| Gathering of the Gargoyles 2005 con diary, part 1 |
[Aug. 3rd, 2005|11:17 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  bouncy | ] |
Wednesday, July 27th
Fresno, California
My flight into Las Vegas was mostly uneventful. It was a little delayed because the plane arrived late and it didn't take off right away because they had overbooked. They offered passengers with no connecting flight into Las Vegas as $400 travel vouchers... fuck, I could have REALLY used that voucher but there were two problems:
1) I was on staff and needed to be there early the next day to help with set-up and there was not another flight into Vegas until 4pm.
2) I didn't want to risk enabling "the curse" to happen again this year. You see, I've missed every 3rd Gathering over the past 8 years and wanted to break the cycle with the 9th.
Okay, maybe the idea of missing the taking the travel voucher causing me to miss the con completely is a bit... but given the hell I went through recently to get to Philadelphia and back I didn't want to take the chance... especially, at the very least, I would be bringing a special surprise for opening ceremonies and didn't want to put that in jeopardy.
I managed to arrive in Las Vegas without a hitch and made it to the hotel in plenty of times to get a good nights sleep before tomorrow's insanity.
Thursday, July 28th
Las Vegas, Nevada
After a very cheap (and good) buffet I met up with the rest of The Gathering staff who were in the hotel. We made a quick list of last minute to-do items that needed taking care of before the con would begin: Supplies to assemble the art show panels, food for the con suite, and a bunch of other miscellaneous knick-knacks. I tagged along for the errand run to help provide up-to-date information on Greg and Thom's flight via my Sidekick II. When we left from the hotel, Greg and Thom had already been delayed about 10 minutes. By the time we had finished our errands, their flight had been delayed about an hour and a half, but they would still be arriving in plenty of time for them to accompany us for the group trip to The Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur.
We started working on assembling packages, organizing, and initial perpetration for tomorrow's set-up. During this time, there were thunderstorms outside and it had started pouring outside. I kept checking the status of Greg and Thom's flight just to make sure it hadn't been delayed due to the storms but everything *appeared* to be fine. Around 6pm we had finished and people started to trickle into the con suite to meet up for The Tournament of Kings. It was at this time that we got word of our first con-mishap. Greg and Thom's flight had been delayed indefinitely! The story goes like this; their initial flight was delayed due to problems with the airplane but after they got those problems resolved, they let the plane take off without enough fuel to arrive in Las Vegas. The plane was rerouted to Ontario, California where they would sit for about 2 hours before finally landing in Las Vegas.
I ended up riding with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) invisiblewolf as we made our way towards Excalibur for The Tournament of Kings. What a show! :) My seats ended up being near invisiblewolf and Vince. We got to enjoy a lot of hunky guys, great costumes, and amazing swordplay. Those actors were actually hitting each other! Even without the music and dramatically-enhanced sound effects, you could hear the THWACK of the mace smashing into their shields. Even the jousting seemed fairly authentic. One of the greatest parts of the experience was the food. There weren't any utensils so we had to rip into the food with our bare hands, and boy did I get into character. I was hunched over my plate ripping and tearing into mf food with either my fingers or with my teeth... It wasn't a pretty site, unlike the tournament itself which was great fun as we cheered on the King of Dragons. Secretly I was cheering on the King of Hungary who had an uncanny resemblance to my friend Tony. One personal highlight was when I shouted "your dad got owned!" after King Arthur was run-through by the Dragon King.
invisiblewolf and I made our way back to the hotel after the show so I could meet up with my roommates Scott and Marina, who would be arriving from San Diego. I spent the evening in the lobby laughing it up with crzydemona, kythera, and cinsangel, gregx, and Gorebash until Scott and Marina arrived, at which point we all made our way to bed. |
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