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Ring*Con 2004
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RingCon 2004 – more visitors, more program, more commercialised. We saw Mark in a typical - which means highly entertaining - panel together with Craig Parker, as auctioneer of the charity auction, as host of the costume contest and at a second and - due to organisational problems - short panel that lasted only ten minutes with Craig. It must have been a difficult con for Mark since only a few days before his sons were injured in a car-accident. He had remained in New Zealand as long as possible and arrived in Bonn only the morning the con started. It would have been perfectly understandable if he had cancelled the con, and all fans who knew about it were very appreciative for his appearance under the circumstances. It’s a typical example for his good-natured character and his sense of responsibility and care towards his fans. |
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first panel included the usual Q&A and several games. Mark
and Craig’s main topic this year was ‘Slash-fanfiction’
(for those who don’t know: that means stories with homoerotic
action – and please don’t ask me why it’s so
popular). The audience enjoyed it a lot, especially when during
a game in which Mark and Craig tell a story by each saying one
word in turn a sequence of their anecdote went as follows: In the second panel Mark ‘interviewed’ a member of the audience. The trick was: the woman had to answer all questions in German while it was Craig’s task to ‘translate’ it. His translations may have been sufficient to cause the certain death of every teacher of the German language but at any rate they led to endless laughter. This panel was followed by the Charity Auction which made up for the lost panel. For an auction hosted by Mark and Craig is a kind of Comedy Show in itself. Both did their best to open the people’s purses. Craig was especially successful by offering the bidders one or two Euros if they would make the next bid (and demanding it back if another higher bid was made afterwards.). Costume contests are always worth a visit, to admire the absolutely fantastic dresses some fans have made as well as seeing their funny sketches or impressive performances. For us this year’s costume contest has been even better because Mark was acting as MC. He did a great job and not even lost his composure when two Orcs mentioned a certain Elf King who, coming to Mordor for the war of the Last Alliance long ago, had forgotten his passport... It would have been nice to see more of the Mark and Craig’s show, but given the tight schedule and the general problems arising at such big events it was understandable that the organisers decided not to replace the lost panel. There was only one major disappointment at this year’s RingCon: Mark told us that he had offered to perform the Radio Play which had been so incredibly successful at the Fellowship Festival in London before - and the organisers had refused it. Given some of the other kinds of ‘entertainment’ they presented to the fans, the Radio Play would have been an utter improvement. One
word about the Charity auction: Mark has been involved in several
charities for many years now, most prominently for the Starship
Hospital. When it became known that the auction had earned the
sum of about 1.900,- €, the members of his mailing list spontaneously
decided to donate the missing money to make it a full 2.000,-
€. If you consider visiting a convention yourself: next year’s Ring*Con 2005 will take place in Fulda, Germany. You will find more information at the official Ring*Con-website soon. Hope to see many of you there!
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