rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5, rec.arts.sf.fandom, alt.fandom.cons, alt.tv.babylon-5 this file is ftp.netcom.com:/pub/ha/hazel/Smofs/babylon5.report ========================================================================= At the recently-concluded Loscon 21 in Burbank California, a group of Babylon-5 fans on the net got together and ran a party on Saturday night (November 26, 1994). The co-conspirators were scattered all across the country, and they were: Chaz Baden, Redondo Beach, California [L.A. area] Elana Beach, Portland, Oregon Colleen Crosby, El Segundo, California [L.A. area] Diane Elliott, Phoenix, Arizona Lynn Gold, Mountain View, California [S.F. area] Dianne Hackborn, Corvallis, Oregon Pat Lawrence, Van Nuys, California [L.A. area] Jacque Marshall, Boulder Colorado Nancy Osterbauer, Corvallis, Oregon Matt Ryan, Chicago, Illinois Lee Whiteside, Phoenix, Arizona John Zimmer, Portland, Oregon Invaluable party pre-preparation help was provided by numerous volunteers who came Saturday afternoon. Nola Frame-Gray was one of them; the other names have been misplaced... (if you helped, remind us so we can give you proper credit!) Instead of just throwing together a shopping run Saturday afternoon for potato chips, M&M's, and Oreos, they set up a small closed email list back in the middle of September, and consulted with each other and with a local fan (Chaz Baden) and an experienced party thrower (Lynn Gold). It should be noted that the out-of-towners had *no* party-throwing experience, and it was primarily by virtue of the wisdom and experience offered by Chaz and Lynn that things went as well as they did. The result was a party that had plenty of appeal. Besides the built-in draw of a B5 party on a night when a B5 episode was airing at a convention that featured a B5 panel on Sunday (which had J. Michael Straczynski, Larry DiTillio, Peter Jurasik and Harlan Ellison, plus cool video clips)... they had "Real Food"; they had hot food, with stuff coming out of the oven during the party; and they got a lot of "bang for their buck." The experience is probably worth documenting, so we've taken the liberty of doing so. Keep in mind, when you read this, that the party was the first to achieve spillage into the hall, and the last party to close; and they did it for about $200 in purchases, by carefully choosing what to serve, how to prepare it, and gathering borrowed equipment and putting together several volunteers in the afternoon before the party to chop the vegs and so on. Here are some comments from the email list about running parties, both before the party and after: Lynn Gold: When the party is running, THE most important thing to remember is ATTITUDE. I've seen some otherwise wonderful parties ruined by the person in charge. It helps to exude "fun" when you're doing this. People come to a party because it's FUN. When the party-throwers look like they're having fun, it rubs off. People want to hang out around you because YOU'RE fun, your PARTY is fun, and everyone ELSE is having FUN. Smile a lot -- but be genuine about it. If you find you're getting stressed-out, take a break from the party. Make sure that not all the people involved HAVE to be in the room the whole time or else you'll all go berserk. Jacque Marshall: Great advice, Lynn! This also suggests that it might not hurt to sketch out *shifts*. That way, those "off-duty" are free to help, but also more free to enjoy the product of our labors. [Post-con footnote: Dianne and Nancy got stuck with making pizzas for the entire duration of the party, which is what the shift idea was designed to prevent.] Lynn Gold: Re: shifts and bodies on duty, it turns out to be abstract beyond a minimum. You'll need one person to oversee the cooking devices, possibly a backup for that person in the event two devices need emptying at once, and if you serve alcohol, you need an alcohol monitor. Beyond that, you're best off just "winging it" depending on the energy levels of everyone involved. Some folks are better at party prep, while others are better at running things for long periods of time. I, for example, am better at starting up a party (prep and early cooking-device duty) than I am at keeping things going for a long time (my energy fades FAST). Jacque Marshall: Another thing that should be noted was that most of us participated in pre-prep, plus we had three