On Saturday, Hot Topic at Stonebriar Centre in Frisco hosted an autograph signing extravaganza for Vampire Diaries stars Ian Somerhalder and Candice Accola. Fans at the head of the lengthy queue, set to start moving at 4 p.m., said they'd been waiting for seven hours.
When the floodgates opened, more than 500 girls, mothers, grandmothers (and a few jealous boyfriends) streamed into Hot Topic to welcome the cast members with camera phones, ear-piercing screams and shouts of "Show us your six-pack!" in what largely amounted to a fun, giggling swarm of estrogen.
Accola seemed slightly overwhelmed by the enthusiasm; Somerhalder, though, lapped it up and hammed it up with the ladies. Given the median age of his admirers, his flirtatious calls of "Hey, babe!" and "How's it going, babe?" were not far off the mark. If the babe-moniker wasn't enough to make a gal blush, Somerhalder periodically delivered a slow kiss to a lady's hand with a concurrent, blue-eyed gaze.How many of those hands have still gone unwashed?
When Somerhalder greeted one bashful tweenie she stammered, "I can't talk."
"Why can't you talk?" He asked.
She replied, "I don't know."After two hours of draining Sharpies, Somerhalder and Accola retreated while Sounds Under Radio played a 25-minute set downstairs in the mall's lobby to promote the Vampire Diaries soundtrack. Then Somerhalder and Accola hopped on stage and fielded questions from the audience.
According to Accola, were it not for acting she would pursue music; Somerhalder, marine biology, which drew a salvo of wild cheers, perhaps for his post-Gulf Spill relief efforts ... or perhaps because he need only to have smiled to receive applause.
When the stars exited stage right, a few teens blew past the stanchions to catch a final glimpse.
Said one police officer at eve's end, "It's crazy. I don't think I've ever been that excited about anything in my life."