The Always Present Welcoming Committee

I was at a tradeshow a few years ago that was held on the grounds of Walt Disney World in Florida. Each night of the conference the organizers put on “events” for the attendees. One evening after the park shut down for the night, they re-opened it for all the conference attendees. We had free reign over everything. We could go on any ride for free, walk up to any food vendor and have whatever we wanted for free. Since it was a smaller group of people than an average park day attendance there were no lineups either. I kid you not. If you liked a ride you could run right back to the start and do it all over again.

At the beginning of the evening we all piled on coach buses that took up to the “gate”. As we walked off the bus there was a red carpet rolled out and about one hundred people behind barriers, taking our picture and yelling out stuff like “we love you”, “you’re amazing” and random nonsense like that. I’ll admit, it was really strange. It felt so weird to have so many people yelling at you in adoration. I’m never one to shy away from attention but in this case I just wanted to run down that red carpet as fast as I could without tripping or causing a scene. Of course these were paid actors trying to give us the super star treatment and make us feel good about ourselves or something like that. Actually, I’m not really sure what the point of all that was.

I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a celebrity sometimes. A video came out today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jhpk7PDXj8 of Robert Pattinson arriving at the airport in Japan to hundreds of screaming fans. It must be weird to have your very own welcoming committee everywhere you go. Sure, after a 15 hour flight the first thing you want to do is pose for photographers, but he seems to becoming a pro at it. I remember getting off an international flight and walking through the arrivals gate when a video camera light turned on and a woman in a cowboy hat started gesturing me through the doorway. At the time I thought this was part of an elaborate engagement plan from my now husband…turns out it was just a tourism video:)

Walking a real red carpet is on my list of things to do in my life. Maybe someday.