...Do you remember, baby, last September, how you held me tight each and every night?

Catching up with November. The conclusion of my Loscon 35 (2008) report. (Other sections: part 1, part 2.)

( Loscon has a strong party floor... )

Because of our sponsorship arrangement (which I talked about last time), we were able to get a suite without having a party on Friday.

I've talked about my Minions. Melissa De Mello, my Head Minion (right), wanted to use loscon as a training ground to try out the proto-minions and see how they work out, and also to do a little training on the radiophones ("Boost" phones, which we've nicknamed the nextels).

Some of the proto-minions were able to come to Loscon -- Steven, David, and Mindy. In addition, I had summoner_lenne9 and aramina. We didn't know how the others would work out, but there were at least four of us that could get things done.

When I arrived at the hotel Friday morning, Melissa and Sarah were already there, and Daniel Jones was hanging around with nothing to do. We shanghaied him into our crew. "Bored? We'll give you some interesting work!" (left)

( So by noon, we'd started unloading Saltine and hauling everything up to the party suite... )

On Friday night, I suggested all of the minions should check out the other parties. Starting with the Executive Suite's three-way party, which had Keith Kato's chili (right), Elst's wines and cheeses, and their friend's dessert party, we all went party-hopping the full length of the hall.

( Melissa and Patty's conclusion, after seeing all the parties: they wanted a budget to come up with some kind of door treatment... )

After we shut down the table for the day Saturday, we went up to the room. We wanted all of the decorations up, all of the posters and signs, all the food staged and ready. Here you can see Sarah and Steven getting one of the posters ready to hang, while Mindy gets the toaster ready and Patty heads to the next room. (right)

Putting up the posters on the wall is the easy part. We prioritize the posters, and put the more-important ones up first. And fill in with wall scrolls until we've completely covered every wall. (left)

I had promised Patty Wells, renoin2011 Worldcon Bid chair, that I'd get her some kind of help with her party. We dubbed her "Reno Patty" to distinguish her from aramina. Melissa took Reno Patty shopping for cookies, soda, and so forth Saturday -- her party theme was "Cookies and Milk" -- and David, Steven and Mindy helped her get the room together. It went quickly, and she didn't need help manning the party itself.

We broke for dinner (right) then caught most of the Masquerade and went back up to work on the room some more.

( We had a lot of food to serve... )

The room looked a lot different 24 hours before, when it was empty -- it's hard to visualize what the crowds will do to your design for the space.

( Another problem has to do with signage... )

I mentioned we'd sent out postcards to promote "Animé Los Angeles Day at LosCon 35." They had art, done by the amazingly talented le_moose, which showed our mascot Ala, dressed Roman-style, reading a copy of Zoe's Tale. A poster blow-up of that postcard art graced the most prominent picture frame in the room. (left)

Zoe's Tale is the latest book from John Scalzi, LosCon's writer guest of honor, and it's about a 16-year-old girl. I thik Ala and Zoe would get along like a house on fire, if it weren't for the fact that they're both ficticious characters... You can see the Hello Kitty toaster and a crockpot full of stewed pears on the table next to John.

( The great thing about hosting parties is so many nice people come and find you at your party... )

It was interesting to compare the Saturday night party scene, vs. our Peanut Butter & Jelly room at Pacific Media Expo. We were open a shorter time (about six hours), but much more crowded. We had a lot of leftovers. Partly because we had purchased so much in the first place, of course, and weren't open as long, but also because the LosCon crowd wasn't starving compared to the fans at at a con with no con suite like pmx.

We win the hearts of fans at PMX because we have food, period. (And we're going to be open three full days next time -- I'm checking in the day before PMX and checking out the day after.) We were one of the happening parties at LosCon because of what food we had, including the spiced cider and the stewed pears wafting a hot cinnamon smell out into the hall. One of these days I should break out the roaster oven and bake cinnamon pretzels again...

That's it for November. I'm off to Gallifrey One tomorrow, and in my free time (as I have no actual duties at the convention) I'll work on my Animé Los Angeles report.