Balticon: Actually, It Was Quite Enjoyable
The Hrab Stage mess notwithstanding, it was really a fine weekend.
My favorite part of running programming is the opportunity to interact with the various participants, especially the Guests of Honor. I tend to be much more comfortable interacting with folks in one-on-one or small groups than in the midst of a larger convention. So, I really cherish the time I get to spend shuttling GOHs to, from, and around the con, as I did this weekend with
quadrivium and Wesley. Even when stuck in rush-hour traffic on both Beltways or meandering through the wilds of Oregon Ridge and Reisterstown to avoid a wreck on I-695 that snarled traffic on I-83 South at least up as far as the Darkover hotel.
Mary was a fantastic guest and we thoroughly enjoyed having her as our Music GOH. In addition to a great main concert, we had her on two panels (Pushing the Boundaries of Filk, along withpartiallyclips and devospice, and a workshop on Fills and Sound Effects) and a kids' concert. Once more, decadentdave and I helped with entertaining the little ones and the young-at-heart. Mary also sat in with maugorn, 
lucsious_purple, albedoblue and I for the Medieval Dance, which was very cool (and filled the room, yet again).
The other concerts on the official filk track were Roberta Rogow,mrpsyklops, decadentdave, and the Boogie Knights. Roberta wound up pinch-hitting for sodyera. It's always great to see mrpsyklops, who I don't get to hear nearly enough of. He brought along his daughter Jennifer, who accompanied him on a bunch of songs. Later in the weekend we had a nice dinner at An Poitin Still. decadentdave had the room singing, as usual. And it was nice to have the Knights back again, for the first time since 2006 (my 1st year running Balticon filk).
The open filking returned to a much more manageable size this year. We still maintained a good number of listeners, and there were enough performers to generally keep things interesting and moving, but not too many so we avoided the can't-get-a-song-in-edgewise problems of last year. In addition to Mary, Dave, Roberta, and Rob & Jennifer, contributers to the open filking includedmeltatum, gottafilk, seishonagon and angstnokami from 
sassafrassmusic, maugorn, and Mattie Brahen. (Argh! Your humble correspondent pauses to note he forgot to request "He Said, She Said" from meltatum!)
A major highlight of the open filk came Saturday night when I "Madiera'd"gottafilk. Technically, I'm a year late--last year's Balticon was actually her first filk. But, I didn't have the lyrics last year and certainly wasn't in practice. This year I was prepared. (Well, except that I didn't bring any actual booze...) gottafilk was a good sport (*grin*). I also played Trained Stunt Guitarist for her on a Torchwood-inspired and a fanfic-inspired song (that will both probably be stuck in my brain for the next two months...)
The Masquerade was quite good this year. 31 entries, including 9 young fan entries. Among the crowd favorites were a trio recreating a scene from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, two entrants costumed as Mr. Mistoffelees and Victoria from Cats (who garnered a big laugh by rubbing up against everyone's favorite vampire host Marty Gear), and and Elizabeth-and-Captain Jack Sparrow pair. There were the usual array of very pretty, sparkly, and shiny original costumes. And the final entry featured local costumer, techie, and playwright Renfield taking over from Marty and presenting a Steampunk Masquerade. Photos will be forthcoming.
We had a pleasant dinner Sunday night at Carraba's withstarmalachite, stevemb, thelongshot, katrinb and Robbie.
meltatum's presentation on Gender and Copyright Issues in Filk was quite interesting. I was glad we actually got double-digit attendance, considering it was a Monday afternoon panel. The survey and paper that were discussed were born out of an annual conference on gender issues that had a theme this year of intellectual property--and mentioned filk in the call for papers! Interested readers are directed to meltatum's LJ and the filk community where the paper and results are mentioned and discussed.
One final note...if anyone attending Balticon ever needs to rent an instrument, we did quite well renting Mary a digital piano from Bill's Music House in Catonsville (about 30 minutes from the HVM). Good service, even managed to score a Yamaha P-120 (Mary's preferred brand). I'll also note they are just down the street from Appalachian Bluegrass, the source of my Seagulls.
