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Con Report Amnesty: Costume-Con 2008
More con report amnesty! In celebration (and a wee bit of jealousy) of my friends who are partying it up at Costume-Con this weekend, here's my total stream-of-consciousness report of the weekend of awesome that was last year's CC26 in San Jose. (PS, if you were there, and you remember something that I didn't write down, please leave a comment! My brain, she don't always work so good.)
Thursday
I flew in on Thursday night, Corli got me at the airport. I was tacking down facings on the plane and my seatmate asked me what I was sewing. difficult to explain! We went to her house and Cathleen was there! We watched...something. Lost? I sewed down my Enterprise patch while we watched.
Friday
Random stuff: Cordelia trying a different color of nail polish on each nail. Discovering that OMG she had the Jacky books too! (Hey Corli, you've read My Bonny Light Horseman by now, right?) Eating at chipotle for the first time. (was this Friday? seriously can't remember)
Corli and I drove over to the con but it turned out we were way early, so we took a stroll around the neighborhood, such as it was. Got back and got our registrations. Checked in for Masquerade and found that there were only late afternoon rehearsal slots left! Grrr! Why didn't anyone tell us we could sign up when we'd been there earlier and been sent away?
The sheer dress class which was DANGEROUS because man. I want one now. I keep almost buying cotton voile. Jennifer has the same problem.
Friday night-- Spice Girls sleepover party! SO MUCH FUN.
* rehearsing the dance out on the patio in our shoes and being very silly
* watching Spice World!
* watching tons of their music videos, everybody concentrating on their own Spice
* eating bagels
* discussion of keeping important papers in the fridge
* High School Musical gummies and inexplicable cheese gummies and water gummies. tasting the cheese gummy: "Oh, ew! That's so weird! Agh!" "ooh, let me try. Oh, EW!"
Seeing Katherine finally! but missing her gymnastic costume :( Being introduced to bauhausfrau, I think.
Saturday
Endless masquerade contestant meeting-- had to run away to get to stuff I actually wanted to attend. not rocket science, folks. keep it short and sweet, and if people have questions, don't make everyone else sit around and listen to it.
Panel on group masq presentations with Kent's group. more like a roundtable discussion. Fun to hear their method behind the madness and see pictures of how they do it.
Even more endless waiting for our rehearsal slot. they were over an hour behind schedule. tons of tech problems. starting to freak out because we weren't going to have enough time to get over to Corli's and all get ready. finally they let us have our turn. our music won't play, GREAT. they figure out a workaround. we step through our routine and set our marks and spacing. note where we might die if we catch a heel. get oh-so-charming unsolicited feedback from one of the coordinators that we really need to "step it up" for the actual masquerade because the audience had seen a burlesque troupe the night before and they'll have high expectations. gee, thanks. are most entries that bad that he couldn't tell we were just marking our positions so we could get the heck out of there? wait, don't answer that.
finally get to cordelia's. yay. commence crazy prep! We got Jamba (pretty much the only thing I had all day and I was never hungry...weird.) Kel is a sparklefairy. I got a fake tan courtesy of some tinted lotion. it is fun as heck getting ready with a gaggle of silly girls. we got back over to the con right before the deadline, so no time to try and tape ourselves doing the routine outside, or take pictures. boo.
green room was...yikes. crowded, dim (it was part of the same ballroom as the masq itself and the lights weren't on a separate switch, or something) and somewhat disorganized. but we entertained ourselves. Met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fairegoddess, who indulged our squeals of "Giselle, Giselle!" Took pictures at the official photo area. Discovered that my attempt at a "posh" look mostly made me look sad.
PERFORMANCE TIEMS NAO. So much fun. Knew we had the audience when they burst out laughing at "And I'm...T'Posh." Better reaction than we possibly could have hoped for. As soon as we got offstage we wanted to go right back up and perform again. Backstage, more pictures. Take off tortuous shoes! Loooong halftime show...finally we just went out into the audience, along with a bunch of other contestants. Awards, awards, awards. We didn't submit ourselves for workmanship judging (did not want to waste the judges' time; not that our stuff was badly constructed but I mean, this is a *costume* con. We were there to have fun and be the Spice Girls. Seemed presumptuous to be judged on workmanship when there were so many other amazing, elaborate costumes.) Anyway. They announced performance awards and finished the master category (which we were entered in) so we figured we hadn't won anything, no big. Then they announced us as Best in Show Performance and dudes. We flipped. our. shit. You would have thought we had just won the super bowl or something. I'm kind of glad there isn't video footage of it because it's pretty embarrassing. We ran up onstage and got a big ribbon. Woo.
