going to go THAT far with it.  Actually we got about the same thing for our "cheap" one day ticket as we would have with the full blown VIP package (minus the pink Roma Drama tote bag).  I would have been pissed if I had bought the VIP and gotten much of the same thing   

I have to be blunt and say things were a bit haphazardly organized. They didn't have a smooth registration system going on when we checked in. It was there where we had to tell them who and what we wanted to see.  After a short conference with my wife, we narrowed down the stars to Tyler Hynes (our choice), Brittany Bristow (her choice) and Gregory Harrison (my choice).   We decided to pay the $40 dollar each for selfies with these folks.  

First up- Tyler Hynes  

Let me just say I was a rookie at one of this events.  My wife had done these before and even organized a softball tournament with some soap opera stars several years ago.  She knew how this worked so we immediately went to get in the line for Tyler Hynes.   Tyler has been in a lot of our favorite movies such as Christmas in Vail, Flip That Romance and It Was Always You.  It wasn't long before I realized that I was the only dude in his line but I really didn't care.  It was exciting to be there.  I say exciting but I wasn't AS excited as some were.  We ended up behind a woman that was borderline obsessed.  She turned around and asked my wife her name and if she was one of the "Hynies".   Yes, there is such a thing.  This is one of the fan clubs for Tyler Hynes.  Neither my wife or myself are "Hynies".   When another woman ahead of us was talking to Tyler, the woman in front of us turned and asked "Do you know who she is?"   We didn't answer but the woman quickly informed us that she was in charge of Tyler Hynes' Facebook page.  

Okay.  And?  

Honestly it was a little annoying standing in the line especially when the announcement was made that Ryan Paevey and Trevor Donovan were coming to the stage.  There was a mini-stampede of people barging through the line.  Seriously?

We survived the wave of panic and maintained our place in line so we could meet Tyler.  My wife and I had assumed that the "selfie" time was just going to be that.  You got an autograph and/or selfie and you moved on.  This ended up being a "Meet and Greet".  We were both amazed when it was our turn that Tyler actually had a conversation with us.  He was really the real deal.  What I mean by that is that he was just easy to talk to and you would never think he was a star.  After a short 2-3 minute chat we got a selfie with him.

Our next Hallmark person was Brittany Bristow.  She has been in our favorites Love, Romance & Chocolate, Christmas Next Door and Holiday Date.  Brittany was very nice.  My wife asked her about some of the movies where she had used  an accent.  Brittany gave us the scoop on how those happened and some of the behind-the-scenes explanations which were very interesting.  After another short chat, we had our selfie taken with her.  

The last star we had paid for was Gregory Harrison.  Gregory has been in a lot of television series and movies.  He is probably best known for his role on Trapper John M.D.   In the Hallmark world he has been on Chesapeake Shores, Nine Lives of Christmas and Sweet Carolina.  I was worried that he might not be as friendly since he is a veteran Hollywood star but he was just as nice and engaging.   He encouraged us to watch the return of Chesapeake Shores and how he enjoyed working with Treat Williams who is also on the show.  He didn't take offense to me saying that I watched him in Trapper John M.D.  We had our selfie taken with him.

As part of our general admission, we were allowed (or I think we were allowed) to take photos of other stars so I got some photos of Paul Greene, Jesse Metcalfe, Wes Brown, Trevor Donovan and Ryan Paevey.  We would have loved to have gotten selfies with all of these but we had to cut down our list to what we could afford to do.  I think we made that right choices.

There were also other stars but unfortunately they aren't as well known and I felt bad that no one was in line to see them or get a selfie.  That has to be pretty awkward for them.  They probably really hate doing these kinds of events.

We were both surprised how we were able to chat with the stars and get a selfie.  We never thought we would get to talk to them.  It was pretty awesome.  

Cheesy?  No, it really wasn’t.  We were just happy to see the actors who bring Hallmark movies into our homes.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  After over a year of COVID, I was happy to have something fun to do for a day.