North American Discworld Convention 2009

The on-stage costume competition or "Maskerade" has been a tradition at Discworld conventions from the very beginning. Here at NADWCon we seek to live up to that tradition with a lively maskerade. Please, come and show us your finest costume work!

The arrangement is not unlike a fashion show, with a stage and runway. Use this space to show us your costume and to present a brief sketch or other performance to lend zing to your costume if you like. A receptive audience will provide itself.

I'm Randall Whitlock, your Maskerade Director. I've directed masquerades at seven local CopperCon conventions and shown costumes or helped run stage tech at many other conventions around the southwest. I've been a Discworld fan since I received a copy of "Sourcery" for a Hogswatch present in the early 90's.

This page will present the most recent information available for Maskerade contestants and crew.

The details are constantly evolving. Please return to this page regularly for updates on stage layout, lights, sound and other tech, rules, and (I hope) useful suggestions.

Please contact me with questions, suggestions or to volunteer your services.

You can reach me by e-mail at maskerade@nadwcon.org by clicking any of the mail links scattered through this page or by surface mail at:

The Maskerade will be presented on Saturday evening in the main ballroom, also known as Palm Ballroom, Rooms A through F. This ballroom will be used for all of the larger events of NADWCon.

There will be a Contestant Meeting on Saturday morning or early afternoon in one of the hotel's conference rooms. Check your Pocket Program for the exact time and place. This is the time to prepare your entry forms and bring your music, notes for the MC, documentation, and to work out any presentation questions with the director and crew.

If you can't make the Contestant Meeting, the Maskerade Director will be available all day Saturday to assist contestants and handle last-minute details. Look for the stressed-out person wearing the yellow sash.

Click Here for a downloadable Signup form. Right click to save the form to your computer. The form is presented in Rich Text Format (.rtf ), which can be read, printed, and edited in all common word processor software.

Filling out the signup form on your own computer has several advantages. We won't have trouble deciphering your handwriting and you can fix mistakes without having to start over. Please e-mail me the completed form.

You'll still need to sign the image/liability waiver when you get to the con, but signing up in advance will help me greatly with planning.

At con, there will be maskerade signup packages set out near the registration table. You can present your signup form at the Contestant Meeting, where you will have the opportunity to confer with the Maskerade Director, Master of Ceremonies, and Tech Crew.

The auditorium for the maskerade will be Palm Ballroom A through F. This is the same place all of the convention's largest events will be held.

The stage will be built of portable risers arranged into a rectangular main stage. The risers are about 15 inches tall and are 4 by 8 feet each. Tentatively, I intend to use 16 of these to form a 16-foot deep by 32-foot wide stage. Reality may intervene and make us reduce the stage size.

I'll have to coordinate the stage design with other department heads. We should be able to create an arrangement that will work for everyone, without the need to reset the room between events.

The stage will be near the east wall of the ballroom. This will allow contestants to queue up in the east hallway and enter through the two double doors. The audience will enter from the broad foyer on the south side of the ballroom.

Contestants will enter from stage right or stage left, do their thing, then exit downstage center into the center aisle and pass through the audience to reserved seats in the back of the audience area.

The double doors into the ballroom are 71 inches wide and 83 inches tall. There are also several single doors, which are the same height but half as wide.

The contestant preparation area or "Green Room" is the Xavier meeting room outlined in red on the map. Here you can do final preparation of your costume, interview with the judges, have your documentation photo taken, and queue up for your presentation. It's an open space without a lot of privacy, so you should do most of your clothes-changing before you arrive. There are restrooms next door to the green room.

The Xavier room has a single door that is 35.5 inches wide and 83 inches tall. If your costume can't fit through a door that size, let us know so we can make alternate arrangements.

Contestants will walk from the green room to the hallway staging area. Follow the pathway shown by the Green Arrows (Batman was not available).

We will have water, mirrors, tables and volunteer "den mothers" for your assistance. The Southwest Costumers Guild will provide some emergency repair supplies. You should expect, however, to bring whatever tools and materials you will need for basic setup and maintenance of your costume. Sharing of resources among contestants is appreciated.

If you have limited mobility or vision because of your costume design or natural physical limitations and this stage plan will not work for you, please contact the Maskerade Director in advance so we can work something out. With sufficient advance notice we may be able to arrange a screened area to assemble your costume or a ramp up onto the stage.

