MediaWest Con Report
Jun. 5th, 2004 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenayaIt's about three pages long and I don't rant that much.
If you want to read it, My trips to MediaWest Con keep getting longer and longer. Coming from the West Coast, I leave on Wednesday so I can be there when my roommates drive in on Thursday morning from New England. Usually, that gives me one good night's sleep before the con, but this time I joined another friend for drinks in the bar and did not get to sleep til 3 am. Apparently, there was a convention of firefighters at the hotel and they were friendly in a nice sort of way. Decorative, too. The hotel had asked for no flyers to be posted in public places until Friday, but folks jumped the gun. A friend said she was in the elevator with some firemen as they eyed a flyer featuring art depicting hobbits in clinches. One peered closer and said, "Looks like porn." Yes, I guess it does.
As for the fandoms represented during the con, my impression is that Stargate: SG-1, Mag 7 and Man from Uncle had the most zines available for sale. I brought home a large stack of SG. I was tempted by some other fandoms but with the price of zines, I had to pass.
I only caught the adult vids and my simple notes don't mention much, save there were some good Pros and I like PD Zed's vids the best: good clip choice, non-intrusive edits, good song choices and they elicited strong emotion. There were vids each for James Spader and Kevin Smith (Ares in Xena.) While I think both of these guys are wonderful, just having a succession of cuts of them kissing becomes disappointing, no matter how well done. Sorry.
The art show seemed pretty full with a favorable ratio of good vs oh dear!
Many fandoms were represented which was very nice. There was some decent Pros art, so I imagine having these older shows released on DVD is providing some fuel to their fires. What I can remember...LOTR, HP, SG, M7, Muncle, Sentinel, Pros, S&H, Smallville, Firefly, PoTC, Troy, Van Helsing, Angel, Dead Zone, Master and Commader, CSI and even a cutely comical Monk. I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty. I didn't attend the art auction so I'm unaware of which pieces had the most vigorous bidding.
It seemed like more folks decorated their doors this year, which was really fun. Lots of different fandoms, lots of different styles. Our door featured ghost Spike emerging from our door. An old pair of black leather pants was cut up to provide a leg and an arm, with the rest of it just a boot, a fake hand and nice photo of Spike's head. My roomies had sewn Spike's fingers in such a way that he was giving the two finger salute to a mocked up Warner Bros logo off to the side, the red sharpie it held used to make WB into Wanker Brothers. We won for Best Single Character, which was very nice. There was a fantastic Dr. Who call box down the hallway complete with flashing blue light, coat rack for the garments of the different Doctorsl, and music. They won Best in Show, Best SciFi and Fan Favorite. Well done!
I helped with the Stargate party that was held in the party suite and was open to all. We had plenty of food: Subway sandwiches, cake, munchies and soda pop. Many door prizes were given away to the 80-90 people who packed themselves into the room...many of them seemed new to the fandom. Maybe all those reruns on SciFi is recruiting new fans for us! We even had a cool 'working' Stargate from Walmart.
Other SG related news is that Richard Dean Anderson will be featured on Bravo's Actor's Studio in October, which should be fun. Though not mentioned at the con, I just read somewhere that it was mentioned in a magazine interview that Lexa Doig and Michael Shanks are expecting, so that is fantastic news. And I believe the Daniel friendly zines/art/stories did very well in the Fan Q Awards.
(BTW, Daniel Friendly means just that; That odds are good that Daniel will be in the stories and portrayed in a favorable fashion. It does not mean anti-Jack, okay? Jack has been in all 8 seasons of SG; Daniel was not on the team in S6, therefore Daniel Friendly helps fans find stories that have Daniel in them. Imho, the best stories have a very strong Jack and Daniel in it.)
Anyway, I was definitely in con mode and socialized A LOT! It's fantastic to have everyone in one place all at the same time. We definitely need about 40 hours in a day during MWC.
In the "Don't try this in your house" subject, I witnessed what happens when you quickly drop 4 Mentos into a 2 Liter bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. STAND BACK!
