Sectus - a decor-centric account

[chthonya]

There have been a few times in the last few months when I've wanted to post progress reports on my preparations for Sectus decor, but you were spared by my desire to keep most of it secret. As our decor budget was 1/16 that of Prophecy's, we needed to rely on surprise and ingenuity to make an impact. Word is that we succeeded...

With three venues to set up and take down my time among the throng was limited, and it felt as if it was over almost before it began. But there was time to meet old friends and new, to listen to a couple of presentations and even give one. Being with fellow fandomers last weekend was very special, and coming out of that atmosphere was a wrench. Roll on next time...

In case anyone reading this hasn't read the book yet, I'll do a separate spoilery post later with my reflections on that.



For me, Sectus began with the new and not-particularly wonderful experience of driving a van full of decor through central London. I'd not driven in London before, and it wasn't as aggressive as I'd feared, just slow and tedious. Thankfully I had kennahijja with me to share the magical mystery tour, and some entertainment was provided by the expression on a taxi-driver's face when he saw a snake peeking out at him...

After a sweaty unloading and van-returning session and a very welcome shower, we made our way to the opening ceremony, where it was my turn to be amazed (and alarmed) at the size of the queue. Alarmed, because I had some last-minute decor to make after Elanor had asked me with some consternation two days previously whether we'd be okay with Camden Centre decor in the absence of banners we'd planned but not been able to complete. I grabbed my badge, dropped an extendable ear over the balcony, and retreated to a quiet staircase to Transfigure some wire and laminating offcuts into a couple of Goblets of Fire, where thankfully I was soon joined by Glaedr. Meanwhile the occasional cheer drifted up the stairs when (allegedly) someone walked in dressed as Snape.

The conference itself started with a play, very cleverly written in rhyming couplets but unfortunately not completely audible from where I was sitting. Here's Voldemort addressing Bellatrix and Snape:



Note the Goblets of Fire on each side of the stage. Pretty effective, I felt, for 3/4 hours work by two people - if not quite as effective close-up!

Opening speeches followed, including warnings against spoiling on pain of being handed over to annephoenix to be made to wish for death. Steve Vander Ark kept us all entertained by explaining 'Jo Logic' and lamenting Voldemorts inability to 'get a clue', before relating the story of his search for Hogwarts near Rannoch Station. Apparently he overcame the first Muggle Repelling Charm warning of the dangers of walking in the area and got far enough to see the lake and the forest, but was gently turned back before seeing the castle itself. (He claimed it was because he felt he didn't need to look further - Flitwick really is a master. ;)

During the break after the opening speeches I met Professor Binns:




Next day my focus switched to the Ministry of Magic, where I arrived at 8am to organise the transformation of some classrooms into the Department of Mysteries, with the help of several volunteers who really did us proud.

The Hall of Prophecy:
(Not quite as impressive as the scenes in the movie, but at least ours are real exist outside of a computer.)




The Brain Room:
(Appropriated on Friday by the Auror Training Programme, aka classes stream.)





We also had a Time Room, a Moving Picture Gallery and a table of Horcrux exhibits in 'Courtroom 7' (our main lecture theatre), but for some reason I completely failed to get photos of those.


This being the Ministry, we also had a couple of prototype surveillance devices. As the Weasleys supplied the Ministry with anti-jinx hats in HBP, perhaps they also supplied some of these:





Sadly, by the time I'd seen Crookshanks' moment of glory in the movie, owl order couldn't deliver in time for Sectus so I had to get mine from ebay.


After a day of mostly-interesting presentations (even at 100% academic conferences I get annoyed when people read out papers rather than talking about their ideas to the audience, and there's absolutely no excuse for it at this sort of event) came The Book. By this time, I'd had very little sleep for a few days and very little food that day (having missed breakfast in order to make the 8am start and dinner in order to get some sleep), and the atmosphere was so frenetic my inner introvert couldn't deal with it. Thus came my first breakdown of the conference, after which I tried to get a grip by distributing licorice wands to those watching Potterverse charades and Pictionary.

Then, at 11:20, came our first sight of the books:



The Marauder's Map was consulted:



but sadly did not reveal a secret passage into the bookshop. And suddenly even Hagrid had put away his mobile phone and joined the queue, which carried on for about 3 times the length of the front part of it seen here:




I hadn't been expecting to have to queue for long when we'd all already paid for the books, so of course I ended up near the end of this one, but at least it moved fairly quickly when it did get going, and it was all fairly good natured. My plan, at this point, had been to grab the book, run back to the hotel and barricade myself in the room until I'd finished. But lazy_neutrino persuaded me to stay for 5 minutes and a coffee, in case I regretted missing the leaving party. Fair point, I thought, and tea sounded good...

This was the first thing I saw as I descended the stairs. Obviously for these people tea took second place to book:




I read the first chapter with my head whirling and my heart thumping, and then the second, and the third, and the forth. I shifted position, glared at people who dared to talk, but couldn't unglue myself from the page for long enough to go back to the hotel. Dangerous things, these magical books.