We'll be using the hotel's technical support vendor, so excellent quality lights and sound playback will be available. I'll know more specifics about light colors and the like later on. Please drop me an e-mail. if you have a specific question.

Music and sound tracks for your presentation may be submitted as cassette tapes, CD's, or digital sound files (such as .wav or mp3).

Digital sound files are preferred since we will be using a computer-driven sound system. It will be greatly appreciated if you submit your soundtrack well in advance. Digital sound files can be submitted on CD, DVD, SD card, USB thumb drive or e-mailed to the Maskerade Director.

Digital sound files are amazingly easy to create. You can "rip" a music track from CD using free software such as iTunes, Windows Media Player (which probably came with your computer) or any of the assorted free players you can find on the web. You can plug a microphone into your computer and mix in a dialog track using free applications such as Audacity . Even if you aren't terribly computer savvy, you certainly have a techie friend who can help you set up your sound track. Most of them will work for cookies. Make them something from "The Joy of Snacks."

If you purchased music from an online store, it may contain "digital rights management" (DRM) software, which prevents it from being played on any device not authorized to your account. Please do not submit soundtracks with DRM. There are workarounds for this problem. Talk to your cookie-consuming technical advisor.

We should be able to scrounge up a couple of wireless microphones. These will be adequate for a solo vocal performance or a two-character dialogue, but probably not for a large group with many persons speaking. For presentations with lots of dialogue, I recommend that you record the speech as part of your sound track and synch your motions with the playback.

Narration to be read by the MC may be submitted on 4 by 6-inch note cards or on the signup form we provide. Write or type carefully!

Character names and other unusual words should be spelled out phonetically (fone-et-ick-al-lee). Please tell us if you prefer a particular pronunciation for your character names (British, US, Fourecksian, etc). Your MC is a British bioscientist, while your Maskerade Director is a particularly earthy earth scientist who talks like a character out of "Firefly."

The Team

Randall Whitlock is your Maskerade Director. Please contact him with questions and suggestions, and to volunteer your services. At the convention, he will make himself visible by wearing a yellow sash marked "Masquerade Director." The sash was made for another convention, so please forgive the egregious misspelling.

Dr. Pat Harkin, host of several Maskerades in the United Kingdom and many of the events at our convention, is your Master of Ceremonies.

Gary Swaty of the Phoenix Filk Circle will handle sound. Think of him as your DJ (Discworld Jockey).

Lyn Jeppesen will host a "Costumers Dungeon" throughout the convention. This will be a room dedicated to emergency repairs of your costume and other technical support. There may be some costuming workshops in the dungeon as well.

I've contacted several experienced persons to be judges, but I'll keep their names under wraps until they've had a chance to publish their official bribe rates.

Igors Wanted! We need Stage Hands to help with setup and teardown, "Den Mothers" to assist the contestants backstage, House Managers and Catchers to manage the seating, and a Judges' Clerk to help with record keeping.

Contestants may enter the Maskerade in any of several divisions, based upon their self-determined skill level.

Do you remember Sir Terry's story, "The Sea and Little Fishes," in which Lettice Earwig asks Granny Weatherwax not to compete in the Witch Trials anymore because she always wins? We don't play things that way. Instead, Granny would move up a division and compete only against the most experienced witches. If the witches of the disc were entering our Maskerade, Tiffany would be a novice, Magrat and Agnes would be journeymen, and Nanny and Granny would be Masters.

Please show good sportsmanship as you enter the Maskerade. If there is some question in your mind whether to enter one division or the other, choose the more senior division and don't sandbag the less experienced costumers. By the end of "Wintersmith," Tiffany is ready to be a Journeyman.

These divisions are based loosely on the system invented by the International Costume Guild. The division system should be broadly similar but not identical to that previously used at Discworld conventions in the UK.

Maskerade entrants will be registered in one of these divisions:

Feegles

Feegles are expected to be under the supervision of a parent or guardian. The guardian will sign the entry form/image waiver and guide the child through the proceedings. The maskerade staff does not pretend to be qualified child care professionals! Bring your own Miss Susan.

