Battlestar Galactica group (mm)
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The FANCY DRESS that evening was....fantastic....GREAT! To one used to the most outre convention
costume being a bare Brian Burgess, this was fabulous...even though we did still get the bare
Brian. Many of the costumes were quite beautiful; almost all were of a very high standard and the
presentations were well executed. Bob Tucker made an excellent compere (almost beyond compere,
even) and the two STAR WARS Stormtroopers helped him enliven those occasional lapses when a hitch
or an itch caused problems backstage.
Sally Fink & George Paczolt as Leetah &
Cutter from "Elfquest" (mm)
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I'd watched the Fancy Dress from the hall balcony, together with a crowd of frustrated photographers
- frustrated because they weren't allowed to use their flash-units. Whilst having some sympathy with
them I think the committee had made the right decision here, for there is little that is more
off-putting for an audience, or contestant encased in an ornate but visibility restricting costume,
than the constant explosion (megablitz power) of Japanese terror weapons. I'd been a little late
getting to the Fancy Dress, and perforce not had time to locate the Portable Shorrock Bar before the
parade took place, but I was able to locate it whilst the judging took place and, since it was well
sited at the rear of the hall, get a second look at several of the contestants as they posed for
photographers. S-F surely is a wonderful thing.
As well as extending the stage for the Fancy Dress a runway was added (photo mm). The
inevitable Doctor Who and Leela pairing included a somewhat uncooperative dog in a cardboard K-9
costume. Note Fritz Leiber on judge's table at left.
PETER ROBERTS:
There's the fancy dress in the evening – I missed the beginning by chatting
to Dave Piper (his first convention and he claims he's not been out of the
fan room yet), but took a look later on. Drew & Kathy Sanders as the Tarot
King & Queen are excellent and there's some other items of note – certainly
better than your average Eastercon costumes. Mind you, there's always Brian
Burgess prancing around.
Kathy & Drew Sanders
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LISANNE SUTHERLAND:
I was one of the Fancy Dress competitors. We gathered in Hall 2 at 7.30pm for
the pre-judging and photographic session. After being allocated numbers, we were
herded behind a curtain into a tiny triangular area. There were 60-70 people at
least, in costumes ranging from scantily fragile to bulkily fragile, all trying
to squeeze into the tiny space until their name was called. In fact we had to
overflow into Hall 1-- there was no way Katie and her 20ft wings could have fitted
in there.
On hearing your number, you emerged to walk past the battery of cameras,
stopping briefly on each of the 3 marked areas. We had to do this twice. Then
it was 9pm and we were lined up behind curtained screens in Hall 1 waiting for
the real competition... at this point a friend had to be taken out of her robot
maid costume suffering from heat prostration. None of us had expected to be on
our feet so long, nor had we anticipated the cramped, overheated conditions.
After that incident, kind souls came round with glasses of iced water and saved
several lives! (Thank you from all of us, whoever you are.) The only really cool
ones amongst us were those in body paint or (like our Katie) in wings!
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Penny Hill as Niven's
Teela Brown
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The worst part was, as usual, waiting to go on. Once on the stage, it was too
late to worry. Then there was the wait for the results. I don’t know how long
that took, since it isn't ethnic for Darkovans to wear wrist watches; it seemed
to take hours. Only afterwards were we free to find liquid sustenance and to
change. We had been in costume for at least 5 hours: a long time for those in
robot, android, dragon, star-trooper, Darth Vader and green Wookie costumes.
It was an experience.
I thought the couple of hours at Yorcon Fancy Dress were bad... those for whom
this was their first Worldcon fancy-dress learned something-- to wear as little
as possible!
DAVE LANGFORD:
Note to future organizers: it was a minor mistake not to have roped off the
part of the hall reserved for competitors after they'd paraded. Instead there
was an irascible security guard who ordered people around more or less at random
and irrespective of whether they were standing in the way of anything. Though my
memory may be playing tricks, I seem to recall this chap walking round me to
evict D.West, who was standing further away from the reserved area than I... By
the way, Lisanne won something or other with her group, as she fails to mention
partly through modesty and partly because she revealed all in a piece for Ken
Slater's catalogue. Rumour had it that Katie S wanted to reveal all also,
but settled for a G-string and wings which coyly hid her shoulder-blades.
Katie S. and her 20 foot wings (mm)
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While not the first female fan to go topless in the Masquerade/Fancy Dress (see
MASQUERADE)
she was the first to do so in the UK, going as Avluela from Robert Silverberg's 'Nightwings' as
depicted on the cover of the 1970s Sphere Books paperback.
(Not a cover that would appear on a book today.) Note that two assistants were needed to support the wings.
MERV BINNS:
Just about fainting in the hot and constrictive costumes designed by John Breden,
and worn by John Foyster, George Turner and I, we suffered through nearly
four hours of pre-judging, photography, the parade, and then waiting for the
announcement of the winners. This was a bit much to take.
