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At DragonCon, one night only. If there’s a Con in your area that doesn’t have a Gonzo Film Fest, please tell them they should contact us.
Update: Our NOTR events were a smashing success, methinks. More on that post-DragonCon when we resume normal services. In the interim, thanks to everyone collectively for coming out to both Sound + Vision and the Panel Show and supporting us in our whacked out endeavors. More in-depth appreciation after the Con closes and we have a moment to clear our noggins. But seriously: thanks.
Sound and Vision was indeed great. Audience was well behaved. Nice that we were able to leave earlier than previous years. Though I am an odd one and got back up at 9 am.
The panel show was awesome!! I was able to cue Robert lewellyn in about it as much as I knew, which was a fog a vaguery wrapped in an enigma as we dodged meanderthals on our way the the panel.
I was disappointed and discontented by the festival. I wasn’t even going to Dragoncon this year because they stopped doing the festival. I loved the festival of years past, truly the best time I’ve ever had with my clothes on, but not this year. Almost all of the clips were from the past few years, with little fresh content, and where some people got a lot of really cool swag in abundance, others got a couple of books on tape. I know that the hosts don’t get much for doing this, but their heart wasn’t in it this year. Less free stuff, less content, too much content from recent fest, and inequality in giving away free stuff. In the past, there was trivia, competitions, and other random trials that had humorous interaction between audience and hosts. Not this year. If it was my first festival, I would give it a B, but comparing it to the one two years ago, it was a D-. I got my tickets for Dragoncon on August 13th when I learned the festival was back, which used to be the best thing in all of Dragoncon hands-down. I won’t be back next year. Not out of spite, but out of sadness. I’d pay triple the Dragoncon admission price for the old festival with interested hosts, interaction, and fun. The other sad thing is that the free stuff works, I’ve bought Christmas and birthday gifts from Showcase since learning about them through the stuff I got free at the festival. I’m a 30-year-old upper middle class male with expendable income, the target market, but my only items I’ll be getting this year are unabridged text on CD. I left Dragoncon Saturday night as there was nothing else to do, and donated my “cool free stuff” to the Roswell library drop box. It was not the triumphant return they advertised. The absence of a year is like breaking up with a girl–when you get back together, it’s never the same as it was and destined to fail. I guess you can never go home again. I wish I could turn back the hands of time, but as it stands now, I won’t be staying up late next Dragoncon, and therefore do not need coffee anymore.
Brad: To counter some of your assertions:
1) “Almost all of the clips were from the past few years, with little fresh content”
No idea what you’re talking about, chief. Even if you take Paul & Storm out of the equation, we did our usual ratio of new vs. classic content. I’m not sure what you mean by “little,” as just from memory I know that over half the first segment, for example, was all new to our fest. I’m not going to run down the entire list because that would be just silly, as the content we re-showed was all ones that were enjoyed by most folks anyway. Just, apparently, not by you.
2) “some people got a lot of really cool swag in abundance, others got a couple of books on tape”
More on this in a moment. Yes, we had a bunch of audiobooks to give out, but they’re on CD, not tape.
3) “the hosts don’t get much for doing this”
I’m not sure what you mean by “much,” as we get nothing for doing this. In fact, when I think about how much we spent for the U-Haul van, my gas, the gas of my staff, the equipment we bought Ken to edit the Film Fest, the money we paid the hotel to help us get the stuff up to the Regency rooms, the money we spent shipping stuff around prior to the Con, and the money we paid in parking fees to stash said van and the accompanying car (and that’s just for me), then I’m left with less than nothing. That’s not even counting the time and effort it takes to create an event like this, for which we are paid…squat. We get the Regency room, the help of the TechOps (who are also volunteering their time and effort–and had gotten even LESS sleep than we had), and the badges to get in. Ken got gas money to drive down here and a hotel room to stay in. That’s about it. Nobody else on staff even got a comped hotel room. Hell, the guys from Unique Geek, bless em, weren’t even staff and THEY pitched in. In fact, we set out a tip jar one year to try help offset costs the year Katrina hit and gas prices blew up. The results? A whopping $56. That was less than a dime per person at the room’s capacity that year. So I’m not going to whine to you about us not getting anything money-wise for this. We’ve come to accept that. But at least get your facts straight. We volunteer for this. And just like most of the volunteers that you probably didn’t appreciate at DragonCon, we actually wind up paying a lot for the privilege of doing it.
