IEFF in Christmas parade in Victorville?

Hey, everyone, I have to address this in forum instead of meeting, because we have to turn in an application before the next meeting. There is a Christmas parade in Victorville on Dec.2nd. We can enter a float (possibly a flat bed truck with some of us costumed characters on it with the sides easily decorated). We can have hanchewies car with some costumed characters walking carrying our banner infront of the car or behind the car (possibly darth malorum doing some of his fancy lightsaber moves either on the float or walking?!?) or we could do all three things. what do you guys think, are you interested? There's no fee. We need to get the app. in right away though as they only allow 93 entries.

It would be good exposure in the high desert area! Sounds like fun. Are we allowed to pass out fliers or candy or anything along the route? It would be helpful if we could pass out a little half sheet with our group name, logo and the web address.

My vote is: Aye

I'm sure our costumed folks would love to take part!

I might be able to come up to watch it but wont know until nearer the time. December is looking pretty full for my weekends aready.

My vote is aye. I would love to have the car in it. What's everyone else think. Thank you Jangosmom for the info.

I got votes from the girls, and husband. That's 3 more votes.

Change mine to a "hmmm, let me think some more" vote. We want to make sure we don't look cheesy. If we're gonna go public, we need to look really sharp!

that would be cool...i just have to see if i can get the day off...but days in dec are hard to get off

Change mine to a "hmmm, let me think some more" vote. We want to make sure we don't look cheesy. If we're gonna go public, we need to look really sharp!

Like have really nice looking costumes and a nicely decorated float/car? Maybe there could be a big banner with the website since there can't be any flyers. Just a thought. *shuffles off* yub yub

I agree we need to have people with pro costumes. I know DH has one. I can have Ry's tie fighter complete by then. I just have to put the straps on his chest armor. I have an x-wing pilot costume. I didn't use the straps for the Coldstone gig with the OC group, but I have it. I do have a princess leia costume and a greedo costume also. We could always ask some of the other chapters if they want to participate. Maybe the OC lightsaber group would want a chance to perform on a flatbed we drove since they practiced for Galactic Playground. Just a thought. I don't know if you think it should only be our group. If we had 2 people carrying our new banner wouldn't people be able to find us if they googled "Inland Empire Fan Force"?

Dont you mean if they Goodsearched us.

I think we can do it. Even if it's just the car a couple of people.

Will they display the floats at the end, then we could pass out cards then.

in my humble opinion I say this: unless we look professional and not like a bunch of hobos, i'm not up for making us look ghetto. there's a reason the 501st is who they are. I don't want people to laugh...I want them to cheer. anyone who went to comic con and saw the people who wore bathrobes and had a $6 light saber calling themselves jedi? that's not an image I want to promote. I understand there's a money issue here, so that being said, there's some things we might not be able to do. I think the parade is an awesome idea but if we do it, we gotta do it right.

below is from the "duarte route 66 parade" that a few members of the 501st were involved with. notice the outfits:
[image=http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h227/bobarocks/DSC00391.jpg]

link to all the pics from that day:
http://www.southerncaliforniagarrison.com/cgi-bin/album.pl?album=Duarte%20Route%2066%20Parade;photo_height=480

here's what the reaction was that day:

We had a nice turnout of about 13 characters and of course the H-Wing. The crowds really seemed to react when they saw the troopers marching down the street and we were told by many that we were the best part of the parade! It was especially cool to have the H-Wing blasting Star Wars music along the route, and the kids loved us

We were also on-hand in the morning to help present the Duarte "Key to the City" to the parade's Grand Marshall, City of Hope president Dr. Michael Friedman with Mayor Tzeitel Paras-Caracci! Mayor Tzeitel even donned her Darth Vader mask for the grand entrance and photo op

After the Parade, the event organizers made us feel extremely welcome by bending the rules and allowing the HWing to be displayed among the Vintage Cars, and even set up two extra EZup tents to keep us cool. Thanks to KC and Tzeitel for making us feel so welcome throughout the event and extra special thanks to event coordinators Tony and Kim of Duarte for hanging with us all afternoon and providing our hungry troops with Tommy burgers and Mcdonalds happy meals for all of the kids!!

We have already been invited back for next year, and Mayor Paras-Caracci is excited to work with us to put together a photo-op tent so that we can help raise money for City of Hope!

If we really want to do this, maybe we should put an invite out to other fan forces. What say you? And who needs to do it?

Well as most of you know I am doing a fanfilm my trailer is online, and I just put together some footage of my friend and myself practacing, as soon as myspace aproves it it will but up net to our trailer. I know we can pull off a kick ass light saber duel to walk down the parade, or eve, do on a flatbed. ( and I am sure he would be more then willing to do it)
and cause of the fanfilm and the great fashion work by Jedi Onasi (My beautiful Wife) we have really really good looking jedi/sith costumes.
I say do it with our movie and depending if my other friend David (I am trying to get the enter cast to join the IEFF by the by) can't make it, we would have 3 extra tunics and shoulder starps, so people would only need boots and pants.
LET'S DO IT TO IT!!!!!.....say I

Coming from experience in parades, we definitely should open it up to other groups even to possibly letting some of the 501st join us (without it being an official 501st event). The trick is having authentic looking costumes. I'm in. Nothing has been booked on my calender yet for the 2nd.

