Wednesday, 29th August turned out to be quite a noisy day for HMV-passers by in Oxford Street, London. From the early hours of the morning, fans of High School Musical 2 flocked to try and get a blue wristband that would enable them to briefly meet five of the cast and get a HSM2 Soundtrack CD signed.We arrived at about 8 am, and waited for hours, hoping to catch a glimpse at someone arriving, but to no avail. We realised that there was a slim chance of us getting wristbands as we were fairly near the end of the queue, but we weren’t prepared to walk away.

Even when we, the unlucky group who missed out on wristbands, heard that there were none left, we kept our hopes up and stuck around.

And I am I glad we did? (Answer = yes, yes, yes!)A friendly security guard - well, as friendly as security guards can be - decided that, ‘Out of the kindness of his heart‘, that he would take us around to the back entrance where the five stars would soon be arriving. We followed him around the corner, ‘not running’ as fast as we could, and took up positions behind two barriers either side of the door. You could feel the anticipation in the air… and then suddenly, screams were heard from the people nearest the street corner, and we knew that they’d arrived.

And man did they arrive in style. In two black, sleek, new, shiny Bentleys. (Note to self: Try and steal one someday.)

Car #1 pulled to a stop, and after two taps on the window from a slightly intimidating security guard, the door opened, and - just a few feet away from where I was standing - out came… some random woman. But after her… the unbelievable, indescribable, Vanessa Hudgens! And, shortly afterwards (so shortly that I almost missed him on the video, but I did get a pretty good picture), the guy most people there had been waiting for… Zac Efron…

The screams… ah, they hurt.
Vanessa and Zac ran inside, as Car #2 took the place of Car #1 and out stepped Olesya Rulin, Lucas Grabeel and Sexy Sister herself, Monique Coleman. Each cast member gave a brief smile to the crowds before running inside. I realised that if I stuck my arm out, I could have high fived/touched one of the cast members, but I was worried that the slightly intimidating security guards might eat me.
No, really.Click on the video below to see footage of the cast leaving their cars.

We were shortly shooed away by the slightly intimidating bodyguards, and ran to the main entrance of HMV to see what we could see, which wasn’t much to begin with. We tried various positions around the store, trying to get the best view - even going to the next floor then walking backwards on the down escalator to get a birds eye view. We then realised that the cast weren’t there yet. They obviously either have a secret passageway along the side of the store, or they’ve learnt to disapparate.
Again, screams were heard, and sure enough, there were the stars. They were fairly far from where we were standing, but one of the many cameramen had his camera hooked up to a massive screen, which was useful.

^ That’s the big screen, showing Mo & Olesya.

The five Wildcats gave a friendly wave to the crowd, taking a minute to look around and see just how many people had turned up, before sitting down at the signing desk. It seemed like Zac and Vanessa were talking more to each other than the fans, occasionally singing along to the soundtrack that was playing in the background.(Now, this is where one of the 500 lucky people who actually got a wristband could tell you more about…)

About three times during the signing, people very near to me started chanting ‘We Want Zac!‘, and the first time, much to the adults’ dismay, he blew a kiss to the camera (appearing on the big screen that was facing us) and made the crowd scream unbearably loudly. I’m not going to try and pretend I wasn’t one of them .

One fan brought along some cuddly toys, and I don’t know if she gave them to the cast or just got them to sign them, but we could quite clearly see Zac hugging one for a few seconds before passing it to Vanessa. Hmm…

They carried on signing for about an hour and a half, still in good spirits and talking to each fan that came along, before giving one final wave and walking off.

There was a random nun walking around the store. I saw her on the escalator three times, and I’m not entirely sure what she was doing, but it made me laugh.

As soon as the Wildcats had left their signing table, the smart ones of us realised that they’d be leaving, and we bolted around the corner to where the cars had dropped them off only hours before. Sure enough, there were the cars.

They left in the same order they arrived; Zac, waiting briefly at the car door for Vanessa to catch up before getting into the car and being driven away, then Olesya, Lucas and Monique. As the cars pulled away, the smaller fans were somehow pushed into the road, before the security guards reminded us that they weren’t cars and shouldn’t be in the road. Helpful, that.
A massive coach decided to drive down the road, which was more of an alleyway than a road, giving a few unsuspecting fans a scare.

A random man behind me announced that the Wildcats were doing a radio interview at 1:00 pm on Radio One, and then insisted that his daughter told him, although she was nowhere to be seen and we suspected that he didn’t actually come here for his daughter.

We were extremely tempted to inconspicuously chase the cars to the Radio One building, but decided against it. Now I think of it, I can’t remember why we didn’t, but hey, I can’t change what’s already happened.

We drifted around Oxford Street for a few hours before heading home to catch the cast on Richard and Judy (sans Olesya), and remembered just why we never watched Richard and Judy. They seriously may as well have interviewed themselves, as they hardly let the cast talk. The Simpsons question to Lucas - how was that relevant? I thought they were going to mention Brad Pitt. They annoy me very, very much.

Well, that was my day at the HSM2 Cast Signing event, and even though I didn’t actually get anything signed, it was still a VanAshBreNique day.

Ah! Speaking of VanAshBreNique, I did have some banner/flyer/leaflet things -

- that I planned to give to the cast, but since I didn’t get to see them, I handed some out to random wristband-wearing people, asking them to try and give them to the cast, but there’s a chance they didn’t hear me, because every time I approached someone about it, Zac decided to wave/smile/blow kisses at the camera.
Crystal, this is all your fault…

tyubi span>
source: Rachel (me)

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