Tickets and queueing
Lund International Fantastic Film Festival opens today with Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle. I chickened out and didn't buy a ticket for it, since it starts at 23.50 tonight. I know, I will be awake anyway and I really want to see the film, but there where at least five other films that I had to see and I couldn't afford more than 5 films so there we go.
I thought it would be quite straightforward to get my ticket. I registered on the homepage two days ago and then pre-selling of ticket began at 16 hrs yesterday. I had a lesson at 16.15, and I realized that I probably would be a bit late for it, but I thought that I would have my ticket at 17 at the latest. So very overoptimistic of me.
When I arrived at the City hall a rather long queue had formed. Or two or three queues? Nobody seemed to know. I joined the longest one and checked out the people around me. Lots of high-school goth kids in costumes, but also the regular crowd of "alternative" people. Cute guys in home-knitted green sweaters and lots of tweed caps and black hoodies. The black-clothed sub-culture folks. Sweet in their (or our? I tend to wear black most of the time, don't I?) way. It was fun just to observe and listen to all the different conversations going on. Somehow I managed to over-hear the two guys in front of me discussing whether one needed small yellow queue tickets of not. One of the guys had got one and the other looked a bit lost. By this time our queue had doubled in length, and we were slowly moving towards a computer. Anyway, a girl showed up talked to them and offered to get the guy a ticket, I asked if I could get one too, and thank god for that, as we will see later.
After 45 minutes somebody told me that the queue I stood in was only for registering oneself as a member, which I already had done the day before. Yay for good information. But I did have my little yellow ticket. Number 88. And they were currently serving number 13. That meant that at least I could leave the premises and go and have a coffee and something to eat, since my blood-sugar was really low by then. No lecture, instead I ended up at the city library and tried to find some other people in town. No luck, but a few phone-calls later I thought I would head over to S and hang there for a while, I would just check out which number they were serving at the festival queue. Met a few of my fellow queuers and learnt that they had served another 20 people since I left. Still, there were some rumours about skipping number 39-70 so I thought I would hang around a bit longer. Sat down and tried to read the Elizabeth Moon book I had brought, since studying was out of the question.
Now the time was around 18.30 and I felt rather restless. Decided to take a walk after all, maybe drop in on S. But instead I headed back to the festival again at 19 and joined the rather annoyed crowd that was waiting for ticket. Nobody could hear which number was being served, and we now saw that they only had one computer and three people took turns writing in names and films etc. It took such a long time since most people were buying for others too, sometimes as many a ten per number. Soo slow. Started talking to one of the girls I had met in the queue before and we ended up talking fantasy fiction for the rest of the evening, with another woman joining us later. Since it is a festival of fantastic films, it was very obvious that all the people in the queue were at least to some extent fans of sf/horror/fantasy things. Everybody was there for the same thing and we shared the same canon. A good mix of really serious fans and more light-weight or more eclectically minded fans like myself. No need to explain why you cared for some obscure comic or tv-show, and everybody knew the standards; Buffy, Pratchett, Gaiman etc. Quite fun. A spontaneous convention feeling spread across hall. We cheered when the queue-numbers were called out, and especially toward the end of the night when some numbers weren't there to be served. All that waiting turned out to have been quite fun after all. But still, NOT how I expected to spend my Thursday. We got served around 21.30 and luckily I got a lift home by some of the people I had queued with. And that was by no means the end of the line. My guess is that they closed the line at 22 and continued today, but who knows?
Best of all, I did manage to get the tickets for both the showing of the Brothers Grimm with Terry Gilliam in attendance this Sunday and for Serenity as the final films of the festival next Sunday. The Serenity showing is even some days before the premiere in the States, so for once I'll see something ahead. I did buy ticket for some more typical film festival films. Two Japaneese ones, Otakus in Love and the animé Shin Angyo Onshi. Shin Angyo Onshi was followed by the supposedly rather controversial film A Wicked Tale from Singapore. A re-telling of little Red Riding Hood directed by Tzang Merwyn Tong. I still haven't picked up my fifth ticket, since I really want to see Mirror Mask but I also would like to see Romasanta with Julian Sands as a werewolf. The last film sound rather crappy on IMDB, but still, it is the kind of film this festival is all about. BUT I really, really want to Mirror Mask, and I don't think it will show in the normal cinemas here in Sweden. Hm. I'll see tomorrow if there are any ticket left to either of them.
Beautiful cold and sunny autumn afternoon here, so I'll better head out for a walk while this weather lasts. Have started to wear my old Barbour again, and I think last years renovation-work on it was worth every krona. A new one costs thousands of kronas, and this one still have quite a few years left in it. But I do kind of need a new pair of walking shoes. How I will be able to afford that is another question. And trousers, since I have two pairs at the moment that can be worn when it's cold. Those summer capri pants were great in 30 degrees Celsius, but now, when we have around 10-15 degrees C, not so good.
