Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

As is often the case, there was some technical worries over this morning's setup for Match Game SF. It turns out to have been very useful for Lisa to have brought her new speakers and the full scale tech kit. Kudos to her for being able to get things running when the primary tech had problems getting their equipment back online from last night. It was also very lucky that the panel scheduled for the ballroom at 10 AM was canceled, because we needed that extra hour of set-up time to get everything in place for our Noon start time.

Everything came together in the end, and we had a great show this afternoon.
( Photos behind the cut )

Thank you so much to everyone who worked so hard to make the show happen. We may have had about thirty people in the audience, but given the relatively anemic attendance here at SiliCon, that's not too bad. And for a change, we gave away quite a few of our bonus-round prizes, with three of our six finalists hitting the Super Match for prizes including a membership to Westercon 64 and a copy of The Turtle Moves donated by the North American Discworld Convention. I hope David W. Clark didn't die of shock when someone actually came to him to redeem one of the $20 Cargo Cult gift certificates that have been sitting in the prize bin for several years now without having been won.

We did a full six games (three games, a break, then three more games). I think that's only the second or third time we've ever done six, and I'd forgotten how exhausting it can be to do that many. I don't notice it while I'm doing the show, but after we're packed out of the room, the reaction starts to set in. I can see why the star might need a dressing room in which to decompress after the show. In my case, being the executive producer as well, I don't have quite that much flexibility -- besides, we had to go get lunch! While I'd had a full breakfast, Lisa had only had a croissant to eat all day.

After eating, we came back to the hotel and brought my computer down to sit across from the Westercon 64 table while I helped travelswithkuma with his photos and uploaded photos from the Westercon 64 party last night.

Now we have a little break for a couple of hours before the 1000th of meeting of BASFA, which will be this evening in the Doubletree Hotel's "Quiet Bar," that being where BASFA started nearly twenty years ago. Then we'll need to pack up most of our stuff and I'll need to repack for tomorrow, as I must get out of here in the morning and fly to Chicago for the week for a business meeting.

Around 10:30 on Saturday night I started feeling unwell. I excused myself from the Westercon 64 party early -- Lisa and I had helped with the party setup after closing the table while Chairman Glenn Glazer went shopping for party supplies -- and turned in early. I really cannot afford to be sick.

Sara Bruce has agreed to join our panel of "ding-a-lings" on Match Game SF at SiliCon, along with Glenn Glazer, who joins our "returning regulars" Kevin Roche, Andy Trembley, Chris Garcia, and Leigh Ann Hildebrand on Sunday at Noon in the Siskiyou/Donner Pass Ballroom. I hope we'll see lots of people there trying to fill in the ____s.

Remember that we're scheduled to do Match Game SF at SiliCon 2009 on Sunday, October 4, from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM in the Siskiyou/Donner Pass Ballroom. That's actually a bit too long, although it allows us time to get set up and torn down. I don't think we'll fill all three-plus hours. With that much leeway, and with a panel in the room before us, I've proposed starting the first game at Noon. My normal insistence on a prompt start is due to us being time-constrained, which we do not appear to be this year. I'm planning on bringing enough material for five games, with a sixth -- probably "rerun" using older material -- in reserve. And we'll almost certainly take a ten-minute break after game 3 because everyone needs a bathroom break.

Lisa just called to tell me that she's bought new speakers and that we really don't need any of the convention's tech gear. I hope this doesn't lead to a collision between tech teams.

I can still use more questions, and a production assistant volunteer or two would be very helpful. Write to me at my LJ handle @livejournal.com and the message will get to me. Thanks!

We had another good Match Game SF show this afternoon.

( Photo Story beyond the cut )

And then we were done, to the applause of dozens -- but given how few people attended SiliCon and that this was the last tranche of programming of the convention before the wrap-up panel, I think we had a significant percentage of the people still at the convention attending. The Tech Team started striking their gear, and the Match Game crew struck the game set.

( More show thoughts, thank yous, and what happened after )

And now I think I'm done and need to get some rest.

