Tuesday, August 31, 2010

FanExpo 2010 - Marketing in Space!



FanExpo and I have a long relationship. Back in the days when I ran a webcomic I knew the Artist Alley section like the back of my hand. Prior to that I was a con-goer (and cosplayer. What.), and then the last few years I've been a Booth Babe. This year, once more, I was behind the booth.


Babes in Space
Mission: Target Marketing


The weekend was a whirlwind of fans and 'Hey, have you ever been to a burlesque show?' and posing and cupcakes and drama and phew!


I managed to wrangle up a set of delicious Sci-fi beauties for the duration of the Expo, despite a couple cancellations. We had the lovely looks of: Obskyura (also as an Orion Slave Girl), Dolly Berlin, and Bibi Bourgeon, the presence of Jojo of Circus Entertainment (and provider of the backdrop under BigHead Murals), the bodypainting talent of Mark Boyer from 3B Artistry, and the omnomtacular cupcakes of Stacey Laureyssens.

Our team was unstoppable!

My eye-catching red lame starfleet uniform was made by Brook, who is a goddess among sewing machines! It certainly caught the attention of the fans I was luring over...for three days straight!

Obskyura as an Orion Slave Girl, a fan, and myself!

We were located in a bit of an akward area downstairs, between Gravy Train and Nerdgasm. It was delightful company allweekend, even throughout the closure due to over-crowding!

We DID have Stan Lee and William Shatner in our area, which really helped with targeting our fliers to people who'd be interested in seeing nerdy burlesque.

Down with us were Nerdgirl Pinups, Steampunk Canada and the Toronto Steampunk Society (shoutouts to Adam Smith for being a doll all weekend, and Liana K for upholding redhead power!), and the 501st! R2D2 is such a doll, and the stormtroopers that dropped by our booth certainly added to the theme!
Dolly Berlin, myself, and Stacey at the booth

I have learned, as I always end up doing in the midst of disaster, that I probably shouldn't plan three hundred things for the same three days. Performing in the Shameless Showcase (with a new act!) AND doing the convention, AND prepping for a show the following week? Proven way to give myself soaring blood pressure.

Endless thanks to those that had to put up with me (Stacey, Mark, Jojo) and those that helped out (all of the above, with double thanks to the beautiful-freaky-talented Obskyura), and FanExpo for sponsoring our table!

Until next year, FanExpo!


~ Red

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Toronto Burlesque Festival Recap! - Saturday

Saturday had us hosted at The Mod Club, right across from the previous nights' show at Revival. Due to my position up with the vendors in the balcony area, helping out theOriginalFace.ca, I didn't get to see every act this night.

Instead, I had the oppourtunity to connect with the wonderful Cadence of Pretty Things Boutique, as well as Kay Licious. Their wardrobe changes throughout the weekend were amazing, and did a damn good job advertising their wares!

Also amazing were the bejeweled flowers on sale by the incredibly charming Amber Ray. I save up specifically for her accessories. Take a look at this garden below for a glance of what she has. The orchids she has on offer are my favourite (I own about five...). You can also see some pretty blooms not included in her sales, hiding in the background.

I did duck in and out to see a few performances over the course of the night. Some particularly memorable ones for me are:

Lena Love's cyborg act. Hell, Lena Love ever. Girlcrush. I think we should pair up my Thursday silver robot act and her Sunday bronze robot act and go be hot robots everywhere. I'm biased.

Boylesque TO did one of my favourite group numbers of theirs: Backstreet Dads. This routine was a mad hit with the audience, if the screams from the sea of people below the balcony (many of the loudest were performers) were anything to go by.

The Magenta Diamond gave an amazing aerial act involving hula-hooping while hanging from a rope while really high up. Also, several hula-hoops were used at once while on stage. This girl has got to be one of my top dames for burlesque and variety acts. Her Sunday performance (which I'll get to in a later post) was one of my favourites of the entire festival. Hot.
The Magenta Diamond on Sunday, Costume by Flo Foxworthy 
with photo by Olena Sullivan

Coco Framboise did her peacock act, with the gorgeous costume that I love so much (and the gorgeous French Maid Obskyura, whom I feel similarly about...though I cannot wear her*) except somehow she lost her panties...and ended up with a feather wedged precariously in unmentionable areas.

The MC for the night was Miss Astrid. Holy hell. She gave an excellent class in Burlesque University during which she underlined the importance of character in MCing. Not only was it an expertly laid-out and lectured class, but she really embodied everything she discussed. She is an amazing MC. Nasty, witty, dry, and absolutely drenched in character...for the whole show.


Julie Atlas Muz did a complete juxtaposition to her Wednesday night ass-lipsynching act of utter hilarity, and really showed the range that has probably made her so well known with a gorgeous balloon act that was nothing like the raw performance earlier, or the hilarious duet with Tigger on the Revival night.

Lastly, Roxi Dlite performed her Miss Exotic World 2010 award wining cigar act. Sometimes a cigar is just a ten foot smoking lit-up cigar with a naked woman on top.

Mostly all I can say about Roxi is 'Holy Shit' and then there's a lot of gesturing and random noises. Then I go have a shower.

She did NOT dissapoint.


Roxi Dlite, photographed by Roxi Dlite (because she does it all)

The Mod Club unceremoniously booted the whole lot of us out as soon as the show was over (jerk move, guys.) and I ended up joining an after-party of amusement at the Cadillac Lounge. Below are some enjoyable pictures from those adventures.