or four volunteers on-deck, which made the vegetable prep go a LOT faster. Lynn Gold: I noticed the pizzas went slower when the peppers were on 'em. Many fen have an aversion to vegetables (just as there are those who are vegetarians). Nancy Osterbauer: as for putting veggies (peppers) on the pizza, no one requested strictly cheese pizza while i was cooking. if someone had said something to me, i would have been happy to leave off the veggies, but no one mentioned it until lynn showed up after the crush was gone. Lynn Gold: Don't sweat it re: the pizzas. As for requests, people generally don't request anything of free food at parties. To do so would be just plain NERVY. ============= THE GROCERIES ============= The following edibles were purchased, and food served. Note that some of the food was prepared before the party, and other items were prepared during. Also, pretty much everything except the Italian bread, the fresh vegetables, and the chocolate mousse cakes was purchased *before* the convention started, by the folks living in the area. This prevented a great deal of strain on the out-of-town organizers. Items followed by "=>" are items of which we had large quantities left over, which is noted for the sake of quantity calibration. (I think the traffic blockage resulting from the video viewing strongly affected our food consumption. I expect that there would have been a *lot* less food left over had access not been blocked for two or three hours.) Soda Pop (sixpacks) Coca Cola, 1 sixpack Cherry Coke, 1 Dr. Pepper, 1 Pepsi, 2 A&W Root Beer, 1 Sprite, 2 Mandarin Orange Slice, 2 Hansen's Mandarin-Lime Soda, 2 Vernors Ginger Ale, 1 Schweppes Raspberry Ginger Ale, 1 Wild Cherry soda, 4 Diet Coke, 1 Diet Decaf Coke, 1 Diet Dr. Pepper, 2 Diet Sprite, 1 Diet Mandarin Orange Slice, 1 Diet Schweppes Raspberry Ginger Ale, 1 Zima, bottles, 1 (sixpack) Ice - Free from hotel machine. Filling of the big mucktubs (instead of using the bath for sodas) was done by sending runners to the ice-machine with the hotel room's trash-cans. Miscellaneous Drinks Coffee, Columbian Supremo (Trader Joe's) misc. coffee fixin's (creamer, sugar, sweet 'n low) Assorted teas, mostly herbal Bottled Water Alcoholic Jell-O ("Zero Gravity Drinks") Tropical Rum Punch Pina Colada Fuzzy Navel (sugar-free) Whiskey Sour (sugar-free) Daiquiri (sugar-free) Pizzas: 12 loaves of Italian bread => 5 were left over. 3 jars (24oz?) Classico pasta sauce, 1 jar (14 oz) of Ragu Pizza Sauce. No sugar/corn syrup/mushrooms/meat/chunky. One jar was left over. 2 lb mozzarella cheese (only used 1) Parmesan cheese, grated Parmesan-Romano blend, grated Romano cheese, grated Oregano Vegetables six types of bell peppers (2 yellow/orange, 3 red, 1 dk green, 1 "glow-in-the-dark" green, 2 purple) 2 bunches celery. 4 heads of broccoli florets 1 head of cauliflower 5 bunches of carrots. => 1/4 to 1/3 of the vegs were left over. 12 oranges => five or so were left over. Dip and Spoo (using blue food coloring) 2 pints nonfat yogurt 2 pints sour cream 4 packets of dip mix (different flavors) (used 3) Star-shaped Macaroni & Cheese Star-shaped pasta, 2 lbs; pre-cooked and drained and refrigerated the con before Instant Cheese Sauce, 3 lbs. Sharp cheddar cheese for noodles, 1 lb [You can make some even better cheese sauce by spending <$10 more, btw.] Bread and toppings Pilot Bread, 3 lbs., which are 4" round crackers: "edible frisbees" Fresh Baked Bread: Bread Machine Mixes, 8. Country White; Sourdough; Cracked Wheat; Italian Herb; White, White, Wheat, Wheat. ("Krusteaz" seems to work better than "Dromedary" brand?) => Three or four loaves went uneaten, probably because they came out so late. Timing is important with these, 5 hours or so elapse from mixing time to eating time. Butter & margarine (for the bread) Peanut Butter (for bread, or for the edible frisbees) Brie (well, not really, but we almost bought it for the bread.) Popcorn Salt Spray stuff to make salt stick to the popcorn Chocolate Chip Cookies, fresh baked Mint chocolate chips, 2 pounds Eggs, 4 Crisco, and canola oil Flour, baking soda, vanilla extract, and other cookie-making ingredients Food coloring Chocolate 2 chocolate mousse cakes Trader Joe's Chocolate ("Pound Plus"), 8.8 lbs, $1.99-$2.79 each: Milk Choc Milk Choc w/ Almonds Semi-Sweet Semi-Sweet with Almonds. (Two bars each variety, 1.1 lb each. We only used 5 bars; 3 were left