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words Rachel

We arrived in SeaTac (apparently a city by itself and not just an airport abbreviation!) Friday night. The Mariott Hotel was quite atmospheric and lovely overall, with the exception of our rooms with a view... of a concrete wall! We dined at the hotel restaurant, which turned out to be an educational experience for some (Tami learned the definition of a tossed salad).

The next morning we began to mingle with the TolCon folks, usually only silently noting who else was involved (later, this became enthusiastic chatting, but this was the first day after all!). We picked up our schedules and headed into the opening ceremonies, where we were introduced for the first time to Jamine Watson and Greg Tozer, our guests of honor. Next up was a Q&A session with Greg, which was quite fascinating! It was great to hear how the process of creation works, especially from the lips of someone who so clearly enjoys his craft.

We retired to our hotel rooms to practice for a few hours. Thankfully, there was nobody around us on our floor (though we apologize to anyone above or below us that might have been inconvenienced by us!). During our sound check later that evening, our Stage Manager and Sound Genius Steve seemed slightly put out about the available sound equipment. Fortunately, the other featured band, The Forgotten Celts, was kind enough to let us use their microphones instead. What a swell group of people! They were nothing but kind to us. We were sad when we discovered they hadn’t stayed for the whole convention.

After an unimpressive meal at Denny’s (who flies all the way to Seattle to eat at Denny’s?? We wish there had been something else nearby), we hurried back to get ready for our performance. We arrived in the room as The Forgotten Celts were finishing their set. They are fabulous performers! Their music is fun, and they really know how to engage the audience. They introduced us very kindly, and we spent a few minutes setting up. I don’t think we were quite prepared for the level of attention everyone paid to our entire performance!! So many people sat and listened like it was a concert, something we’ve never quite experienced before. I wish the venue had been set up a tad more conveniently – we were situated on the long side of a rectangular room, so the only person sitting directly in front of us was Steve at the soundboard! Everyone else was off to the sides, making audience involvement difficult (I appreciated The Forgotten Celts even more at this point for pulling it off!). We managed to get people up and dancing for a few of our songs, which was fun for everyone involved! A favorite seemed to be Kierstin’s new arrangement of “Hey, Ho, to the Bottle I Go!” All in all, it was a good experience for us, and we felt good about our performance at the end of it.

Next, the Great Luke Ski (a spoof/filk songwriter) performed as the musical guest of honor. He was hilarious, and most of us stayed for the entire show. Bravo to his wardrobe department for organizing his numerous quick-changes!

The next morning was supposed to be Jasmine Watson’s presentation, but due to technical difficulties, it was pushed to the following day. This turned out to be an advantage for us in a way, because when we met her later that evening, we were able to ask her all the questions on a one-to-one basis that we had prepared for the audience lecture!

That evening was the costume ball and contest. Steve (Grima Wormtongue), Rachel (Tempted Galadriel), Melonie (Blood Red Arwen), and Gina (Rivendell Elf) all jumped at the chance, finally convincing Kierstin (Shieldmaiden Eowyn) to come along. After a rather successful first attempt at applying and painting prosthetics without our makeup artist, we headed down to the ballroom. This was the largest event we attended at the convention, and we saw lots of fun costumes! Jasmine Watson was one of the judges, along with a long-time Renaissance costumer and a long-time bellydance costumer. We were pleased to note the judges asking all of us lots of questions about our costumes, especially because we feel it is one of the defining characteristics that makes our music group unique. They had a lot of very kind and flattering things to say, and seemed genuinely interested in our construction techniques! At the end of the contest and after some time for deliberation, the winners were announced: A cute hobbit girl took the youth award, Gimli (a crowd favorite) took Best Craft, and Tom Bombadil (one of our favorites) took Judges’ Choice. Excitingly enough, the two remaining prizes went to Dorian Mirth members! Rachel took Best Design, and Kierstin stole Best in Show! The best part of all is that everyone in the room was so happy for everyone else, and the applause was genuine. We were all there to have a good time, and nobody forgot it.

Following the announcement, many of the contestants retired to the hallway to take loads of pictures of one another. Unfortunately, we had to break away from all the friendly faces and head back to our rooms to pack our instruments and costumes (Steve also acted as equipment driver on this trip and he was to leave early the next morning). Deciding we shouldn’t pass the opportunity to try to sell some more CDs, Kierstin and Melonie stayed downstairs at a table in the hallway. Happily, Rachel and Gina joined, and we were having a nice conversation with two lovely ladies from Canada when Jasmine Watson happened by our CD table and stopped to talk to us. Once again, she complimented us all on our costumes. Of course, we couldn’t possibly let her get away that easily, so after thanking her profusely for her compliments, we dove into some questions about her work, her inspiration, and how she got where she is. Even though she can be quite soft-spoken, we found her ready to talk about her work and answer all our numerous questions about jewelry detail and her history as a designer. She still remembers what it was like to be in our shoes (it was her sister, a costume designer, who finally helped her break into the world of film) and she had lots of good suggestions and encouragement for us. After nearly an hour and a half, we felt we really should let her go! We gathered our things and headed to bed for the night.

After seeing Steve off the next morning, we convened downstairs for Jasmine’s presentation. Even after our lengthy conversation the night before, she had lots of new things to say about her work! The pictures she brought were informative and beautiful, of course! Everyone really seemed to be eating up every word she said.

It was time to check out of the hotel so we gathered our remaining bags and set up table in the vendor room to try to sell a few last CDs before we left. Having already spent a good amount of time in this room debating what to buy, we had become quite friendly with several of the other vendors. Some of them even helped us by providing a CD player to help our sales! We all took turns watching the table so that others could go ogle Jasmine Watson’s beautiful line of modern jewelry. We couldn’t pass up such beautiful jewelry, and all of us (with the exception of Kierstin, who has metal allergies to anything that isn’t gold) bought a piece. Jasmine was very friendly and personable (not to mention elegant and beautiful!), and she was kind enough to grant our request of a group photo with her. She even pulled out her own camera so she would have a picture of us!

After moseying into the main ballroom one last time to chat with Greg and say good-bye to the organizers, we sadly boarded the shuttle to the airport. None of us were quite ready to leave beautiful Seattle and return to Real Life. Dorian Mirth wishes to extend repeated and heart-felt thanks to the TolCon organizers for all their hard work! We’d especially like to thank Mali for inviting us so enthusiastically to the convention in the first place!