Older kids who have built their own costumes may choose to enter the Novice Division. I know a few who are ready to be Journeymen! Remember, if you play with the grownups, you are expected to act like one.

Novice

Our Maskerade is novice-friendly--Try your wings!

Journeyman is the division for contestants who have participated in several previous convention masquerades, who have won a major award at a previous masquerade, or have some useful experience in community theater or historical reenactment societies. If you're an experienced live-action roleplayer, you probably belong here too. The contestant is on his/her honor in choosing the division. We won't be checking resumes or anything.

Master

Hint: There are usually fewer entries in the more senior divisions. Moving up in divisions can actually gain you a competitive edge. It's also more sporting for the newer costumers.

Performance Only

paid for.

for love not money

For Display Only

These divisions are meant to be flexible in their definition, since we can't know in advance how many contestants will appear and what kinds of costumes they will show. When in doubt, please converse with the Director.

There are always strange boundary conditions. Imagine for example that a master-level costumer has built a costume for her 4-year old grandson and shows it in the Maskerade. I would consider the grandson to be a feegle, but the grandmother could enter the costume in the Master Division. Junior will receive his chocolate. If the costume wins a master-level award, I expect the grandmother to come onstage to accept the prize.

Suppose a group costume effort includes both novices and journeymen as participants? I suggest entering the more senior division. An experienced coordinator can bring out the best in the less experienced members of the group.

We are planning awards for Best in Show, Guest of Honor's Choice, best in the skill divisions, and several Judges' Special Mentions.

The actual prizes are not yet made, but we're working on something special (and small enough to fit in your check luggage). Your Director is consulting with some cunning artificers.

Certainly, there will be participation certificates for all in the Maskerade. Bernard Pearson has designed a beautiful participation cert and frame art for the divisional awards.

Our roving congratulators will present Hall Costume Ribbons during the convention. No forms to fill out, just randomly presented thank-you's for spicing up the convention with your costumed character.

Prize Donations If you are a fandom or costume-related artisan, author or business person and would like to donate a prize for the NADWCon Maskerade, please contact the Maskerade Director. You will receive our gratitude and the chance to promote your work or products before a highly motivated fannish audience. You can also designate what kind of costume presentation will receive your prize (best historical, best special effect, most humorous, best use of duct tape--it's your choice).

For example, Southwest Costumers Guild will present a complimentary one-year local membership to the winner of the Novice Division.

It's longer than you think. Brevity is the soul of wit. Large groups or more complex performances may need a bit more time.

3. Rule: Wholly purchased or rented costumes may not be entered for full competition, but are welcome as Performance Only or Display Only.

You may use some purchased parts in a competition entry, but the overall costume is to be fan-made. An original arrangement of variously obtained parts (thrift store costuming) counts as a fan-made costume. Creative shopping is a costuming skill.

For example, a Death with a store-bought mask or scythe would be okay if he built his own robes. He'd certainly impress the judges more if he did build the skull.

If your costume was made by a friend or relative (for love not money), it's still fan-made Please make sure the maker's name is included on your signup forms. Any awards belong as much to the maker as the wearer.

If you have a store-bought costume that you'd like to show, or a cosplay sketch to perform using professionally made costumes, you are very welcome here. Just be sure to enter the "Performance Only" or "Display Only" division. Sometimes a presentation has one person in a purchased costume to set up the performances of the "real" contestants. Just tell the judges, "We're using him as a prop."

4. Clarification: The "Contestant" can be one person or a team consisting of designers, makers, and models. Everyone who worked on the costume presentation should be given credit on the signup forms.

5. Rule: Thou shalt not slime thy neighbor! No messy substances (wet, dusty, oily, sharp, etc.) that might damage the stage or interfere with other contestants will be allowed.

There are infamous stories about costumes covered with peanut butter or broken glass.

There will be children present and it's not our job to teach them the facts of life. Please, no more skin than beach-legal at a non-French beach. Please, no deliberately offensive language, disturbingly violent or serious gross-out action in your performance. Don't make anyone lose their lunch.

If you have an idea that sounds good, but might be over the top, please talk to the Maskerade Director first. I have a fairly open idea of what constitutes TV-14 and how an idea might be made to work.

This rule applies to the green room as well as the performance. Please show discretion and respect for others when you change clothes. No mooning the kiddies!

