3 days ago
''I know you're obsessed with me': I traveled to a fan convention where 'The Vampire Diaries' is still the biggest show in town
WHIPPANY, N.J. — My new friend Allana was several minutes into explaining her decades-long fan relationship with The Vampire Diaries when its star walked past us, flanked by security guards and staff and wearing a straw cowboy hat and a tie-dye sweater. He was on his way to a panel for the second and final day of Vampire Fan Weekend.
'Thanks for wearing that shirt,' Ian Somerhalder said to her, before reading the quote emblazoned on Allana's torso aloud: ''I know you're obsessed with me.' It's a great line, isn't it?'
We both had to take 60 seconds to giggle before getting our conversation back on track, and I wouldn't even consider myself a fan. Somerhalder's aura was wildly charismatic, as it should be, since he was there to meet fans anticipating one of the best days of their life, having shelled out hundreds of dollars to take photos with him and hear him speak. It's a surprising feat for someone who starred in the CW's The Vampire Diaries series, which ran for eight seasons from 2009 and 2017.
When I met 24-year-old Allana, she was leaning against the beige wallpaper of the Hanover Marriott with her boyfriend, 24-year-old Michael, who assured me that he 'liked the show' and 'there is no gun being held near me right now.' They live just a few minutes from the venue.
We're all here for Vampire Fan Weekend, which is not to be confused with the merely mortal rock band Vampire Weekend, though I'm sure the playful association is intentional. On the second day of the convention, everyone was there to see the headliners, whose faces were plastered on signs and marketing materials: Somerhalder and Paul Wesley.
The pair, who played the blood-sucking brothers from The Vampire Diaries, weren't the only supernatural actors on site, however. There was a handful of side characters from the CW series there, too, as well as memorable actors from Twilight, True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But everywhere I looked, people were declaring themselves Team Stefan or Team Damon, taking sides in a war that should have ended more than eight years ago.
Creation Entertainment, the organizers of the convention, ran a well-oiled machine: Attendees paid between $45 and $199 for photos with the stars and between $30 and $129 for their autographs. Between sessions, they could attend talks hosted by actors, who mostly took questions from the audience. Staff kept people lined up against the wall, keeping hallways clear and clearing out loiterers. This was serious business.
General admission to the convention was $55 on Saturday and $75 on Sunday, but there were more expensive packages available for full weekend attendance, priority line access, better seating and free autographs. Those cost between $125 to $750.
Allana was here on a mission: Get a photo with both Somerhalder and Wesley. She came to the same convention in 2014 and got one with Wesley, but a mix-up in filming schedules resulted in her missing out on Somerhalder. Now she was poised to complete the collection more than a decade later. The photo itself would live forever in her home and on social media, and the memory of her interactions with the stars would be a story forever shared with her boyfriend. Michael was also determined to make that happen.
They've been together for five years and hope to get married. Michael just wants to make sure that the proposal is perfect because he knows that Allana, having grown up on Disney princesses and vampire romances, 'loves a good story.'
'I gotta do it just right,' Michael told me as Allana beamed, looking off to the side. They met through his sisters and fell in love watching SpongeBob SquarePants together on a shared laptop at school. It's a great story, just the way Allana likes it.
I, too, came of age when the Twilight books were flying off shelves and dominating big screens, and a few years later, when The Vampire Diaries aired on TV and captivated the internet with GIFs, fan fiction and online debate. I was among the impressionable teenagers scrolling Tumblr and yearning for someone otherworldly and obsessive to fight for me, preferably as part of a love triangle, as with those two staples of vampire media. Desire and drama are the beating heart of the paranormal romance genre, and The Vampire Diaries serves as its seemingly endless blood supply.
The show follows Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev), a teenage girl living in the supernatural town of Mystic Falls, Va., as she copes with the recent death of her parents. She falls in love with a kind and sexy 161-year-old vampire named Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), but things get complicated when his brooding and sexy older brother Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) enters the picture. The soapy melodrama, romance and action that ensued led to the spin-off The Originals (2013 to 2018), which in turn led to another spin-off called Legacies (2018 to 2022) and years of fandom that has transcended show cancellations and been passed down between generations — literally.
I saw gaggles of teenage girls and middle-aged women, sometimes mingling and other times split off with their own age groups. I spoke with 16-year-old Gianni, who was with her 34-year-old mom Mari and her friend 31-year-old Stephanie. The vampires' timeless beauty brought them together, an hour away from their homes. They were buzzing with excitement in line to meet Wesley, who Stephanie said is her favorite vampire ever because he's 'a little cutie.' Gianni loves him because he's 'funny and cute.' Mari prefers Somerhalder because he's 'spicy.'
When I was turned away from attending a premium panel reserved for the 'Gold Package' attendees, who had paid $750 for the highest level of access, I wandered into the vendor room. Dozens of tables were covered in vampire-themed items for sale: T-shirts with quotes from The Vampire Diaries like 'I was feeling epic' and 'Hello, brother,' glamour shots of actors that they could autograph for you and tie-dye sweatshirts like the one Somerhalder was wearing. My personal favorite thing was a DIY blood-juice box — a bundle that included a pouch, a straw and a packet of Hawaiian Punch powder that could be purchased together and assembled with water from the fountains outside.
