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The FHHCBV, The Victorian Technological Exposition.
The Fifth Formal Historical Holiday Costume Ball The Fifth annual Formal Historical Holiday Costume Ball, The Victorian Technological Exposition was a Victorian/Steampunk party on January 5th, 2008 at scenic Lake Holiday, near Gig Harbor.
Thank you so much to everyone who attended! You were all absolutely beautiful. I hope you had as much fun as we did hosting the event.
The Inspiration
Emily says...The original inspiration for the FPA was a bay area group called PEERS, which specializes in Victorian balls. I also think that costumes are one of the most important parts of a party, and I thought that steampunk was something that would give people a lot of freedom and inspiration to play dress-up.
Tyler says...Well, we'd never thrown a *proper* Victorian Ball - and I was rapidly becoming obsessed with the Steampunk sub-culture, now that I had a name to put to something I've loved my whole life. We decided that for our Fifth FHHCB, we'd bring back our original idea, dust it off, and show how much we've improved.
The Set-Up
Let's start with what didn't go wrong. The venue, despite its first impression, proved to be wonderful. We learned early on that having separate areas for people to play games, mingle and smoke cigarettes is an important thing. The venue (the clubhouse at Lake Holiday) offered an outdoor fireplace for smoking, an upstairs loft where we set up our photographer's station and some tables and chairs, and a large downstairs area. From upstairs, folks could watch games if they didn't want to participate. In the main area downstairs we set up Tyler's pavilion and used it as our "hall of wonders," holding the Thinking Machine, Wimshurst machine, medical battery, mechanical bug images and some other exhibits brought by our lovely guests. Most of the rest of the downstairs area was left for dancing and games, aside from the buffet tables. To hide the kitchen bar window and the coat-check area, we used lovely long blue and purple velvet curtains (courtesy of Stuart) that hung from the top of the balcony above down to the floor. On top of the curtains we hung gold gears on fishing line.
You have NO IDEA what trials we went through. While I'd spent about six months working on custom decor pieces for this event, during the two weeks prior, disaster struck them... One... By... One... culminating in the weekend of the event. Saul, Emily's muffin, our photographer and general factorum, broke himself dramatically by head-banging. Well, there were other things involved, but the scream of pain came during the head-banging. The Wonderful Projection Movie Cabinet that we had acquired to play "The Madcap Adventures of Professor Cogsworth" 1. wouldn't fit through the doors of the venue, and 2. had been attacked by a mad windstorm, with a branch cracking it's circuit board. This was irrellevant, though, because the movie wasn't quite finished when the party began - luckily, through the valiant efforts of the film crew, we got the rough-cut to play on a laptop by 10. A similar freak windstorm had taken out the Giant Gear-shaped Archway a few days prior to its completion, so I had decided not to bother fixing it. Oh, and as the thinking engine was being loaded to travel to the event, the monitor portion - which was mounted to a cabinet - ignored its moorings and went crashing to the ground, necessitating it to be rebuilt, with hot glue, two hours before the event.
Additionally, the Thinking Machine restarted periodically throughout the night. Normally this would be fine, but its brains were an old computer that took five restarts to get working in the first place, and the site that was supposed to display on it (describing the various other wonders in our hall--it is visible online here,) would not come back up after a few tries. As a result, the Machine just displayed Minesweeper for most of the night.
Other than all that, the set-up went swimmingly.
The Food
We figured, what with trendy Seattlites travelling to our function, that we'd have an above-average number of Vegetarians among our guests, so we made an effort to have more vegetarian options than usual. We had crudites, strawberries and grapes, hot parmesan artichoke dip, a meat-and-cheese tray, carmelized-onion-and-cream-cheese dip, bacon-and-avacado dip, and when the rest of the food had run out, bacon and onion mini-quiches. There were also brownies and lemon bars.
For beverages, our standby Fabulous Party Punch (recipe under the "resources" section) pleased many. We also served an alcoholic cherry-lemonade punch.
Of course, one of the most exciting aspects of the menu was absinthe! What would a late Victorian gathering of creative people be without absinthe? A few authentic grande-wormwood based absinthes were approved for sale in the United States in 2007. We served Kubler (a Suisse "La Blueue" absinthe) to our guests. Unfortunately, the ritual was lost somewhat as there wasn't an easy way to let people drip it themselves, and we instead circulated trays of already-louched absinthe. I think Kubler is a good starter absinthe, and it was well-received.
The Entertainments
When our dance instructor failed to show up to give the period dance lesson, we began circulating to inform our early-arriving guests. Fortunately, guests Marcy and her friend, Mark, had given dance lessons before - and offered to do so. If only our sound system had been functional - and not frying out every few minutes - then perhaps our guests - who now knew how to dance! - would have been able to. At any rate, the guests seemed to have a wonderful time learning to waltz, polka, tango, and (I believe) foxtrot.
Shortly afterward, we played a simple game called "The Human Knot" wherein all the guests join hands with two separate people who are not adjacent to them. After a rather amusing crush of bodies, you untangle yourselves. This was *great* fun, and we all ended up in a giant ring, which was the point.
I was very pleased that so many people participated in this game, and it seemed that most people who didn't participate watched it from the balcony above. That was one of my favorite things about this venue: it allowed people who didn't want to play games to enjoy them without hiding in another room.
It had recently come to our attention that there are people who have attended multiple FPA events without once playing Hunt The Slipper!
Later in the evening, we were called upon to fulfill our promise of "Hunt the Slipper," but alas! Our venue -while lovely in every way- was not conducive to this, as people would have to go hide outside. One of our guests who was having a very jolly time also *brought* me the slipper we were all looking for, in an attempt to be helpful, thus leaving the two ladies still looking stranded.
Christian, Kat, and Ankyl also contributed a singing/memory game and a story that required active audience participation, both of which were well recieved, and both of which we are grateful for.
The other part of our entertainment for the evening was the Hall of Wonders. The Wimshurst machine was wonderfully entertaining, and some of our guests had fun zapping themselves and one another with it. We even had a guest (thank you Grayson!) bring an apparatus that was powered by the Wimshurst machine! He also brought a Violet Wand and demonstrated it on a few people. Additionally, there was a collection of stereoscopic photographs and a stereoviewer, and Poppy brought beautiful prints of some of the steampunk bug creations of Mike Libby (Insectlabstudio.com)
Lessons Learned
Selling tickets makes for guests who really *want* to be there - guest participation was at an all-time high, and only a handful of our volunteers were not in costume - and those not in costume were dressed up!
This was our biggest lesson. We'd been hesitant to sell tickets in the past, but selling tickets really solved the problem of guests who seem to attend our events just to fill their bellies. Everyone who bought a ticket dressed up, and I was amazed that during the party folks would just start dancing when an appropriate song came on--without prompting--because they wanted to dance. This was also our largest event so far--including hosts and volunteers we had 78 people--and we had to turn people down since our capacity was only 80!
Even if you have a strictly planned menu, it still all comes down to what they have on sale at Costco.
Everything can go wrong, and the party will still be fantastic.
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And the Portraits!
Another grand success (apart from our crippled and drugged-up photographer) was the portrait studio. Rather than trying to catch everyone on film and act as a host, guests could pose and be silly at their leisure. Originally, the main theme was faux-post-mortem photography, but some practice shots before the party didn't look very good. Instead, there were a number of ghostly pictures and standard portraits. Here is a sampling of some pictures (make 'em into icons, put 'em on your myspace, whatever!--same goes for the images in the main photobucket album--there are larger versions of these up there too!)
The rest of the portraits are located here in the photobucket album of the party. If you have pictures you'd like to have displayed there, send them to us at  .
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