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Thursday 14 March 2013
Monday 4 March 2013
Professor Elemental and me
Part of the Saturday night entertainment was Professor Elemental a purveyor of chap hop and general awesomeness.
I was drunk enough to volunteer to join him on stage.
And my boyfriend had the presence of mind to capture this for prosperity.
Without further ado I present Professor Elemental featuring Dalek Jane.
I was drunk enough to volunteer to join him on stage.
And my boyfriend had the presence of mind to capture this for prosperity.
Without further ado I present Professor Elemental featuring Dalek Jane.
Sci-Fi Weekender 4
Well we're home, I've been recharging my batteries literally and figuratively. Sci Fi Weekender has been a blast and I've enjoyed 95% percent of what has gone on. This event evolved from last year's SFX weekender my blog about that can be found here.
This event was a vast improvement in almost every way from last year and I'm going to reflect on my experience of the event.
We arrived Thursday afternoon and check in took forty minutes from joining the queue to getting out again having organised which signings we wanted to go to having bought VIP tickets.
Thecaravan chalet was modern spacious but cold, it took us a while to work out the best way to heat it up - I'll come back to that. We also decided to mainly self cater and heartily recommend to those who drive to the venue to bring your own slow cooker and throw things in it works a treat.
Thursday evening was spent in the Mash and Barrel, meeting up with old friends and meeting new ones. Hello @geekcampgirls. The atmosphere was great, relaxed and happy great hugs a gossip with Sam Stone and all was well with the world.
I kept quite a busy schedule, I went to Here come the Girls which despite the hopeless title was actually a wonderful discussion of the issues that writers who happen to be women face. On the panel were Emma Newman, Amanda Rutter, Sam Stone, Raven Dane, Stacia Kane, Kim Curren and Frances Knight. Lots of interesting points especially about genre and horror and distinctions between how things are perceived I was fascinated.
My other must see was Just a Minute ably compered by Paul Cornell (nicest man in the world - official) This had been a highlight for me last year and was not disappointed this time round as Emma Newman, Gareth Powell, Stacia Kane and Chris Brookmyre did battle. Watching Emma Newman's inner pedant wrestle with her anxiety was brilliant.
One of the things that was disappointing was that two of the major TV guests pulled out in the week preceding the event and it left the event feeling a little bit light on that side of things. I spent most of my time in the Spaceport listening to writers and learning as much as I could. I loved the panel on dystopian futures and post apocalyptic fiction.
Other huge things for me were meeting Brian Blessed and Peter Davidson both were utterly lovely and charming.
This event was a vast improvement in almost every way from last year and I'm going to reflect on my experience of the event.
We arrived Thursday afternoon and check in took forty minutes from joining the queue to getting out again having organised which signings we wanted to go to having bought VIP tickets.
The
Thursday evening was spent in the Mash and Barrel, meeting up with old friends and meeting new ones. Hello @geekcampgirls. The atmosphere was great, relaxed and happy great hugs a gossip with Sam Stone and all was well with the world.
I kept quite a busy schedule, I went to Here come the Girls which despite the hopeless title was actually a wonderful discussion of the issues that writers who happen to be women face. On the panel were Emma Newman, Amanda Rutter, Sam Stone, Raven Dane, Stacia Kane, Kim Curren and Frances Knight. Lots of interesting points especially about genre and horror and distinctions between how things are perceived I was fascinated.
My other must see was Just a Minute ably compered by Paul Cornell (nicest man in the world - official) This had been a highlight for me last year and was not disappointed this time round as Emma Newman, Gareth Powell, Stacia Kane and Chris Brookmyre did battle. Watching Emma Newman's inner pedant wrestle with her anxiety was brilliant.
One of the things that was disappointing was that two of the major TV guests pulled out in the week preceding the event and it left the event feeling a little bit light on that side of things. I spent most of my time in the Spaceport listening to writers and learning as much as I could. I loved the panel on dystopian futures and post apocalyptic fiction.
Other huge things for me were meeting Brian Blessed and Peter Davidson both were utterly lovely and charming.
We attended the imaginarium on Friday night and having missed out last year was mostly impressed we felt that some of the acts went on a bit too long and an interval of 15 minutes would have been a godsend.
Saturday more signings and author panels. I have a hard time speaking to people I don't know so chickened out of speaking to some authors because I was a little bit intimidated. The saturday night entertainment ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous.
On the side of Sublime, Professor Elemental who was fantastic. He kicked ass and I vounteered to go up on stage and was an apprentice monkey butler who was also a dalek. Yes I am Dalek Jane.
The Gameshow between Robert Rankin and Dez Skin which on paper sounded good, was excrutiating and went on too long.
The dancing afterwards was epic, I got my geeky dancing on with the GeekCampGirls who had been cosplaying their asses off all weekend and much fun was had.
Bad points?
Just a few, TV and film guests were few and far between. Guests are fairly important to me, I like to meet me heroes when I can and was disappointed when the big names pulled out.
It was cold. our fire didn't light automatically and we had to buy matches, the heating in the bedroom was completely ineffectual. But we spent so few hours in the chalet it didn't really matter.
I thought placing the author panels in the space port was a bit rude, the sound was dreadful and a bit disrespectful to the guests.
The 'gameshow' on saturday night was awful. Jokes about child abuse aren't funny.
I didn't hear any abuse from muggles thrown my way, but I would have been gutted if there was.
We'll be back next year but Chic will have to up the ante and sort out some of the issues.
To sum up, you get out of these events what you put into them - this time I took a big risk and I dressed up and I loved it and I've made friends from the experience too, that made the event worth while.
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