Lou, KY Fright Night Film Fest/Fandomfest planning thread

Welcome to the boards!

I'd forgotten about the anime costume contest that was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. It seems like they were running this more like an autograph/trade show and just paying lip service to making it a real con. I've never been to a con that didn't have a program of the guests, panels and events.

 

On facebook when I asked about the nonexistent costume contests, they initially said that the Saturday night one happened. When I asked who the winners were because I saw no contest, they backed off that claim. http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150248228254472&id=63772024471&notif_t=feed_comment_reply - why lie?

 

For those of you who went could you post your Star Wars memories-- you know, for those of us who didn't get a chance to go?

Jammies

PS: Sorry about the rest of the con, sounds like it wasn't run that well.

 

Where to begin?

1) They stuck The Dark Empires fan table in a situation where we could "barely" move around it. As soon as I seen where I was expected to set up, I felt like the red headed step child.

2) The location was not only cramped, but it was atrocious.. right in front of huge picture windows, which faced a concreted garden area that took full sun. The radiant heat off of the concrete came in threw the windows and roasted us on Saturday. So, fan table local = cramped and HOT. No one should have been crammed in there, and there were lots of other vendors who were there along side of me... all down the wall.

3) Like Mika said :: Jeremy and Daniel were placed in two different locations. Jeremy had to put up with no A/C in the pool area... meaning not only was it hot, but it was humid as well.

4) Kitchen staff were under manned. The poor waitress serving us on Saturday night was horrifically stressed out. I left her a whopping tip.

5) The 501st were given a changing area when they got there on Saturday, only to be rudely thrown out of it later. The ones who showed up became so angry at the way it was handled that they left, but not before they had explained to the guy heading it up, that the guys who were going to show up for the panel would need a changing area the following day. Apparently that also became a fiasco, and they wound up changing behind the stage.

6) They placed our costuming groups panel on Sunday morning at 10:00am, and the Fetts panel immediately following ours. Hardy "anyone" outside of the Star Wars costuming groups showed up for any of it. Go figure. Once again, I felt like a red headed step child. I will say that it was good practice for us. But in the end, we were "all" simply "fit in" at the worst possible slot.

7) Back to the heat, almost the whole building was too warm. The A/C was not up to the challenge of the quantity of bodies in the building. Again as Mika said, the building is also dated.

8) I've never seen anything so disorganized at a Con before. It was truly bad. And the Star Wars people were "obviously" NOT treated with priority. That has my dandruff up.


The Good Stuff were these:



1) Got to hang out with my friends for the whole weekend, and I needed it "very" much. I had missed you guys and I was simply giddy to be with you.

2) The situation helped to lend some intimacy with our Celebrities. We got to kinda hang out with them a little, which was "AWESOME"!

3) Daniel Logan wound up giving me hugs at our fan table.

4) Jeremy Bulloch not only kissed my hand on Saturday afternoon, but he kissed both sides of my cheeks on Sunday!!! I am still completely melting!

Knowing what I now know about the situation, would I go back? Personally.... "You bet ya"!! The experience I had with the Fetts was well worth the draw backs.


Will I go back next year?


I'm not into horror, nor gore. Not at all. Don't like Zombies, not into any of that kind of thing. Don't watch and don't care to.

If there are no Star Wars celebs, I will not go back, not on your life. But after this fiasco, I'll be surprised if they can even get a womp rat to come back.

If I plan on setting up another table and have to pay for it, then I'd better be guaranteed a much friendlier spot or there will be no TDE fan table there.

There are other conditions... for instance, if I do not have a room, they better have us a changing area set in place. A proper one.

I will not offer any more advice on which celebrities they should bring in.. as I'm embarrassed that on my suggestion, they brought in Daniel. He missed Sandiego Comic Con to be at this mess.

And last but not least...
Like Mika, I will not be getting involved with the management or planning.... at all.

