C3, or something like it.
So. Here goes my C3 entry for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I suspect this will be long, so ...
Tuesday
Tuesday starts early. Tuesday starts so early in fact that it's pretty much Monday. This is mostly due to the fact that I didn't sleep between Monday and Tuesday. Instead, I stayed up in the office sewing Imperial uniforms and other bits of costumes. I *think* this was the night that Nori, Little Steph, Alex, and Rogue stayed with me for awhile, but I'm not entirely sure. Whenever it was, we watched A Lost Hope, which became quote fodder for the rest of the week. ("You hit too hard, ass! I swear!") At 4:30 am I got a call from elsinoreblue saying her car had been stolen, with her sewing machine and the Leia wigs in the trunk. (When we got home from C3, we found out that the car had been recovered minus several car parts and the sewing machine, but plus the wigs.) This prompted an emergency post to the C&P board begging for wig advice and/or a wig. (I think C&P was getting pretty sick of my begging posts by then.)
With the help of a wig-savvy friend from work, elsinoreblue produced a very reasonable facsimile of a Leia buns wig. Making a ceremonial wig was out of the question, so I just wore the same one all show. I continued to sew up until rehearsal at 6 pm, having sent a detailed email to Rogue explaining what he ought to pack for me and asking if he could bring me an extra clean Tshirt as I was getting pretty stinky. We had an all-over-the-place rehearsal as we tried to gather our belongings, costumes, props, droids, and actors. Kimmerie came with the Modal Node heads, her mom, and her four-day old baby who is the cutest tiniest thing ever. Eventually we bagged all the costumes, put the boots and helmets in rubbermaid tubs, and packed everything on the bus. Most of our personal stuff had to come on the bus with us. Luckily, there were almost two seats for every person. We got underway around 11 pm.
We tried to watch Red vs Blue, but were thwarted by the bus's sound system, which caused only one channel to play so we couldn't hear Grif at all. So in went the Trilogy. Janet and I made signs to stick on the windows and encouraged others to do likewise. I'm not sure if my favorite was portnoyslp's "Rebel pilots do it in the trench!" or Derek's "Wookiees are not furries!". I got about six hours of sleep in two-hour segments. The seats were highly uncomfortable and I didn't have a pillow.
Wednesday
We stopped somewhere in western New York for a bathroom break and spotted a happy face with a pirate hat drawn on the interstate with tar. I hope someone got a picture of it. Once the sun came up, the needles and thread came out as I taught volunteers how to hem Modal Node pants. We didn't get nearly enough done, though. We pulled into Indy around 3 pm or so and drove around trying to find where we were supposed to unload our stuff. We waited awhile while Rogue and Jax figured out what was going on. Finally they came back and told us that GenCon didn't have our badges, so they were trying to get us new ones and meanwhile we could unload into an unused corner of Hall C until the badges got there. This was our first clue of how not-smoothly things were going to run.
After unloading, we played an enormous game of Catchphrase until we were informed by a member of the setup crew that we were in the way and would have to move. So we dragged everything a little further into Hall C, which irritated the Diorama people but we assured them we'd be moving soon. Aaaany time now. Yeah. I observed that the Obi-Wan and Anakin on the banner of the Jedi Training Academy stage looked very much like they were about to kiss each other. Monty didn't see it, but everyone else agreed with me. (The slash writes itself!) Finally, we had our badges and got to drag our stuff even further to our green room, just across from Hall G.
After all of this, it was 6 pm and we only had an hour till rehearsal, so we booked over to our hotel, the Crowne Plaza. I had my first shower since Monday morning (in Alice's room, thank you Alice!) and got to change my clothes for the first time, too. It was heaven. I think we might have eaten somewhere in there, but I'm not sure. Also, Dad met up with us as we were walking to the hotel. He'd gotten in much earlier that day. It was beautiful and sunny, the only nice weather we would have in Indy all weekend.
Back to the green room to get ready for rehearsal. We didn't have any lights or sound, so we basically got used to our costumes, props, sets, and the stage. We were there for four hours, but a lot of it was standing around waiting. I expected to keep sewing, but Jax told us we had to be out of the convention center by 11 (how nice of the staff to inform us at 10 minutes till) and I freaked out on her. (Me freaking out on people was a very common theme until about Friday. It returned on Sunday, too. Sorry, everyone, I know I'm not cut out to be in charge, but someone had to do it. Don't worry, it'll be Nori for fall and she's amazingly level-headed.) elsinoreblue calmed me down and organized a sewing party in her room for that night. We carted everything over. (But we had a drink in the hotel bar first.)
