Much belated Coalescaremonium, Industrial Decadence post (11.4.2015)
Last Saturday it was COALESCAREMONIUM, an annual Gothic happening in Bouche à Oreille in Etterbeek, near Brussels. BertVDW and I went last year as well, so obviously we applied for press passes for this year's edition also.
We arrived nearly an hour early, because we thought it would take longer to drive there than we did (and this year we knew whereabouts to park) so we went out to walk around the neighbourhood and see if we could find some good nearby locations to possibly shoot later. We ended up at one side of the Cinquantenaire (a park) and lo and behold, right at the side we were was the Cinquantenaire museum, which was holding the Lascaux exhibit. Sensing something to do, and something to write about for The Gatehouse, I dragged Bert in to see if there was a press discount. And lo and behold, press had free entrance. They even let us into the Lascaux exhibit, which was awesome, and which I wrote a review about on The Gatehouse :)
Well I wrote about the dieselpunk era archaeology aspect, as that's relevant for The Gatehouse.
The event started at 3pm, and we only got there a little late because we kept on wandering in and out bits of the museum proper after the exhibit. In the end we decided to go back this summer, and then I'll write about all the cool clockpunk things they have in there for The Gatehouse. I also want to go to the Museums of the Far East, but that's currently closed for renovations :(
Anyway, back on topic!
This year they had changed the entrance from the one side to the other, and it worked much better!
Last year when you got in you had to drag your stuff through the entire venue, which wasn't the most practical if you carried a lot of things. This year you went straight into the area with the photo corner (which I didn't use because every time I felt like it there were people giving "helpful" posing tips, and that just grates on my nerves), the cloackroom and plenty of tables where you could sit down for a bit. There were also some shops in the room right next to it, and more tables. It was a nice, quiet and cozy area :)
To my knowledge nothing got stolen last year, but this year the cloackroom was guarded, which was nice.
We went upstairs to see what was going on and Bert went to have a look around. The side room upstairs had some art on display and would be used as a little cinema later. There wasn't loads of room but plenty for the people that wanted to watch things :)
There was also loads of seating in the main room (still leaving plenty of room for dancers) and some in the smaller club room as well as outside. There were also a lot of tables you could simply lean at and two bars inside, which means people never had to wait ages for a drink as well as a well organised food stand outside where you could get hamburgers, cheeseburgers and vegetarian burgers. My buddy Debbie very correctly remarked (and I agree) that it was a really nice touch that vegetarians got the same food as everyone else. For the rest there were cupcakes, which looked the same as last year I believe.
I don't think that it would have been an issue if people brought in their own food because of dietary requirements either to be honest, the organisation is very understanding.
And there was SO MUCH choice in drinks, omg! Organic juices, non organic juices, sodas, waters, beers, wine, I think cava as well. And then coffee and tea downstairs.
And all at very reasonable prices. You could get a drinks card that was € 10 with 10 squares. Sodas, juices and waters were al 2 squares (so € 2) and burgers were 4. So for € 6 you could buy a meal with a drink. And basically on one card you could get a meal and 3 drinks (if you didn't take alcohol, which was more expensive).
We said hello to some people we ran into and I went to get a cheeseburger. Sadly at that point they had just opened up, and they hadn't cut up all the veg yet and the little handy papers to keep the burger in (much more practical than the napkin I was given). I did like my burger, but I would have liked some salad on it too!
When I was ordering Lesandre came to say hello, but I was smack in the middle of ordering and didn't want to string along the guy taking my order so I was flailing internally because I didn't want to be rude to Lesandre either XD
So I just excused myself and said I was ordering food. I didn't talk to him again so I hope he didn't think I was being rude, because that definitely wasn't the intention.
Once I had eaten and found a drink (vile Monsanto juice as my sugar levels were way too low, urgh) we ran into Marjan and Tim, who is in Artifakt with me. And then the organising crew and SiSeN arrived and Fred and I were asked to take photos.
Well originally Discipulus and TElombre wanted to pose inside, where there was barely room to do a close quarters portrait of two people, the light sucked
and there were 5 of them, so we went outside. Luckily no too many people came to run in the way (mostly because of mild chiding when they did I think) so I didn't have to throw away too many photos.
