-by Bodo Bellut
it's 3pm on Wednesday and everything is unpacked and sorted. emails and newsgroups are read, some pictures and Con Reports consumed as well as 12 hours sleep.
My brain's slowly adjusting to reality, random thoughts[1] becoming German again[2] -- so that's it, the Con is finally over and real life is starting again.
It was nice to see so many new faces, meeting with old friends was nice, too, of course.
I was sticking to Tech this time so didn't really see anything outside of the Dysk apart from the Scone & Jam, therefore this report will be somewhat tech centred.
Empty
We took an early flight into Birmingham, arriving at about 07:00 on Thursday morning. Fortunately the distance between airport and hotel is very short as it was raining.
Even though check-in at the hotel officially is 10:00 we had no trouble checking into our room so we dropped our luggage and explored what's going on already.
Interestingly, there was nothing going on at all, the Dysk was empty apart from some chairs, all other rooms were locked.
While walking around I found Xris who arrived on Wednesday already and was an his way to get breakfast. So I joined him and the both of us were soon joined by a relaxed looking Brian. Over the next hour or so most of the Committee appeared and soon setup began.
I stuffed a couple hundred envelopes with Guild Tokens and Rat Race Money until the truck with the stage and tech kit appeared. The big surprise was the six professional riggers who set up the complete stage.
At the end of the day the stage was completed showing the second surprise: The stage was _big_ and it was tiered. There also were moving spots and not one but two fog machines.
So much to do
I don't remember when I went to bed that night, but I rose at 08:00, had a lovely full English breakfast and entered the Dysk at 09:00, this would be a fixed appointment for the next days.
The Dysk was already busy with techs setting up things so I joined in running cables, moving stuff and whatever had to be done.
We played a bit with the lighting desk and before anyone noticed it was already time for Teach Yourself Tech which I missed while running some cables, I believe.
I can't remember seeing so many interested people at Teach Yourself Tech at the past Cons, there were more volunteers than open positions in all events combined.
Afterwards came the setup for the Opening Ceremony; time flew and suddenly people started pouring into the room, the Con was about to start officially.
The very good Opening Ceremony was quickly followed by Terry & Rob's Bedtime Stories and that ended the programme for that day.
For some reason it was 04:00 when I finally went to bed; again, this would be my time for the rest of the Con.
Who needs rehearsal
The time slot from 09:00 to 12:00 was scheduled for the Maskerade Technical Rehearsal, unfortunately only a minority of the attendees used this opportunity to discuss their technical requirements. The cue sheets were promised for 17:00 that day which left us with plenty of time to program the equipment for the entries we already knew about and program some generic settings for all other entries.
Then followed The Man in the Hat and Going Postal in Technicolour the later event being cut short somewhat to make sure we had the full two hours needed for Maskerade setup.
Only some light effects like the rising moon, the lightning storm, the Phoenix Fire and the disco effect had been programmed so the event was run manually for most of the time, it went very well. After the Maskerade I left tech for the day and went to the Hedgehog Party. I again missed Graham's panel on the interesting uses of leather and turned in at 04:00.
Full programme
The Sunday started with the Rocky Horror Discworld(TM) Show rehearsal quickly followed by the Charity Auction. I was in charge of the lights for this event which we all thought would involve lighting the big items on stage and setting up a spot in front of the stage for the regular items.
As it turned out many of the regular items were packed in plastic and were glaring heavily so I ended up permanently adjusting the lights so the cameras would get the best possible pictures.
Then followed the setup for The Coronation of the Low King. This was scheduled with two hours which was plenty of time given the lights should only involve a white spot centre stage and nothing else.
Unfortunately, these requirements were adjusted a couple of times end we ended up with a well lit stage.
I left the Coronation a bit early to get a good seat in the Scone and Jam which turned out to be unnecessary as not only the Gala Dinner but also the Rat Race was running in parallel and people wandered between them.
This ended the day for me.
Science Fiction/Double Feature
Monday brought six hours of Rocky Horror Discworld(TM) Show, four hours rehearsal and two hours show. For some reason the microphones started heaving issues after the first rehearsal run and never again returned completely to their formerly good reliability so the show suffered from some sound drops. Nevertheless the show was brilliant and given the short rehearsal and setup times also a technical masterpiece. It was easily the highlight of the Con.
Then followed the Closing Ceremony and the tear down.
This was also very well organised, in just two hours stage and tech tower as well as all tech equipment in Dysk, Odium and Ankh had been disassembled, stowed into crates and hauled onto a truck.
Speaking of the tear down, this just felt wrong. It is one thing having the Con end but a completely different one to actively be involved in this. After the tear down had started, after the first cables had been
disconnected, the first bolts had been loosened it was obvious the Con had ended for good, there was no way to get this back together and continue just for even the slightest time. The tear down felt like ripping apart the dream the Con was, leaving nothing but wonderful memories (and thousands of photos).
To sum it up
The whole Con was running very smoothly, of course not everything worked as planned but that's to be expected for events like this where there's limited time for planning, setup, and rehearsal.
All of the hotel staff was very accommodating the only problem being the air conditioning which seemed to only have two settings: full or off.
Again it showed that 4 hours sleep a night and living from breakfast and tech snacks alone worked very well. ^_^
The distance between Lancre Forge where Hedgehog Party and Dead Monkey Party happened and the bar was a bit unfortunate as people wandered between both locations.
Being a dry chocoholic at a Discworld Convention is as hard as being a dry alcoholic. ^_^
There's nothing else to say, see you in two year's time -- oh, and Don't dream it, be it.
cu, Bodo
[1] those types of thoughts that just happen when doing unrelated stuff like when brushing your teeth
[2] It was interesting reading a German text while thinking English, usually it's the other way around.
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