Not having any early-morning commitments today, I didn't have to rush through breakfast. I had breakfast with Raven O'Neill (lisa_marli let Raven, whose expected roommates had flaked out, use the other bed in the room of which I'm renting a share), then changed into my WSFS captain's outfit. (I'm glad I didn't try to eat breakfast in the uniform -- I spilled coffee on my shirt at breakfast.)

SiliCon is pretty lightly attended, but we've had a steady stream of traffic here at the SJ 2011 Westercon bid table, so I haven't had a huge amount of time to be paying attention to the computer.

I expect to spend most of today doing table duty here at the Westercon table, because I will have no time tomorrow on account of Match Game SF.

I printed more bid stickers for the bid a couple of nights ago. As our existing stock was on the last sheet, Glenn Glazer looked at the labels I brought. He couldn't peel off a sticker. Upon closer examination, it became clear that I'd fed the label stock into the printer wrong-side up. *heasmack* I might have access to a color printer here in the Fanzine Lounge.

Fortunately for me, when I had a look inside the Big Box o' Stuff for Match Game SF, I found a small supply of blank A/B cards -- overruns from a previous show. There were enough for me to print the questions for our show at SiliCon. I'm planning to do four games in two hours, and we have material (some re-runs) for two more if we under-run, but that's rare. What's more likely is that if we end up having multiple tie games like we did at Worldcon, we'll only get three games in before we hit our hard stop at 3:50 to allow turnover for the Feedback session.

Again, anyone who wants to come help with setup is encouraged to come by the Siskiyou/Donner Pass Ballroom from 1 PM onward on Sunday.

I expect to be heading down to the Doubletree pretty soon. I don't know what my internet connectivity will be, although even if it's pay-to-play, I'll probably need to spring for it at least for today, for I'm effectively on call until late this afternoon.

Lisa called this afternoon. Her tinnitus is so bad that she said she can't come to Silicon because she can't sleep and the noise is driving her mad. I have an appointment to take her for an MRI on October 13, after I drive up there the previous weekend. At this point, I hope they do find something amiss so that there's some hope of treatment.

Anyway, as Lisa is not coming, she won't be able to use her membership. Anyone need a membership to Silicon?

Update, 22:00: The membership is spoken for, assuming Silicon's Registration people can take my word on it -- there's no way I can get anything in writing from Lisa in time, and she doesn't do e-mail. But I'm the person who bought the membership in the first place, and I think Silicon's management knows me.

I went down to the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose this afternoon for the SiliCon staff meeting so I could meet briefly with the head of programming and the hotel liaison to review the set-up we'd prefer to do Match Game SF at SiliCon. The current plan is for us to be the final program item before the "Hiss & Purr" session on Sunday, with a run time from 2 to 4 PM. That means that in practice we have until 1:45 at the latest, and based on our usual run time per game, the most we could conceivably fit into that time is five games, and four -- or even three if we go into tie breakers -- is possible.

They are putting us in the primary programming space -- the same room as the Masquerade and other "big tech" items. That's good and bad. The good is that it has a stage and therefore we should be able to do the staggered-tier seating for the panelist. It's good because we'll have the mainstage tech available. It's bad because it's likely that the convention tech team will want to run the tech, and that's likely to going to cause Lisa to not want to do anything at all. She can do a very good job on the tech if people get out of her way. What's not easy is bringing people up to speed on exactly what we want to do with no rehearsal or set-up time.

Remember that I fret a lot over set-up, and that the shows normally go pretty well. As the show's executive producer, my job is to worry. As the host, my job is to smile and make everyone else look good on the day.

The SiliCon folks were kind enough to let me get my business done early, so I could go ahead and leave less than an hour after I arrived, which meant I only had to pay for an hour's parking.

I do still need more questions for Match Game SF, for we're doing a show at Worldcon and now possibly at SiliCon. Yes, it's possible to re-use questions -- and I do so -- because the audiences often haven't seen them before, but it's better for the panelists if the questions are fresh. Fortunately, we can re-use questions without creating game show scandals, because of the nature of Match Game. I just want to keep recycling down to a minimum except when we have a mostly-new panel and audience, as we did at Norwescon earlier this year.

You can e-mail me your questions -- if you don't already have my e-mail address, use my LJ handle @LiveJournal.com. Posting them as comments means other people end up seeing them; whether you want to do that is up to you.