Dragon*Con '08 Report, Day 4 (and last): The most depressing part of a con

[thatcrazycajun]

...is always the last day. The crowds that thronged the main lobby and upper function-space levels of the Hyatt and Marriott have noticeably diminished, and I passed people dragging suitcases to their cars as I walked in from the parking lot. There is still programming scheduled until 5:30, but much less than the previous three days (only one board instead of two was needed to post the grid at the Information booth on the Hyatt concourse today). My sole disappointment this year has been missing the Saturday morning street parade (why on God's green and pleasant Earth don't they move it to noon or so when late-night con types like me can actually get up for it, instead of 10 AM?!) and concerts by Emerald Rose, which are always high-energy and rarely get such large audiences as here; but they are local and I can drive up to Dahlonega once a month to see them if I really want to, as they perform at a coffeehouse there.

Last night's Masquerade was beautiful and well-run as always, and handling emcee duties was none other than TrekTrak guest Ethan Phillips (Neelix from Star Trek: Voyager), who was highly amusing and clearly having fun. Alas, I was too far back to get pictures even if they'd allowed it; there should be some posted on their website by the time you read this. "Best in Show" among the Young Fen division entrants was a boy who wore a cunningly-put-together TransFormer-like costume which enabled him to fold up from robot to tank in about three seconds; he was clearly the audience's favorite, as they cheered him on to do it again when he claimed his prize. "Best in Show" among the adults was a troupe of vaguely Indian-goddess-looking ladies and a barechested, highly limber gentleman with them who balanced swords on his feet. Other highlights included a troop of formidable-looking computer-game soldiers who started out with a seemingly serious pose presentation, then suddenly broke into the "Crank Dat Soulja Boy" dance while the song played over the speakers; a Klingon who used a squash racquet to bat tribbles into the audience; a dancer posing as Axl Rose lip-synching and costume-changing to the blasting chords of "Welcome to the Jungle"; and a costume designed by "Starch Industries" called "Iron Man" which basically consisted of a giant laundry iron with legs (no steam, alas) and won "Most Humorous."

After that, I moseyed on down to the Hyatt sub-basement again for open filk, but was too early and so got to enjoy concerts by pixelene and lukeski (who once again joined forces—you should pardon the pun—to perform Luke's famous mashup of Episode IV: A New Hope and the famous 1950s-music Broadway hit, Grease Wars, to a standing ovation). Following that was a much better session of open filk than we had had on Friday night, with one of the Bedlam Bards and his guitar as well as a couple other very talented people joining us and me getting to perform a medley of my hit (you know, the one that won the Pegasus) to the most sustained applause I've gotten all weekend. A young man with an uncanny talent for impressions did a reading of "Casey at the Bat" in the voices of Bill Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Kate Mulgrew) as well as command performances of animated-TV-show themes and songs, and you'll be hearing more about him when I get home and can find his card. (He's got some stuff on YouTube you should check out; watch this space.) Finally getting to the point of risking being too sleepy to drive, I went home about 3:30 AM and crashed.

Major kudos to Robby Hillard, D*C 2008 filk honcho, who poured genuine enthusiasm for filk and eagerness to have everyone participate into his work pulling together programming (such as it was) and running the filk room. If his attitude is still as good after the con as during, we may actually have someone caring and competent to stick around and run the thing again next year. (And if you know anything about D*C's notorious history of pissing and chasing off its filk czars, you know this is a Very Big Thing.) And another big batch of kudos to spambrian and his staff for yet another hilarious set of DCTV videos and bumpers to keep everybody laughing and patient while the show gets started; you can see them at dragoncontv.com if you didn't attend.

Costume count: Not nearly as many costumers out today; I suspect most of them are either too tired or have packed up their regalia (and a few may even be headed home early due to Gustav). Will note any remaining ones in the wrapup later.

Comments

[singingpatient.livejournal.com]

i was wondering how filk went this year. sounds like the open filk was much smaller than the old days in the media center room.
wanted to be there, but i live very far away now, and at this time am being very selective about travel until the folk scene revives itself and i have more gigs again. it's pretty much on life support right now, and very scant life support at that!
i'm going to make a heavy push at getting some guitar students this week. after my england tour, if things don't pick up in the student department, i'll be looking at getting a -gasp- job!
unfortunately, i'm a little clueless with computers, and not strong enough to work for UPS, so i'll be looking at something unskilled like retail or restaurant work, and they're not really hiring right now, so maybe a temp agency? my entire resume is music, teaching music, playing music, recording music, working in a music store...
maybe it's time to go to devry and learn to fix air conditioners...

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

The impression I've gotten from talking to people since I last went for the weekend is that the actual number of people has increased, but the size of the space available had indeed decreased (evidently especially last year, which is when the nursery wasn't available to be the filk room until after midnight and the cribs and playpens stayed in, making it more difficult for people to get into the room).

[singingpatient.livejournal.com]

i was there last year for the nursery room in the netherlands of the hotel basement thing. and it was joyously crowded in there much of the time for filk.
i was just wondering how it went this year in comparison last year, given the bit f animosity/ apathy of the con towards filk and the seeming (even more than usual for dragon con) last-minute approach to scheduling filk events.