When it was time for Candy Coated Circus, Bert had already gone in and kept a spot for me at a table in the front row, that was nice of him :) The burlesque show was really cool to watch, but sadly I'm going to have to be extremely careful about which photos to publish in BCM as people could take offense to the not quite work safe nature. Luckily I've got a few that can't land me in trouble so huzzah, because I definitely not want to exclude that part of the program!
After Candy Coated Circus' show, we found Clara and Tobias, who had arrived late due to some trouble with the GPS and then Bert went to see the opening ceremony whilst I got Clara's birthday present out of the cloakroom. Well it was more like a bag full of presents :)
We took some photos with SiSeN, who I was interviewing for BCM later. I'll be using Bert's outside photos for BCM, because they are much better than mine.
Photo of the day: 11.4.2015 (day 101)
Tobias went to see the band, which was what Bert was doing also and we popped in just for a moment to see but decided we wanted to go take photos instead :) Because the light inside was a bit rubbish, we decided to pop outside and have a look what we could find there. There were these big old bells outside, so we made Easter jokes (as here in Belgium that kind of bell comes over from Rome and delivers Easter eggs, alongside the Easter bunny I suppose, which is gaining popularity slowly).
There was an older guy that suddenly showed up and started a really weird conversation with us, asking for personal info (no bud, I'm not going to tell anyone I met literally 5 seconds prior where I live, just no) and left the second I mentioned my husband. He wasn't rude, far from, but him being in our personal space was a really uncomfortable. I doubt he was being intentionally creepy though, I think he was just there on his own and looking for people to talk to and hang out with, it's just that I run into so many actual proper creeps that I am extremely cautious when strangers step smack into my personal space.
Orchid headband: Crown and Glory
Black rose hairflower: H&M
Glasses: Theo
Goggles: customised vintage
Rosary necklace: customised
Pauldron: Poorman's Gold Label
Armor rings: Poorman's Gold Label
Cardigan: Primark
Dress: Cora Kemperman
Skirt: Cora Kemperman
Bag: Zatchels
Tights: Teja Jamilla
Spats: my own design, made them myself
Boots: Kickers
Accessories: Il Mezzometro, Fossil, asos, Pandora, Abaxion
Back inside we found Bert in conversation about Japan with a guy he bumped into, so we left him at it, Tobias was still wandering somewhere as well, and spend some more time taking pictures. And then Bert and Tobias showed up again, we found SiSeN and went back downstairs where it was quiet to do the interview for BCM :)
And make fujiroid photos :)
We went to see the tribal dance performance,
and saw a bit of Schwartzblut performing.
Clara and Tobias then decided to head home because they still had a ways to go and Bert went back in to photograph the concert some more. I ran into Debbie and we got talking for a while :)
The one thing that REALLY annoyed me, was this guy that Debbie knows who came over to say hello to her and found it absolutely necessary to start knocking on my pauldron like he was knocking on a door. Which wasn't painful but still felt ANNOYING AS FUCK. I mean: WHAT THE FUCK DUDE! You do NOT go over to people you do NOT know and touch them, NO, NO, NO FUCKING WAY! I detest being touched by people I don't know in any case, and this kind of crap is just not ok. When I pointed out to him I was not at all pleased he didn't apologise either, he was all "I didn't knock hard, you can LARP with that thing". NEWSFLASH DUDEBRO, it's not because you CAN twack something you fucking should!
URGH!
Seriously, you do NOT touch strangers! NEVER EVER!
Jeez.
Luckily he left quickly, but it still pissed me off...
Even more lucky is that he was one of the few people that were acting in socialy unacceptable ways, the vast majority were all super kind and friendly.
We hung out some more, ran into Elvire, Helena and Marjan, went to lottery for Eurorock tickets, lost track of Bert, Elvire and Debbie who went inside and then we found them again when the lottery was over.
By that time I was completely beat, so we decided to get our stuff and go home. I said goodbye to the people I ran into, bumped into Gertjan on the way out and talked to him for 5 minutes
before getting our stuff to leave for home.
