Whew! Another year of CSTS is behind us...hard to believe.
Pittsburgh had another great screening this year. We opted to go back to our roots, so to speak, and really focus on just showing Serenity. The global-provided raffle items were a hit, and we had some great donations from local Browncoats to round out our offerings. We featured a Pittsburgh-exclusive t-shirt design, which I was pretty excited about (being totally designed, printed and sold locally...not to mention gorgeous), plus some "vintage" gear from years past. Sadly the shirts didn't sell as well as they usually do (I assured the artist it was because things are tight for people, and not because his design was sub-par) and we have a ton of leftovers.
Not selling as well as usual was something of a theme in 2010. We had an average pre-sale run and a crowd of 40-50 people, which is not the biggest we've ever had but a respectable showing. Shirts and merch didn't go as fast as usual. Raffle sales were pretty good but not stellar.
What we did have, in droves, and what we've come to expect at CSTS Pittsburgh is a damn fine group of friends and fans who came out, many in costume, to celebrate CSTS, Serenity and the Browncoat community, some from here in town and some from many hours away.
As icing on the cake, a local geek-friendly cafe held a Joss Whedon-themed brunch in honor of CSTS Pittsburgh on Sunday and agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds to EN. What shiny, shiny people we have in this town!So far we've raised about $350 for Equality Now (not sure what brunch raised), which is the lowest number out of our five years. At first I was pretty sad about that, but I figure...it's in the black and that's a positive! People seemed to have a good time and gave what they were able, if not as generously as other years, and that's fine by me.
As usual, we have merch leftover and, as usual, I hope to sell as much as possible off before calling it quits on 2010. More details on that coming soon - I'm about to go on vacation and it seems unmannerly to list things for sale then disappear on people!
Another exhausting, wonderful, stressful, inspiring year of CSTS here in the Steel City. Wouldn't have it any other way.