Vidukon, 9-10th April 2011, Cardiff Bay

It's so exciting seeing everyone post up con reports--thank you to all who are sharing them. I want to write my own at some point but in the mean time wish most of all to say an enormous thank you to everyone for giving me the opportunity to grow and learn at the con myself. I was not exactly the most experienced or, er, calm organiser in the world, but I learnt a tremendous amount and I thank everyone for not lynching me for inexperience. :) As stressful as it was, it was a wonderful experience for me also.

Now some official notices...

Lost property
We have one longish black cardigan, which was found in the con suite. If anyone is missing this item and wants to let us know, I will make sure it is mailed to you wherever you need (although it may be back in the US now, thanks to us being such an international community ;)). My bad for forgetting in my haziness to bring it to the final session for claiming.

Apologies
Our most sincere apologies for two errors in printing.

First, the premieres DVD contains an extra vid not listed on the back cover: Inadvisible Interpersonal Relationships by thingswithwings. Perhaps you can all consider it as an exciting 'easter egg' vid?! ;) Seriously, though, we do apologise for any hurt caused by the unintentional error of omission on the cover.

Second, Gwyneth Rhys's vid 'Mad About You' in the 'A Woman's Worth' show had an incorrect fandom listed for it in the program--which is entirely my own error, I'm sorry. It was, of course, of 'Mad Men', not 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'. Again apologies for any hurt caused.

Informal pre-con event number 2!

(Number 1 is dinner at 7pm at Terra Nova--respond to the poll if you're interested.)

We will be meeting in the foyer of the con hotel (Future Inn) at 3pm, to begin a short walking tour of the Cardiff Bay area and Doctor Who / Torchwood related sites, including:
- Wales Millennium Centre
- Roald Dahl Pass (Torchwood Hub/'the rift')
- Ianto's 'door'
- The Red Dragon Centre (tragically the Doctor Who exhibit closes in March but we can stare forlornly at where it used to be)
- site of the Cybermen/Dalek battle
- Owen's apartment
- pretty Norwegian church.
Even if we stop for a tea/coffee/shop, we will be back at the hotel in a couple of hours, leaving time for you to change and freshen up before dinner.

I will be your unofficial tour guide, so no guarantees on the quality of the tour, but we will begin by going past the local tourist office which reportedly has Doctor Who / Torchwood site-spotting maps (no doubt better than the one I've cobbled together!).

No need to 'book', just turn up at 3pm and look for me--I will have a sign saying 'Vidukon' which I will wave around a lot. :)

I also realise many of you are in town earlier than this and may wish to organise additional (or even MORE INTERESTING :p) activities--feel free to do so! I may even join you! However, this is all I can guarantee personally organising at this stage due to the Large Number of Things I Must Do before I get on a plane to Europe this weekend (between now and April I've got family activities).

Oh, and for those of you who really want to geek out over the Doctor Who and Torchwood sites, refer to this website at your own peril <--seriously headspinny for those of us on cold and flu meds.

This week is a big week for the organisation team, as we are finalising catering details, printing arrangements, DVDs and many other things.

Schedule
Excitingly, the Schedule is now final and can be viewed on the website. We have tried to fit as much into the two days as we could. Saturday, in particular, is a big day. The good news is that we will have an extra 'breakout' room available for use if you get vid/panel fatigue and wish to gather there for a quieter chat or time out. We will also be providing invigorating beverages (aka tea and coffee) at strategic times.

Please remember to purchase your Saturday night dinner tickets (by March 6!) if you wish to attend the buffet before the premieres show.

Friday update
As quite a few of us will be in Cardiff early, or at least arriving on the Friday, we thought it would be nice to get together informally before the con officially kicks off on Saturday morning.

We are planning some informal Friday afternoon activities--basically a bit of a wander round Cardiff, hunt out some Torchwood-y places... assuming the weather isn't miserable! I'll post details on that soon, but meanwhile, we also thought it would be nice to get together for dinner at The Terra Nova pub in Cardiff Bay.

We will gather at 6:30 in the foyer of the hotel and go from there for a 7pm dinner session. It's bar service so we can each pay separately, the menu is viewable here. As it's Friday night, we anticipate that it may be a little busy, so don't expect super-speedy service but that will give us more chance to chat and hang out. :) We do need to book a table though, so if you would like to come let us know in the poll below by this Friday 11 March.

