by Suzie Philippot

It would seem the sun has set on the Twilight of our lives, Vancouver – in terms of our beautiful city being the central focus of all who love the popular series of vampire movies, that is. With filming wrapped just a few weeks ago, the whirlwind flurry of Twilight fans and paparazzi our city has experienced over the last few months might start to die down, but for now, there’s still a market for Twi-hard Vancouver tourism. I sat down to chat with Twilight fans Amy and Mandy, who run the most popular filming location tour in the city.

The two met visiting a filming location: as Mandy puts it, they were the last two people holding out until the early hours of the morning to see the stars. Back then, New Moon was filming, and the storm of Twigasming fans had not quite flooded the city. The girls had realized that the movie was filming right in their own backyard so to speak, and started seeking out the different locations of filming, catching a glimpse of movie magic and meeting the generally gracious cast mates before Maxim and Taylor Lautner’s bare abs got ahold of them and shot them to the pseudo-A list. When fellow fans started asking Mandy and Amy about their experiences, they started taking them on tours for themselves, at first on their own dime. But with a growing number of people wanting to know all the locations of Bella’s moping and Jacob’s shirtlessness, and not just people from Van but tourists coming all the way from overseas, the girls realized they had a business. “We run the tours just to maintain ourselves for cost and time,” Mandy explains. She works around her day job to share her passion with fellow fans, and that’s enough for her.

The Twilight series is known for its high-intensity fan base, and yeah, in their own experiences, the girls have seen the truly crazy fans. As Mandy recounts, there is a woman on set specifically assigned to determine the “crazy” level of the people hanging around. One time, she explained, when one woman waiting near her was asked to show what was in her purse she pulled out a camera, a pen and paper, and a pair of scissors, “for the dolls she was going to make.” Yikes.

And there is another equally negative world of Twilight followers who the girls would rather not be associated with: the paparazzi. Just hanging out with them in our primo view point, the girls and their group of friends (all who met through the tours and fan community) had to deal with a pesky, small photog with a giant backpack who they agitatedly felt might be seen as associated with them. For their credit, the girls maintain a strictly out-of-towner guest list now, so locals wouldn’t pester the live sets, and they only go to places that aren’t in the process of filming. Now that the filming’s done, they’ve got themselves a little cottage industry a la New York’s Sex and the City tours, but with more intimate one-on-one stories and less cheesy Cosmo breaks. Either way, hearing tidbits about their encounters and seeing their pictures is a guilty thrill—there is definitely something addictive about Twilight, like a personal brand of heroin for fifty million women.

I’m not going to go cultural studies on your ass, but I have to say in defense of the Twihards, it is too easy to put down women who love something as popular as Twilight. Yes, there are extreme cases, but from my experience that night, the Twilight ladies I met are far more civilized and fun-loving than a pack of your boyfriend’s friends on game day. Why can bros devote entire Sundays to talking about statistics and positions and players out in the open, while it’s considered lame for women to analyze fiction out loud, even if it is using words like “dreamy”?

With New Moon premiering on Friday, an event that’s sure to set sail to a million Tweets, we’ll see if the frenzy ever dies down. Apparently, the pre-sale tickets for it have broken records, and I’m biding my time to risk the theatres. This is one of those fascinating moments in pop culture stronger than a vampire and werewolf combined, and I say it bites, Vancouver—in a good way.