I’ve talked about the festival in general terms over the last few weeks. It was all important stuff and we’ll certainly get back to it. Time to get specific, though. We’ll talk about the panels in a future post, but today I want to take a little virtual walk-around of the festival space and look at some key features and special events.
In my previous post I talked about involving the nerd community in the celebration, and our demonstrations line-up so far is an excellent showcase for what I meant. The ladies of Madame Saffron Hemlock’s Parasol Dueling League will be on hand to not only demonstrate parasol dueling, but also deliver hands-on instruction in the genteel art for which Queen Victoria herself was a patron (as well as being a bad-ass practitioner). Joining us for their second year is the Kita Kaze Budo Association, with their exciting demonstrations of the arts of kendo, naginata, and iaido; these were a huge hit at the last festival and we’re excited to have them back again. And if you’re interested in an (arguably) less combative event, why not let the Edmonton Aurors Quidditch Club show you the ins and outs of quidditch? I mean, who better to learn from than the national champions, right?
But the special events don’t stop there. We have live audience recordings for both the Four Color Book Club and Write Reads podcasts. For fans of Charles Stross (and that really should be all of you) we have a rare performance of Overtime the Musical, based on his novella of the same name and performed with kind permission from the author. “Residual Human Resources” sung by a chorus of zombies to the tune of “Silent Night”? No one in their right mind would miss that (I acknowledge our definitions of ‘right mind’ may differ slightly).
Hmm, what else? Do you like Saturday Morning Cartoons? Be a keener and join us early Saturday morning for cartoons and all-you-can eat cereal (and coffee, so much the coffee). I’m not promising blanket forts, but they certainly aren’t off the table either.
I’ll post details over the weekend, but both Friday and Saturday evenings we’re throwing parties, with an assortment of entertainments including the dancers of Eclipse Fusion and a concert by our Guest of Honour Vanessa Cardui. These events will get started at 8pm each evening, and because of the cash bar yes, they are 18+ events (sorry, minors, but we’re figuring out a way to allow you in for next year).
There’s more! There is an open gaming area with a library of board games for you to play, so if you need to just sit and relax for a bit you can give those a try. For the first time ever there will be a Festival Open Mic, where you (yes you!) can come up and read for up to five minutes about any nerdy thing your heart desires. Could be something you wrote, could be something you read and want to share (but please credit your source), could be a song you wrote or are covering. Anything nerdy is fair game, and we’ll be “priming the pump” as it were with our own hourly readings from the works of Zenna Henderson.
Silent Auction! Always popular, we’re doing that again, and again I’ll be posting auction lots over the weekend so you can spot where you want to start your bidding war.
And this isn’t even everything! Because we haven’t finalized some things, so I can’t talk about them yet, and because I haven’t talked about panels and I haven’t showcased all the artists, vendors, and local nerd groups coming to show their wares. Stay tuned for those things next week, as well as updates when confirmations come through.
And the best part is, there is still time and room for you to get involved! If you have a nerdy panel or demo you want to run, hit us up. If you want to be part of the artist and vendor space, we still have a bit of room there. And if you just want to take it all in while helping us out a bit, there is still time to volunteer.
Or you could just attend. Which I hope you do, and I’ll see you there. Spoiler: I’ll be the exhausted guy running on a combination of stubbornness, nerdery, and coffee.