Then, room parties! A new phenomenon for me, as I'm used to SDCC, where those are not so common. (Post-masq at SDCC, we drag our stuff downstairs and I try not to fall asleep while Rogue gets the car, then we drive home, collapse into bed, and I get my first full night's sleep of the con.) We dropped by the Klingon party, that was...interesting. Then we went to Kent & co's room, which was super chill and just awesome. There was candy and drinks and friends and good conversation. What else do you need? Lounged on the bed and covered it in glitter. Decided Cathleen had to be the pregnant friend from Spice World.
Sunday
Corli and I Space Girled up again. I wore much more reasonable shoes. Got some nice compliments, that felt awesome. Talked tocolleency for a little while-- she hadn't realized it was me! Panels? What panels did we go to?
Sunday night, I went up toaviendiora & rhynndavrie & llyrafantasyfae's room to Kaylee up. Avien was wearing hers so we wanted to be fluffy Kaylees together, and they drove up a bunch of my stuff because they are ROCKSTARS. I used their steamer to dewrinkle my dress. We went down to mingle with the crowd before the historical masquerade started (at first I typed "the pre-historical masquerade crowd" but that didn't look right). There was another girl in Shindig Kaylee too! We all took pics together. I wanted to talk construction with the other Kaylee but she hadn't made hers. We figured out how you put two Shindig Kaylees in a row of chairs (very carefully). Had great fun watching the historical masq-- some jaw-dropping work. Died laughing at the "Evil Satinists," because YES, on SO many levels. Katherine and her group did an utterly perfect skit-- great concept, well-communicated to the audience, showed off the costumes excellently, not too short or too long. Totally deserving of Best in Show.
More mingling afterward. Went back up to room to change. Had not brought street clothes-- so I was in a funny amalgamation of Posh and Kaylee. Cocktail waitress at a Trek casino? Back to Cordelia's, collapse!
Monday
Elizabeth plum while Cordelia did DMC Will. Together again. :D Avien wearing crazy awesome renaissance noble's gown. Panel on lace- so pretty. Finally made it to dealer's room. Found awesome hats. want. want a lot. don't remember much else. I'm sure we went to dinner. And then I flew home! The end.
Thursday
I flew in on Thursday night, Corli got me at the airport. I was tacking down facings on the plane and my seatmate asked me what I was sewing. difficult to explain! We went to her house and Cathleen was there! We watched...something. Lost? I sewed down my Enterprise patch while we watched.
Friday
Random stuff: Cordelia trying a different color of nail polish on each nail. Discovering that OMG she had the Jacky books too! (Hey Corli, you've read My Bonny Light Horseman by now, right?) Eating at chipotle for the first time. (was this Friday? seriously can't remember)
Corli and I drove over to the con but it turned out we were way early, so we took a stroll around the neighborhood, such as it was. Got back and got our registrations. Checked in for Masquerade and found that there were only late afternoon rehearsal slots left! Grrr! Why didn't anyone tell us we could sign up when we'd been there earlier and been sent away?
The sheer dress class which was DANGEROUS because man. I want one now. I keep almost buying cotton voile. Jennifer has the same problem.
Friday night-- Spice Girls sleepover party! SO MUCH FUN.
* rehearsing the dance out on the patio in our shoes and being very silly
* watching Spice World!
* watching tons of their music videos, everybody concentrating on their own Spice
* eating bagels
* discussion of keeping important papers in the fridge
* High School Musical gummies and inexplicable cheese gummies and water gummies. tasting the cheese gummy: "Oh, ew! That's so weird! Agh!" "ooh, let me try. Oh, EW!"
Seeing Katherine finally! but missing her gymnastic costume :( Being introduced to bauhausfrau, I think.
Saturday
Endless masquerade contestant meeting-- had to run away to get to stuff I actually wanted to attend. not rocket science, folks. keep it short and sweet, and if people have questions, don't make everyone else sit around and listen to it.
Panel on group masq presentations with Kent's group. more like a roundtable discussion. Fun to hear their method behind the madness and see pictures of how they do it.
Even more endless waiting for our rehearsal slot. they were over an hour behind schedule. tons of tech problems. starting to freak out because we weren't going to have enough time to get over to Corli's and all get ready. finally they let us have our turn. our music won't play, GREAT. they figure out a workaround. we step through our routine and set our marks and spacing. note where we might die if we catch a heel. get oh-so-charming unsolicited feedback from one of the coordinators that we really need to "step it up" for the actual masquerade because the audience had seen a burlesque troupe the night before and they'll have high expectations. gee, thanks. are most entries that bad that he couldn't tell we were just marking our positions so we could get the heck out of there? wait, don't answer that.
