Event Congestion

Saturday night in the main ballroom at BayCon is a very busy place. The apparent schedule is, starting from 8 PM:

Masquerade
"Ashes of the Phoenix"
Children's Masquerade Results*
Match Game SF
Main Masquerade Results
Match Game SF
Dance

Now, we're primed to play four games of MGSF, but the Dance organizers were, I think, originally expecting that the Dance would start immediately after the Main Masquerade Results were announced. So the word from the head of Programming is that we'll play at least three games of MGSF, or four if time permits.

I do hope things start on time. There's no way we'll be able to get everything done if we don't start on time.

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*(Stage change happens while results are being announced, in the same way that we did a stage change for Ready, Steady, Sew! at Interaction)

Panelist Change

As some of you know, gridlore has been sick lately, and unfortunately he went into the hospital today. While it's possible he may be released by Saturday, he's asked his wife kshandra to fill in for him on the panel, and I've made the necessary changes to the titles and name placards.

(One exception that only she and I and her fellow panelists will see is that the portion of the front-of-table banner that folds over the top of the table still has Doug's name printed on it. It takes so long to print those banners that I elected not to reprint it.)

I join many others in wishing gridlore the best and sending my hopes that you'll be out of the hospital giving people grief as soon as possible.

Filling In The _____s

I think I've completed everthing. That is, I've checked everything off of my preparation lists. That assumes I've remembered everything when I wrote those lists. Oh, well, with any luck, the things I've forgotten are minor.

One thing that I'd sort of wanted to do here at BayCon but for which I don't think I'm going to have time is to prepare an Audience Survey for people to fill out so that we could use the results as the basis for doing the Super Match in future shows. We don't do the Super Match (where contestants have to guess how a survey group filled in a blank) but instead jump straight to the Panelist Match (which we've rigged so that no panelist every gets selected more than once), but that's mainly because we don't have the source material and have never conducted the necessary survey.

This lack of source material, by the way, is why we don't do Fannish Feud either, although I'd enjoy performing it.

I've told folks who have asked me why we don't do any other game shows, "You write 'em and produce 'em, I'll perform 'em." One of the reasons we do Match Game is that it's relatively simple to produce. While we keep adding bells and buzzers (in this year's case, literally) to the show, in its simplest, stripped down form, it's not very complicated. Writing questions is the hardest part of the whole show, I think.

I'm not moving in to the hotel until tomorrow, as I'll be working a half-day or so in my office in San Mateo, then heading down the hill to the Marriott before (I hope) 1 PM.