Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	sectus, squee

Sectus Report 19th-22nd July
*procrastinates from revision*

I had a pretty rotten day yesterday, but I feel a wee bit more spritely this morning. So with a cup of coffee and HobNobs in hand, I thought I'd type up my Sectus report. :)

Overall impression: Absolutely magnificent. I was never bored at any time, and despite having 2 hours of sleep in the space of 64 hours, I was so buzzed with excitment, I didn't doze off. My one point of comparison was the Accio conference which I attended in 2005, and Sectus beat that 10 times over with trumpets. :D

Thursday: Went to meet moshi from her train at Waterloo, then we headed off to Kings Cross to meet ariadneelda. Checked into our hotel (a cheap but comfortable B&B near Kings Cross station), where calyxess and sillyshy were also staying. They helped me carry the art gallery materials I had brought and we set off for the venue at 12pm. I promptly got us all lost - I fail at navigation. :( But we got to the venue eventually, with 3 hours left before registration.

Did as much Gallery prep as we could manage, then rushed off to the Camden Centre. It was such fun to see people slowly trickling into the hall, and I squinted at everyone's chests name badges to see who I recognised.

At 5pm was the Snarry meet-up, led by snapetoy and chaeche. My god, I love the Snarry fandom. :D We had goody bags, t-shirts, a raffle, and there were so many people, and just eeee. :D Off the top of my head, the people there were dementordelta, leni_jess, gatewaygirl, alafairnada, amanuensis1, painless_j, sinick, calyxess... *wracks brain* I fail, I can't remember who else. Bah. Suffice it to say, we were a formidable presence at registration. :D The Harry/Draco meet-up was going on across the hall, and we had fun mock-booing each other. :P

Then was the intro by elanor_isolda, and the whole hall went crazy with excited cheering and applause. hp_lexicon then gave a very emotional and inspiring speech about Jo logic and fan logic, and also his endeavours to find the real Hogwarts etc. This was followed by a hilarious short play written by rowen_r, starring Lyria as Voldie, mijan as Harry, sinick as a splendidly flamboyant Lucius, melusinahp as Bella, and regasssa as Snape. :D

There was then a Book 7 theories panel after, but instead, a group of us went to go buy food at Sainsbury's and have an impromptu over-crowded party in nqdonne's hotel room. :D Alas, me and my roommates decided to leave at around 11:30pm so that we could catch the tube and get back to our hotel. I wanted to get a solid night of sleep so I'd be all prepped for staying awake to read Deathly Hallows, and I also needed to wake up early to head off to the venue to finish setting up the Gallery.

...Aaaand I only got 2 hours of sleep because it was so bloody warm in our room. *headdesk*

Friday: So off we headed at 8am to the venue, feeling groggy and pretty foul. We just about managed to finish all the setting up by 10.30am, which wasn't too bad. Attendees had begun trickling in to have a look at the art. And my lovely volunteers had also arrived in time, ready to help out. So I thought, hey, I can leave it in their hands, go attend some presentations, meet some people.

Wrong.

By 11pm, the Gallery was swarming with people. I guiltily left to attend Immo Garn's presentation at 12pm about the Physics and Chemistry behind magic (which was fascinating!), and by the time I checked back in the gallery, half the art had been sold. :O But thankfully, the number of people had decreased, and my volunteers weren't so swamped, so I then headed off to son_of_darkness's Dark fic panel at 1pm. I'm not a huge fan of dark fic, but it was a brilliant panel. The room was packed, and the hour flew by.

I headed back to the Gallery at 2pm, where I was hoping for some peace and quiet, since my "How To Draw Snape" tutorial was at 3pm and I hadn't done a scrap of preparation. But as luck would have it, there was a surge in the number of people in the gallery, and I had no time to do any prep. *wails*

So off I headed to my presentation, panicking that I didn't know what I was doing, and that the AV equipment wouldn't work. And I find the room filled with nearly 40 people. *boggles* Was so nervous, omg! I scrawled a rubbish lesson plan in my notebook there and then, and I just dived into the tutorial, hoping that people wouldn't notice that I was completely improvising.

Apparently it went well. :D I stuck to my 1 hour time slot, the equipment didn't fail me, and afterwards, people came upto me saying what a good teacher I was. *beams* If any of you on my flist attended the tutorial, I'd love to see the Snape pictures you did! ^_^ I intend to make an online version of that Snape tutorial, and it would be really neat if I could display some of your pictures with it. Yes yes? :D

Anyway, in the same room straight after my tutorial, there was wednesdayjones's panel about HP and Sexuality, so I stuck around. Again, another packed room. The discussion occassionally sunk into character-bashing, hahaha, but it was an interesting hour.