4) “Less free stuff, less content, too much content from recent fest, and inequality in giving away free stuff”
See, Brad, no offense, but you’re obviously the kind of guy we don’t like showing up. Your constant hammering on the free stuff angle and the fact that you walked away with just an audiobook says to me that you don’t give a rat’s ass about us or our film fest. We went from having some people getting “really cool swag in abundance” for some people to having “less free stuff” overall. So…which is it? I’m sure if you had been one of those people with the abundant swag, you wouldn’t even have bothered to come here and comment. And I don’t know where you were, because I had people handing me autographed free stuff (by the MST3K and Venture guys) back on their way out because they already had plenty and said it was lying around on the floor there was so many of them. Look, I’m fine with people showing up just to get the free shit, but if you didn’t get enough of it, at least have the common decency to keep your whinging to yourself. At least you got a free audiobook. Me, I was so tired at one point during DragonCon that I literally collapsed in my upstairs bathroom, scaring the shit out of my sleeping wife. But hey, since my heart wasn’t in it this year, I guess that doesn’t count, right? Spending all the time and money and effort and trying to do something new and different–but hey, my heart wasn’t in it, so none of that counts, right? And we stopped at 4am–your “less content” comment, I guess–because once, just for once, we decided we wanted to have a Sunday at the Con rather than being dead for the second half of the event–but fuck it, that was too much to ask, so our heart’s just not in it anymore, right?
I’m fine with people criticizing the Film Fest. That’s inevitable. And if you want to complain about things, you know what? Go for it. Especially if it’s constructive. In fact, if you just want to call me a son of a bitch come do it on THIS page because I want the web traffic that you doing so would bring me. But anybody that has the balls to come here and tell me my heart’s not in this site and everything I do for it can go take their thirty-something upper-middle-class ass and their disposable income and find some other group of idiots who want to throw them a free film fest for nothing but the fun of doing it. You don’t need coffee, and thankfully, we don’t need Brad.
P.S. Regardless, the free stuff thing must not work THAT well with you, because the company’s name I believe you’re referencing is Sideshow, not Showcase.
The panel event was spectacular. One of the funniest things I saw all weekend. I’d love to see it happen again next year, despite vows to the contrary.
Man, that was fun. I went to see Paul & Storm and had no idea what else I was in for. Had a great time, start to finish. And Trace and Frank were there too!
I missed the title of that first video, the travel thing with John Cleese narrating. Anyone know what that was?
Man the Film Fest was great, I laughed my ass off most of the time and the other was because I was hurting so bad I couldn’t laugh. I enjoyed everything, especially the Grocho Marx stuff. My wife and I literally stumbled upon y’all, we were looking for somthing to do on Sat. night and We walked in not knowing what was going to happen. Boy, I am so glad we did. The swag was great, but I didn’t need it too stay. But thank you for it. I really hope you come back next year, I told everyone I talked too on Sunday that they had missed a blast. Anyway Thanks Alot, J
phlebas — that bit was called “Away From It All.”
I’m glad you guys had as much fun as we do.
Thanks for everybody’s comments. I just wanted to point out that Doc, the resident Eliot scholar, just considered phlebas.
I just wanted to say that the 4 am cut-off time seemed just about right to me – long enough to make it epic but not long enough to make you lose Sunday entirely.
Also, Paul and Storm were fantastic. I went straight to their website after the con and downloaded everything they had.