Favourite Kapcon Moment

My favourite part of Kapcon this year was definitely the awards ceremony. There is something really wonderful about being able to acknowledge some of the excellent moments and star performers of the con, and it is the time when I feel the highest sense of community and shared good will in the con. This isn’t surprising, as it’s the time when everyone gets to share in a celebration of how good the con is, and is the longest time that everyone at the con gets to join together in an activity. Now, as anyone who was there could tell you, I likes me a microphone. Despite the rigours of the weekend, starting with setting up the school on Friday at 2.30pm, including a Saturday that saw us at the venue from 7.45am until midnight, and despite the tiredness I had been feeling in the late afternoon, I really perked up for the awards ceremony. There are too many parts of the ceremony that I loved for me to mention them all, so instead I’ll try to remember some of the debriefing comments from last night: People listened really well. I congratulated people before round 5 on their excellent listening (this is some of the best listening that Kapcon has ever had!), and I really genuinely meant it. When your job involves talking to reasonably sizeable groups of people every day, you very quickly learn the importance of good attentive listening, and how much one person talking can disrupt things. There were times when 80 or 90 people were all listening perfectly – not just keeping quiet, but really listening, and it was magical. This happened both during the regular announcements and the prizegiving, and it really warmed my heart. At the end of the awards, Damon asked for a few more nomination forms to be read out, and I looked around the room to gauge the mood or attention span of the crowd. Despite having been listening for a good 20 minutes, I saw something like 90% of people looking really keen, and not a single person who looked bored or fidgety. I think the addition of random spot prizes for funny nominations has really helped make the prizegiving ceremony a fun event, and it allows people to hear just a few snippets of what was happening in games around the con. People laughed at some of my lame jokes. It was awesome. People applauded until their hands hurt, and that was fantastic. I got to say all kinds of congratulatory and reflective and heartfelt and humble things, and mean every single one of them. I got to stand in a room filled with 80 or 90 people who I am lucky enough to call my friends and tell them to give themselves a round of applause. How often do you get to do that? I got to thank the people who had worked so hard to make Kapcon happen (though of course I missed some names), and I got to pass the torch on to Paul. He might struggle to keep me off the mic next year, but I’ll be happy to be doing less desk duty, and to be playing in and running awesome games at Kapcon 17 (I played in 2 sessions this year, plus the LARP – next year I might even play 2, run 2!). Ah, Kapcon. Loves it me does, loves it.