Ascendio 2012

Ascendio 2012: A Harry Potter Symposium welcomes proposals and plans for Informal Programming sessions inspired by, themed on or related to the Harry Potter book or movie series, the fandom, Young Adult, fantasy or genre literature or films, workshops on crafting, art, writing, music, film-making, podcasting, podficcing or costuming, or anything else you think would be of interest to Harry Potter fans.

Informal programming happens all hours of the day and night, with a heavy focus on evening activities. If you’d like to hold a more informal craft workshop, topic discussion, fanfic/fanart event (drabbles/drawbles!), or even play an acoustic set, the Informal Programming form is for you.

Note:  if you are interested in planning a meet-up, please see here for the separate Meet-Up Request Form. If you want to do a fanfic reading, please fill out this form. If you’re a published author, we’ll have a form for you to fill out soon.

Examples of Informal Programming:

• How-to workshop on vidding
• Acoustic Wrock set in the Common Room
• Drabble/Drawble activity
• Live-action role playing game/cosplay demonstration
• Performance art
• Trivia game

SUBMIT AN INFORMAL PROGRAMMING PROPOSAL

Birds of a feather flock together!

Find other like-minded fans at Ascendio by hosting or organizing a meet-up. From shippers to doll enthusiasts, for fans of specific fan groups, wrock bands, sites and teams and fandoms (Hunger Games! Merlin! Game of Thrones!), meet-ups are a great way to connect with other con-goers who love the same things. Our Meet-Up Chair, Noe, is happy to assist groups in finding space to meet at the convention. We will have limited rooms available during formal programming hours, but most rooms will be available to book after-hours — large and mid-sized meeting spaces will be allocated to groups on a first-come, first-served basis. You can bring your own snacks in, so now’s the time to plan that Remus/Sirius indoor picnic! Meet-up information sent to HPEF before May 1, 2012 will be included in a special section of the program, so like-minded fans can find you. All meet-ups submitted to us by that date will also be included on the Ascendio website.

To request meet-up space and/or submit your meet-up information for the Ascendio program, please use this form.

HPEF is thrilled to announce that Mark Oshiro of the world-renowned MarkReads.net and MarkWatches.net will be a special guest at Ascendio; Mark will be hosting discussions about the Harry Potter series as well as at least one meet-up for discussion of everything and anything from MarkReads and MarkWatches. In May of 2010, after blogging his experience reading the Twilight series, and after avoiding the Harry Potter books and films for years, Mark took a friend’s suggestion to start Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone, and he was not prepared for the journey the books would take him on. His blog became a group read-along as thousands of Harry Potter fans from around the world tried to avoid spoiling upcoming chapters while sharing in Mark’s reactions to the surprises, revelations, quirks, joys and tragedies of J.K. Rowling’s stories. Mark continues to revisit Harry Potter on Mark Reads and is currently working his way through Sorcerer’s Stone; this time, nobody’s worried about spoilers!

If you’re coming here from Mark’s website (or Twitter, or Facebook page, or just because he told you to) you can learn more about Ascendio at our FAQ; if you’re ready to register, you can click here. Don’t forget to put “Mark” or “MarkReads” as your referral source. It’s ok if you’re not ready to register yet; we’re still ten months away from Ascendio…