Apparently the coating on the Mentos causes the carbon dioxide to come out of solution VERY QUICKLY. The demonstrator was an engineer who had made extensive testing of this effect. Apparently Diet Dr. Pepper seems to work best. More Mentos is good too, but it's difficult to get them all into the bottle fast enough.
Panels. I only went to a few. The two SG ones I went to were cordial, with almost no baiting going on. Most folks thought that the writers had dropped the ball in a number of different ways. There is so much potential in that show and it gets wasted. The Smallville ones tended to be very pro Lex, with a lot of impatience with all the Kents. I don't participate in this fandom but I was interested in the panel anyway. Of interest was a genner who vigorously defended Clark and especially Jonathan. She was sure that our impatience with these characters was due to our exposure to the vocal opinions on the slash lists.
Our opinions were because we were gullible; her opinion was because she was right; amazing how the names change but the attitudes persist no matter what fandom one ventures into. For Smallville, my opinion is only from watching the show and I am very tired of the Kent's intolerance, their rush to judgment and their hypocrisy. Too bad Lex isn't the hero!
I went to a couple of Harry Potter panels and was surprised to see a certain level of displeasure about JK Rowling...that maybe she did not know best about the stories. Very odd. There was also the opinion that many people just wanted to shake some sense into Harry in the last book. Okay, I would agree with that.
Unfortunately, many panels I wanted to attend were WAY too early. 9am? That's terrible! So I missed panels on James Spader and PDAs among others.
I did go to a live journal panel. Most folk seemed very pro lj vs mailing lists, mentioning the ability to control one's fannish experience. They perceived very few drawbacks, but when pressed for details, did admit to negative politics and unpleasant behavior. They felt that lj widened their exposure to other fandoms.
My own opinion would be that might be true, but I think one can whittle out differing opinions of one's own fandom too much (how about those stories one writes to rebuttal an opinion different from your own?) There were a couple of things that sounded cool, like crack_fan, which sounded like a place where primers for multiple fandoms was presented, but it and variations on the spelling doesn't produce anything. Band_set was supposedly something that would help avoid the spam type stuff.
Odds and ends: Apparently Zorrorojo has written a crossover of SG and M7. I need to find that one! Some folks had put a panel about "the crossover treasure that is Brenda Antrim" on the schedule. Anyone go to that?? I should have as it would have made wonderful teasing material! There was a rogue SG shipper that made a nuisance of herself at various places during the con. Yawn. The hotel had something that sounded to me like a Viking horn (remember that old film, The Vikings?) which we could hear in the mornings and even the threat of rampaging Vikings were not enough to get us out of our room any earlier. California's new governor amused my New England roomies. I swear the rest of the world only appreciates California for it's entertainment value and I don't just mean the movies either. And lastly I must admit to an odd dream that had my home town inundated by a large wave, scarring the land until it looked a lot like Morocco. I went to a large yurt-like structure where I met Arnold and, while wearing a white bath robe and looking out at the devastation from his balcony (yes, this yurt had a palatial balcony) I tried to convince him to give monetary incentives to get people to replant trees. I'm not sure I want to analyze that....
The trip to and from where uneventful and less bothersome that last year, though walking around in socks while my shoes get x-rayed now gives me the creeps, thanks to Bunny. Just think of all those other sock clad feet that have passed that way before you...all those stinky, sweaty, disease infested feet! Bunny thinks that we should have the option of wearing those blue paper slippers people wear in the operating room. She may have a point!
We stayed again til Tuesday, as that gives my roomies and me all day to enjoy each other's company without the con to distract us. It's actually a very nice way to end the con. And, of course we will return again next year! Maybe I'll have all those zines read by then!
Thanks for reading!
I have only about 50% success on those lj cuts, so hopefully it worked this time. For those that don't want to read all three pages, I came, I saw, I bought zines. We had fun.
When's the next con, again?
