“Meredith! MEREDITH! The realness! Tell us the wumors about her husband!â€
The men and women (mostly women) gathered at the exit to BravoCon try anything they can think of to get a reaction from the Housewives and Housewife-adjacent Bravolebrities making their way out of the con. Like the people who stand outside of 30 Rock when Saturday Night Live ends, or wait at the stage door of a West End musical, 20 to 30 devoted Bravoheads are staked outside the Caesars Forum VIP exit. There, they hoot and holler at the cast members for the few feet they have to walk from the door to their giant black SUVs. A new cast member comes out every two or three minutes, really giving the crowd their spending-no-money’s worth.
Mallory is by far the cleverest at this game. She has a reference to yell at every Bravoleb leaving. “I just love these shows like it’s my life,†she says. Mallory booked her tickets to Vegas and hotel room before convention tickets were available. Then they sold out before she could get ahold of them. “We had everything with an internet connection trying,†she says. “And we still didn’t get them.†There are scalpers at the entrance to BravoCon, but Mallory says she’d rather be “sad out here†than give her money for tickets that may not be legit.
Mallory is hardly alone in attending the stage door scrum but not BravoCon. Renee Wilson is here from Atlanta with a party of five. Like Mallory, she booked accommodations and decided fuck it we ball when she couldn’t get BravoCon tix. “I was realistic in knowing we were not going to get tickets,†she says. The crowd at the exit seems to be about half-and-half ticket-holders and those who weren’t so fortunate.
“When we got here at nine, the line went on forever,†says one actual ticket holder. “People were offering three times what we originally paid to buy ours.†But the exit scene may actually be more fun than the con, at least for an hour or two. I’m directed to two women who came all the way here from Australia. “Ramona was their one photo op,†a woman in the crowd tells me of the Aussies. “Now look at them!†In about an hour, the Australian girls get selfies with five Bravolebrities.
The definition of “celebrity†needs to be reevaluated for this crowd. The Housewives’ glam teams are getting recognized. I hear a woman yell, “We know the hairdresser!†She yells, “Hairdresser!†as she frantically waves. The hairdresser does not come over for a selfie.
The selfie GOAT has to be Felix — a man with a purple fedora, a Truly seltzer, and zero chill. Felix is here from Vancouver. Like Mallory and Renee, he booked a hotel room before not getting tickets. Felix manages to get a picture with every Bravoleb that comes to the crowd and is instrumental in getting most of them over there in the first place. The secret to his success? “Screaming and being manic,†he says. “When I went to actual BravoCons, the other two times, I always get general admission. But my screaming always works. They’re like, ‘Who’s screaming?’ and will come to me.†Watching Felix work is something to behold. Where Mallory personalizes her pleas, Felix simply yells, “Come take a picture! Just one! One! One!†The shouts of “one!†get higher and higher in pitch, until he sounds like one of those compilations of goats screaming.
Felix has found a hype man in Michael Wylie, whose family is all in the fuck it we ball category. “We made it a point to be here,†he says, “to show our support.†Michael and Felix take turns yelling for pics. “It’s been really nice,†he says. “No shenanigans, everybody’s getting along fine.â€
One security guard doesn’t seem to think this has been an entirely shenanigans-free evening. As househusbands from New Jersey come out to greet fans, the fans rush past the barriers. This greatly displeases an older gentleman with a suit on and a badge that just says “Security.†He gestures for us to back up. “Let’s have some ground rules,†he says.
“There are no ground rules!†a woman shouts back.
“There are rules,†he says, “or else I send you back to your cars and no one gets a photo.†This man is old-school Vegas, in that he’s actually old-school New York. His accent is straight out of Casino, and I wonder if he’s left over from the Lefty Rosenthal days.
Some associates of Mr. Security bring new crowd barriers to pen the screaming crowd in further. “I don’t think this is going to stop some of these people,†a woman stage whispers to her friend. It seems like very little will stop these people from getting closer to their reality-TV pals. The complex where we’re standing reeks of sewage, as space behind Las Vegas Boulevard doubles as a drainage culvert. Mr. Security is having a hard time getting the Bravoheads to understand. “This is private property, you know!†They know, but they don’t seem to care.
“It’s okay,†he says to the crowd. “You’re crazy. We’re all crazy sometimes.â€