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Can’t Stop the Serenity @ Hooga – Shiny
Wow. I was hoping for a good event, but with all of the hard work that everyone put in we managed to achieve a great event.
We managed to get in to the venue at 5pm, about an hour before the doors were due to open so we were a little pushed for time, but with a little planning and some solid efforts from the team we got the venue decorated, the merchandise and raffle prizes displayed, the yummy cupcakes on show, and our special menus dotted around. We had a couple of Chinese parasols (one of them about 6ft in diameter!), had a few dinosaurs dotted around, our merchandise table was draped in black velvet, had a special sign for the gents ‘Wash’ room, and had a variety of posters plastered on the walls. Oh, and one of our raffle prizes was a 6ft tall blue octopus kite – we just had to display that (Fruity Oaty Bar anyone?)
We had made 12 ticket sales before the event, which was a positive start to have. We had also raised donations from friends, family and colleagues, which meant we were off to a good total as 6pm approached.
We had some guests waiting as we opened the door, which was a wonderful way to start. After a warm welcome they were happy to hang out while we added a few finishing touches. First surprise of the evening was when Martin came out of the gents ‘Wash’ room sporting a stunning Hawaiian shirt and a magnificent false moustache! Yes, he’d come dressed as Wash from his introduction in the Firefly episode ‘Out of Gas’. I had decided to come as Jayne, and was sporting some home grown Jayne-like facial hair, and a very cunning hat. Sooz had also come dressed up, wearing a stunning Inara-esque dress, and a chunky pair of New Rocks.
We had a few technical hitches early on, with audio connection compatibility issues between various bits of equipment, but due to a couple of heroic efforts by my tech guru Keith, we managed to get everything going with just a 20 minute delay for our first feature, Dr. Horrible’s Song-A-Long Blog. Joss Whedon’s musical was well received by the growing crowd, from those who were seeing it for the first time and those who knew the lyrics word for word. It was particularly impressive with some really booming sound; Hooga certainly know how to make some noise.
By this point there was a well-established aroma of pizza permeating Hooga, with many people opting for our special Shepherd’s Abby Pizza. We were also starting to see a few Mudder’s Milks around too. On the bar we had placed a collection tin, raising money for the ‘Serenity Valley Veterans’ and sporting the Browncoats logo, for any loose change. It got us more than £13 in change - not bad for a 50p investment.
At about 8.15 pm I took to the stage with Martin to address the crowd, thanking them for coming, letting them know about the merchandise, cupcakes and raffle. I also used the opportunity to thank our sponsors, especially Hooga, while the sponsors logos were being displayed behind me on the projector screen. It was also time to say that the main feature, Serenity, was only about 20 minutes away, which garnered happy mutterings and smiling faces from the crowd.
Just after 8.30 the venue lights dropped again, the background chatter dropped, the Universal logo appeared on the screen, and our main feature was underway as mankind began its exodus from Earth-that-was. Most of the crowd were transfixed by the opening 10 minutes of the film, as the space scenes changed to the classroom, and the classroom switched to the secret Alliance facility, and the Alliance facility morphed into a recording being viewed by the operative, which then led on to the tour of Serenity which introduced us to her crew.
Once the film had finished we announced the winner of the fancy-dress competition. There were only a couple of people in fancy dress, but there were a good number in themed T-shirts, such as one with the motto ‘Keep Flying and Stay Shiny’, and another with a ‘Where’s Jayne’ picture (a play on Where’s Wally/Waldo). We decided our winner was Captain Hammer.
We then called our raffle, which saw our prizes, donated by local independent businesses, being distributed to a wide variety of our guests. And where else could we pull our tickets from but a Jayne hat of course. We managed to sell 36 strips of tickets, which added nicely to our event total. For a fair amount of effort to gather prize donors, and an investment of just £1, it was well worth it.
The merchandise was quite slow to move, but when it sold it did so for a good price. To be fair, we organisers ended up buying a fair chunk of the merchandise, but I guess we are the biggest fans eh? I know I’m glad of my increased Firefly/Serenity collection. Again, because of the relatively small outgoings to get hold of a global sponsor pack we were in profit after selling just a couple of the larger items. Cupcakes were a successful aspect with most of them being gobbled up by the end of the evening.
We managed to get 43 paying customers into the event over the course of the evening, including us organisers who felt we should pay our way too, which was pretty spot on for our estimate of 40-50 guests. They seemed to like the specially designed memento tickets too, for which I was inspired by William Pace’s ‘Boarding Passes’ from a couple of years ago.
As we were packing up Hooga brought us the percentage from the special cocktail and pizza sales, and told us they were doubling it, which was a wonderful gesture, and another great boost to our total. There were pats on the back all round and some very contented sighs from us organisers.
All in all it was a fun evening with a successful outcome.
Current donation total £468.92 (after deductions). We’re still hoping to bump up the total in the next couple of weeks by selling off more merchandise.
Advice for future events:
· Say yes to getting a mentor for your first event. I did and I’m very happy about it.
· Have a proper test of all of your equipment well before the event, and never assume, even on past experience.
· If you’re going to experiment with cakes, do it in advance (cake planet’s take some experimentation – eek!).
· Promote your event in every way, by using a website, Facebook, posters, flyers, emails and word of mouth.
· Have a tech expert. They’re awesome.
· Get a great team with you and plan as far in advance as possible.
· Companies you’re already a patron of are usually much more interested in becoming prize/service sponsors.
· Get as much as possible for free. It’ll help your total greatly.
· Make sure you know costs as soon as possible, especially the screening licence and any associated tax.
· Don’t to forget to have fun. You’ve earned it.
Massive thanks to all who helped, especially Keith Sanderson, Martin Henderson, and Susannah Calam, and to Emma Howes for helping when needed most and putting up with me.
Steve Jeyes
Chelmer Browncoats
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