Entries tagged with confab2019

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: bedroom
Current Music: the fan

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Annual Raffle is Coming

Hey, it’s your Friendly Neighborhood Raffle Coordinator, She!Sam! CONfab is coming up quickly, and you know what that means: the annual CONfab Raffle! It’s always a fun event, and we’ve raised so much for some fabulous causes.

This year’s proceeds will be going to Howard Brown Health Center. Howard Brown is a great asset to Chicago and the LGTBQIA+ community, and offers many health services, as well as other services like support groups and a GED Program.

Our raffle will include items from all sorts of Fandoms, new and old, that you can try your luck to win. Tickets are $1 each, and can be bought throughout the weekend up until the raffle on Saturday night. Want to buy some tickets, and can’t find me? Tweet

youngloveleroy, and I’ll get you squared away. (running toward each other in slow motion is not required)

Past Items have included:
Fan art, like drawings, paintings, digital art
clothing, fandom related or not
Jewelry, fandom related or not
Crafting supplies
Crafted items, like knitwear, crochet, needlework
Plushies
Craft Soaps, Cosmetics, Perfumes (new and unopened, please)
Gift Cards
Souvenirs
Tea
Odds and Ends, like fridge magnets, key chains, or coffee mugs
Games, card games, D&D, etc.

As always, items for the raffle will be accepted during the Con. If you have items for the raffle but you’re unable to make it to the con this year, or you have something you’d like to send ahead of time, you can reach out to Raffle@ConFabCon.com, or through my twitter or tumblr.

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Thursday Outing 2019

Come explore downtown Chicago with your fellow con attendees! For our annual Thursday outing, we will be taking the Blue Line train to the Monroe Street station in the morning and taking in the sights. We will also get lunch at some point.

We plan to depart the hotel about 10 a.m. and return about 3:30 p.m., so you should have plenty of time to relax before the Meet and Greet starts. Travel time on the train is about 1 hour each way. We will meet in the hotel lobby at 9:45 a.m. and take the hotel shuttle to the train station.

You’re free to stick with the group or go off on your own, as this is a free-form outing. Is there a museum you’re dying to go to, or a tour you’d like to take? Thursday is a great time to do that without missing any of the panels or con events!

Cost for the train will be about $5 for a round trip. To save some money, you can purchase a Ventra card which allows you to register the card and get your $5 back. It can also be used by multiple people. This is a good option if you will not be taking many trips on the train over your visit. You can read more here: https://www.transitchicago.com/

There are several places to visit near the stop we will be getting off at, including Millenium Park (take a picture with the Bean!), the Art Institute of Chicago and more. Some possibilities are here: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/top-25-things-to-do-in-chicago-il/

More concrete plans for exploring Chicago and where to eat will be made day-of, or leave ideas here on this post!

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Tips & Tricks Day 6: Workshop Planning Notes

Today, our series on How to Run Programming comes to an end! Today's post will give you some actual examples of workshops run by our attendees and how they planned them. Because your mod has limited internet access today, we invite everyone to post their notes in the comments and the post will be edited with the links tomorrow.

If you've hosted a workshop at CONfab, Wincon, or any other fan cons, and you'd like to share any notes you put together to prepare or advice you have for people who are new to running programming, please link them in the comments!

As always, we're happy to answer any questions you may have, so leave us a comment on our DW post, or send an email to programming@confabcon.com.

And don't forget tomorrow's the last day to submit your programming ideas, which you can do at this link!

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Tips & Tricks Day 5: How to Run a Workshop

Hi everyone! Only three more days to submit your programming ideas, so make sure you don't miss the deadline. We're at Day 5 of our How to Run Programming series, this time talking about Tips & Tricks for Hosting a Workshop!

From how to work with makeup, making plushies, knitting and other fiber arts, to beginner info on Dungeons & Dragons, or how to get into podficcing, workshops can be whatever you want to teach to a group! If you need some inspiration on where to start your planning, check out the post. Examples of attendees' workshop notes will go up tomorrow. As with the panels and group discussions, if you have notes that you'd like to share or advice for people who want to run a workshop, you'll be able to add them to that post.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment on this post or email us at programming@confabcon.com.

We can't wait to see your submissions!

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Tips & Tricks Day 4: Group Discussion Questions!