DH, I love the double, my friend David would make a good Padawan Obi, interested in making a qui-gon? maybe we could re-enact the PM duel.
and I agree the more the better

ps, I can't do the filps yet, but I can learn them

I'm not the greatest sword master (still working on that) and my current Jedi robes are Episode III Obi-Wan (not to mention I'd have to grow my hair out again to be a decent Qui-Gon).

well, I think we're all on the same page as far as wanting to look professional. I didn't think anyone was going to go out with bathrobes and plastic lightsabers. Ry's tie fighter costume has cost me almost $600.00 and my xwing outfit is between $300-400 (cause I can't sew for beans and had to pay almost $150.00 just for that flak vest alone).Just a note:We were able to write it off on the taxes last year because we used them only for charity stuff. Anyway, I've seen pics of dh's jedi costume and it looks totally pro. I didn't know what all the rest of you had. If one of the guys wants to wear my xwing costume, It's a man's lg. flight suit. I can wear the greedo costume. It has a jumpsuit that I have put the yellow striping down the side, orange vest and a custom made holster that I got off of ebay. The greedo costume is a little more than the leia costume, I've got almost $200.00 into the greedo costume and over $100.00 in the leia costume. I will glady share with anyone that wants to wear anything I have. Granted, a garrison of storm troopers would look most impressive but if we can't get any other groups to participate, I think we can still pull off something cool here. I'm picky as far as presentation goes when I'm involved in something, so I understand where everyone is coming from. There's lots than can be done to make a small group look impressive, make a small float, covertible with Star Wars characters sitting and waving etc, there's lots of ideas we can mull over.... I think we just have to be realistic though. We're not the 501st, we're a club of about 15 people. AS long as we have pro costumes, we have hc's car, the banner, I think DM'S light saber staged duel would be awesome, I think there's some real potential here. This has to be fun for everyone though. Since we're such a small group, we can't just have a couple of us behind this and everyone else not wanting to be embarrased because they think it's too cheesy. So maybe, we should take a vote and see. We would have to submit an application and they have a committe that says if they want to select you to be in the parade or not. The person I spoke to thought there would be no problem at all getting in for our theme... the only problem she could foresee was if we got the app. in on time to get a slot. I think playing the Star Wars theme music would be cool, but I'd have to check on that as every thing I've read so far indicates they only want Christmas music playing. So, that's my 2 cents on the subject.I'm cool with whatever everyone decides. I had just read about it and thought it might be a cool thing to do. Discuss amongst yourselves!

on my editing soft wear i can mix and blend songs and burn them on disk, so we could have christmas themed music, and toss in a bit of star wars maybe alittle duel of the fates and end it with jingle bell rock.

I had no idea there were that many costumes in this group! I stand corrected. Guess I'll be the only one out there in my brown bathrobe. At least I have a good saber!

In case there is confusion...that was DM under ny name. lol. He got confused. Yes, so I have my own costume and he has his own, I am working on his friend's right now. I'm too busy for my own good. Anyhoo...I'll get some pics up so you can see what we got and if it looks satisfactory. But I like parades! Yay for parades!

Wasn't there a Star Wars Christmas album released several years back? Christmas in the Stars

Wasn't there a Star Wars Christmas album released several years back



We bought this last year...I won't say too much, since I don't want to be burned at the stake by die-hard fans, but in our humble opinion, this rates up there with the Pokemon Christmas album we bought and listened to once. Some songs we couldn't make it through the entire song. It's a collectible. That's the good thing I can say about it....yeah, it's a collectible...I'll leave it at that.I hope I don't have nightmares thinking of C3p0 singing again!

for the record, so that there's absolutely no confusion on my previous opinion:

#1 the reason I sent the pic of the 501st is because there were only 13 people that were in the parade. it was a small gathering but they looked good. that was my only point.

#2 i'm fully aware that we're not the 501st in any way and to compare us with them wouldn't be fair. but there's nothing wrong with wanting to take pointers on how they do what they do.
this again was the point of why I brought up the 501st as they do so much. and for good reason. to become a better organization of anything, you look to ones that do / have the things you want to do. nothing wrong with wanting that for our group.

#3 the fact that hundreds of dollars have been spent on costumes is a personal choice. I know it's a pride thing wanting it to look great. the fact that the 501st has storm trooper outfits doesn't matter, as this wasn't the point as well as how much money people in the group have or haven't spent on their own outfit. they are the dark side so ofcourse they're gonna have those costumes. the fact that I brought up bathrobes and a $6 light saber was to make the point that once again i'd like for us to look good, that's all.

#4 the fact that we're a group of 15 and to compare us...well i'm not sure what the point is here, as I didn't bring it up other than to say we raised twice what the 501st did for choc. I think it's quality, not quanity that matters. this point I brought up in the choc thread. our group is as big or small as the number of people that attend any one function whether by choice or not.

#5 there's nothing wrong with wanting our group to look good while we have fun and do some good in our community. the fact that some people have and want real pride in what they belong to shouldn't be concieved as us being embarresed by having us look cheesy in what we do. come to think about it, I WOULD BE if we just shelped it all together. absolutey nothing wrong with that at all.

#6 lastly...I want it known that I think the parade is a great way to get some exposure with the community. never implied or said it would suck in any way. what my thoughts were on this is that if we do this, it should be done right. not real sure how this got turned into what it has but these are my thoughts on the matter. i'm up for anything with our group and especially if it gets our name out there. I won't make any excuses or apologize for wanting our group to look good and i'm not implying in any way that we don't. one should never doubt my enthusiasm or pride for this group in any way.

take this for what's it worth.