Loscon Report -- part 2
- From: Lee Gold <lee.gold@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:48:08 -0800
My interim report forgot to mention that when we first looked into the
Denver room, we found only about twenty chairs, set up about the
outside walls, I sent Barry off to the Office room to request more
chairs.
As soon as Alexander Adams' concert was over on Friday afternoon in
Ballroom C at 5 PM, sound crew Barney Evans and Greg Gross, with the
help of Blars (whom I awarded a Staff ribbon, which allowed him to eat
in the Staff lounge) moved the stage and speakers and microphones and
other stuff halfway across the hotel to the Denver room and started
doing sound checks. I'd asked Barney how much time he thought
it would take to do this. "Two hours," he said, so I blocked off
three hours for the moving and the sound checks.
The extra chairs hadn't arrived, so I sent Barry off to Office again.
This time we got them and set them up -- after the sound crew had
set up the stage and microphones. I also ssent Barry off to ask
for pitchers of ice water and glasses, and had him get the extension
number to phone for when we needed more. By 8 PM, we were ready for the
Bohnhoffs. We also stowed a music stand in the corner of the room
for Dr. James' concert at 9 PM.
Then we reset the room into a circle -- AND I put up the PHOTO
and NO PHOTO signs. We got to bed around 2 AM.
We were both awake at 6 AM and drove home, where we got the Kazoo
Awards (voted on at ConChord) and made a light breakfast of
leftovers. Then we drove back to the hotel and fell back into bed.
We got to the Denver room at 1 PM and found the sound crew doing
sound checks for the afternoon concerts. They'd gotten there and
found the room set up with perimeter-only chairs, but gone to Office
and requested more chairs, and the Staff ribbons I'd gotten them
had meant this went through. I don't have words enough to praise
Barney and Greg and Blars as wonderful. I had Barry phone for
more ice water and glasses.
Steve Savitzsky's half hour concert ran 2-2:30 PM, with Chaos
Savitzky helping on drum and vocals. He introduced some songs
as being on his new album, a few more as destined for the next album
which he swore would be out in 2009, and a couple as destined
for the album after that.
Moira Stern brought her glittering gold harp and gave us folksongs
(includign the Great Silkie) and operatic arias (including one
from Gianna Schichi, which I may have not spelled correctly, in
English), 2:35-3:05. She was the only concert performer who'd
given permission for the Dutch TV film crew to photo her, and they
were there with bright lights and camera, but didn't seem to get
into her way. Afterwards, they took her out in the corridor and
interviewed her. And eventually I gave them about five minutes.
Moira's harp stayed in the room the rest of the day. It was there
when we locked up that night but not when we got there Sunday morning
so I assume she eventually got it.
She was followed by Lynn Maudlin with more folksongs, some serious,
some funny. I should note that all the performers at this convention
arrived well before time, and that we never ran late.
And then I got on stage along with Kay Shapero who had made the Kazoos
and explained we had some unfinished business from this year's
Conchord ("No, Dr. James, don't go away") and called him up on stage
to accept two Kazoos awarded for Cynthia's songs and one for one of
his own songs. He accepted with tears in his eyes for Cynthia's.
Then he presented another hour program of his own songs, explaining
them with autobiographical notes of where Dr. Jane had been at
when she wrote them.
After that we had a dinner break till 8 PM, when Barry did
"Banned from Argo" to a small audience, and we then moved to
open filking, with the room gradually filling up. Alexander
Adams later apologized for not attending but explain it was his
wife's birthday and he was taking her own, but all our other
concert filkers were there, and the filking was wonderful.
After only five hours sleep the day before we weren't up to
dawn patrol, and we were back in bed by 2 AM or so.
Sunday morning, Dr. James told Barry his voice wasn't up to
leading a theme circle, especially without sound amplification,
so Barry anchored the Critters theme circle, and then we went
off to Alexander Adams' second concert (which had some new
material).
After that we headed back to the Denver for more singing,
planning to go home if not many people showed up, but instead
more and more people came in, and there were twenty or more
people there at 5 PM. They started raiding my songbags,
sometimes asking to hear new songs, sometimes singing songs
they'd just found there but whose melodies they knew.
Dr. James drifted in around 8 PM, borrowed Barry's six-string
nylon, and did some songs. Eventually we pleaded that Barry
had to be at work tomorrow, and we all hugged each other goodbye
and we got home at 10 PM and fell into bed.
This morning I drove back to the hotel at 8:30 AM to pick up
Chris Paige (a Tucson Arizona filker) to bring back to our home
for a bit to watch some "Blake's Seven" and then took her back there.
I have spent the rest of the day napping.
The convention filking went smoothly, in part thanks to the
concom for giving me the room I asked for -- one with no
amplified sound sharing a wall with it or across the corridor
from it and thanks to wonderful performers who showed up
when they said they would (though the fact that I emailed them
schedules and made sure they were okay certainly helped)
and having a great sound crew plus other dependable staffers.
--Lee
.
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