Worldcon 77, aka Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon – Part 2

The Masquerade

We started on Wednesday afternoon with a tour of the CCD Auditorium, and had a chance to meet the professional staff. We verified our plans (made from afar with just drawings of the auditorium), and solidified our volunteer staff.

We got a chance to see how the auditorium would work and the views from the upper level on Thursday evening during the Opening Ceremonies and Retro Hugos. And were able to do some blocking work on the stage Friday morning as they were setting up for the evening’s orchestra/music event.

Contestant meeting, final tech prep, and then tech rehearsals all started before 10am on Saturday. We had four of the professional staff helping us, Stage Manager, Sound, Lights, and Video, alongside our volunteer crew. Rehearsal finished by 5:15pm, so we all had chance for a brief break and some dinner, before we opened the auditorium at 7:00pm, with two waves of seating. The show started on time at about 8:02pm.

We had a total of 35 entries cross the stage. About half were novices. A couple were folks who had first competed in Helsinki 2 years ago. The performance went very smoothly.

Our halftime entertainment was Pecha Kucha Karaoke, led by our MC, who has hosted many Pecha Kucha events featuring both prepared presentations and karaoke presentations. The audience was entertained while the judges deliberated.

More photos can be seen in this Flickr album.