We’ve talked about the big things happening at Pure Spec: the panels, the demos, artists and vendors, and the oh-so-important parties! And you might think that would be it, we couldn’t possibly fit more in one-and-a half days of festival. Lucky for us all, you would be wrong. So here are few more things to look out for at Pure Spec this year, when you have time between panels.
Open Gaming Tables
While tabletop gaming isn’t one of our focuses any longer, it’s still an important part of nerd culture. Plus tabletop gaming gives you something to do when you need a break from the panels, or even instead of panels. Elements Games Collectibles & Apparel has graciously agreed to look after our open gaming area, and they’ll have a library of games for you try out with your friends (and possibly purchase afterward, if you like it).
As well, we’re lucky enough to have a demos for a brand new RPG by an Edmonton creator. On Saturday Adam Tuttle will be set-up in the gaming area to demo sessions of his new game Race of Man RPG. You can sit in on the Noon or 3pm session, enjoy a new game, and give Adam your feedback.
Silent Auction
Our silent auction table will be set-up in the main hall, with proceeds going to support the Pure Speculation Festival Society. We’ve assembled an impressive collection of items for you to bid on, ranging from bundles of goodies from On Spec Magazine to Star Wars and Star Trek collectibles. There’s a little something for everyone, and the silent auction is a great way to get something cool and nerdy, and support the festival at the same time. Bidding will start on Friday and cut-off at 5pm Saturday, when the winning bids will be announced.
Open Mic
We’ll have a microphone set-up in the main hall. If you are so inclined, please use it to talk nerdy to us: read a passage from your favourite sci-fi or fantasy work, read us something you’ve been working on, sing us a song, whatever you’d like to share. When deciding what to share, please do keep in mind there may very well be children present; maybe keep the f-bombs in the f-firecracker range. To show you how it’s done and as an extension of one of our panels, there will be hourly readings from the work of Zenna Henderson (if these readings pique your interest, check out the panel at 4pm on Saturday).
Concession
The venue has a beautiful kitchen available, and while we won’t be doing much in the way of cooking this year, we will have a concession running all weekend long. Besides the usual assortment of soda, chips, and candy, we’ll also have coffee, tea, some cold treats to beat the (hopefully) warm weather. And while the cereal is mostly for the Saturday Morning Cartoons, if we have any left I’m certain we could scare you up a bowl later on. Speaking of cartoons…
Saturday Morning Cartoons
This is definitely for the nerds who want to get an early start on the Festival. Join us at 8am Saturday morning in the Lounge for all-you-can eat cereal and cartoon watching. We took a poll over at the Pure Spec group on Facebook, and it looks like we’ll be watching some Gargoyles, Looney Tunes, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Animaniacs, and Clone High. Yes, some of those are not technically Saturday morning cartoons, but hey, why be picky? Time permitting, we may sneak in a surprise cartoon show or two as well. All-you-can eat cereal is $4, and includes coffee or tea. And because I know someone will ask: the cereal ends when the cartoons do (believe me, I’m sad about that, too).
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So that’s a few of the things we have going on at the Festival, that don’t involve panels. It’s all part of the free admission to the Festival, so we hope you’ll come down for an hour or all day, and bask in the warm glow of Edmonton nerdery!