Westercon Show Schedule

[kevin_standlee]

According to the Preliminary Westercon Schedule, we're supposed to be doing two shows of Match Game SF at Westercon this year: Friday night from 8 PM and Saturday afternoon 2:30-4:30. I think it rather likely that we'll start a few minutes late on Saturday on account of having at most 30 minutes set-up time. (We have several hours for Friday night so it's not an issue.)

We still don't have an Announcer or a Show Producer (sometimes that's the same person), and I would welcome people coming forward who can announce the show introduction and read the commercials, as well as someone who can keep track of the various prizes and dole them out to people. We also are currently showing an open panelist slot in the preliminary program, but I hope that Programming will fill that on the day.

A most pressing need is more questions. With two 2-hour shows, we'll probably need enough questions for eight games, although we may not need them all. If anyone has any questions they'd like to suggest, please send them to me so that we can minimize the amount of recycled questions we'll have to use. (Even though many of the audience or contestants will not have seen them, it's boring for the panelists to have to answer old questions a second or third time.)

It's a pity that the "day game" isn't first, with "late night" later in the convention; however, I can see for myself that the scheduling wouldn't have worked the other way around. Among many other things, I'm busy during the day on Thursday and Friday working on the Tonopah in 2012 bid table and helping prepare for the Tonopah bid party on Thursday night. This isn't a complaint; I'm flattered that Westercon wants to dedicate such a large chunk of its program to us.

Saturday is going to be a very busy day for me, with a panel at 10 AM, the Westercon Business Meeting at 10:30 AM (same room), and Match Game at 2:30. At least the "costume" -- my business suit -- works for all three.

Update, 12:20: Updated the schedule matters when Lisa pointed out that I was mis-reading how much time we had before and/or after each item.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

What sort of questions do you need? I'm not familiar with the game, but I can probably provide a few questions if you can give me some idea of format and difficulty.

E.g. multiple choice, easy/hard, topic based (e.g. do you need a round of SF TV questions), questions where the closest answer wins etc.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

You may be more familiar with the show as Blankety Blank, which was the name of the UK version. (I'm more Terry Wogan than Lily Savage, but if I lose about 100 pounds, I've been pledged to do the later version for our Late Nite Adults Only show, and I have the costume for it, too.)

It's not a trivia game. Match Game questions are fill-in-the-blank questions where there is no "right" answer, just a place to fill in the answer. The object of the game is for the contestant to try and figure out how most of the panelists completed the question.

For example, a bad question would be, "Einstein said, 'God does not play ___ with the universe," because there's a real fact-based answer. A good question is "Einstein said, 'God does not play dice with the universe; however, he does play ___ with it."

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Are topical questions ok? And ones based on characters in well known SF/TV shows?

E.g. "Iron Chef Gordon Ramsey has been hired by BP, and after studying the leaking pipes he's suggested they stuff them with _______"

"After meeting Ru Paul for the first time, MacGuyver reportedly said 'I didn't realise you could ______ with duct tape!'"

"The Large Hadron Collider was shut down yesterday, after PeeWee Herman tried to make ______s collide"

"In order to make the World Cup more acceptable to US fans, the world governing body has decided to give every player a _______"

"Illusionist David Copperfield impressed congress yesterday when he cut open Hillary Clinton and pulled out ________"



that sort of thing?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Yes, topicality and SF/F references are what we intend to use. Thank you!

[crookedfeet.livejournal.com]

How are you for prizes?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

With eight games to potentially generate prizes, we are a little short.

[crookedfeet.livejournal.com]

Leprecon, Inc. can probably dig up something. I'll get Lee to hunt around.