over. One of them was later presented to JMS.) Two slabs of fudge => one of which was left over. ============= THE EQUIPMENT ============= Listed here are both disposables and reusables, props, etc. Some of this stuff was borrowed equipment, and some of it was purchased for the party. The leftover cups etc. have been stashed away, for re-use "next time." "I still loved John Snyder's comment about us having four "R-2-bread-2s" going. :-) " --Lynn Gold Non-edible consumables Foam cups (coffee) & plastic cups (water) Napkins Paper plates Plastic forks, knives, spoons Aluminum Foil Gallon zip bags (for grated cheese, etc), 4 Dishes Plastic serving platters, two Fish-shaped serving platter [but is it kosher?] (well, it had scales...) Stainless steel mixing bowls, asst. Utensils Spatulas, 3 Knives for cutting bread, etc., 3 (inc. a Ginsu) => [with all the volunteers, we ended up very short on knives, and were saved only by the fact that half the participants carry Swiss-Army knives, and lent them to us.] Vegetable peelers, 3 Measuring cups & spoons Plastic flipper/spatula Graters (cheese, 2; nutmeg, 1) Furniture-type stuff Five-foot table Extension cords and terminal strips Tape to keep door unlocked prophylactically, and doorstop (not used) Blue & black plastic tubs to keep drinks cold Red plastic tub to use as jumbo wastebasket Appliances Giant coffee maker (used for hot water) Regular coffee maker (not used due to breakage) Coffee grinder Bottled-water dispenser Artoo-breadtoos (bread machines), 4 Toaster ovens, 3 Crockpots, 2 Popcorn popper Food Processor (for easy cheese shredding) Hotplate Signs for party (party flyers for posting, with space for room number) "And the Plate Was Full of Stars..." (for star-shaped macaroni & cheese) Airlock. Security officers and Narn aides should use caution. Sheridan's Favorite Oranges Not a product placement Keep Out! Methane Breathers Only Warning! Contains Crystalline Dihydrogen Monoxide Garibaldi's Popcorn, for toon-watching Real Food Fund Garibaldi's Usual Ivanova's Coffee: Private Reserve Zero-Gravity Drinks ======== PLANNING ======== We originally intended to have a planning meeting on Friday, prior to the grocery run, after everyone had had a chance to peruse their program books for programming they wanted to see. However, a specific time was never set, and consequently, this planning meeting never happened. Two results: First, we ended up with redundant last-minute grocery runs -- which didn't work out too badly--but it was only happenstance that the second wave actually crossed paths with the first wave, and therefore *didn't* buy extra vegetables. But we could also have saved a few fan-hours by keeping it to one shopping run. And, second, a couple of people ended up missing programming that they'd been looking forward to, in favor of assisting with pre-prep. =========== ROOM LAYOUT =========== The room was what the Burbank Airport Hilton calls an "Executive Suite." It consists of a bedroom and a small parlor, with a door from the hall to the parlor, and a door connecting the parlor and the bedroom. Note that the parlor (with the couch, tv, and so forth) is actually *smaller* than the bedroom. The parlor was used for the party, and the bedroom was used for prep. (Overheard about the party: "half the space with three times the people.") Our space was clearly not big enough, which was exacerbated by the video showing during the middle of the party. The videos were popular enough that the room was basically impacted with bodies during them, with the result that nobody could get to the food. This make it difficult for the people who wanted to chat to circulate (chatters ended up out in the hall--which wasn't a problem really, but they couldn't get food or drinks). Also, it has been suggested that the general circulation of the party would have been improved by a couple of modifications: video watching would optimally have been in a *separate* room from food and conversation, and the suite would have done better to have *two* doors to the hallway, to improve body circulation. Also, it would have been handy to have yet a *third* room for food preparation, since a full room was clearly needed. ========== CONCLUSION ========== By thorough advance planning, pre-purchasing of the non-perishable items, scrounging utensils, equipment, and staple items (flour, etc.) from local larders, some misc. cash