Friday evening was the much-anticipated HP Lovecraft Birthday Celebration Cabaret night at which Mike’s big fiberglassed wings made their debut. The evening was entertaining — not quite our “thing” but not so far out of the comfort zone that we wanted to bolt either. Over the course of three hours there was a (mock) virgin sacrifice, poetry and story readings, songs, trivia and costume contests, cake and a short film showing (AM1200).
The audience was made up of an odd mix of literary types, gamers, cosplay fans, curious onlookers and a few people “unclear on the concept” thrown in for good measure. I would count myself either as a literary type or the curious onlookers group. If this were a regular event, I might go every 5 years or so; on the other hand, I may actually start to attend the Tongues of Fire poetry nights which are held regularly and are organized by the same crew.
Saturday was full of busy stuff — out for breakfast that turned into dim-sum (thanks to a server who was full of attitude and barely coherent enough to take our order, we left our intended destination for “plan B”), home to hang and do stuff around the house (I mowed the back lawn), out to set up an HD TV at my Mom’s that we have as a review model (initial thoughts, it’s seriously lacking, review yet to be written), then off to celebrate our nephew’s 19th birthday. That turned into a loooong discussion about Christmas which I think is mostly settled.
Today was a much needed hang day — lots of retro movies, gaming, websurfing and naps. Oh, and bbq (thanks Mike) — burgers for lunch and chicken for dinner.
I have also spent a good deal of time thinking about better ways to sell my crafts. Mike’s awful experience trying to ship one of his gnomes recently has me revisiting how much I hate the shipping part of online sales — I really hate having to add $20 for shipping on a $15 or $20 item and I hate all the paperwork and legwork that goes with it. That leaves me with craft fairs and markets (working a booth on my own time) or figuring out how to get my creations out in the world of retail. I’m not making a decision just yet… but if you have opinions on selling ones crafts, please chime in.
If you want to do a craft fair, or something like that, I’d sure consider sharing a table with you, even though my stuff isn’t strictly “crafts”, but more costuming stuff.
The Halloween craft fair could have been good for another go-round. I contacted the organizer and she didn’t respond. So, either she doesn’t answer messages, the idea is dead or will launch late with as little promotion as last time.
Victoria needs a Weird Sales craft fair to connect creators with customers. It needs a tonne of hype. That idea is kind of why I got involved in the HPL Birthday: to see from the inside how to adequately promote something weird. If you look at that room, it’s clear it got hyped and hyped well.
I didn’t go to the HPL birthday thing, but I wanted to. Because it was $10 without costume, $5 with, I suggested to my friend that we put balloons into light brown plastic bags to make them look like huge lumpy brains and then wear them on our heads, so we could go as the Fungi from Yuggoth, but no dice I guess his dignity is worth more than $5. And I couldn’t go by myself, because there’s no Fungus from Yuggoth….
I’m not sure we would have gone if we’d had to buy a ticket; since Mike’s wings were part of the show and we also loaned our digital projector and “screen” (a pair of flat sheets, one white, one black), we were on the “comp” list. Still, I’m glad we did go — it was really a one-of-a-kind show.
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