If you want to read it, My trips to MediaWest Con keep getting longer and longer. Coming from the West Coast, I leave on Wednesday so I can be there when my roommates drive in on Thursday morning from New England. Usually, that gives me one good night's sleep before the con, but this time I joined another friend for drinks in the bar and did not get to sleep til 3 am. Apparently, there was a convention of firefighters at the hotel and they were friendly in a nice sort of way. Decorative, too. The hotel had asked for no flyers to be posted in public places until Friday, but folks jumped the gun. A friend said she was in the elevator with some firemen as they eyed a flyer featuring art depicting hobbits in clinches. One peered closer and said, "Looks like porn." Yes, I guess it does.
As for the fandoms represented during the con, my impression is that Stargate: SG-1, Mag 7 and Man from Uncle had the most zines available for sale. I brought home a large stack of SG. I was tempted by some other fandoms but with the price of zines, I had to pass.
I only caught the adult vids and my simple notes don't mention much, save there were some good Pros and I like PD Zed's vids the best: good clip choice, non-intrusive edits, good song choices and they elicited strong emotion. There were vids each for James Spader and Kevin Smith (Ares in Xena.) While I think both of these guys are wonderful, just having a succession of cuts of them kissing becomes disappointing, no matter how well done. Sorry.
The art show seemed pretty full with a favorable ratio of good vs oh dear!
Many fandoms were represented which was very nice. There was some decent Pros art, so I imagine having these older shows released on DVD is providing some fuel to their fires. What I can remember...LOTR, HP, SG, M7, Muncle, Sentinel, Pros, S&H, Smallville, Firefly, PoTC, Troy, Van Helsing, Angel, Dead Zone, Master and Commader, CSI and even a cutely comical Monk. I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty. I didn't attend the art auction so I'm unaware of which pieces had the most vigorous bidding.
It seemed like more folks decorated their doors this year, which was really fun. Lots of different fandoms, lots of different styles. Our door featured ghost Spike emerging from our door. An old pair of black leather pants was cut up to provide a leg and an arm, with the rest of it just a boot, a fake hand and nice photo of Spike's head. My roomies had sewn Spike's fingers in such a way that he was giving the two finger salute to a mocked up Warner Bros logo off to the side, the red sharpie it held used to make WB into Wanker Brothers. We won for Best Single Character, which was very nice. There was a fantastic Dr. Who call box down the hallway complete with flashing blue light, coat rack for the garments of the different Doctorsl, and music. They won Best in Show, Best SciFi and Fan Favorite. Well done!
I helped with the Stargate party that was held in the party suite and was open to all. We had plenty of food: Subway sandwiches, cake, munchies and soda pop. Many door prizes were given away to the 80-90 people who packed themselves into the room...many of them seemed new to the fandom. Maybe all those reruns on SciFi is recruiting new fans for us! We even had a cool 'working' Stargate from Walmart.
Other SG related news is that Richard Dean Anderson will be featured on Bravo's Actor's Studio in October, which should be fun. Though not mentioned at the con, I just read somewhere that it was mentioned in a magazine interview that Lexa Doig and Michael Shanks are expecting, so that is fantastic news. And I believe the Daniel friendly zines/art/stories did very well in the Fan Q Awards.
(BTW, Daniel Friendly means just that; That odds are good that Daniel will be in the stories and portrayed in a favorable fashion. It does not mean anti-Jack, okay? Jack has been in all 8 seasons of SG; Daniel was not on the team in S6, therefore Daniel Friendly helps fans find stories that have Daniel in them. Imho, the best stories have a very strong Jack and Daniel in it.)
Anyway, I was definitely in con mode and socialized A LOT! It's fantastic to have everyone in one place all at the same time. We definitely need about 40 hours in a day during MWC.
In the "Don't try this in your house" subject, I witnessed what happens when you quickly drop 4 Mentos into a 2 Liter bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. STAND BACK!
Apparently the coating on the Mentos causes the carbon dioxide to come out of solution VERY QUICKLY. The demonstrator was an engineer who had made extensive testing of this effect. Apparently Diet Dr. Pepper seems to work best. More Mentos is good too, but it's difficult to get them all into the bottle fast enough.