So here is a link to the photos we got. Enjoy!

http://s614.photobucket.com/albums/tt223/Darth_Zannah/FANDOMFEST/

 

it is truly a shame that things were not handled better. Can Louisville just not get a good con? Conglom is just mismanaged in general, and slowly going bankrupt because of it, and turning a one night fright film fest into a con is apparently not doable either. Who knows, maybe they will learn from their mistakes and do better next year. one can hope. I would like to believe so, but given the track record of cons and events since rivercon, the only good con we ever had, i really doubt it.

 

I'm so embarrassed I talked up this con on so many boards I'm still pretty negative on the weekend but I'll try to come up with a couple of positives for Jammies.

-I'm glad Zannah had a table, it gave us a nice place to visit and socialize and share gripes and stories.

-Daniel *really* liked his swag bag. Jeremy seemed more so so about it but was a lot more excited about the swag I gave him from some recent merch runs from The Kilted Trooper Brigade. Jeremy is one of our only three honorary members (we?re very selective) and he's a member because his parents were Scottish and he wore a kilt as a wee lad

-Jeremy got us into some audience participation during his panel where he would give us a "Fett-ish" line to deliver in an intimidating voice and directed us. I really didn't want to do it but you don't say no to the Fett! Pretty awkward, thespians we're not. I don't think any of us will be stealing any acting jobs from Jeremy or Daniel any time soon.

 

I'm sorry to hear the con was so sucky. At least the awesome guests helped make up for that! I am MEGA jealous of all the fan time you guys got with Jeremy and Daniel.

 

Thanks guys. I really apreciate you all sharing your stories.

On my end, I really felt like I let the LGA down-- as we (I thought) were a big part of this con and in turn, the LGA (all of you) are a HUGE part of my life. Yes, I wanted to meet the Fetts (again), but more importantly I wanted to again be a part of this awesome collective of like minded wonderful people. So, I felt really bummed that I missed out. Also, I would have loved to have chipped in for the guest bags. That was a class act Sir, by a classy guy.

Now though, It doesn't seem like I missed anything, or that I could have helped anything my being there. In my opinion, a Con should treat the guests with the upmost respect-- to the point of royilty (becouse to us they are), and then secondly they should treat the sponsors very very well. It doesn't seem like that happened. So, my guilt is slowly going down.

So what happened to me, was I in some freak model building accident? No. Everything in my life is fantastic. Sometimes, when your life, and your weekend is fantasic-- you forget to turn on the alarm that you pre-set of 8:00am on a Sunday morning.

See you all soon,

MTFBWY

Jammies

 

I have a lot of the same gripes as most of you, but as a con noob, I still had a great time, and only because it was some SW in there as well as horror too, which I love a lot less than SW.

Hopefully, I'll get to see what the real con experience should be like.

As far as the costume contests, they can lie all they want. I was there, and the contests did not happen. Instead, we got a really terrible band...lol.

 

I've got the Star Wars related media up online from the con at icosplay.com - both videos of Fett & costuming panels plus pictures (as usual click on the pics to get higher resolution).

Not sure if I will go back, depends on who they get as non-horror guests and if they change to a better location as this one did not work at all. Parts of the building were just too hot, so I left my jedi gear at home.

 

Oh WOW! Those are wonderful!! Thank you soooooooo very much! You even have one in there of Daniel with my Saber! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

 

Well Jeremy gave Louisville and the con a nice shout out in his latest blog entry. He got to go to the Ali museum and Lynn's Paradise Cafe so I'm glad he was treated well. He mentions his swag bag as being from the 501st not the LGA but that's understandable as I was wearing so many hats that weekend it would be easy to get confused as to what group I was representing when.
http://www.jeremybulloch.com/

There's also a nice pic of his Dark Empire certificate at the bottom of the entry.

And did he like Lynn's? He says "The food is excellent".
http://www.jeremybulloch.com/images/091411/image16.htm

So next time we have a Meet and Eat at Lynn's remember it's Jeremy Bulloch approved.

 

What a fantastic guy! I really wish I could have met him... hopefully someday soon.

 

Thanks Mika, these links are awesome. I've posted a lot of what we have here to my FB page and to the Empire boards. Thanks again!