Hopefully next year I'll be able to stay for the entire event :)
More photos here on my flickr page.
We arrived nearly an hour early, because we thought it would take longer to drive there than we did (and this year we knew whereabouts to park) so we went out to walk around the neighbourhood and see if we could find some good nearby locations to possibly shoot later. We ended up at one side of the Cinquantenaire (a park) and lo and behold, right at the side we were was the Cinquantenaire museum, which was holding the Lascaux exhibit. Sensing something to do, and something to write about for The Gatehouse, I dragged Bert in to see if there was a press discount. And lo and behold, press had free entrance. They even let us into the Lascaux exhibit, which was awesome, and which I wrote a review about on The Gatehouse :)
Well I wrote about the dieselpunk era archaeology aspect, as that's relevant for The Gatehouse.
The event started at 3pm, and we only got there a little late because we kept on wandering in and out bits of the museum proper after the exhibit. In the end we decided to go back this summer, and then I'll write about all the cool clockpunk things they have in there for The Gatehouse. I also want to go to the Museums of the Far East, but that's currently closed for renovations :(
Anyway, back on topic!
This year they had changed the entrance from the one side to the other, and it worked much better!
Last year when you got in you had to drag your stuff through the entire venue, which wasn't the most practical if you carried a lot of things. This year you went straight into the area with the photo corner (which I didn't use because every time I felt like it there were people giving "helpful" posing tips, and that just grates on my nerves), the cloackroom and plenty of tables where you could sit down for a bit. There were also some shops in the room right next to it, and more tables. It was a nice, quiet and cozy area :)
To my knowledge nothing got stolen last year, but this year the cloackroom was guarded, which was nice.
We went upstairs to see what was going on and Bert went to have a look around. The side room upstairs had some art on display and would be used as a little cinema later. There wasn't loads of room but plenty for the people that wanted to watch things :)
There was also loads of seating in the main room (still leaving plenty of room for dancers) and some in the smaller club room as well as outside. There were also a lot of tables you could simply lean at and two bars inside, which means people never had to wait ages for a drink as well as a well organised food stand outside where you could get hamburgers, cheeseburgers and vegetarian burgers. My buddy Debbie very correctly remarked (and I agree) that it was a really nice touch that vegetarians got the same food as everyone else. For the rest there were cupcakes, which looked the same as last year I believe.
I don't think that it would have been an issue if people brought in their own food because of dietary requirements either to be honest, the organisation is very understanding.
And there was SO MUCH choice in drinks, omg! Organic juices, non organic juices, sodas, waters, beers, wine, I think cava as well. And then coffee and tea downstairs.
And all at very reasonable prices. You could get a drinks card that was € 10 with 10 squares. Sodas, juices and waters were al 2 squares (so € 2) and burgers were 4. So for € 6 you could buy a meal with a drink. And basically on one card you could get a meal and 3 drinks (if you didn't take alcohol, which was more expensive).
We said hello to some people we ran into and I went to get a cheeseburger. Sadly at that point they had just opened up, and they hadn't cut up all the veg yet and the little handy papers to keep the burger in (much more practical than the napkin I was given). I did like my burger, but I would have liked some salad on it too!
When I was ordering Lesandre came to say hello, but I was smack in the middle of ordering and didn't want to string along the guy taking my order so I was flailing internally because I didn't want to be rude to Lesandre either XD
So I just excused myself and said I was ordering food. I didn't talk to him again so I hope he didn't think I was being rude, because that definitely wasn't the intention.
Once I had eaten and found a drink (vile Monsanto juice as my sugar levels were way too low, urgh) we ran into Marjan and Tim, who is in Artifakt with me. And then the organising crew and SiSeN arrived and Fred and I were asked to take photos.
Well originally Discipulus and TElombre wanted to pose inside, where there was barely room to do a close quarters portrait of two people, the light sucked
and there were 5 of them, so we went outside. Luckily no too many people came to run in the way (mostly because of mild chiding when they did I think) so I didn't have to throw away too many photos.