Extra incentive: our local pub-scout, beccatoria, tells us this pub is owned by the BRAINS brewery, whose slogan is 'It’s brains you want!'. Zombie beer ftw, y/y? :D

Good news, everyone! Uploading is now available on the Vidukon website. So, if you wish to submit a premiere vid, please follow these steps:

Preparing your files
( cut for instructions on formatting your premiere vid )

Uploading
( cut for instructions on uploading your files )

Final step: Tell all your friends to buy supporting registrations so they can get a copy of your vid on DVD! ;) While we're thrilled with the numbers of attending registrations, our lovely DVD-maker is a little sad she won't have more DVDs to send out...

ETA: Forgot the critical reminder that you must submit your vid by February 27th.

We now have 30 attending registrations--yay!!

Reminder to everyone that the price of registration will go up after February 6. You can still register after this time, but it will be more expensive, so book now if you can.

Also, for those of you making your travel arrangements to get to Cardiff, you may want to bear in mind that we'll be organising some informal social activities on the Friday (8 April). These are not part of the formal program and are in no way compulsory, but since many of us will be in town (or arriving) on Friday, we thought it would be nice to:
a) organise an afternoon mini-tour of Cardiff, including some Doctor Who / Torchwood related sites
b) organise a pre-con dinner at a local restaurant for the Friday evening.

If you can't make these, don't worry, as there will be plenty of time to socialise and meet people at the con. That said, anyone attending is welcome to join in--hopefully an informal way to meet a few people before the formal con kicks off. We'll post more information about these closer to the event and ask for numbers for the dinner booking particularly. We plan to put together some information on things to see on Cardiff to distribute to anyone that wants it, regardless of whether you can make the Friday afternoon excursion or not, so you can always explore on your own later. (Also we realise some people will be in town earlier and may have already done their sightseeing by Friday.)

Good news! We have many programs in the works, registrations are coming in (thank you early registering people! It makes things a lot easier for us!!) and we have many wonderful volunteers helping out with con preparations. In the next couple of weeks we want to nail down our programming/schedule and have a firmer idea of numbers, so, with that in mind...

Registering
Are you thinking of coming? Register by February 6, before the price goes up to 52 pounds! (It's currently 40 pounds.) Registration will be open until March 20th for both Supporting and Attending memberships, however, you need to be registered by March 6th to be featured in the program.

Not able to come but would like a con DVD and the warm fuzzies of knowing you helped make it all happen? (And our eternal love?) Buy a supporting membership! \o/ They're only 16 pounds.

Premieres
We know many of you will have been busy not only with annual festivities, but also with festivids assignments... but you know what makes a great post-festivids project?! (While we all wait for the go-live!) A Vidukon premiere! Any subject, any fandom... the only prerequisite for entry into this show is that the vid has not been shown or posted previously. The premieres show will be on Saturday night, with lovely buffet dinner, and of course your vid will appear on the con DVD. Even if you've never submitted a premiere before, have a think about doing so--it's less scary than it sounds and I can vouch for that personally because my first ever premiere was for the first Vidukon. :)

You don't have to tell us you are planning to make a premiere--just submit it by the deadline of February 27, following the directions on our website.

Programming
While we have most of our schedule worked out, we do want to now firm up the remaining shows. You can help! Our brainstorming post was a big success, thank you to everyone that participated. We still have some slots in the schedule to fill, so here's round 2. ( ideas that need love, shows that need VJs )

Now that registration is open, it’s time to tell us what you want to see as part of the Vidukon schedule/program. This post is for brainstorming ideas about vid shows and panels that you want to see/attend. Everyone is welcome, indeed encouraged, to participate in this discussion. You do not need to have registered yet to participate (but reminder that it’s helpful to let us know that you’re thinking of getting an attending or non-attending registration so we can plan numbers). At the moment there is very little definite programming so if you have a great idea (or even an idea you are tentative about but want to see if others are interested in it) and want to see it happen, now is the time to speak up!

Thank you to everyone who responded to our request for volunteers saying they would be interested in putting together a vid show and/or running a panel. Here is your place to either pitch your idea or hunt in the comments for something you'd like to put your hand up for.

Note: In order to keep track of the discussion we will be centralising comments for this post specifically on LJ rather than Dreamwidth, so please head over to http://community.livejournal.com/vidukon/24083.html for more details and the discussion.

Thanks!