I thought it would be quite straightforward to get my ticket. I registered on the homepage two days ago and then pre-selling of ticket began at 16 hrs yesterday. I had a lesson at 16.15, and I realized that I probably would be a bit late for it, but I thought that I would have my ticket at 17 at the latest. So very overoptimistic of me.
When I arrived at the City hall a rather long queue had formed. Or two or three queues? Nobody seemed to know. I joined the longest one and checked out the people around me. Lots of high-school goth kids in costumes, but also the regular crowd of "alternative" people. Cute guys in home-knitted green sweaters and lots of tweed caps and black hoodies. The black-clothed sub-culture folks. Sweet in their (or our? I tend to wear black most of the time, don't I?) way. It was fun just to observe and listen to all the different conversations going on. Somehow I managed to over-hear the two guys in front of me discussing whether one needed small yellow queue tickets of not. One of the guys had got one and the other looked a bit lost. By this time our queue had doubled in length, and we were slowly moving towards a computer. Anyway, a girl showed up talked to them and offered to get the guy a ticket, I asked if I could get one too, and thank god for that, as we will see later.
After 45 minutes somebody told me that the queue I stood in was only for registering oneself as a member, which I already had done the day before. Yay for good information. But I did have my little yellow ticket. Number 88. And they were currently serving number 13. That meant that at least I could leave the premises and go and have a coffee and something to eat, since my blood-sugar was really low by then. No lecture, instead I ended up at the city library and tried to find some other people in town. No luck, but a few phone-calls later I thought I would head over to S and hang there for a while, I would just check out which number they were serving at the festival queue. Met a few of my fellow queuers and learnt that they had served another 20 people since I left. Still, there were some rumours about skipping number 39-70 so I thought I would hang around a bit longer. Sat down and tried to read the Elizabeth Moon book I had brought, since studying was out of the question.
Now the time was around 18.30 and I felt rather restless. Decided to take a walk after all, maybe drop in on S. But instead I headed back to the festival again at 19 and joined the rather annoyed crowd that was waiting for ticket. Nobody could hear which number was being served, and we now saw that they only had one computer and three people took turns writing in names and films etc. It took such a long time since most people were buying for others too, sometimes as many a ten per number. Soo slow. Started talking to one of the girls I had met in the queue before and we ended up talking fantasy fiction for the rest of the evening, with another woman joining us later. Since it is a festival of fantastic films, it was very obvious that all the people in the queue were at least to some extent fans of sf/horror/fantasy things. Everybody was there for the same thing and we shared the same canon. A good mix of really serious fans and more light-weight or more eclectically minded fans like myself. No need to explain why you cared for some obscure comic or tv-show, and everybody knew the standards; Buffy, Pratchett, Gaiman etc. Quite fun. A spontaneous convention feeling spread across hall. We cheered when the queue-numbers were called out, and especially toward the end of the night when some numbers weren't there to be served. All that waiting turned out to have been quite fun after all. But still, NOT how I expected to spend my Thursday. We got served around 21.30 and luckily I got a lift home by some of the people I had queued with. And that was by no means the end of the line. My guess is that they closed the line at 22 and continued today, but who knows?
Best of all, I did manage to get the tickets for both the showing of the Brothers Grimm with Terry Gilliam in attendance this Sunday and for Serenity as the final films of the festival next Sunday. The Serenity showing is even some days before the premiere in the States, so for once I'll see something ahead. I did buy ticket for some more typical film festival films. Two Japaneese ones, Otakus in Love and the animé Shin Angyo Onshi. Shin Angyo Onshi was followed by the supposedly rather controversial film A Wicked Tale from Singapore. A re-telling of little Red Riding Hood directed by Tzang Merwyn Tong. I still haven't picked up my fifth ticket, since I really want to see Mirror Mask but I also would like to see Romasanta with Julian Sands as a werewolf. The last film sound rather crappy on IMDB, but still, it is the kind of film this festival is all about. BUT I really, really want to Mirror Mask, and I don't think it will show in the normal cinemas here in Sweden. Hm. I'll see tomorrow if there are any ticket left to either of them.
Beautiful cold and sunny autumn afternoon here, so I'll better head out for a walk while this weather lasts. Have started to wear my old Barbour again, and I think last years renovation-work on it was worth every krona. A new one costs thousands of kronas, and this one still have quite a few years left in it. But I do kind of need a new pair of walking shoes. How I will be able to afford that is another question. And trousers, since I have two pairs at the moment that can be worn when it's cold. Those summer capri pants were great in 30 degrees Celsius, but now, when we have around 10-15 degrees C, not so good.