CC12-H-01: Froth, Foam and Lace
Competition Staff & Rules
Staff:
- Director: Adrian Butterfield*
- Master of Ceremonies: Alys Hay
- Presentation Judges: Victoria Ridenour, Richard Bradley, Elizabeth Pigeon Ontis
Rules:
Masquerade Information
1. There will be a $1.00 per entry Polaroid fee for each masquerade, payable at the time you register. The Polaroids are to help the judges remember which costume was which, and you can pick them up after the masquerade in the Con Suite.
2. These masquerades are rated PG-13: please, no flagrant nudity! (And remember, no costume is NO COSTUME!)
3. NO NOXIOUS SUBSTANCES BACKSTAGE. No messy substances, wet, dry, or oily, that might ruin the costume of any other contestant will be allowed in the green room or on stage. (The No-Peanut-Butter-or-Jelly Rule).
4. Each contestant may appear only once on stage. However, you may enter more than one costume, as long as it appears on another body.
5. Costumes previously worn in the hallways at this convention are ineligible for competition, since we are recognizing hall costumes separately.
6. Purchased or rented costumes are ineligible for competition.
7. There will be no live microphones. We encourage you to bring music/dialogue on a prerecorded cassette, or typed copy for the MC to read.
8. Weapons that are a part of the costume may be displayed only on stage and only in a safe manner. Sharp points and cutting edges must remain safely covered except from the time immediately before going onstage until immediately after leaving the stage. No functional projectile weapon may be placed in firing condition or aimed at any person at any time, on stage or off! Due to local fire and safety regulations, no open flame, working laser, or flash paper/powder may be used. Sealed flash bulbs and electronic flash units may be used, but only with the prior approval of the Masquerade Director.
TAPES:
Label the tape box and both sides of the tape with your name and costume name. Mark the side you want played “PLAY THIS SIDE.” Mark the other side “WRONG SIDE.” Make sure your tape is cued up and ready to play, so the sound man need only drop it in the player and press the button. DO_NOT GIVE US COMMERCIAL TAPES CUED TO YOUR SONG. If they accidentally get played, we will not be able to find your cuing again. Dupe the music onto a separate tape with only YOUR music on it. We suggest you put your music on the beginning of both sides of the tape, just in case. Leave a three second leader before the music.
If you have any questions, you can discuss them with the sound engineer before the masquerade.
PHOTOGRAPHY/VIDEOGRAPHY:
For the safety of the contestants, there will be NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY during the Masquerade. If at all possible, we ask all contestants to go through Official Photography, which will be located next to the Green Room, before you go on stage. There will be a separate photo area set up for Fan Photography where you will go after your stage presentation. We also ask all contestants to stick around briefly after the masquerade ends, so people who were in the audience can get pictures too. Appearance in the masquerade automatically releases usage of all film shot at the event to the photographers/videographers shooting it.
FINAL AUTHORITY:
We reserve the right to disqualify anyone from participation in the Masquerades on the basis of taste, danger to the audience or contestants, violation of the above rules or any other reason deemed sufficient. There will be no appeal. (The necessity to eliminate a contestant from competition has never yet arisen, but this policy is meant to protect the convention from real “loons.”)
REHEARSALS:
We have made the stage in the California Ballroom available whenever possible for entrants to practice their presentations. See the CC12 Pocket Program for the complete schedule. The large size of our ballroom enables us to have a 72-foot runway, which contestants are encouraged to use for their exits. Please take some time to walk the stage and runway before the masquerade! Technical rehearsals are scheduled for you to run through sound or lighting cues, or check other technical issues. If you have any questions about technical support, or have any special requests, please talk to our tech crew! We will do our best to accommodate your needs, but we must know what these are in advance!
Historical Masquerade
Adrian Butterfield*
Masquerade Director
Deadline for Submission of Documentation: 6:00 pm Friday
Deadline for Pre-Judging Sign-Up: Noon Saturday
Deadline for Entry Forms and Tapes: Noon Sunday
The Costume Con 12 Historical Masquerade will be held Sunday, February 20, starting at 8:00 pm in the California Ballroom. The Master of Ceremonies for the masquerade will be Alys Hay. Registration forms for the masquerade can be obtained at the convention registration desk.
DIVISIONS:
The divisions for the Historical masquerade are designed to protect the inexperienced costumer from having to compete with those more expert in this field.
Junior Costumer: Models or exhibitors under the age of 13, if not part of an adult group, or wearing a costume made by an adult.
Novice: A contestant with no previous award in any historical competition; a first entry in a historical competition with some experience in another field of costuming; a first entry in any costume competition.
Journeyman: A contestant who has won a masquerade but fewer than four such awards; an historical costumer with no professional experience and fewer than four major awards in any historic costume competitions; an experienced costumer who has won major awards in other fields of costuming but with little or no experience in historical costuming.
Master: A contestant who has won “Best-In-Show” in an historical masquerade in a previous Costume Con; a contestant who has won four or more major awards in any historical costume competitions; a costuming professional who earns a significant portion of his/her income making or designing historic costumes.
A group should enter at the skill division appropriate for the most skilled member who contributed significantly to the costumes. If you are uncertain as to what division to enter as a group, please contact the Masquerade Director at the main Costume Con address.
Any entrant may compete in a higher division than the one in which she/he is placed by the above guidelines but may not compete in a lower one.
Again, IF YOU ARE UNCERTAIN OF WHICH DIVISION TO ENTER, contact the Masquerade Director.
CATEGORIES:
Historical Clothing: Clothing
Historical Costume: Costumes (that which is not clothing)
Please contact the Masquerade Director if you are uncertain about historical categories for the masquerade.
DOCUMENTATION:
Your documentation is your chance to show just how accurate your reproduction is. This is also very important to movie reproduction, or costumes copying art. The judges will have an avalanche of documentation to read through by Sunday so please–photocopies only–no original material or books.
SUBMISSION OF DOCUMENTATION:
All documentation MUST be turned in to convention registration by 6:00 pm FRIDAY!! The judges have committed themselves to reading all documentation before the historical masquerade, this being the only way that any sort of sane timing on the judging can be maintained.
PRE-JUDGING:
ALL entries will be assigned a pre-judging time, so everyone will get one-on-one contact with the judges. Don’t panic! The whole point of this is to give you the chance to meet the judges in their natural habitat and to find out they are friendly, non-threatening, calm, and certainly not put on the planet to trash your costume.
TIME LIMITS:
Time limits on stage will be one minute for 1-2 people, with 30 seconds more available for each additional 1-2 entrants (4 people: 90 seconds, 6 people: 2 minutes, etc.). Please note that I said “available”. Nowhere is it written that you must fill your time allotment: if you’re out there alone, sixty seconds turns into a week in Philadelphia. Use the stage. Use the runway. Go forth and entertain!
JUDGES:
The judges for this year’s Historical Masquerade will be Elizabeth Pidgeon-Ontis, Richard Bradley, and Victoria Ridenour.
Judges’ Statement: We all owe it to contribute something back to the costume maker’s art. When given, that contribution merely means that we have fulfilled an obligation; it does not entitle us to the martyrdom and status so many people use to try to extract indebtedness from others. If we share our knowledge and experiences we not only upgrade the overall state of the art, we can expect the one true gift of repayment for our efforts that we can ethically claim: more peers to play with.
