Communications about this event were not good, leading up all the way up to
the masquerade. Many people had questions, but answers weren’t forthcoming
until roughly a month before the convention. We got some bad vibes about
this – first,
the stage was going to be one of the smallest on record – 12′ x 24′. And,
it sounded like there would be no wings for concealing entries,
but that turned out not to be true. Nowhere was it mentioned as to who was
the MC or who the tech crew was.
Upon arrival, we found out masquerade entry forms had to be in by 6 pm,
Friday.
Signing up for tech rehearsal was normal, but having to sign up for
Workmanship judging was not. A couple of us missed this signup sheet,
because we weren’t looking for it. Fortunately, we managed to get worked in
later, but it was a point of consternation for a while until that was sorted
out.
Pipe and drape did not arrive until Saturday. This could have been a
serious issue with tech rehearsals the same day, if something went wrong.
As it turned out, it didn’t interfere. The stage design with the minimal
wings were last minute additions on site (mind you, people had been asking
the concom about this before the convention, but got no real answers). We
had at least one complaint that the stage entry options were too limited.
Given that no one apparently knew what the actual options were until the day
of the masquerade, this is not surprising. By the way, the pipe and drape
material used was not the highest quality – any light behind it shined
through fairly readily, which was distracting with certain entries.
Originally, tech crew was almost negligible. Fortunately, our community is
good at pitching in – many people were drafted on site. The tech
rehearsals, themselves, ran relatively smoothly. Interestingly, there was a
section of time blocked in the afternoon where no one was scheduled – it
allowed a slop factor, in case of delays. Pretty smart, actually.
About the show itself. Given the size of the convention, the fact that
there were 27 entries was pretty good. It was only learned Friday who was
the MC, but fortunately, the person who was drafted was well-experienced..
The show was well paced – very few delays. Overall the quality of the
masquerade was very high. There were at least 3 instances of fairly serious
soundtrack tech errors. More than one person’s presentation was diminished
by that. One entrant refused a re-do, which was too bad, since he was a
Novice. The crew would have been better served if they’d had some simple
radio communications so that some of the problems (including the LAA) could
have been possibly handled better.
The Green Room was too small – many people had large bulky costumes, so this
made things difficult for getting set up to go on stage. Perhaps it was the
only close room of size near the ballroom, but it was still crowded. From
one person in our discussion, we were given the impression that the MD may
not have taken the time to show the backstage staff the rooms they were to
work with. In the couple of hours before the masquerade, the workmanship
judge had established themselves at one of the 8 foot tables well into the
room space where dens were to be set up. The judge didn’t want to move
because they believed (perhaps mistakenly) that they would need all that
space for documentation – not realizing most SF & F masqs usually only have
a few recreations that provide documents. Eventually, the judge did move
into Official Photography, because it was just too cramped with them in the
Green Room. Later, it was discovered there were some other small rooms
that could have been used to alleviate some of the crowdedness,
Awards:
Here’s the breakdown:
SFF – 27 Entries – 19 with awards, 9 without (70%)
Divisions: 12 Masters, 7 Journeymen, 6 Novices
Awards: 6 Workmanship, 16 Presentation, 5 Chapters; total: 27 awards
The announcements of the awards was jumbled and confusing. Workmanship and
Presentation awards were mixed together, and it wasn’t always clear who got
what.
Looking over the stats, the most glaring detail was how few workmanship
awards were given. Out of 27 entries, there were only 6? Even though the
judge saw “outstanding examples of the costumers craft up close”? If that’s
the case, then they did not follow the maxim “Excellence Deserves
Recognition”.
Worse, the person performing that duty was witnessed breaching several
judges ethics with just one entrant (they didn’t attend the panel, BTW).
Among these were talking more about themselves than judging (thus wasting
some of the allotted time to actually inspect), breaking that person’s prop
(accidentally, but they didn’t ask to handle it first), and then saying some
inappropriate things to them later, in the Con Suite(!). They were also
witnessed talking about another entry to people who weren’t in that entry.
After the convention, they posted on Facebook that they hoped to record a
“judges commentary track” for the convention DVDs by Eric Cannon, which
could be available by download. This is, in our opinion, inappropriate.
When objections were raised, the judge defended the idea by saying “This is
the first negative feedback I received about the idea. The commentary would
basically be extra added info from the documentation and workmanship that
members of the audience did not get to see up close. Info … See More like
the people who hand-carved their fabric stamps, who made their own hoops,
hand-punched their own prosthetic hair, or an explanation that Gypsy’s
outfit was based on light refracting through sugar crystals. It would be
geared strictly to allow people to better appreciate the outstanding work
that was done. We also talked about the idea of giving the contestants an
opportunity to display their documentation the day after a competition – so
that people could really appreciate the work done. So much goes on that just
never gets seen from stage distance”.
While the intentions are good, permission must be given for any of that.
Repeating – there were only 6 – Workmanship – Awards.
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