At 7pm Keith Harris took the stage in the ballroom where almost 2000 Queen fans had gathered. Keith is one of the members of the Arena Travel Organization that helps the Queen Fanclub organizing such a big event as the Queen Convention. After he explained all the rules of the Holiday Park and the Convention, Jacky was called on stage. She opened officially the Queen Weekend and showed us a video she had made with her videocamera. The Video contained a Convention Message by Brian May. Brian told was he had been doing over the last few months (like watching a comet and solar eclipses). He was/is still busy making his new album! Brian is anxious to get on the road. He hopes to finish the album soon (release is planned in autumn) and also he hopes to start playing concerts at the end of this year!
After this all Jacky played us a track from Brian's forthcoming album!!!! The track is called "HARD BUSINESS" and is a rithmic rock song with heavy guitar chords. I like it very much! Brian's vocals were quite good on this track!
After Jacky's speech the Charity Auction took place. Signed photo's and clothing of bandmembers were sold. The highest bid was 1950 Britisch pounds for Freddie's Red Tie from the Crazy Tour 1979!!! (1950 pounds=3300 US Dollar!). A Golden Record was sold for over 1000 pounds, thousands were raised with lots of other stuff like a pair of clogs from Brian and a poster signed by many people including Freddie's parents and sister and Brian's Mother (who died recently...). Then after some videos the Irish Band "FLASH HARRY" took the stage. They did a 90 minutes performance of Queen songs. It was a great site! The band played on the very wide stage with a big lightning-rig hanging above the audience and lots of lights on stage. The perfect gig for Queen Cover Bands!!! The audience received the band quite well, they sang along with all the famous songs like Radio Ga Ga, I Want To Break Free, Love Of My Live, We Will Rock You etc. etc.
Camera's filmed the band and did close-up shots so that the people in the back of the hall also could see the band close watching the videoscreens. After the cover band it was time for the Queen Disco. 8 huge arms from the lightning rig came down forming a huge roof above the fans. The lights started to shine, light-beams in all colours moving around and the sound-system of 20 LARGE SPEAKERS threw Queen Music over the fans that started to dance and sweat till 2am in the morning!!!
After the Disco ended it was not over yet! Queen Fans visited eachother in their Chalets and stayed up till 4 or even 5am before going to sleep....

SATURDAY 19 April, the 2nd day:
AT 8.30am QTV (yep, that what's the channel got called!) started playing Real Magic, the Wembley concert of 1986. The Football (Soccer) competition starts, Talent Competition auditions start and in the Ballroom a hundred Queen Fans began sweatting during Aerobic exercises, ofcourse only to Queen music!
At 10:30am the Queen Market opens in the second Hall. During the market the auditions for the Talent Competition take place in the same hall. At the Queen Market many records changed hands, Me myself bought about 15 singles and 3 maxi-singles. Also lots of other Queen goodies like photo's, posters, paintings and calendars were for sale. The whole day more sports and games are held. The 5km Fun Run, Crazy Golf Team Competition, Netball, Snooker, Darts, Swimming, Question of Queen Quiz, It's A Knockout competition etc etc etc

On QTV and in 2 halls videos are played the whole day. QTV even stayed in the air for 20 hours a day!!! A big surprise was the announcement of Jacky that THE REAL RED SPECIAL GUITAR of Brian May was arrived at the Convention! In a small hall fans could ask the Studio and Guitar egineer Peter Malandrone questions about the guitar (like in a press-conference) and for 2 pounds fans could let friends take photo's of them and the guitar. All gathered money was donated to the Bone Narrow Fund in England. Some fans were quite exited, yelling: I touched Brian's Guitar! :-)
At 7.30pm the raffle started. Many tickets were sold, money (again, as always) going to charity. Because of an delay the raffle proceeded quickly. The Saturdaynight disco is not an normal Queen Disco, fans are asked to dress for the night using the theme of the year (this time it was Country & Western) or just go as a bandmember or whatever you can imagine! So, by the time the raffle ended the ballroom was filled with hundreds of fans dressed as Indians, Cowboys, even as a walking Cactus! Then it was time for some more Competitions: Fancy Dress (Queen and None-Queen) and the Mime Competition. Photo's of that can be seen also on this Convention Webpage.
This year I myself was dressed as a Cowboy, that was a big change for me because I was dressed as a Freddie Mercury Look-a-like for 4 years in a row, getting into Finals of Competitions! This Year I sat to the side of the hall watching many Freddie's miming, missing it a lot!!! Winner of this years miming contest was a Roger Taylor look-alike, a John Deacon was second, a Freddie Mercury was third.
After the contests the second Queen Disco started till 2.30am in the morning! Imagine dancing to Queen Music wachting the videos belonging to the songs at the same time on the 3 huge screens! A great site! The whole time fans danced, chatted at the many tables standing in the ballroom and near the bar to the side. Photo's were taken all over the place, watching all those fans being dressed was already a pleasure! The huge lightshow still amazed the people in the ballroom, even if it was the second disconight. This years lightshow was twice as big as in the years before and if you were standing near the end of one of those lightarms that came down, then you could feel the heat of the lamps shining in your neck!
After the disco ended (ofcourse using songs like We Are The Champions, Friends will be Friends and We Will Rock You) many fans visited eachother again in their Chalets till early in the morning....

Sunday 20 April, 3rd day:
Now some Fans were really lacking sleep! After getting up (more videos on QTV and in the 2 halls) it was time to pack things for the journey home. After the packing many fans went to the restaurant for breakfast and then it was time for the Sunday morning disco accompanied by videos. In a small Hall Brian May's Guitar was still on display (watched over by Peter Malandrone and a security Man). This time Jacky took photo's of the Fans and for 40 pounds each Fan could WEAR the guitar around his/her neck. After the development, the photo's are to be signed by Brian May himself and then send to the person on the photo!
At 11:30 the Farewell Disco started. The Winner of the Talent Competition on Saturday (2 guys playing bass and guitar singing :Too Much Love Will Kill You) were given the opportunity to sing their song again for a Queen Fan audience. They were real talented guys and received a huge applause. At 1.45pm Jacky took the stage and said everybody farewell. The organization of the Prestatyn Holiday Park was VERY satisfied, they never had a group of people that were so friendly (=Queen Fans)!!!
At 2pm the Disco ended with "Champions", "Radio Ga Ga", "We Will Rock You", "Friends Will Be Friends". By this time I and almost 100 Dutch and Germans Fans "climbed" into their coaches for a 7 hour drive to Harwich and a 7 hour journey be ferry to the mainland of Europe. For us the Convention was also ended but we could enjoy a bit more of the convention atmosphere during the disco on the boat when we asked the DJ to play many Queensongs!

Ofcourse there will be another Queen Convention next Year! Also to be held in Prestatyn (North-Wales). Bytheway: the country/landscapes in Wales are beautiful, travelling to the Convention is thus also a pleasure! :-)
And...ofcourse I will be there too! :-) But first in October the Dutch Fanclub will organize it's annual Dutch Queen Meeting for 600-800 Queen fans. So, 5 months to wait patiently for the next great event of the year.... :-)

I hope you enjoyed this story about the Convention. If you weren't there. Well, these pages might convince you to go there next time! Anyway: enjoy the photo's and please, don't hasitate to e-mail me your comments in my guestbook or through e-mail (address=proton@pi.net).