Two nights, four shows, and a lot of T-shirts and Jayne hats later, we've wrapped up. We are still sorting out a few silent auction items, but it looks like Halifax raised around $1560 this year, meaning ~$390 for the Avalon Centre, and ~$1170 for Equality Now! 
We tried a few new things this year, some more successful than others. Last year, we sold out both events and turned people away, and also found that Saturday night didn't work for everyone, so we decided to try for two nights this year. However, we ended up with approximately the same number of attendees (~115) spread over the shows - next year, I think we would probably go back to doing a one-day extravaganza. Saturday at 6 pm was our most popular show, by a slim margin, and certainly the group that did best on the trivia. However, we had some really dedicated Browncoats on Friday night, including one who had driven down from Fredericton, New Brunswick (5 hours away!), and some great cosplayers:
by , on Flickr
Interestingly, it appeared that fans actually avoided the Special Hell screening. It was the one with lowest attendance, and we think most of the folks at that showing were people who'd come through a connection with the cinema and weren't familiar with the 'verse. A few people (all organizers) sang along with Dr. Horrible, but pretty much nobody said anything during the movie. It was an experiment, but I don't think we'd do it again.
We skipped on making the popcorn balls on strings this year (they were fun, but fiddly), but instead bought a GIANT box of fortune cookies and handed them out for free - plus there were some yummy samosas and cupcakes on sale. (Concessions went to the cinema, who ran the event with volunteers - we only paid $28 rental per night.)
The Evil Laugh contest was a fun addition this year, run by local celebrity Fat Apollo:
by , on Flickr
We did a bit better on the silent auction this year, although mostly by virtue of having more stuff, particularly a host of T-shirts I'd picked up over the year at one-day shirt sites. Most items still didn't garner more than a couple of bids, much like last year, despite really pushing the charity aspect. We were very fortunate, though, to once again have some beautiful original art donated by the talented Sophie:
by , on Flickr
There were a few unexpected glitches - for instance, I arrived on the day of the event to find that the room I'd scoped out six weeks beforehand was being renovated, full of drywall dust and half-painted, so we had to make other arrangements for the silent auction set-up - but all in all, things went quite smoothly.
We feel we succeeded in putting on a fun event, and we're happy to have met and exceeded last year's fundraising total! More photos of the event can be seen .
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