Thursday
And what a merry party we were: elsinoreblue working on boot covers, me on my Leia dress, Bonk on his Vader belt, Todd sewing pilot strapping, flaggday, collamalleen, and lurknomore hemming pilot jumpsuits, and Nori passed out on the bed on top of her Threepio wiring supplies. Colleen kept us in Starburst and Rollos, and Todd sang us the weirdest song ever about an alligator eating bits of a child. It was hysterical, if by hysterical you also mean completely bone-tired exhausted. I went back to my room a bit after five in the morning.
And then I was up again at 7:15 because we had an 8 am rehearsal. Only it was more like "get dressed and then wait around for a long time." We also had the marvelous news that our rehearsal had been cut short 45 minutes, so we were ending at 11:15. We got through just over half of the show with lights and microphones, so our first performance that afternoon was really going to be more of an invited dress. I stayed in the green room (along with a bunch of other people) to work on costumes before the first performance, and Alice bless her heart took orders for Chick-Fil-A for lunch from a bunch of us. I think this is when I was working on the pilot vests and I was completely flipping out that they weren't going to get done, but Kristin Suess didn't listen when I told her to quit sewing Velcro because we weren't going to finish, and she DID finish them so we had pilot flak vests, yay for Kristin! :) (I *think* this was all Thursday. It might well have been Friday. The early days were really a big blur of freak-outs and sewing to me.) Also I think this is when Nori ate Rub-n-buff off her fingers because it's lipid-soluble and she was eating chick-fil-a.
So. Finally we came to our first performance. The crowd of 200-300 was tiny by C3 standards (the room held 3000) but would have been a sellout in our usual theaters. Since we hadn't had a full technical rehearsal, there were some glitches, but the audience forgave us and laughed right along. We had to keep remembering we had body mikes on, and the audience can *hear* you when you stage-whisper "FUCK!". But sometimes you get lucky, like when you hiss "My armor has no ass!" but your mike isn't on. I think the Thursday crowd might have been the happiest and most easily pleased one we had all weekend.
After the performance, I decided that under no circumstances was I going to do ANY MORE sewing, so Mark, Nori, and I hit the con floor. They were almost immediately ensnared by a bin of loose vintage figures. Eventually they pried themselves away and we saw the Lego booth, the M&M booth, and many other fascinating things. Rogue joined up with us after a bit, and we went over to Johnny Rocket's to have a snack to hold us through the Opening Ceremonies until dinner. At 7:45 we all convened to head over the the Opening Ceremonies wearing our new SWME C3 tshirts. When we arrived backstage, it was pretty clear that no one had a clue what was going on. So we settled into some open space behind the stage (we were carefully kept away from the celebs, can't imagine why) and listened to a VERY LOUD jazz band playing SW tunes. We were really into it for the first couple songs, dancing away (got lots of stares and a guy with a video camera came over), but we got tired after awhile, and it was SO LOUD. Some of the SW30 crew (named, confusingly enough, Mark and James) wandered over, and we made friends. We found out we were all staying in the same hotel, and decided we should all hang out at the pool together.
Finally the band ended and the speeches started. Jay Lagasomethingorother, aka Captain Typho, came out and sang The Saga Begins, which was totally awesome. Not nearly enough of us knew the words, but Rogue, Timmy, and I sang along at the top of our lungs, and everyone else joined in on the chorus. And then at last we were told we were up soon! One-man and SW30 were before us, so we watched them, and then we went on to sing Trilogy Tonight. It was rather difficult, with only four microphones at the front of the stage, but we managed as best we could. We had no idea whether the audience "got it" or not; the faces in the front row that we could see were very very blank. But we were all pretty hyped up afterward and sang as we went through the halls. I paused just long enough to hug Aaron and Tim as we were leaving.
And at last, off to Alcatraz for our opening night dinner. Aside from the waitress not bringing my damn Mudslide in anything resembling a timely fashion, it was lots of fun. Timmy drew strange pictures of Teesa with the crayons Rogue brought over. And then we were done. And I went to bed. I think. There may have been something else afterward? I'm not sure. Somebody remind me.
