Looking Forward

Tickets for BreyerFest went on sale officially this week – for some reason I thought it wouldn’t be until next week, but that’s probably the insomnia talking.

(It’s not one of those little health issues I was talking about addressing before, it just happens from time to time. I suspect that it’s just the moody weather and the lack of sunshine wreaking havoc with my circadian rhythms, again.)

I’m a bit of a procrastinator, so I won’t be buying my tickets until at least March, after I have a good idea of what’s going to be in the Special Run lineup. Workshops aren’t that big a deal for me; the only thing giving me slight pause is that the notion of entering the live show this year has entered my brain. Whether or not that becomes a reality all depends on what transpires between now and the end of February, I suppose.

I am not particularly upset about the absence of a Costume Contest this year. I was already thinking that I was going to focus my creative energies elsewhere – maybe on the Diorama, maybe on the Live Show, maybe even on the (ha!) Customs Contest.

As Reeves pointed out in their posts about the topic (along with other hobbyists) the entire contest needs to be rethought and restructured, because it’s obviously causing a lot of consternation among past and future participants. The stakes are far too high (prizes worth up to $1000!) for the amount of judging involved (over, literally, within minutes) that also seems totally arbitrary and variable from year to year to year.

Personally, I’d like to see it move a little more towards the kind of cosplay standards you’d see at genre-oriented conventions, with less emphasis on age breakouts, and more toward categories for workmanship and performance. Maybe even different prizes for different placements, like the Customs Contest? Just spitballing, here...

Incidentally, there’s a larger than zero chance that I might end up participating in a cosplay contest this year anyway, depending on whether or not I get selected for the Seattle Soiree. The local comics convention is the same weekend, and if I do not get selected for Seattle, a friend and I have concocted a delightfully hair-brained way we could possibly participate.

(Hijinks may ensue. And swordplay!)

Props to the designer of the Exclusive Event logo, by the way. If you have ever taken a gander at my design sensibility (via my MGR Samplers, most likely) you should know that I am a big fan of the Less is More approach.