REPORT: Fandominum Ball (נשף הפאנדומים)

Website: http://fandomball.tk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1551675458384604/
Date: December 21st
Location: Ulam Rimonim, Sara u-Shmu'el Gut'holf St 1, Rehovot (near the train station)
Convention type: Other
Hours: 5:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Entrance fee: 45 NIS (Best to pre-order, as tickets will likely be sold out by then. See below)
Registration for events: No (Unknown. Unlikely)
Pre-registration for events: No (Unknown. Unlikely)

Ever wanted to dance the night away in a Renaissance themed ball wearing the costume of your favorite fictional character? Well then, look no further! I'm pretty sure that most of you, if not all, have never been to a ball in your lives! You've read the stories, you've seen the movies; now it's time to experience it for yourselves! Of course, since one does not simply go to a ball and dance for six hours straight, there will be  plenty of other activities to keep you on your toes. LARPS, live shows, computer games, and more should be enough to keep you busy. Aside from the dancing.

As this is also a BALL, there is a dress code that must be followed. One must come either in a formal wear or in cosplay.

- Boys may wear dresses, and girls may wear suits. Everyone is permitted to cosplay
- The suits can be modern; one can even come in jeans (not ripped) with a button-down shirt and a blazer, with a tuxedo, with a regular suit, a three piece suit, etc.
- Whomever does not have any of the above may come wearing jeans (not ripped) and a button-down shirt with long sleeves
- Regarding dresses: the vast majority is acceptable, with long dresses preferred (if you aren't sure if  a particular dress is acceptable, send a picture to Libi Soen and she will let you know).

Regarding cosplay:
One may come in cosplay (no metchakem) For example, if one comes in a white shirt and jeans and claims he/she is cosplaying as L from Death Note, but he/she is wearing shoes and has no makeup on, he/she will be denied entrance. Of course, not every cosplay is perfect, but the fact of the matter is that just because you can come cosplaying doesn't mean you can come in regular clothes and say, 'I'm cosplaying, let me in'. Send a picture to Libi Soen and she will let you know if the cosplay is acceptable.

There will be a place to store your belongings free of charge from the beginning of the ball until the end. Food will be served, though it will not be free. The food is from the hall itself, with the hechsher of Mehadrin of Rav Kook, and the meats of Rav Rubin and Landau. And finally, the ball is for ages 13 and up.

There will be an after party when the ball ends, from 11:30 PM until 03:00 AM, at which point it will move to the Tricksrael hall. There will be a place to sleep for those planning to come, which is included in the price of the after party.

Regarding the tickets:
Ball: 45 NIS
After Party: 30 NIS
Ball + After Party: 70 NIS
Ball + Ticket to AnimeCon Chanukah 2014 (does not include the after party): 80 NIS

IMPORTANT: The price of the after party is still being decided on, so the above price may change. Be aware of this.

If you are aware of any convention taking place here in Israel, or some other interesting event taking place, please notify me, and I will do my best to report on it!

REPORT: AMAI's Chanuka Con 2014

Website: http://www.amai.org.il/hanukkah-2014/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/350365098463359/
Date: December 18th
Location: 'Pais' Eshkol, Ramat Gan
Convention type: Anime
Hours: 2:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Entrance fee: Free (Some events require money)
Registration for events: No
Pre-registration for events: No

AMAI (Association of Manga and Anime in Israel) has a mini anime convention (I believe) every Chanukah. There will a number of attractions, as well as the usual merchandise/cosplay contest.

If you are aware of any convention taking place here in Israel, or some other interesting event taking place, please notify me, and I will do my best to report on it!

PSA: Another evening of games at the Havana Club!

The Havana Club will once again be hosting an evening of games, on December 7th!

From the Facebook page:
An evening of games by BEIT MARZEAH at Havana Music Club

Featuring a big area for boardgames and a room for role-playing games waiting for you.

The venue is spacious and air conditioned
Clean and well lit
A huge library of games
Bar & kitchen available at reasonable prices

The event is suited for all ages

Address: Yigal Alon 126, Tel Aviv, Havana Music Club
Open doors: 18:00 until late at night
Admission: 30 NIS

For details:
0507444031, Siel

There are some conventions and other events coming up next month; I shall be posting about them during the next few days.

If you are aware of any convention taking place here in Israel, or some other interesting event taking place, please notify me, and I will do my best to report on it!