Patastrophic and the girls post lapdance sexy times


OH MY GOD! Duck Lily! Melles Belle Jumelle is coming for you!


The adorable Cherry Typhoon, all the way from Japan, and our home grown DD Starr!

Lastly, our lovely locals Coco Framboise and Elle Persephone:


who remind me SO much of this:


Until next year, Toronto!


~ Red Herring



* That would be creepy. "It puts the sparkles on its skin..."

    Friday, August 6, 2010

    The Toronto Burlesque Festival Recap! - Friday

    T
    Friday was a long day. I was planning to attend a Burlesque University class led by Dr. Lucky and then see who I would meet in the hours until the big show at Revival. That's not quite how it turned out...

     
    Some of the pretty people outside Revival. An amazing Volunteer, 
    Mahogany Storm, Lula Hoop-Garou, and Freya Luna! 

    I headed to my class, which had been canceled due to lack of pre-registration. What I and a very pretty blonde (whose name I can't remember) got instead was a wonderful hour of discussion with Dr. Lucky and a lapdance.

    Good times!

    Missing out on a lesson with Dr. Lucky, while unfortunate, let me take a class with Tigger. What a class!

    Tigger, with Toronto's own Dew Lily and Patastrophic. Too...much...hottness...

    I come from an academic background, so when attending a non-technical class, I like to make notes. I like discussion leaders who Do Not Say "I don't really have an outline. What do you want to talk about?

    Tigger came in with notes, and proceeded to give a bang-up lecture/discussion on a variety of character-related topics that went deeper than the answers someone could google. I scribbled in my notebook, drew a picture of him, and then proceeded to get slapped around by Miss Sugarpuss in the brief class-teaser led by Julie Atlas Muz (whose class was also nixed).

    Miss Sugarpuss, photo not mine

    If I get a chance, I will jump on another class taught by Julie in an instant. Watching Tigger and Coco Framboise slapping each other around in my peripheral vision made it hard to keep a straight face!

    Julie Atlas Muz and Patastrophic. Damn that boy gets around.

    The Friday night show at Revival was packed, and amazing. I missed a few acts when I escaped up to the balcony to rub money on the vendors (in exchange for swarovski-covered wares and cupcakes), but I caught my favourites and found some new favourites. Miss Sugarpuss (photo above) is a new Canada-grown fav...and she's a doll in person too. Even if she smacked me around a little.

    I liked it.

    After the show there was the usual mass-exodus to the front steps of Revival, where the pretty people congregated and I flittered to-and-fro taking photos with a mating call of 'It's for my blog!'

    Coco Framboise and her Crew of Extraordinarily Hot Gentlemen! Wrong Note Rusty, 
    Mahogany Storm, and just a peek of Sexy Mark Brown!

    I had a few (coveted) words with Satans Angel. Oh my god, that woman...*fans* You can feel the personality shooting off this woman in every direction. I got a lipstick pen from after her act! I may or may not have initially thought it was a vibrator...

    Here she is, pictured with Joe of DragonLady Comics

    The day and night were long, and tiring, and eventful, and inspiring. By the time I got home my little notebook of ideas was full, and more were swimming nude in my head. It was a glorious skinny-dip of inspiration.


    I close with the delicious Miss dd Starr and Obskyura. Both busty, shiny, and full of flowers. A wonderful forshadowing for the coming Saturday!

    ~ Red

    * Photos are mine, unless otherwise noted!

    Monday, August 2, 2010

    Dating Advice - Yes, You CAN Meet Someone Online

    On the rare occasion that I shamelessly promote myself chat about what I do in my spare time (other than taking off my clothes and conducting a war against glitter) I've had quite a few people respond with disbelief when I mention Yes, Yes You Can Meet Someone Online.


    It's no secret that 'online dating' is suffering from an outdated stigma of creepy pedophiles or stinky otaku mouthbreathing onto their computer screens from their parent's basement. Hell, some of my past dates underline that stereotype.* The fact is, however, with social networking being such a way of life for many people, online dating has moved into the future.


    You meet people where you spend a lot of your time, right? It's not only creepy nerds on the internet. Occasionally there're goodlooking ones! Sexy ones! Ones not in a basement!

    So people meet, meet in person, date, and maybe even form a lasting relationship. It's not hard to believe, but some 'normal types' still have yet to grasp the legitimacy of the internet dating scene.

    Now we have a fancy official piece of data to support it!

    1 in 6 Marriages Met Online

    Yoinked from Neatorama.com (I love this blog), this snippet links to a full .pdf study of the 'phenomena'.

    Marriage Survey
    • 17% of couples married in the last 3 years, or 1 in 6, met each other on an online dating site.
    • In the last year, more than twice as many marriages occurred between people who met on an online dating site than met in bars, at clubs and other social events combined.
    • Approximately twice as many recently married couples met on Match.com than the site that ranked second.

    I hear the outcry now! BIAS! Oh god yes. The study was done by a well-known online dating site Match.com and while I cannot comment on the success one might get on this site (I only used free dating sites), it's worth consideration.

    What do you think about online dating? Has it worked for you? Have you met any hilarious/hideous people?

    * Also bold and italicize it. I don't deny creepy people online. There are also creepy people IRL.
    Photo yoinked from GMTV.com
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