Once I'd pillaged the vampire merch zone, I headed into the auditorium to watch a few speakers. I was relegated to the back, which was packed. The front rows — about 20 of them — were reserved for guests who had paid for seats, but they were sparsely populated, leaving a sea of open chairs between convention-goers and talent. David Anders, who played Elena's protective (human) uncle on The Vampire Diaries, took the stage.
'By round of applause, whose favorite character is John Gilbert?' Anders joked about his role on the series, pacing around as just a handful of guests clapped enthusiastically. 'Everybody? Surprising!'
He urged the audience to ask him anything: His character, his acting career or even his family. People asked him to pick which roles were his favorite (iZombie over The Vampire Diaries), which actors he enjoyed working with (he loves Nina Dobrev and wondered aloud how she was doing after her e-bike accident) and whether he's Team Stefan or Team Damon ('Can't it be a throuple?')
Anders is funny. He spent a lot of time, well, vamping — rambling about his life and joking about his career. It takes a lot of charisma to dominate the stage and answer the same questions you always get asked at conventions again and again, knowing these people are here to see you and going to characterize their one-sided relationship with you by the tone of your voice and the content of your answer. He apologized after answering a child's question with a couple of F-bombs. He burst into renditions of show tunes when the crowd fell silent.
Chase Coleman took the stage after him, pulling double duty as an actor who briefly played a werewolf on The Originals and the frontman for the convention's house band, Mercy Mode. It performed a concert the night before and played songs between panels to fill the time.
Coleman spent a lot of time talking about his personal life: His fiancée and her brother were in the audience holding his small dog, whom he called his daughter, and discussed her bowel movements for the day. He encouraged the crowd to applaud when it was revealed that she pooped. He plugged his Patreon page, where fans could pay him a monthly subscription fee to get access to his Discord — an app that lets people connect and chat in various rooms. People can talk to him directly there and join him for game nights and movie nights.
'I don't want to just be plugging,' he assured the audience. 'I want to be getting to know and gotten to know!'
Coleman explained onstage that his investment in his music career came after the 'second apocalypse of his career' — the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. The first apocalypse was COVID. His ability to get work has been repeatedly compromised, but tapping into relationships with fans seems to have kept him afloat. He was less self-deprecating than Anders and more enthusiastic about his art. It broke my heart when, as he was speaking, a deluge of fans poured out of the auditorium to line up for the ultra-popular photo op with both Wesley and Somerhalder, but I let myself get caught in the flood, and I left too.
In that line — and in several photo lines throughout the day — I asked attendees who their favorite vampire of all time was. I was expecting a range of answers because of all the different generations present, and because vampires seem to be having a moment again. Nosferatu surprisingly slayed the box office during Christmas 2024, and Sinners is still breaking records. AMC's Interview with the Vampire series has a rabid fan army ahead of its third season.
But most Vampire Fan Convention attendees had the same answer: Stefan and Damon, because they're really, really hot. In retrospect, that should have been obvious. I was talking to people shelling out hundreds of dollars for photos and interactions. Their fandom is as eternal as its fictional subjects.
'I've been looking at this event for years and now I can finally afford it. I finally get to meet them!' a fan named Desziree from a nearby New Jersey town told me, giddy with excitement. 'I've been watching them on my screen since I was like 12 years old … I'm currently 24. Half my life!'
After chatting my way through the lines of people bubbling with anticipation, I stood by the door where fans exited after having their photos taken. They gathered in small groups, making microjudgments about their brief, paid interactions with celebrities. Most were wearing merch, but the few dressed more like they wanted to seduce a vampire than reflect their fandom for one caught my eye. No shade, it's an expensive photo!
'He was so disinterested. He was very distracted. It was so disappointing. But it was probably a good picture,' said one of the young women. 'That big cowboy hat covered his whole face … mom, I think that ruined the whole weekend.'
Based on the mention of the cowboy hat, I assumed the woman wasn't pleased with her experience with Somerhalder. That's the risk you take investing so much in someone who's still a human in real life — and being paid to deliver a memorable, heartwarming experience with so many other fans, churning through an assembly line of photos and autographs for hours at a time.
'I've been watching them on my screen since I was like 12 years old … I'm currently 24. Half my life!'Desziree, a "Vampire Diaries' fan
That's also the risk that actors like Somerhalder take. Some interactions may be better than others. Some may fortify their relationships with fans and others could harm them. Either way, they're making money.
The relationships that fans have with romantic dramas like The Vampire Diaries are deep, emotional ones. One could argue that they're especially intense now that the show is off the air; since there's nothing new coming out, revisiting and digging deeper into the plot and characters in the show can dredge up a lot of feelings. Getting to see them, take photos with them, talk to them in Discord and buy their merch just sends them deeper.
But is it so wrong to admire a beautiful actor who plays a vampire, pay to meet him and hope it goes well? It benefits those actors financially, keeps them employed in an unstable industry and probably feels pretty flattering.
What is it that keeps these fans coming back for more? I found the answer as I was leaving the convention. I walked past two middle-aged women admiring their 8.5 x 11 printed meet-and-greet photo with Somerhalder.
'Who did you get?' I asked the one who was clutching the picture. She showed me. I was struck by Somerhalder's bright blue eyes, intoxicating beneath a goofy cowboy hat. I realized that when I saw him earlier, I couldn't make out much more than a tie-dye blur. He was otherworldly.
'He looks so good,' I mumbled, clapping my hand over my mouth and correcting myself. 'And so do you!'
'That's the point,' the fan laughed. It was then I understood.
