...Everybody's working for the weekend. Everybody wants a little romance...

[hazelchaz]

Photos now online: Cosplay Picnic at Pearson Park (04-Apr-2009)

Saturday morning, after I dropped off Sarah, I headed over to the park. squiptryx0 was organizing a cosplay picnic to tell fans about loscon. (right)

I had received the replacement frame for our 10'x10' canopy. (You'll recall the original was bent in our last adventure.) Last year at a Van Nuys picnic, ala_mokita and I borrowed a 10'x20' canopy from lasfs and one of the struts ended up bent by the end of the day -- so that has been replaced with two new 10'x10' units. We used all three at the picnic. (left)

We put the animelosangeles logo facing inwards. (right) All three canopies have tent stakes, and the two new ones came with ropes and have rings to attach the ropes to. We ended up staking down the legs on one side just off the concrete pad, and on the other side we lashed the ropes to the picnic tables.

I'm glad we have the stakes and the ropes -- there was a bit of wind, and we even saw a dustdevil over on the baseball grounds. (left)

There are six picnic tables at the location we used, two of them on the side perpendicular to four more parallel tables in the middle of the concrete pad. Because the four tables were so close together, we couldn't use the canopies to shade them. (right) Something to think of for next time! Starting in three weeks, we've got picnics on three successive weekends so we'll get a good workout hauling these around and setting them up.

I brought Animé Los Angeles postcards, Kurt Miller brought califur postcards, and of course Marcia Minsky (left) had supplied some LosCon postcards.

Tony Benoun (right) and Sherri were there, not surprising considering they live nearby and Sherri's co-chair for the 2010 LosCon. We didn't have a chimney to get the charcoal started, but Tony kindly offered to run back home and get one. By the end of the day he donated it to my party kit, so it would get some use -- it had hardly ever been used.

sbeckstead (the other 2010 co-chair) was there (left) and took charge of the cooking once Tony got the charcoal going.

The "Usual Suspects" seemed to outnumber the new folks. Actually, just under half of the people who came to the picnic have been to several LosCons: Martin, myself, Lynn, Scott, Sherri, Tony, Kurt, Ed Hooper, Marcia, Alec Orrock, Pam Buck, Kevin "Ice" Dodds and Eris Young (right). By my count we had 30 people at the picnic by the end of it all.

The shelter had a big worktop with two working sinks. We set up all the food there, with the pink lemonade set up so that the drips would fall into the sink. (left)

There were two other worktops, and I set up the wire cubbies on one of them to try to get all of the non-food and restock supplies organized. (right)

I hadn't brought my full party/picnic kit, in particular I hadn't brought the "Reusables" bin. (A bunch of the recently-purchased plastic items are still outgassing and making the bin smell terrible, so they're all airing out on my back porch.) At one point, Martin was looking for a proper knife (which I knew I didn't have) and I asked what he wanted it for? "To cut the tomatoes." I suggested, why don't you just use the tomato slicer? I think that's the point when Martin said he wants to get ribbons that say "When I grow up I want to be Chaz."

From my point of view, the funny thing is that I'd just purchased the tomato slicer that morning at a thrift store because I thought it would be a handy item for the kit.

Martin made some Garlic Ginger Curry Sauce for the hamburgers. (left)

There were a bunch of people that weren't LosCon regulars. For example, here you can see Danielle Rivera assembling her burger with the usual condiments. (right)

One of our Animé Los Angeles Ops rovers, C.J., came all the way from Ontario, on his bicycle. Well, on his bicycle plus a county bus or two. He told us how he'd been sent to Provo, Utah, to go to high school, and came back home to California as soon as he graduated; now he's trying to re-establish residency so he can go to college here. (left)

Some people, like John Garcia in his "Umbrella Corporation" uniform from Resident Evil, hung around on the outskirts for awhile before joining the larger group. (right)

But by mid-afternoon, we had a good group of fans talking to each other and having a good time. Here you can see most of the cosplayers and friends under the canopy, including John. (left)

Generally, the larger the group, the longer the natural length of the party. (Also, the more things there are to do, the longer the picnic will run. These go together, as larger groups are more likely to invent additional things to do.) Most of the newcomers drifted home by about quarter after four, and we started packing up.

Martin had sent notices to about twenty local high schools, and two people came from Cypress High School who had heard about it from their teacher. Unfortunately, the message got garbled somewhere along the way and they thought it started at 4 o'clock! They came by a little before five, and we were all disappointed that they'd missed it and we were loading the cars. We gave them strawberries and cups of pink lemonade, and suggested they join us in three weeks in Oceanside. (right)

Next: A milestone birthday party in Redondo Beach.

Comments

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I wonder if that is something I could convince Anime USA to do. Probably not. About C.J., I spend an hour by train and an hour and a half by DC Metro and Bus to get to Anime USA meetings. He is dedicated I must say.

Anime USA

[hazelchaz]

Convince them to do what? Outreach?

Re: Anime USA

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

We do outreach through tables at other conventions and through local TV advertisements on Adult Swim. We are trying to do things like reaching anime clubs outside our core area. We don't really try to offer things outside of the convention for those who are attendees. A picnic is a way to build a full year round community of fans. That was my point.

Re: Anime USA

[hazelchaz]

Outreach, picnics: What I do is I watch the Cosplay.com Member Events and Gatherings forum and pay attention to picnics that are in the same regions where I'd go to conventions to promote.

And I go to the picnics, which are usually run on a potluck basis, and bring something to share, and a bunch of our flyers/postcards.

It's really that simple, at the root of it. I did that for years before we started doing our own sponsored picnics.

As for the picnics we sponsor, we started that last year, to try to recruit staff and volunteers. A "recruiting" or "job fair" kind of thing. This year, the dates of our next few picnics are printed on our postcards.