When it was time for Candy Coated Circus, Bert had already gone in and kept a spot for me at a table in the front row, that was nice of him :) The burlesque show was really cool to watch, but sadly I'm going to have to be extremely careful about which photos to publish in BCM as people could take offense to the not quite work safe nature. Luckily I've got a few that can't land me in trouble so huzzah, because I definitely not want to exclude that part of the program!
After Candy Coated Circus' show, we found Clara and Tobias, who had arrived late due to some trouble with the GPS and then Bert went to see the opening ceremony whilst I got Clara's birthday present out of the cloakroom. Well it was more like a bag full of presents :)
We took some photos with SiSeN, who I was interviewing for BCM later. I'll be using Bert's outside photos for BCM, because they are much better than mine.
Photo of the day: 11.4.2015 (day 101)
Tobias went to see the band, which was what Bert was doing also and we popped in just for a moment to see but decided we wanted to go take photos instead :) Because the light inside was a bit rubbish, we decided to pop outside and have a look what we could find there. There were these big old bells outside, so we made Easter jokes (as here in Belgium that kind of bell comes over from Rome and delivers Easter eggs, alongside the Easter bunny I suppose, which is gaining popularity slowly).
There was an older guy that suddenly showed up and started a really weird conversation with us, asking for personal info (no bud, I'm not going to tell anyone I met literally 5 seconds prior where I live, just no) and left the second I mentioned my husband. He wasn't rude, far from, but him being in our personal space was a really uncomfortable. I doubt he was being intentionally creepy though, I think he was just there on his own and looking for people to talk to and hang out with, it's just that I run into so many actual proper creeps that I am extremely cautious when strangers step smack into my personal space.
Orchid headband: Crown and Glory
Black rose hairflower: H&M
Glasses: Theo
Goggles: customised vintage
Rosary necklace: customised
Pauldron: Poorman's Gold Label
Armor rings: Poorman's Gold Label
Cardigan: Primark
Dress: Cora Kemperman
Skirt: Cora Kemperman
Bag: Zatchels
Tights: Teja Jamilla
Spats: my own design, made them myself
Boots: Kickers
Accessories: Il Mezzometro, Fossil, asos, Pandora, Abaxion
Back inside we found Bert in conversation about Japan with a guy he bumped into, so we left him at it, Tobias was still wandering somewhere as well, and spend some more time taking pictures. And then Bert and Tobias showed up again, we found SiSeN and went back downstairs where it was quiet to do the interview for BCM :)
And make fujiroid photos :)
We went to see the tribal dance performance,
and saw a bit of Schwartzblut performing.
Clara and Tobias then decided to head home because they still had a ways to go and Bert went back in to photograph the concert some more. I ran into Debbie and we got talking for a while :)
The one thing that REALLY annoyed me, was this guy that Debbie knows who came over to say hello to her and found it absolutely necessary to start knocking on my pauldron like he was knocking on a door. Which wasn't painful but still felt ANNOYING AS FUCK. I mean: WHAT THE FUCK DUDE! You do NOT go over to people you do NOT know and touch them, NO, NO, NO FUCKING WAY! I detest being touched by people I don't know in any case, and this kind of crap is just not ok. When I pointed out to him I was not at all pleased he didn't apologise either, he was all "I didn't knock hard, you can LARP with that thing". NEWSFLASH DUDEBRO, it's not because you CAN twack something you fucking should!
URGH!
Seriously, you do NOT touch strangers! NEVER EVER!
Jeez.
Luckily he left quickly, but it still pissed me off...
Even more lucky is that he was one of the few people that were acting in socialy unacceptable ways, the vast majority were all super kind and friendly.
We hung out some more, ran into Elvire, Helena and Marjan, went to lottery for Eurorock tickets, lost track of Bert, Elvire and Debbie who went inside and then we found them again when the lottery was over.
By that time I was completely beat, so we decided to get our stuff and go home. I said goodbye to the people I ran into, bumped into Gertjan on the way out and talked to him for 5 minutes
before getting our stuff to leave for home.
Hopefully next year I'll be able to stay for the entire event :)
More photos here on my flickr page.