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So yeah... time to MC a Masquerade. Holy crap...
Saturday Night
Stage Right
The first big twist at the event was that our room wasn't big enough, meaning the divider had to be taken down and what was the green room became overflow seating. Which changes pretty much everything about the way organizers lined up participants and I addressed the room. The nice little chair in the corner was now a bit of an obstruction and I was suddenly glad there *wasn't* a podium in the way.
Good thing Sarah was also on the other side re-directing people. She got pictures.
One of our volunteers, cbeley, with a nice monologue about his Despair. I'm seeing more and more Zetsubou-sensei cosplayers (two in this masquerade alone) and it still seems fresh.
The Daisho gang with a reprise of the awesome The World Ends With You skit from Iowa. I struggled to wait until the punchline before laughing.
At some point in the evening, I realized that I had better step to the back of the stage to make sure people on the side could get clean pictures of, say, the guy with the GIANT ASS sword.
Kellin, Taeliac and company in original steampunk outfits. Kellin taps his inner Gilbert and Sullivan with a rendition of Major-General's Song.
These guys doing Thriller are somewhat more contemporary, but no less steampunk. Nice combo.
In the end, it's really hard to judge how well the MC gig went. We run a fairly level ship, emphasizing the tremendous costumes over any antics I could say or do. There were some things I could have done better, but we didn't crash and burn. Beyond that... I have no idea.
We wouldn't have to wait long to get feedback for the show itself, as we were due for the post-mortem feedback panel later that night.
In the meantime, Joe's busting out his Avatar cosplay. Even better, he still owes me lunch!
When I got back to the staff room, I sat down for about five minutes before being appointed Assistant Floor Manager for reasons unknown. This involved summoning help for a panelist needing to get a projector working and making sure a panel ended on time so we could start the post-mortem. Whee.
As the post-mortem was mostly internal feedback stuff (for both us and the participants), I only mention it because of the strange sequence of events in that particular room: immediately afterwards was my fanfiction panel. You know, my biggest contribution to Geek.Kon in its first two years. I'm amazed I even remembered it this weekend.
The first year, it was an hour and too short. Second year, it was two hours and too long. Back to an hour this year... and again too short. There was an admitted fanfic-skeptic who only stopped in because of her somewhat bashful interest in writing EarthBound stories (it's been far too long since someone asked me to cosplay Jeff). Our Elphaba cosplayer needed help kicking the muse into gear, prompting a great discussion about where to start writing. One guy was writing screenplay format, giving me room to do my "format doesn't matter" manifesto. And Nick F. even stopped in to argue that the anti-Mary Sue vigilantes were a detriment to the industry, as far too many major characters have Mary Sue tendencies. Far too fun, far too short.
Next up in the exact same room was the Hetalia panel.
It was, again, a madhouse. Rather than attend the panel, I was going to occupy myself until the photoshoot.
That meant Dragonbald with Kyle Hebert.
The concept: we play the Dragonball: Evolution movie and Kyle Hebert rips it mercilessly. The room was full of uproarious laughter... which doubled any time Kyle said anything.
Shame I could only stay for a half-hour or so. But it was back to the panel room to fulfill my American duty.
Yeah, madness ensued.
Seemed that providing America's trademark burger was the biggest hit in the group. Probably because it was a squeaky dog toy. You may recall ACen '05 where a group of first-time congoers went to Ace Hardware one morning for cosplay touch-ups. Years later, my first cosplay involved a trip to Petsmart.
Didn't stop me from trying to ram the sucker down England's throat.
Sarah and I got back just in time to catch the end of Dragonbald. After that, chilling with Kyle for a bit and some shlep work returning the audio equipment to Main B, it was time for Saturday Night Fandub Insanity. So named because we couldn't call it Midnight Madness.
Staffer Randy concocted the idea of showing some classic fan parodies earlier in the year. Midway through the year, he was having trouble securing screeners from Studio Sokodei and the status of the event was in limbo. At the point where we needed confirmation about whether the event was happening or not, I volunteered to help him scout these guys out. A couple weeks later, I got a hold of Scott Melzer from NoN.D.E. Films (the This Is Otakudom guys). Scott, being made of awesome and win, helped us out by sending us not only his stuff, but copies of Sokodei's work as well. With his help, plus local fandubbers Verssen Werks on board, we had a great lineup.
(And I have a nice cache of all the greats on DVD- bonus!)
Sarah and I stuck around for S.T.E.A.M. the Movie and Redeath before exhaustion set in and we had to punch out for the night. Randy and I were just giddy that this event was able to happen. Oh, baby!