It was my stomach that saved me, as I suddenly realised that it was 2:20 and order for room service breakfast were due in by 2:00. By this time I was on page 178, and lazy_neutrino was on 4-hundred-and-something, so it seemed prudent to leave before large numbers of people started to finish. As I left, I couldn't resist lingering long enough to take these photos:






Back at the hotel I ordered my breakfast (which I ended up being too tense to eat when it came, though the croissant came in useful as a dinner substitute two days later) and scurried up to my room, passing a pyjama-ed someone wandering down to the lobby with a cigarette and a copy of DH.


Finished the book between 1:30 and 2:00 on Saturday afternoon, including an hour of sleep (I think). And thus it was time for the major stress of the weekend: setting up Not the Yule Ball. This would have been considerably less stressful if a) I'd finished everything I'd wanted to finish before that point and b) if we hadn't had only half the number of set-up volunteers we needed (I suspect some of those who'd said they'd be there were still reading). Still, the group we had worked really hard and we managed to get most of the decor sorted with the help of the venue staff, who were fantastically helpful. I'm ashamed to say, though, that I lost the 'okay, we can't do that, we'll do what we can' perspective I'd been practising for the previous two weeks. It was gut-wrenching to have spent hours juggling the budget to pay for lights that we then didn't have time to put up, and to have developed a vision in my head for six months which we couldn't quite realise. In the end, though, what matters is that people came in and went 'wow' rather than 'so what?'. Or so I was told - for when we finally let people in, 30 minutes late, I still had to go back to the hotel and change, so I missed the first two hours and most of the food. Ah well, I'll be noting the lessons to be learned for next time...

So, here's what I've been pouring most of my creative energy into for the last six months.

The Ice Gallery:

Here's me, taking a well-earned rest:



And this is the room as I first visited it back in February:



We lucked out getting this room - it fit the ice theme perfectly, though despite many discussions with the venue about only using part of the room they'd set the food tables up to use all of it when we got there - so by the time I arrived at about 10pm it was looking rather empty. Though that can also be attributed to the ceilidh going full swing in the adjacent hall.

Here's another corner, featuring a couple of the suspended blue-lit spherical table decorations that I was rather proud of. Evidently I wasn't the only one who liked them, as they'd all mysteriously disappeared when I went to clear up the next morning. I hope they went to a good home.



Look carefully and you'll see someone reading the book in the background. As you'll see, this was rather a theme of this party.


No books in the Hog's Head, though, as this was the spoiler area and most of the people in here had been sated:



It's not the best photo - hopefully someone else has one showing more of the Christmas trees and table decorations. Meanwhile, here's a 'before' picture of the same part of the room, taken from a slightly different angle:




By the time I arrived, however, the ceilidh band was just starting and party was jumping (literally) in the hall:



Though amid the hubbub there was always someone to be found reading:




I was glad to see the hall buzzing. We'd been worried, originally, that it would be a large empty no-mans-land between the spoiler zone and the ice gallery area. On first viewing it had hardly been an inviting area to linger:






I'd thought long and hard about how to deal with the curtained under-balcony area, while keeping the passages from entrance to hall and from hall to pub. In the end, we solved the problem by covering up the depressing ceiling and moving in some of the sofas from the gallery area, to make a hopefully-more-comfortable seating area where non-spoiled people could chill out while not being cut off from the music.

And, of course, to read:






An idea that worked less well was my plans for the 'feature' of the hall. This was very close to my heart, particularly as the main features I had planned for the other rooms had all been struck out due to budget and time limitations. Since before I'd even seen the venue, I'd had the idea of making a formal Sectus-themed entrance-way, and it took me months to come up with a way of applying it to the rooms we had. The plan was to have one of these on each side of the entrance from the curtain-made passage into the hall:



But, thanks to Health and Safety, it was not to be; they had to be offset to maintain the whole width of the passage. I felt this would ruin the effect I was trying for and it was at this point that I completely lost it and started bawling. Everyone assured me that it looked good enough, great, and while my head knew they were right and we needed to let people in, my heart found it impossible to let go of my dream of how it could look, or my anticipation of being there, dressed and ready, to watch people's reactions as they came in, rather than wandering around dazed in a sweaty T-shirt while everyone else was dressed up to the nines. I hope I'd have been more level had I had more than 5 hours sleep in the previous 4 days.

As it happened, I presume the snake nearest the seating area got in the way of the dancing, as by the time I got back they were lounging against the wall:




They were not neglected, however!




Unfortunately they're not the easiest beasties to carry so only one was adopted after Sectus, which was sad for me as they've been a huge part of my life for the last few weeks. But I'm glad one, at least, has a good home.


And that's it for my photos. Sunday went by in a whirl - I managed to make a talk and the auction before heading back to take down (and discard :(( ) Christmas trees. Thus I missed the picnic in the part, though I heard good reports, but I did make it to a nearby cinema to rewatch movie!OotP with a few fandom friends.

It was a good way to end. And a good way to affirm that the close of canon is the opening of a new phase in fandom. I'm glad I was there to share it.