Obligatory RBW Con Report, Part 1
Dec. 3rd, 2008 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
graafenI suppose I should get around to writing this. I stupidly forgot to make the notes that I wanted to, so this is probably going to be incredibly hazy...
Day Zero - Thursday
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jennavixen and I left home at 2pm, and after a short taxi journey to Leeds Rail Station we got the 2:40pm National Express train to London. We arrived into London a little after 5pm and proceeded to walk to the Royal National Hotel. At the time we couldn't find FoxB or Orona to be able to drop our bags in our hotel room as they were away entertaining the Platinum folks with the London Eye, so we put our stuff in Sphelx's room.
We both headed to the con space to check out everything. Now this is where it gets hazy; I remember that we went and joined the Platinum members for a quite bite to eat at their dinner event, then we went back into the con space to help set things up.
During the evening/night Miyabi, Kittiah, and I (I think Tryst was still driving from Guildford with the stage) had a last minute check of the floor plan, after noticing that Galleon B had a freaking hard wood dance floor hidden beneath the carpets, which the hotel had neglected to inform us of when the facilities were discussed.
After taking into account the fact that the stage would have to be broken down on Saturday afternoon[1] we decided to take advantage of the dance floor and set up Main Stage in Galleon B, effectively swapping The Den and The Zoo around. This didn't lead to any changes in the layouts apart from which rooms they were in.
We also discussed the possibility of swapping the gaming area in Galleon C with the Dealers Den in Gallery Lounge 1, but this was too impractical to work as there was not enough electrical power in Gallery Lounge 1 to work all of the equipment needed for the gaming. We knew that it would be an unpopular decision, but rather than remove one track of programming entirely we elected to keep the Dealers Den in Gallery Lounge 1 and post signage for it.
We worked through the night setting stuff up, and at 4:30am the Main Stage had been erected by the absolute stars of USSU Stage Crew and Tryst. I had hit the hay a good hour prior to this.
Day One - Friday
Friday morning started at 7:30am, only four hours of sleep for me and most staff and even less for Tryst. It was decided to push the opening of Registration back to 9am to allow us a little more time to set some last minute things up. 9am came and slowly the attendees started to trickle in. We discovered at this point that the laser printer we had borrowed to print con schedules onto had paper jams with incredible frequency. Because of this panels often started late and all too often we had to verbally notify groups of people of events taking place, including in the Dealers Den.
A little later Tryst walked in with an Industrial Dehumidifier, which was one of the best ideas for the fursuit lounge that was had and I think is also another first for RBW. Not only did it keep the fursuit lounge dry it also removed the funky sweat smell, until someone turned it off. However once we'd explained it's use to those there it was left on and kept the place smelling quite fresh. However the dehumidifier would come back to haunt Tryst later.
The rest of the day was quite a blur to me, but as the day went on and we still only had a small number of attendees it became quite apparent that we should have started the con in the evening instead of the morning. I spent most of the day running between places, organising people, and setting up rooms for panels.
That night was the Fursuit Dance followed by Tryst's Rock/Metal Dance. I'd missed the Fursuit Dance due to OMNOMNOM but I arrived back in time to see Tryst on stage; and what a legendary set that was. Tryst had been working almost non-stop for two days and was up on stage with some hardcore metal and dancing along with us. Absolutely amazing.
However as Tryst's set was about 20 minutes from finishing FoxB told me that we'd have to cut it short as it wasn't being well received by the rest of the con, despite about 50 people on the dance floor. Tryst finished up quickly and we were going to put on a mix that Timduru had done for Halloween, but then the hotel staff showed up and told us that we'd have to stop for the night.
I'm sure there was more that happened that night but I don't recall. Lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me at this point so I elected to bed down for the night.
That's yer lot for now, more later.
Day Zero - Thursday
jennavixen and I left home at 2pm, and after a short taxi journey to Leeds Rail Station we got the 2:40pm National Express train to London. We arrived into London a little after 5pm and proceeded to walk to the Royal National Hotel. At the time we couldn't find FoxB or Orona to be able to drop our bags in our hotel room as they were away entertaining the Platinum folks with the London Eye, so we put our stuff in Sphelx's room. We both headed to the con space to check out everything. Now this is where it gets hazy; I remember that we went and joined the Platinum members for a quite bite to eat at their dinner event, then we went back into the con space to help set things up.
During the evening/night Miyabi, Kittiah, and I (I think Tryst was still driving from Guildford with the stage) had a last minute check of the floor plan, after noticing that Galleon B had a freaking hard wood dance floor hidden beneath the carpets, which the hotel had neglected to inform us of when the facilities were discussed.
After taking into account the fact that the stage would have to be broken down on Saturday afternoon[1] we decided to take advantage of the dance floor and set up Main Stage in Galleon B, effectively swapping The Den and The Zoo around. This didn't lead to any changes in the layouts apart from which rooms they were in.
We also discussed the possibility of swapping the gaming area in Galleon C with the Dealers Den in Gallery Lounge 1, but this was too impractical to work as there was not enough electrical power in Gallery Lounge 1 to work all of the equipment needed for the gaming. We knew that it would be an unpopular decision, but rather than remove one track of programming entirely we elected to keep the Dealers Den in Gallery Lounge 1 and post signage for it.
We worked through the night setting stuff up, and at 4:30am the Main Stage had been erected by the absolute stars of USSU Stage Crew and Tryst. I had hit the hay a good hour prior to this.
Day One - Friday
Friday morning started at 7:30am, only four hours of sleep for me and most staff and even less for Tryst. It was decided to push the opening of Registration back to 9am to allow us a little more time to set some last minute things up. 9am came and slowly the attendees started to trickle in. We discovered at this point that the laser printer we had borrowed to print con schedules onto had paper jams with incredible frequency. Because of this panels often started late and all too often we had to verbally notify groups of people of events taking place, including in the Dealers Den.
A little later Tryst walked in with an Industrial Dehumidifier, which was one of the best ideas for the fursuit lounge that was had and I think is also another first for RBW. Not only did it keep the fursuit lounge dry it also removed the funky sweat smell, until someone turned it off. However once we'd explained it's use to those there it was left on and kept the place smelling quite fresh. However the dehumidifier would come back to haunt Tryst later.
The rest of the day was quite a blur to me, but as the day went on and we still only had a small number of attendees it became quite apparent that we should have started the con in the evening instead of the morning. I spent most of the day running between places, organising people, and setting up rooms for panels.
That night was the Fursuit Dance followed by Tryst's Rock/Metal Dance. I'd missed the Fursuit Dance due to OMNOMNOM but I arrived back in time to see Tryst on stage; and what a legendary set that was. Tryst had been working almost non-stop for two days and was up on stage with some hardcore metal and dancing along with us. Absolutely amazing.
However as Tryst's set was about 20 minutes from finishing FoxB told me that we'd have to cut it short as it wasn't being well received by the rest of the con, despite about 50 people on the dance floor. Tryst finished up quickly and we were going to put on a mix that Timduru had done for Halloween, but then the hotel staff showed up and told us that we'd have to stop for the night.
I'm sure there was more that happened that night but I don't recall. Lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me at this point so I elected to bed down for the night.
That's yer lot for now, more later.