My favorite part of running programming is the opportunity to interact with the various participants, especially the Guests of Honor. I tend to be much more comfortable interacting with folks in one-on-one or small groups than in the midst of a larger convention. So, I really cherish the time I get to spend shuttling GOHs to, from, and around the con, as I did this weekend with
quadrivium and Wesley. Even when stuck in rush-hour traffic on both Beltways or meandering through the wilds of Oregon Ridge and Reisterstown to avoid a wreck on I-695 that snarled traffic on I-83 South at least up as far as the Darkover hotel.Mary was a fantastic guest and we thoroughly enjoyed having her as our Music GOH. In addition to a great main concert, we had her on two panels (Pushing the Boundaries of Filk, along with
partiallyclips and devospice, and a workshop on Fills and Sound Effects) and a kids' concert. Once more, decadentdave and I helped with entertaining the little ones and the young-at-heart. Mary also sat in with maugorn, lucsious_purple, albedoblue and I for the Medieval Dance, which was very cool (and filled the room, yet again).The other concerts on the official filk track were Roberta Rogow,
mrpsyklops, decadentdave, and the Boogie Knights. Roberta wound up pinch-hitting for sodyera. It's always great to see mrpsyklops, who I don't get to hear nearly enough of. He brought along his daughter Jennifer, who accompanied him on a bunch of songs. Later in the weekend we had a nice dinner at An Poitin Still. decadentdave had the room singing, as usual. And it was nice to have the Knights back again, for the first time since 2006 (my 1st year running Balticon filk).The open filking returned to a much more manageable size this year. We still maintained a good number of listeners, and there were enough performers to generally keep things interesting and moving, but not too many so we avoided the can't-get-a-song-in-edgewise problems of last year. In addition to Mary, Dave, Roberta, and Rob & Jennifer, contributers to the open filking included
meltatum, gottafilk, seishonagon and angstnokami from sassafrassmusic, maugorn, and Mattie Brahen. (Argh! Your humble correspondent pauses to note he forgot to request "He Said, She Said" from meltatum!)A major highlight of the open filk came Saturday night when I "Madiera'd"
gottafilk. Technically, I'm a year late--last year's Balticon was actually her first filk. But, I didn't have the lyrics last year and certainly wasn't in practice. This year I was prepared. (Well, except that I didn't bring any actual booze...) gottafilk was a good sport (*grin*). I also played Trained Stunt Guitarist for her on a Torchwood-inspired and a fanfic-inspired song (that will both probably be stuck in my brain for the next two months...)The Masquerade was quite good this year. 31 entries, including 9 young fan entries. Among the crowd favorites were a trio recreating a scene from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, two entrants costumed as Mr. Mistoffelees and Victoria from Cats (who garnered a big laugh by rubbing up against everyone's favorite vampire host Marty Gear), and and Elizabeth-and-Captain Jack Sparrow pair. There were the usual array of very pretty, sparkly, and shiny original costumes. And the final entry featured local costumer, techie, and playwright Renfield taking over from Marty and presenting a Steampunk Masquerade. Photos will be forthcoming.
We had a pleasant dinner Sunday night at Carraba's with
starmalachite, stevemb, thelongshot, katrinb and Robbie.meltatum's presentation on Gender and Copyright Issues in Filk was quite interesting. I was glad we actually got double-digit attendance, considering it was a Monday afternoon panel. The survey and paper that were discussed were born out of an annual conference on gender issues that had a theme this year of intellectual property--and mentioned filk in the call for papers! Interested readers are directed to meltatum's LJ and the filk community where the paper and results are mentioned and discussed.One final note...if anyone attending Balticon ever needs to rent an instrument, we did quite well renting Mary a digital piano from Bill's Music House in Catonsville (about 30 minutes from the HVM). Good service, even managed to score a Yamaha P-120 (Mary's preferred brand). I'll also note they are just down the street from Appalachian Bluegrass, the source of my Seagulls.