For the rest of the day, I stayed in the art gallery. It seemed that the Gallery was now the hang-out spot for people who wanted a quiet place to chill out amongst the art. :D

At 6.30pm, moshi, calyxess, sillyshy and I headed off to dinner at a nice little Italian place in Leicester Square, after which we went to the Noel Coward Theatre to see Avenue Q. Front row seats omg! I know many people don't like front row, but I love being able to see the actors' faces clos-up. Neck-ache be damned. :D It was such a blast, I was literally sliding off my chair with laughter. We sang along to all the songs we recognised, and just, omg. :D

Straight after Avenue Q, I had to run off to the Waterstones in Gower Street to queue up for Deathly Hallows. *flails* The others went back to the Book Release party at Sectus. I met up with kuteki, shalimar1981, raelinschaos and uninnocent. The queue wasn't too bad, thankfully it didn't rain, and we finally got our books at 12.40am. *flails*

We headed back to the Reading Party at Sectus, and began to read.

...

It was such a bizarre experience. Hundreds of us, strewn around the University of Westminster campus, reading in complete silence. There was the occassional gasp, giggle, and towards the end, a couple of people burst into tears. I stayed awake for the entire night, completely wired on caffeine, but alas I am a very slow reader, and I was only about half way through DH by 7am.

Saturday: moshi, ariadneelda, seshat1 and I reconvened at our hotel for breakfast, and then we went back to Sectus for the next day of presentations. Most of us hid away in the Gallery to read some more, since it was nice and empty. calyxess and I kept humming Avenue Q songs unconsciously, to everyone's annoyance. :P

The BBC4 crew then turned up at the Gallery. Gah. Apparently, most of their filming would be taking place with the art as a back-drop. With the help of some others, we chose the best pieces of (gen) artwork to put at the front, and moved all the naughty slashy art away into a corner. The BBC4 snippet about Sectus is now available online HERE, featuring son_of_darkness, fidgetknickers, mijan, annephoenix, and others whose names temporarily escape me. It's awesome! Hopefully someone will figure out a way to download the clip. :D

shocolate and kerryblaze dropped by at some point in the Gallery, and I'd just begun Chapter 19. shocolate actually sat opposite me and WATCHED as I read this chapter, and giggled when I predictably flailed and hit her leg repeatedly whilst squeeing. :D

I stayed in the Gallery reading DH until my next presentation at 1pm, "The Art Of Love: How To Draw Couples". I was expecting a small turnout since people would likely be sleeping, or squeeing in the spoiler discussion panels. About 15 people turned up, which was very nice. ^_^ I was half-dead, but at least the AV equipment didn't fail me, and those who turned up enjoyed the porn art in my powerpoint. So yay. :) I'll upload an online version of this tutorial some time in the future.

After this presentation, a few people came upto me for a wee chat. dracofiend (and some other people whose names escape me, sorry!) was ever so nice to me about the presentation, so I drew her a little Snarry doodle as a thank you. I think this began a trend. I was thereafter descended upon by people to draw something for them, either in their copies of DH, or on a wee bit of paper, hahahah. :D

Back to the Gallery we went for some gentle chilling out and chatter with anyone who dropped by. calyxess began asking people to sign her copy of DH, best idea ever! So I went about stalking people to sign my book. And in return, I tried drawing little doodles for everyone. This continued until about 4pm, by which time cthonya came into the Gallery all a-flutter, trying to recruit volunteers to help set up the Not The Yule Ball. So calyxess, kateqp, bonsaibetz and I all trooped off with cthonya and co. to the University of London Student Union.

To my horror, I noticed a couple of people from my uni actually in the Student Union. I very unsubtlely hid away, pretending that I was NOT wearing a Gryffindor tie and a Snape/Harry t-shirt, hanging up Christmas decorations in July instead of revising for exams. *cough cough*

There was still a lot of work to be done at the Ball, but alas I guiltily left at 6.30pm to get dolled up. We arrived back at 8pm in our pretty clothes, ready to help out with any last-minute jobs that needed done. Everyone was waiting outside, but finally the venue was ready by 8.45pm, and people were allowed to come in. The place looked absolutely gorgeous, with a Hogwarts wintery theme. Everyone was dressed so prettily - there were snazzy evening dresses, as well as full-blown costumes. The ZHL Strings (a quirky, cheerful string quartet) provided the music as people milled about. There was a spoilery and a non-spoilery section, the food was delicious, and it was funny to see some people sitting in corners, still frantically reading DH. :D

Ahh, fandom.

