...at the way this event is coming together.

Event coordination is like an extended case of stage fright. Months and months of it, slowly coming to a boil in the weeks and days leading up to the event, until you're there, and all of your skill and experience and preparation take over, so that the fear is replaced by this Zen state of supreme competence and exhaustion. Sarah Bernhardt, the French theatre's equivalent to Napoleon Bonaparte, once said that you are no true actress if you don't get stage fright (she suffered from "the terrors" before every performance). So, I accept the fear as part of the price to pay for an extraordinary performance, whether I'm the one on stage or the one coordinating a whole slew of others on stage.

And right now "the terrors" are frothing in this bizarre admixture of fear and elation...

Somehow, in my relentless push over the past few months to expand the steampunk element of TempleCon and make this event more than "just" a gaming convention, I managed to pull in just enough of the right people, the right events, so that suddenly people and events started pouring in, and not just any people or events, but the exact kind of people and events that are turning this into the mind-blowing spectacle that I had envisioned, and then some:

Steampunk and fin-de-siecle themed performances by The Ocean State Circus Performers, Ameena, Rachel and Diana of Moirae Bellydance, Little Red Coquette, and Aepril Schaile; a tribal dance class by Rachel and Diana, and a Raqs Victoriana class by Aepril Schaile; panels on steampunk culture, steampunk prop-making, and upcycling in steampunk costuming; a writer's panel by CJ Henderson with a reading of his work; two blocks of short films graciously offered by the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival; an appearance by the Rhode Island Pirate's Party; a weekend-long steampunk costume contest with the grand prize of an amazing steampunk ray gun and crazy apparatus (a.k.a. "The Thing Needed to Kill The Baddy"), concocted by Ken Beauchemin of Graven Images; tons of vendors, guest artists, and gaming industry luminaries; and oh, yes, the games...

Demos of a ton of new games, including the much-talked-about Arena Deathmatch, Heroscape, Monsterpocalypse, Infinity, Alkemy, Tannhauser, Memoir '44, Dungeon Twister, Steve Jackson Games demos by the Men in Black (i.e., various permutations of Munchkin), WHE Games, Shadowfist, Uncharted Seas (by the guys from the D6 Generation Podcast), and more...

A North American Diplomacy Federation Grand Prix Tournament, the Vampire: the Eternal Struggle Northeast Regional Qualifier, the Shadowfist Rhode Island State Championship, a Flames of War Regional Qualifier Tournament, Privateer Press' exclusive HARDCORE WARMACHINE/HORDES event, a Magic: the Gathering Conflux Release Tournament and other Magic events throughout the weekend, Heroscape tournaments throughout the weekend by the North East 'Scapers Association, the premier of the "Up the River" campaign for the Unhallowed Metropolis role-playing game led by the campaign's writer and TempleCon Guest of Honor Simon Berman, a Call of Cthulhu for 30 game led by Guest of Honor CJ Henderson, Pathfinder system role-playing events throughout the weekend, a steampunk-themed One World By Night Vampire: the Masquerade LARP, an insane line-up of board gaming events and a huge open board gaming library, Warhammer 40K and Fantasy tournaments throughout the weekend, a LAN Room with Xbox 360 and Wii tournaments running throughout the weekend including Gears of War 2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Smash Bros. Brawl, and so many more games I can't list them all...

Pardon me for bragging a bit, but this thing is monumental! And we're bringing it all together to happen at the Biltmore this weekend.

I think I'm gonna faint...