Tuesday
Tuesday starts early. Tuesday starts so early in fact that it's pretty much Monday. This is mostly due to the fact that I didn't sleep between Monday and Tuesday. Instead, I stayed up in the office sewing Imperial uniforms and other bits of costumes. I *think* this was the night that Nori, Little Steph, Alex, and Rogue stayed with me for awhile, but I'm not entirely sure. Whenever it was, we watched A Lost Hope, which became quote fodder for the rest of the week. ("You hit too hard, ass! I swear!") At 4:30 am I got a call from elsinoreblue saying her car had been stolen, with her sewing machine and the Leia wigs in the trunk. (When we got home from C3, we found out that the car had been recovered minus several car parts and the sewing machine, but plus the wigs.) This prompted an emergency post to the C&P board begging for wig advice and/or a wig. (I think C&P was getting pretty sick of my begging posts by then.)
With the help of a wig-savvy friend from work, elsinoreblue produced a very reasonable facsimile of a Leia buns wig. Making a ceremonial wig was out of the question, so I just wore the same one all show. I continued to sew up until rehearsal at 6 pm, having sent a detailed email to Rogue explaining what he ought to pack for me and asking if he could bring me an extra clean Tshirt as I was getting pretty stinky. We had an all-over-the-place rehearsal as we tried to gather our belongings, costumes, props, droids, and actors. Kimmerie came with the Modal Node heads, her mom, and her four-day old baby who is the cutest tiniest thing ever. Eventually we bagged all the costumes, put the boots and helmets in rubbermaid tubs, and packed everything on the bus. Most of our personal stuff had to come on the bus with us. Luckily, there were almost two seats for every person. We got underway around 11 pm.
We tried to watch Red vs Blue, but were thwarted by the bus's sound system, which caused only one channel to play so we couldn't hear Grif at all. So in went the Trilogy. Janet and I made signs to stick on the windows and encouraged others to do likewise. I'm not sure if my favorite was portnoyslp's "Rebel pilots do it in the trench!" or Derek's "Wookiees are not furries!". I got about six hours of sleep in two-hour segments. The seats were highly uncomfortable and I didn't have a pillow.
Wednesday
We stopped somewhere in western New York for a bathroom break and spotted a happy face with a pirate hat drawn on the interstate with tar. I hope someone got a picture of it. Once the sun came up, the needles and thread came out as I taught volunteers how to hem Modal Node pants. We didn't get nearly enough done, though. We pulled into Indy around 3 pm or so and drove around trying to find where we were supposed to unload our stuff. We waited awhile while Rogue and Jax figured out what was going on. Finally they came back and told us that GenCon didn't have our badges, so they were trying to get us new ones and meanwhile we could unload into an unused corner of Hall C until the badges got there. This was our first clue of how not-smoothly things were going to run.
After unloading, we played an enormous game of Catchphrase until we were informed by a member of the setup crew that we were in the way and would have to move. So we dragged everything a little further into Hall C, which irritated the Diorama people but we assured them we'd be moving soon. Aaaany time now. Yeah. I observed that the Obi-Wan and Anakin on the banner of the Jedi Training Academy stage looked very much like they were about to kiss each other. Monty didn't see it, but everyone else agreed with me. (The slash writes itself!) Finally, we had our badges and got to drag our stuff even further to our green room, just across from Hall G.
After all of this, it was 6 pm and we only had an hour till rehearsal, so we booked over to our hotel, the Crowne Plaza. I had my first shower since Monday morning (in Alice's room, thank you Alice!) and got to change my clothes for the first time, too. It was heaven. I think we might have eaten somewhere in there, but I'm not sure. Also, Dad met up with us as we were walking to the hotel. He'd gotten in much earlier that day. It was beautiful and sunny, the only nice weather we would have in Indy all weekend.
Back to the green room to get ready for rehearsal. We didn't have any lights or sound, so we basically got used to our costumes, props, sets, and the stage. We were there for four hours, but a lot of it was standing around waiting. I expected to keep sewing, but Jax told us we had to be out of the convention center by 11 (how nice of the staff to inform us at 10 minutes till) and I freaked out on her. (Me freaking out on people was a very common theme until about Friday. It returned on Sunday, too. Sorry, everyone, I know I'm not cut out to be in charge, but someone had to do it. Don't worry, it'll be Nori for fall and she's amazingly level-headed.) elsinoreblue calmed me down and organized a sewing party in her room for that night. We carted everything over. (But we had a drink in the hotel bar first.)