After the ZHL Strings, there was a ceilidh band. Omg, such fun! I joined in one dance with calyxess as my partner. We failed at dancing - I think we messed up our group's coordination, ahahaha. But everyone was having a laugh, and the atmosphere was buzzing. I didn't want to leave, but seshat1 and ariadneelda were going, so I thought I'd better leave with them too for fear of being stranded alone in London in the early hours of the morning.

Got back to the hotel and went to bed by 2am. Slept like the dead - my duvet didn't even move while I slept, I was so comatose. :D

Sunday: I felt so unhappy about being to slow with my DH reading and missing the Post-DH Snarry discussion, that snapetoy and a few others very kindly agreed to meet us at 9am for breakfast in Starbucks. We watched Snape/Lupin lookalike porn on snapetoy's laptop, hahahahahah. More book-signing and doodling went on.

Headed back to the venue for 11am for unsymbolic's presentation Harry Potter and the Phallus of D00m. :D Best title ever, yes? *giggles* I confess I was so tired, I didn't listen properly for the first half, but then Skyler started reading out porny fic by son_of_darkness and snapetoy, and I perked right up. *sniggers*

At 12pm, I attended bonsaibetz's presentation on J.K. Rowling's Use of Victorian Flower Symbolism in Potions. This was great! It was fun to speculate what ingredients might be used in, e.g., Veritaserum, Draught of Living Death, Felix Felicis etc.

Finally, at 1pm, I headed back to the Gallery. I was expecting people who had bought art to come back at this time to pick up their artwork. Thankfully everything went smoothly, with the help of my lovely volunteers. ♥ When (almost) all the art had been whisked away, whatever wasleft was donated to the Closing Ceremony Auction to be held at 2pm. I missed most of it as I stayed in the Gallery with some helpers to tidy things up. dragonaries, the crazy woman, paid calyxess and I £50 for this silly A3 sheet of paper filled with our doodles. I'd been about to throw it away, ahahaha!

At about 2.30pm, moshi had to leave. *emo tear* It was so so fantastic to see her again, the last time we'd met was November 2005 when she came to London for the big Goblet of Fire film meet-up. After lots of hugs, I caught the tail end of the Closing Ceremony.

After that, there was the Sectus picnic in Regents Park, which unfortunately had to be relocated a couple of times. I briefly joined in a game of ItchQuidd, but then got lazy and sat back on the grass. I went on a stalkery-sign-my-book-pls spree around the picnic area. calyxess and I then went a little loopy and started drawing art in everybody's books. We drew a hilarious Snarry porn collab for snapetoy. I can't remember who else I drew art for, but as the afternoon went by, the pictures got more and more elaborate. :D

At 8pm, a large group of us set off for fidgetknickers's hotel room to watch more Snape/Lupin lookalike pornos, and some Harry lookalikes too. There were some people outside the hotel, who were planning to head off to a pub, but alas, the porn called. I hugged and waved goodbye to themostepotente, mijan and whoever else was waiting, then hurried upstairs for pornz. :D :D :D There was snapetoy, dementordelta, sinick, regasssa, calyxess, dragonaries, tavi and... argh, still can't remember! *fails at remembering names, dammit* Basically, lots of people. It was so fun. calyxess and I drew a Snape/Lupin collab (using the porn as reference ;D!) which dragonaries bought for £30. xD

I was utterly distraught that I had to leave at 10pm to head off home. *wails* Hugs and goodbyes all round. I got home at 11.30pm, chattered to my parents about how amazing everything was, then slunk off to bed, setting my alarm for 6am for uni the next day. :(((((((

As you may have seen from my other LJ posts, I couldn't bear the fact that there were still some fandomers in London, so for the next few days I did no revision whatsoever and flailed about with whoever was still around. I finally finished reading DH by Tuesday. Some people left on Thursday and Friday.

And now the fun has stopped. Exams are looming over my head. There's the impending threat of my father knowing my LJ name. *flails some more*

Wah fandom. Why can it not be a real 24 hours way of life. :(

I'm sorry I don't have any photos to show you, but I promise to post as many as I can find later. :D Hope you enjoyed my Sectus report! Wish you'd all been there!

Love,
~Lizard xx