What can I say? Easily the best weekend of my life.. met tons of celebrities and friends from online communities. I can't really put it into words how amazing the Festival was, I was on excitement overload until the drive home from Vegas.We arrived in Vegas on Friday evening, and I got dressed for the VIP party. Was planning on just walking around and seeing where things were for a little bit beforehand, but I got a call from Scott saying there was going to be a press conference in 20 minutes. So I walked outside the Golden Nugget to the first street stage for the ceremony. Ever carry a heavy news camera and tripod in heels all the way from the 19th floor of the hotel to Fremont stage? Not fun! But I did it, and got lots of great footage and even interviewed Justin Bruening and Rebecca Holden! It was so amazing. I ended up editing a whole 2 minute story for the news on Monday with all the footage I got, and it's up on the website at KCSG.com if you want to see it.I was so star struck after those interviews! If that wasn't enough, I met Justin again at the VIP party later that night. He is the nicest guy, very personable and approachable. Catherine Hickland was also there, and I got to chat with her. It's weird, because you meet these people that you watch on TV all the time, and you just don't know what to say to them. If you could just chat with them, what would you say? My mind came up with a blank.. and all I could mutter out with Catherine was "OMG I'm talking to Stevie right now." She just laughed and was very nice.I asked her what it was like working with David Hasselhoff on Knight Rider, and she told me, "Well he was my husband at the time, so it was weird." She even stood there to let me take a few pictures with her.Then I saw Justin Bruening and he was standing in the corner on the balcony, and it took me about an hour to just get to him. When I did get there, he took a swig of beer and shook my hand. It was kind of amusing. He was really chill and just talked about funny things that have happened on Knight Rider. He was telling me and others that were standing around this silly story about KITT's voice globe. He said, if you step on the gas quickly, or jerk forward fast in the car, KITT's voice globe will fall out of the dash."I've actually caught it a few times," he said. He went on to talk about how in attack KITT, the voice globe blocks the air conditioning vents so he likes to take it out.He signed my DVD copy of the tribute video I did for Knight Rider Online, and said he's visited that site a few times and liked it. He then told me he'd check out dhasselhoff.net because he thinks the Hoff is a cool guy.I got some video of the VIP party, with Glen Larson and Justin Bruening. I wasn't able to meet Glen Larson, which makes me sad, but I'm glad I was able to get some video of him at least from afar.
The Fremont Street Experience put on a "Knight Rider Tribute" video on Viva Vision, which was really awesome. It was cool to see images of Knight Rider past and present on such a big screen. There was even a KITT scanner 5 blocks long!After the VIP Party, Neil, Scott, Sue (from KRO) and I went downstairs and walked to the garage to see all the KITT replicas. Neil and Sue rode in a replica and then Scott and I were able to ride in another. That was amazing - I couldn't believe I was actually riding down the Vegas strip in KITT.The replica I rode in was unbelievable. It actually had functional buttons! Ignition, windows, doors, headlights, dash lights.. all controllable from the ceiling buttons. He even had a functional "Oil slick" and "smoke screen." He said he wanted to get a nitrous kit, so his "Turbo Boost" would actually work.Lots of people were looking at us, since we were in a line of KITTs. Some people on the street were screaming about how they love KITT and the show, and some people in their cars next to us were doing the same.We all drove to the Vegas sign and took pictures, checked out other replicas and chatted with Michael Scheffe. He was so humble, such a nice guy he was.Saturday was the main event! I met Justin again a few more times, but the end of the day, when he walked by he would nod to me!Hung out with more friends that I've known online for 10+ years, and some people I've only known for a few months.The original K.I.T.T. was on display and I was able to talk to the owner and get pictures of the dash. It's one thing to see a replica, quite another to see the original. It was in prestine condition, but you could see the wear and tear on the seats and some parts of the dash, which was the more fascinating thing, if that makes sense.So many things happened on Saturday, and trying to recount it now is harder then it was to recount Friday. Saturday night there was lots of entertainment. Paul Casey sang and played guitar with Don Peake and they were really good. One of the songs he sang was "Johnny Be Good." Rebecca Holden also graced the stage and sang a few songs. I didn't know she could even sing until that day, and was impressed.Despite the amazing replicas and all the celebrities, it wouldn't have been as fun if I didn't get to meet all my friends from online. Everyone was so nice and approachable. My_friend_KITT, jup, neps, mike pajaro, scott, vegasmike, victor kros, MR2NR, vampire knight, tigersharka, season2fan, Sandra and anyone else that I met were all great nice people. I really enjoyed hanging out with them all.To see more photos and videos, check out the gallery.