Norstrilia group: Merv Binns, Jeff Harris, David Grigg, Bruce Barnes,
John Foyster, Chris Johnson,
Sue Pagram (later Grigg) (dk)
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Much to the
disgust of the Scandinavian fans who are opposing our Australian bid for the
Worldcon in 1983, our presentation of characters from Cordwainer Smith's
'NORSTRILIA' series with the three Lords mentioned above, Justin Ackroyd and
Alex Wasiliew as Roman Soldier Robots, Sue Pagram as 'C'Mell', Chris Johnson
as 'Rod McBann', Cherry Wilder as 'Mother Hitten' with David Grigg and
Bruce Barnes as 'underpersons', got a great reception from the audience. After
carrying George Turner on in a hastily rigged sort of 'sedan chair', we
switched on his electronic gear. He rose and after nods of ascent from the
other two Lords, a banner was unfurled by the robots saying, 'OLD NORTH
AUSTRALIA IN '83'
Alex Wasiliew, George Turner, Justin Ackroyd (ch)
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George incidently, was more than once taken for a British author. This
again indicates that we need to blow our trumpet a lot more in Australia to let
SF people all around the world know we are here, and that we are a rapidly
growing force in the SF field.
Apparently, very little was known about our bid for 1983 before this
convention, and although we have to do a great deal more before we have any chance
of winning it, everybody knows after out presentation that WE ARE IN THE RACE FOR
1983. So the time, cost and effort put into the presentation was all worthwhile.
(Anybody want to buy some slightly used fancy [dress] costumes.)
John Foyster, Merv Binns, Adelaide fan Jeff Harris (dk)
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The Scandinavian contingent, in answer to our NORSTRILIA presentation, were the
last on, with what seemed a rather hurriedly put together act.
In the event the 1983 Worldcon was held in Baltimore, with Australia hosting it in 1985.
GEORGE PACZOLT:
The award for the most obnoxious group at the worldcon
has got to go to 'Scandinavia in '83's group, who put advertising
stickers over everything, including the hotel's paint and woodwork
(the mess really showed on Monday, when all the flyers were taken
down - no doubt the con committee really heard about that from the
hotel management), other committee's signs, bodies of anyone
walking past, and even had a person at the masquerade attempting to
stick stickers on the contestant's costumes! General undercurrent
that wafted by me was that they blew more goodwill than they made.
TERRY CARR:
Several of us decided to go up to the SFWA Suite to see what
was happening there; we found a large room filled with tables,
chairs, liquor and not too many people. We co-opted a table and
stayed for the night's partying, our table being, urn, chaired at
various times by Sid, Ted White, Susan Wood and Elinor Busby; Frank
Brunner, the artist, was there for a while, and Malcolm Edwards, etc.
Mainly, this was the night we began hearing of Brighton's contribution
to the tradition of closed-door pro parties: several publishers
had thrown parties to which only their authors were admitted, or at
best only people whose names were on a list held by a given public
relations person who guarded the door(s) like Cerberus. Some truly
startling tales reached our ears as one rejectee after another came
to the SFWA Suite. Joan Vinge, a Hugo winner, had been turned away
from the party of ore publisher who'd brought out two of her books:
someone had forgotten to put her name on The List. Ian Watson, no
slouch himself as a writer, had been refused admittance to the Omni
party; he protested that Ben Bova himself had invited him, but the
pr person muttered, "Who's Ben Bova?" as she shut the door. At
another party, several respected writers were turned away at the
door and the pr person was heard to grumble, "More American riffraff."
This led to quite a few people wearing name-tags thereafter with the
legend AMERICAN RIFF-RAFF.
Some heroes emerged from these encounters: people who left
such parties in protest (Jacqueline Lichtenberg was one of these),
and another, Norman Spinrad, who controlled his temper while he
tried to explain just who these people were who were being sent
away. In Norman's case, there was a somewhat happy ending because
the Cerberus involved apologized profusely the next day and insisted
on giving him a free ticket to the Banquet. I don’t think any
reparations were made to the rejected people, though.
Naturally we made Jokes like "Arthur C. who?" and such.
LINDA BUSHYAGER:
The rumour began with Karen Anderson not being admitted to the Omni
closed party at SeaCon, and being turned away with the charming phrase
"We don’t want you Yankee riff raff here."
Rumours quickly multiplied to include other authors excluded by secret parties,
particularly Vonda McIntyre. Freff than drew up a badge reading "Yankee Riff Raff",
copies of which were being worn at Novacon, two months later. The rumours were false,
however. Karen Anderson later said that she forgot her invitation, but that Ben
Bova saw her at the door and had her admitted. Vonda McIntyre denied she was kept
from parties either. British invitational parties being what they are, though, the
fact remains that some authors probably were excluded from some parties. The
phrase "Yankee Riff Raff", though, is unfortunately a mere invention. Along the
same lines, a mundane woman was preventing fans from entering an Aussie fan party,
apparently believing it was a part of the mundane party next door.
TERRY CARR:
I mock-proudly told everyone who’d listen that I hadn’t been thrown
out of a single party at the convention, mainly because I hadn’t
even heard of them. Some more strange rumours came down from the Gollancz
room party. Reportedly Brian Aldiss had grown enraged at Charles Platt
and chased him into another room, from which loud cries and thumpings
emerged; when this blew over, Jerry Pournelle suddenly heard Platt’s
name and he took off after Platt, crying, "You called me a fascist
in print! - I’m going to sue!" This encounter too was quieted
down, though Jerry was still threatening to sue. ("Fascist" is
evidently an actionable word in the United States, even in literary
criticism.)
PETER ROBERTS:
Parties later, but I'm easily befuddled and don't
remember where. I did get paid 1¢ to attend the Minneapolis in 73 bidding
party – that might have been Saturday.
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