This is the law in Arizona. Besides, we'll be packed in fairly close at some points. There are open courtyards next to the green room and hallway to accommodate your needs.

Flashes are very distracting to the contestants and audience. A sudden, dazzling light can cause a contestant to trip and fall. Non-flash pictures are okay. Posed pictures can be arranged off-stage with permission of the individual contestants. If there is enough support for it among the contestants, we might arrange for an off-stage fan photography area.

I'm told that a "Photo Call" using the stage after the maskerade is popular at other cons. What do you think?

A documentation photo of each costume will be taken before the Maskerade for the judges' reference. We'll try to make arrangements for contestants to receive copies of their documentation photos, perhaps by e-mail.

Yes, some of your plans may go wrong here in the real world, particularly if your presentation has complicated cues or a lot of tech. Murphy was a prophet. Please stay calm and handle it with grace. Don't let self-imposed stress or a hot temper ruin the experience for you and those around you.

10. Firm Rule: Keep the action on the stage. Weapons, stunts, and special effects must be approved in advance by the Maskerade Director.

If the weapon and its presentation have not been cleared, you will be disqualified from competition. This is a safety thing. I like weapons as much as the Last Hero, but I want to see for myself what you are carrying and what you intend to do with it. This safety approval rule also applies to acrobatic stunts, special effects, energetic dances, or anything else that might inadvertently extend beyond the stage.

I once scared the be-Offler out of a masquerade director because I forgot to tell her that a clownish pratfall was part of my presentation! (A mime is a terrible thing to waste.)

If you are going to do something surprising, please clue in the Director, MC, and Catchers in advance. If you want to interact with the MC, you must rehearse with him at the contestant meeting.

12. Rule: The Maskerade Director is Patrician. He has full authority to eject anyone from the maskerade on the basis of unrepentant bad taste, danger to the contestants or audience, violation of the above rules, or any other reason deemed sufficient. The House and Backstage Managers are the director's duly deputized "clerks" and may exercise similar authority as needed.

This rule is intended to protect you and the convention from the real loons. The rule will not be invoked for frivolous or unfair reasons. Don't make me go all "Lord Snapcase" on you.

13. Rule: Thou Shalt Submit Thy Paperwork. Everyone appearing on stage must submit an image waiver which bears their legal signature (not just a character name). The image waiver will be part of the final contestant signup form. Persons under 18 years old must present the signature of a parent or guardian.

We want the legalities nice and tidy. If the image waivers are not all in order, we won't be able to release a maskerade video.

NADWCon is a gathering of fans of the Discworld, but that covers a LOT of territory. Costumes do NOT have to be re-creations of specific Discworld characters.

Original characters and creatures which would fit well onto the Disc are welcome, as well as historical interpretations from periods of history which have influenced the feel of the novels and the appearance of their screen adaptations. Characters from Sir Terry's other works (Goose-riding Nomes or four-armed Kung warriors anyone?) would certainly be welcome, as would costumes based on the works of our other guests and luminaries. Have doubts? Talk to the director.

There's still plenty of time before the maskerade for ideas, comments, questions, and suggestions. I'm making this up as I go along.

--by e-mail at maskerade@nadwcon.org This is the best option. I check my e-mail at least twice daily.

--by telephone message at (602) 995-7514. Weekdays 6 to 9 PM Mountain Standard Time (GMT minus seven hours) are best.

Remember, Arizona does not participate in Daylight Savings Time. We have too much daylight already! My proposal for "Daylight Avoidance Time," however, has not received much support outside of the vampire community. We're in sync with Denver during the winter and with Los Angeles during the spring and summer.

I use my answering machine to screen out junk sales calls, so please ignore the pythonesque anti-telemarketer greeting and leave a message. Because of a nasty experience with an obscene caller many years ago, the greeting message does not give my name.

If I'm in the house, I'll pick up. If I'm not home, I will return domestic calls. I probably can't afford an overseas telephone bill, so internet methods are better for communicating with folks in Britain. I've just taken out an ooVoo teleconferencing account, which may prove useful for overseas calls.

Maskerade questions only, please. I don't know anything about dealer room, hotel room prices, etc.

Here are a few articles from my Costume Closet column in Connotations, which give some thoughts on costuming on and off the stage at fandom conventions.