Panels. I only went to a few. The two SG ones I went to were cordial, with almost no baiting going on. Most folks thought that the writers had dropped the ball in a number of different ways. There is so much potential in that show and it gets wasted. The Smallville ones tended to be very pro Lex, with a lot of impatience with all the Kents. I don't participate in this fandom but I was interested in the panel anyway. Of interest was a genner who vigorously defended Clark and especially Jonathan. She was sure that our impatience with these characters was due to our exposure to the vocal opinions on the slash lists.
Our opinions were because we were gullible; her opinion was because she was right; amazing how the names change but the attitudes persist no matter what fandom one ventures into. For Smallville, my opinion is only from watching the show and I am very tired of the Kent's intolerance, their rush to judgment and their hypocrisy. Too bad Lex isn't the hero!
I went to a couple of Harry Potter panels and was surprised to see a certain level of displeasure about JK Rowling...that maybe she did not know best about the stories. Very odd. There was also the opinion that many people just wanted to shake some sense into Harry in the last book. Okay, I would agree with that.
Unfortunately, many panels I wanted to attend were WAY too early. 9am? That's terrible! So I missed panels on James Spader and PDAs among others.
I did go to a live journal panel. Most folk seemed very pro lj vs mailing lists, mentioning the ability to control one's fannish experience. They perceived very few drawbacks, but when pressed for details, did admit to negative politics and unpleasant behavior. They felt that lj widened their exposure to other fandoms.
My own opinion would be that might be true, but I think one can whittle out differing opinions of one's own fandom too much (how about those stories one writes to rebuttal an opinion different from your own?) There were a couple of things that sounded cool, like crack_fan, which sounded like a place where primers for multiple fandoms was presented, but it and variations on the spelling doesn't produce anything. Band_set was supposedly something that would help avoid the spam type stuff.
Odds and ends: Apparently Zorrorojo has written a crossover of SG and M7. I need to find that one! Some folks had put a panel about "the crossover treasure that is Brenda Antrim" on the schedule. Anyone go to that?? I should have as it would have made wonderful teasing material! There was a rogue SG shipper that made a nuisance of herself at various places during the con. Yawn. The hotel had something that sounded to me like a Viking horn (remember that old film, The Vikings?) which we could hear in the mornings and even the threat of rampaging Vikings were not enough to get us out of our room any earlier. California's new governor amused my New England roomies. I swear the rest of the world only appreciates California for it's entertainment value and I don't just mean the movies either. And lastly I must admit to an odd dream that had my home town inundated by a large wave, scarring the land until it looked a lot like Morocco. I went to a large yurt-like structure where I met Arnold and, while wearing a white bath robe and looking out at the devastation from his balcony (yes, this yurt had a palatial balcony) I tried to convince him to give monetary incentives to get people to replant trees. I'm not sure I want to analyze that....
The trip to and from where uneventful and less bothersome that last year, though walking around in socks while my shoes get x-rayed now gives me the creeps, thanks to Bunny. Just think of all those other sock clad feet that have passed that way before you...all those stinky, sweaty, disease infested feet! Bunny thinks that we should have the option of wearing those blue paper slippers people wear in the operating room. She may have a point!
We stayed again til Tuesday, as that gives my roomies and me all day to enjoy each other's company without the con to distract us. It's actually a very nice way to end the con. And, of course we will return again next year! Maybe I'll have all those zines read by then!
Thanks for reading!
I have only about 50% success on those lj cuts, so hopefully it worked this time. For those that don't want to read all three pages, I came, I saw, I bought zines. We had fun.
When's the next con, again?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 08:05 am (UTC)It looks like you had a good time! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 02:34 pm (UTC)You seemed to be having fun, too.
BTW, I currently reading your AU in Off The Record. They've just met Bra'tac. I'm taking a break to let my anticipation build.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 05:35 pm (UTC)And don't forget the spit!
Date: 2004-06-08 10:40 am (UTC)WebMistress B(unny)