Can't Stop The Serenity - London 2014 - Final Thoughts

Has it really only been a month since it happened? It feels like much, much longer. I have just made our donation of a staggering £1500 to Equality Now. You can watch a lovely video of Joss talking about the charity's good work here.

I had an absolute blast running the event, and I could not have done it without my amazing team: Amelia, Bianca, Mark and Sue. Bianca was unfortunately ill on the day itself, so here's a picture of the rest of us.

A very special thanks to Lee and Dave, who kindly helped with tech issues on the day.

A huge thanks to The Mad Hatter, for allowing us to occupy the majority of the pub for the evening. On the second and fourth Saturday of every month, it also hosts The League of the Non-Aligned, the very best science fiction/fantasy/general geekery community in London. We'll be watching the Doctor Who finale this Saturday, come join us!

There was some fantastic cosplay on display on the day, our contest winners were the Oaty Bar Girls, pictured above right. There was also a beaten-up Fox executive, several Mals, Kaylees and Jaynes of both genders, and a multitude of Washes.

Our hugely successful raffle and auction contributed to over a third of the total donation. Our contributors included an amazing ceramic Serenity logo from FireVerse Ceramics, signed albums from steampunk cabaret group The Mechanisms and alt-country rockers Big Damn Heroes, a gorgeous art print of Joss and his works from Anna Rettberg, and a poster of the crew of Serenity from Odyssey Art.

The biggest thanks of all goes to everyone who attended; I will always be impressed with the power of fandom to bring people together; I would not have met so many fantastic people over the last few years were it not for mine. 

See you all next year!

  

Can't Stop the Serenity London 2014 - Schedule

With just over a week to go until the big day, here's what we have in store.

The event will officially start at 4, and we'll be located at the back of the The Mad Hatter. Please bring along your tickets if you bought a physical one, or remember your name if you bought it online. We have a dwindling amount of tickets to sell on the door, you can get in touch with me through the Facebook event page if you would like one.

Our silent auction and raffle tables will be open from 4 through to 7:30; each item in the silent auction will have a list of bids next to it, so anyone can come up and bid on said items throughout the afternoon. (Photos of a few of the items donated are below.)

To participate in the raffle, you can buy as many tickets as you like, and the winners will be announced later in the evening.

We'll also be running a costume competition, which attendees can sign up to between 4 and 6:30, with several fantastic prizes available for the best costumes.

We'll be screening Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog at 5; singing-alonging is encouraged.

At 6, we'll be watching a few music videos from the Big Damn Heroes, an alt-country rock band who draw inspiration from the music of the 'verse. They have kindly donated several signed copies of their album, Browncoat Outlaws, to our silent auction.

At 6:30, we will be stopping the costume competition sign up, because at 6:45, we will ask everyone who put their name down to model their costumes for us, with prizes will be awarded to the best ones as decided by us, the impartial judges panel of organisers.

At 7:15, we will stop accepting bids for items on the silent auction and cease selling raffle tickets, as we'll be getting ready for the main event: the screening of Serenity, which will begin at 7:30.

After Serenity has finished, we will be announcing our silent auction and raffle winners, and the evening will officially finish. Attendees are more than welcome to stick around afterwards, though this will put them in danger of being roped into taking down decorations/moving tables/resetting the room.

Do not feel you have to commit this blog post to memory, the schedule will also be available on the day, in both paper and organiser form.

If you have any questions about any of the above, my e-mail/Facebook inbox is always open.

See you in a week!

Mark

Tickets Available Online!

I've made the final batch of tickets available online, you can buy them here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/841522

Official Flyer

Hi everyone,

Our official flyer is now out!

I'll be handing these out all weekend long at Nine Worlds Geekfest 2014.

I'm hosting the Whedon Quiz on Friday from 5 to 6:15, and selling tickets before and after it. See you there!

Can't Stop The Serenity - London, United Kingdom - 4th October 2014

Greetings all and sundry,

Welcome to the official website for 2014's Can't Stop The Serenity in London.

My name's Mark, and I've been a massive Browncoat ever since a friend lent me Firefly on DVD back in 2008. This was the first Joss Whedon show I had ever properly watched (having seen a few sporadic episodes of Buffy in my teenage years) and I was almost instantly hooked by the excellent characterisation, superb storytelling and incredible setting.

Since then, I have become fanatically obsessed (possibly a redundant statement) with the worlds of Whedon, and now an opportunity has arisen for me to share this love with my fellow fans.

We'll be having a cosplay competition with a fabulous prize for the winner, a raffle with other fantastic prizes, and some kind of quiz/group activity with a goody bag up for grabs. I'll be posting updates on Facebook and Meetup.

I'm only going to be selling tickets in person. You can find me in the Mad Hatter pub (which will also be the event venue) on the second and fourth weekend of every month, which is where LOTNA, a science fiction fandom group, gathers on a bi-monthly basis.

The next opportunity for you to buy a ticket from me will be at Nine Worlds, a fandom convention taking place in mid-August. I'll be doing this as part of the Whedon Track, which I'll also be running a quiz for.

If I somehow manage to have tickets left over, I'll be selling them on the door on October 4th.

I'm pricing tickets at £10, and you can buy as many as you wish.

See y'all soon,

Mark