Thursday
And what a merry party we were: elsinoreblue working on boot covers, me on my Leia dress, Bonk on his Vader belt, Todd sewing pilot strapping, flaggday, collamalleen, and lurknomore hemming pilot jumpsuits, and Nori passed out on the bed on top of her Threepio wiring supplies. Colleen kept us in Starburst and Rollos, and Todd sang us the weirdest song ever about an alligator eating bits of a child. It was hysterical, if by hysterical you also mean completely bone-tired exhausted. I went back to my room a bit after five in the morning.
And then I was up again at 7:15 because we had an 8 am rehearsal. Only it was more like "get dressed and then wait around for a long time." We also had the marvelous news that our rehearsal had been cut short 45 minutes, so we were ending at 11:15. We got through just over half of the show with lights and microphones, so our first performance that afternoon was really going to be more of an invited dress. I stayed in the green room (along with a bunch of other people) to work on costumes before the first performance, and Alice bless her heart took orders for Chick-Fil-A for lunch from a bunch of us. I think this is when I was working on the pilot vests and I was completely flipping out that they weren't going to get done, but Kristin Suess didn't listen when I told her to quit sewing Velcro because we weren't going to finish, and she DID finish them so we had pilot flak vests, yay for Kristin! :) (I *think* this was all Thursday. It might well have been Friday. The early days were really a big blur of freak-outs and sewing to me.) Also I think this is when Nori ate Rub-n-buff off her fingers because it's lipid-soluble and she was eating chick-fil-a.
So. Finally we came to our first performance. The crowd of 200-300 was tiny by C3 standards (the room held 3000) but would have been a sellout in our usual theaters. Since we hadn't had a full technical rehearsal, there were some glitches, but the audience forgave us and laughed right along. We had to keep remembering we had body mikes on, and the audience can *hear* you when you stage-whisper "FUCK!". But sometimes you get lucky, like when you hiss "My armor has no ass!" but your mike isn't on. I think the Thursday crowd might have been the happiest and most easily pleased one we had all weekend.
After the performance, I decided that under no circumstances was I going to do ANY MORE sewing, so Mark, Nori, and I hit the con floor. They were almost immediately ensnared by a bin of loose vintage figures. Eventually they pried themselves away and we saw the Lego booth, the M&M booth, and many other fascinating things. Rogue joined up with us after a bit, and we went over to Johnny Rocket's to have a snack to hold us through the Opening Ceremonies until dinner. At 7:45 we all convened to head over the the Opening Ceremonies wearing our new SWME C3 tshirts. When we arrived backstage, it was pretty clear that no one had a clue what was going on. So we settled into some open space behind the stage (we were carefully kept away from the celebs, can't imagine why) and listened to a VERY LOUD jazz band playing SW tunes. We were really into it for the first couple songs, dancing away (got lots of stares and a guy with a video camera came over), but we got tired after awhile, and it was SO LOUD. Some of the SW30 crew (named, confusingly enough, Mark and James) wandered over, and we made friends. We found out we were all staying in the same hotel, and decided we should all hang out at the pool together.
Finally the band ended and the speeches started. Jay Lagasomethingorother, aka Captain Typho, came out and sang The Saga Begins, which was totally awesome. Not nearly enough of us knew the words, but Rogue, Timmy, and I sang along at the top of our lungs, and everyone else joined in on the chorus. And then at last we were told we were up soon! One-man and SW30 were before us, so we watched them, and then we went on to sing Trilogy Tonight. It was rather difficult, with only four microphones at the front of the stage, but we managed as best we could. We had no idea whether the audience "got it" or not; the faces in the front row that we could see were very very blank. But we were all pretty hyped up afterward and sang as we went through the halls. I paused just long enough to hug Aaron and Tim as we were leaving.
And at last, off to Alcatraz for our opening night dinner. Aside from the waitress not bringing my damn Mudslide in anything resembling a timely fashion, it was lots of fun. Timmy drew strange pictures of Teesa with the crayons Rogue brought over. And then we were done. And I went to bed. I think. There may have been something else afterward? I'm not sure. Somebody remind me.