REVIEW: Icon 2014 (Day Two)

Before I start the review, I wish to apologize to my readers for taking this long to write the review. A combination of schoolwork, school preparations, and procrastination all contributed to this being two weeks late. I'm sorry, and will endeavor to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

UPDATE: The videos were for some reason not working on mobile phones, so I changed the way they are viewed; it should be better now.

So I wake up in the morning, a little tired, and a little sore, since I was sleeping on the floor. And then I see this:

I was a little surprised to see the amount of people sleeping in the room, since last year I awoke to less people. Huh.

Anyways, I got dressed, prayed, got my things together, and then once again, left my stuff by the Hotaru booth and wandered for a bit.

What? Did you expect me to have a witty comment for every picture?

After some wandering, I headed over to the the games section. where people were playing Magic: The Gathering and other games. I found someone to play with (someone I had met at a convention on Pesach), and finally got to make use of my cards. 

The first game was a bust. I had no land cards of the appropriate color, so a majority of my hand was useless, and thus I lost. During the second game, I was doing okay, until I said something, in which he thought I meant I was leaving. He had put away all his cards, and we had to start over. In game 2.5, I was winning. No, I was crushing him when someone asked the entire room if anyone wanted to play a game called Pandemic. So he left.

I win!

I had another game of MTG with a bunch of pros, who proceeded to blow me out of the water. I ended up losing last, but only because the other guy was mad at his friend, and so had decided to take him out first. Lucky me.

After that, I went out for a bit, and met some friends of mine, who were going to put on a lightsaber duel later. For some reason, one of them was not impressed. Then I found Yael Geller of Hot-Cocoa Cosplay again, and took another picture of and with her! This time, she was dressed as Mystique, with a friend dressed as Nightcrawler.

After that, I went to a lecture about living forever, which was 16 minutes late (of course), and I didn't realize was on that topic beacuse I didn't pay too much attention to the title. Once again, my four hours of sleep (plus sleeping on an uncomfortable floor the night before) helped me to doze half my way through the lecture. It also kept switching back and forth between a philosophical debate and scientific possibilities, which helped to lose my interest. 

In the end, I ended up leaving a little early, since I needed a break. I got more books, met more people I know, got my picture taken, and had someone else recognize me! All in the space of 40 minutes, at which point my next lecture started. This one was all about ways to improve the way a Dungeon Master gets players hooked in the world they have created. Or something like that. I was in and out of this one too, to my dismay; the bits that I was awake for were quite interesting. The lecturer was cracking jokes the entire time, and making liberal use of gestures. He also had these great poses:

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him.

Afterwards, I bought some coffee, then bought more books, And then did the smart thing this time and got a chair for the costume competition. A friend of mine kept me company, and helped me realize that the crowd was much bigger than last year's competition - both the current and previous day. Go figure. 

The competition started at 16:32 (4:32 PM for you Americans), and it was great! I almost ran out of batteries; luckily, my friend got them from my bag and handed them to me, so I didn't miss taking anything. Behold the costume competition of Day Two!

Afterwards, I left to go see if I could finally get a picture with Chen Moyal, getting recognized as Dresden again along the way.

And some Deadpool pictures!

Didn't we see this one already?

There can only be one!

The day was fading, but things were still happening. Like the time warp:

And after that, we had a nice treat: Japanese floating laterns!

After that, I had to prep my bag to get ready to leave; while I still had some time left, I wanted to be able to leave right away, since I would have just made it to the bust stop. Unfortunately for me, the lightsaber duel got pushed off until 8, so I stayed longer than planned. I got another request for a picture, which I obliged. I took a few more pictures and a video of Philippines weapons fighting in the interim:

The cake...isn't a lie?

The most awesome picture you will ever see

I barely took anything during this time, since I had no spare batteries left, and I wanted to save everything for the lightsaber duel to come. I just sat and watched things happening, and chatted with a few people. I even got another request for a picture! Things were feeling good.

Sadly, the duel was not to be. Due to a miscommunication between coordinators, a band had been scheduled to play instead. There was a rush to try to set things straight, but in the end...it didn't happen. Three months of preparation, days taken off, other things...sigh.

To blow off some steam, the guys fought for a bit. Here's a teaser of what might have been:

And after that, I had to leave to catch my bus. Two days of fun, and yet I was already missing it. I had had an amazing time, and there really wasn't anything to complain about (except maybe the prices of the events and the duel thing). I can't wait for next year!

(The full album for day one and two can be found here)

If you are aware of any convention taking place here in Israel, or some other interesting event taking place, please notify me, and I will do my best to report on it!