donations from the party-goers, and a fair amount of hard work, the party planners managed to throw a party that personally cost them... $20 each. [Jacque here--one footnote I'd like to add is that this project is a testimonial to the power of the net. When the project was originally conceived, it was clear to me that there were people out there who had much more exprience with this sort of thing than I could claim, and it didn't make sense to try to re-invent the wheel. Therefore, I posted an innocent little query to rec.arts.sf.fandom. Within hours, I got back loads of useful information, and before the week was out, Chaz and Lynn, who turned out to be fellow B5 fans, had volunteered to help out, resulting in a party that was at least an order of magnitude more spectacular and successful than anything I could have conceived of on my own, or we could have pulled off without help. Make no mistake -- this was a BIG project.] -- Jacque Marshall, Chaz Baden, et al. Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 04:35:15 -0800 From: Jane Hawkins Haven't read rec.arts.sf.fandom for a while, so this is a latish response, but I wanted to let you know I enjoyed your party report a great deal. I've no idea how many parties I've given over the last twenty rooms. It's a matter well worth careful thought. I'm always interested in stuff like a mix of soda people lay in and such. Are you already onto the "Label Loaned Stuff with Masking Tape" trick? You can even do it with smallish items like knives. Makes people feel a lot more comfortable that they're going to get their stuff back. ;) You scared up *four* bread-making machines? Cool. My speciality is chocolate. I make really excellant fudge, so I do up around 15 pounds of it a couple days before most parties. Hard work, but people go for it. And when I'm feeling flush, I go The Pacific Dessert Company here in Seattle and get a couple of their cakes. To die for, yes indeed. Well, sounds like you had fun, and so did the people who came. Thanks again for the report, Jane Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 18:27:21 -0700 (MST) From: Lee Whiteside Subject: Re: Missing Soda Identified; Cider? On Wed, 30 Nov 1994, Lynn Gold wrote: > All six bottles of Zima got drunk. I don't know who had the bad taste > to drink 'em, but I saw empties. On Wed, 30 Nov 1994, Dianne Hackborn wrote: > There are truely some sick, sick, sick, SICK people in this world. One bottle got drunk in stages by one guy. After drinking a bit of it, he added some alcholholic blue lemonade to it it. He left the room and when he came back it had turned green and he was still drinking it! I have no idea what was added the second time.... Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 03:16:58 -0800 (PST) From: cinnie@mowonder.com Subject: Loscon B5 Party Final Report Date: Mon, 05 Dec 94 01:53:56 EST Spillage is right. I only managed to poke my nose in before I was crowded back into the hall. It looked like a great party and Lynn was telling everyone in the filking room about the party. I just wish I could have stayed to watch the episode. Ah, well, maybe next year I'll get there early! :) Kris cinnie@mowonder.com Date: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 09:33:30 +0800 From: rothe@cypfs00 (Bill Rothe - Tekware sys mgr) Subject: Re: Loscon B5 Party Final Report Re: Your party report I was one of the people who stopped by for a visit at your LOSCON party. It was one of *the best* con parties I have ever been to. I was unable to stay for long, as crowded areas are not my forte. However, you are to be commended. Next year, if you need any help with it {if you are crazy enough to want to go through all that again ;-)}, please let me know. -bill rothe rothe@ug.eds.com Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 18:37:13 -0800 From: figmo@netcom.com (Lynn Gold) To: loscon@callisto.pas.rochester.edu Subject: Re: Loscon B5 Party Final Report (fwd) > That was something that Lynn conjured up in the wee hours, I > merely observed her using it. Some sort of spray-on > vegetable oil or something. Lynn? You out there? Yup. I learned that trick from a co-worker. You spray the pseudo-Pam on the air-popped popcorn and the salt sticks. It's much less greasy than other methods. If you don't spray the popcorn, the salt doesn't stick, and the popcorn has the flavor and texture of styrofoam. --Lynn