It's Day 4 of our series on how to run programming! Yesterday, we put up this post with some tips and tricks to help you with hosting a group discussion. For today's post, I've included the notes from a few of my own group discussions, since I've run a lot of them.

Group discussions generally focus on one single fandom (or trope or more narrowly focused topic). When I've run group discussions, I generally write down a few things that I want to discuss, as well as some leading questions to ask the group if we have time. Some examples for you:

Stranger Things (CONfab 2017):
(This discussion was held between S1 and S2)

The Stephen King-esque vibe of the whole series. This show feels like it could be an adaptation of a King or similar book from that era.
All of the 80s pop culture references and how spot on the 80s vibe was.
Characters and relationships (how much do we love Hopper? *__* how great are all of those kids?)
The ending!!
#justiceforbarb
Things to ask the group: what drew you to the show, what do you want to see in S2, favorite part of S1

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (CONfab 2017):

Tone, setting, clothes, etc. Talk about the look of the show.
Jack/Phryne y/y/mfy?? Their working relationship, possible romance, etc.
Evolution of Dot's character over the three seasons
Character relationships (Dot and Miss Fisher, Miss Fisher and Mac, Hugh and Dot, Miss Fisher and the police, etc.)
The possible movie!!
Things to ask the group: favorite episode/arc, favorite character, why you started watching the show

Podcasts (CONfab 2018):

Types of podcasts you listen to
How you got into listening to them
Fiction vs. Non-Fiction
Recommend some podcasts to the group

If any of you have your own examples, please leave them in the comments! We'd love both actual notes from a group discussion and advice/things you like to do for your own group discussions. I'll update this post later on with links to whatever we receive.

As always, we're happy to answer any questions you may have, so leave us a comment or send an email to programming@confabcon.com. :D

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Tips & Tricks Day 3: How to Host a Group Discussion

Day 3 of our How to Run Programming series continues with Tips & Tricks for Hosting a Group Discussion! Check it out if you need some inspiration on where to start. Examples of attendees' group discussion notes will go up tomorrow. As with the panels, if you have notes that you'd like to share, you'll be able to add them to that post.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment on this post or email us at programming@confabcon.com.

We look forward to seeing your submissions in the next few days, and remember, your last day to submit is Sunday!

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Tips & Tricks Day 2: Panel Outlines!

Welcome to Day 2 of our series on how to run programming! Yesterday, we put up this post with some tips and tricks to help you with modding a panel. Today's post is going to give you some actual examples of real panels run by our attendees and how much or how little pre-planning they put into them. Special thanks to the attendees who sent us their notes; we really appreciate it!

Panel Prep Notes:

Fandom History: From Zines to AO3 (CONfab 2018 - via ifshehadwings)
Horror/Genre Panel (Wincon 2010 - via clex_monkie89)
Let them eat cake! Asexuality in Fandom (Wincon 2015 - via often adamanta)
Marvel Cinematic Universe (CONfab 2017 - via chaneen)
Various 2018 Panels Modded by countessmry (CONfab 2018 - via countessmry)

Everything has been uploaded to gdocs and should always be accessible to you if you want to reference anything. If you've run programming at CONfab, Wincon, or any other fan cons, before and would like to share any notes you put together to prepare, please link them in the comments of this post! Also, if you have any advice for people who are new to running panels that was helpful to you, feel free to comment with that as well.

As always, we're happy to answer any questions you may have, so leave us a comment or send an email to programming@confabcon.com. :D

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Programming Submission Period Ends Soon! (Tips & Tricks Day 1)

Hello friends! Just a reminder that programming submissions for CONfab 2019 close on Sunday, June 30th! Don't forget to get your submissions in by the deadline. Some important links to help you out:

If you've never submitted programming before, or you're interested in advice on how to run some, this week we will be putting up a series of posts to help you out. Today's post is Tips & Tricks for Moderating a Panel! You can do as much or as little prep as you personally feel comfortable with, but if you don't know where to start, this post has some great ideas to help you out.

Tomorrow, we'll be putting up a post with some examples of attendees' notes from the panels they've run in past years, so you can see how various mods structured theirs. If you have notes from your panels that you'd like to share, you'll be able to add them to that post.

We have some similarly themed posts for Group Discussions and Workshops planned for the rest of the week, so check those out, too, when they go up! Any questions can, as always, be left in a comment on this post, or you can email us at programming@confabcon.com.

We look forward to seeing your submissions and also seeing your wonderful faces in September!