finally get to cordelia's. yay. commence crazy prep! We got Jamba (pretty much the only thing I had all day and I was never hungry...weird.) Kel is a sparklefairy. I got a fake tan courtesy of some tinted lotion. it is fun as heck getting ready with a gaggle of silly girls. we got back over to the con right before the deadline, so no time to try and tape ourselves doing the routine outside, or take pictures. boo.
green room was...yikes. crowded, dim (it was part of the same ballroom as the masq itself and the lights weren't on a separate switch, or something) and somewhat disorganized. but we entertained ourselves. Met
fairegoddess, who indulged our squeals of "Giselle, Giselle!" Took pictures at the official photo area. Discovered that my attempt at a "posh" look mostly made me look sad. PERFORMANCE TIEMS NAO. So much fun. Knew we had the audience when they burst out laughing at "And I'm...T'Posh." Better reaction than we possibly could have hoped for. As soon as we got offstage we wanted to go right back up and perform again. Backstage, more pictures. Take off tortuous shoes! Loooong halftime show...finally we just went out into the audience, along with a bunch of other contestants. Awards, awards, awards. We didn't submit ourselves for workmanship judging (did not want to waste the judges' time; not that our stuff was badly constructed but I mean, this is a *costume* con. We were there to have fun and be the Spice Girls. Seemed presumptuous to be judged on workmanship when there were so many other amazing, elaborate costumes.) Anyway. They announced performance awards and finished the master category (which we were entered in) so we figured we hadn't won anything, no big. Then they announced us as Best in Show Performance and dudes. We flipped. our. shit. You would have thought we had just won the super bowl or something. I'm kind of glad there isn't video footage of it because it's pretty embarrassing. We ran up onstage and got a big ribbon. Woo.
Then, room parties! A new phenomenon for me, as I'm used to SDCC, where those are not so common. (Post-masq at SDCC, we drag our stuff downstairs and I try not to fall asleep while Rogue gets the car, then we drive home, collapse into bed, and I get my first full night's sleep of the con.) We dropped by the Klingon party, that was...interesting. Then we went to Kent & co's room, which was super chill and just awesome. There was candy and drinks and friends and good conversation. What else do you need? Lounged on the bed and covered it in glitter. Decided Cathleen had to be the pregnant friend from Spice World.
Sunday
Corli and I Space Girled up again. I wore much more reasonable shoes. Got some nice compliments, that felt awesome. Talked to
colleency for a little while-- she hadn't realized it was me! Panels? What panels did we go to?Sunday night, I went up to
aviendiora & rhynndavrie & llyrafantasyfae's room to Kaylee up. Avien was wearing hers so we wanted to be fluffy Kaylees together, and they drove up a bunch of my stuff because they are ROCKSTARS. I used their steamer to dewrinkle my dress. We went down to mingle with the crowd before the historical masquerade started (at first I typed "the pre-historical masquerade crowd" but that didn't look right). There was another girl in Shindig Kaylee too! We all took pics together. I wanted to talk construction with the other Kaylee but she hadn't made hers. We figured out how you put two Shindig Kaylees in a row of chairs (very carefully). Had great fun watching the historical masq-- some jaw-dropping work. Died laughing at the "Evil Satinists," because YES, on SO many levels. Katherine and her group did an utterly perfect skit-- great concept, well-communicated to the audience, showed off the costumes excellently, not too short or too long. Totally deserving of Best in Show.More mingling afterward. Went back up to room to change. Had not brought street clothes-- so I was in a funny amalgamation of Posh and Kaylee. Cocktail waitress at a Trek casino? Back to Cordelia's, collapse!
Monday
Elizabeth plum while Cordelia did DMC Will. Together again. :D Avien wearing crazy awesome renaissance noble's gown. Panel on lace- so pretty. Finally made it to dealer's room. Found awesome hats. want. want a lot. don't remember much else. I'm sure we went to dinner. And then I flew home! The end.
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I remember in the green room chatting with the Oz girls, and all of us geeking out together and promising to hang out in the green room at SDCC (which we did).
And there IS video of us winning -- Cathleen got it, and when they announced our names, we squealed like little girls in a register that would hurt most dogs! Sadly Molly had left right after we performed so she wasn't there when we won (which was, seriously, one of the most thrilling moments of my life!) :( However, since Molly was "Ginger" Space, we joked that Ginger had left the group to pursue her solo career. :)
And Sunday night, after the masquerade, you, me, and Angie came back to my place and watched the DVD of our masquerade, which was a BLAST!!!
I had so much fun that weekend, and I'm glad you did, too! And while it might've been fun to try to redo it at Wondercon, I think it's better that we have just the one "perfect" performance (video'd by Leah and Cathleen -- thanks, girls!) ;)
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Wow, I totally thought the video of us winning had malfunctioned or something...I'm not sure if I'm sad or happy that it exists. ;-)
(repost for typo!)
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Video
Re: Video
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