By
Kevin on June 18th, 2011
Posted in Masquerade | Comments Off on Masquerade Update
If you’re planning on presenting a costume in the Westercon Masquerade, check out the revised Rules page for copies of the Masquerade registration forms and the Technical/Stage Info page for a copy of the planned stage/room layout.
At 7:30 on Friday evening of Westercon 64, John Hertz will be teaching and leading Regency Dancing in the appropriately named Regency Ballroom. More details on the Dances page.
Westercon 64 plans an extensive program of Anime, staring the Thursday night before the convention’s official Friday, July 1 opening, running 10 AM-2AM on Friday through Sunday, and continuing until Monday afternoon. We’ve published the planned schedule of items on the Anime Program Page.
The ongoing SF in SF reading series has been bringing quality science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors to the Bay Area literary community since 2005. Westercon is pleased to host a special San José edition of SF in SF on Saturday, July 2 from 5:30 to 7:00 PM in the Club Regent Room on the ground floor of the Fairmont Hotel. This special San José edition of SF in SF will feature moderator Terry Bisson and Guests of Honor Patricia McKillip, Phil & Kaja Foglio, and Mike Willmoth.
For more details about this special SF in SF focusing on Westercon 64’s Guests of Honor, see the SF in SF page in our Programming section.
We’ve posted a map of our planned function room assignments on the Hotel Map page.
Most of Westercon 64’s functions will be on the second floor, including convention Registration, which will be in the Market Street Foyer (take the escalators from the lobby). Some Programing and special events like Girl Genius Radio Theatre will be in the Club Regent room on the ground floor near the hotel’s Lobby Bar.
Note that the function rooms on second floor are arranged as a hollow square, so if you keep walking around the halls here, you will eventually come back to where you started. Some people have found this confusing, but it does mean that if you take the elevators or the First Street stairs on your way to register, it doesn’t matter whether you turn left or right, because it’s the same distance either way to Registration on the opposite side of the first floor.
We are not using any of the hotel’s function rooms in the south tower. All functions will be in the main tower.
Westercon 64 will feature two shows of Match Game SF, the SF/F-themed game show based on the popular 1970s game show. Contestants will be randomly selected from the audience to match wits with our panel, with the object being to guess how the panel answers fill-in-the-blank questions like “Captain Kirk has the biggest ___ in Starfleet.” Winners receive prizes such as gift certificates from Westercon 64 dealers, while all contestants receive Lovely Parting Gifts (TM).
Match Game SF will be on Saturday afternoon of Westercon at 2:30 PM, while the second “Late Night” edition will be on Sunday night at 10 PM after the performance of Girl Genius Radio Theatre. Both shows will be in the Club Regent Room on the ground floor of the Fairmont Hotel. The Saturday afternoon show is “rated PG” for suggestive language, while Sunday’s “Late Night” show is unrestricted, with parental discretion strongly advised.
Note: the initially announced time for Saturday’s show was 4 PM. This has been moved to 2:30 PM.
The highlight of Sunday evening’s programming at Westercon 64 will be a performance of Girl Genius Radio Theatre, a live performance of a radio-style play based on the Girl Genius graphic novels. Featured in the cast will be Westercon 64’s guests of honor Kaja and Phil Foglio and the Girl Genius Radio Players. The Players are recruited from among the convention members during the convention, so persons interested in performing in the cast can stop by the Studio Foglio table in the Dealers’ Room and talk to the Foglios about the play.
The Girl Genius Radio Theatre performance is scheduled for Sunday evening at 8 PM in the Club Regent Room on the ground floor of the Fairmont Hotel. (Note that this is the only convention program space on the ground floor. All other functions will be on the second floor.)
Westercon 64 has released Progress Report 2, the final pre-convention printed progress report. PR 2 contains the Westercon Bylaws, Westercon 64 Site Selection Ballot, and updates from many convention areas.
This final progress report is being printed this week and we will mail paper copies to all members (except those who requested no printed publications) in a few days. Electronic (PDF) versions of PR2 and of the past progress reports are available for download from our Publications page.
If you’ve haven’t already booked your room at the Fairmont, we strongly urge you to book your room as soon as possible, so that we can help guarantee you the convention room rate. After our hotel room block expires, we cannot guarantee our convention rate.
Also, we have heard that some people are having problems with booking shoulder nights such as the Thursday night before the convention. If you run into this problem or any other booking problem, please book your Friday through Sunday (or later) stay and then write to hotel@westercon64.org and we’ll promptly help you work with the hotel to get the rest of your nights booked in.
The ballot to choose the site of Westercon 66, the 2013 West Coast Science Fantasy Conference, is now available. We will include a copy of this ballot in our next progress report, which will be mailed soon to all registered members.
Any member of Westercon 64 may vote by completing the ballot and paying a $25 voting fee, all of which goes to the winning bidder and represents a supporting membership in the winning bid. You can vote by mail or in person at Westercon 64. The polls are scheduled to be open on Friday and Saturday of the convention between Noon and 7 PM, and the results will be announced at the Westercon Business Meeting on Sunday. More details are on the ballot and the Site Selection page.
