SDCC Masquerade 2016: The Addams Extended Family

The primary reason we went to San Diego Comic Con this year was to compete in their yearly masquerade with our cosplay group, which numbered 14 people.  The theme was the Addams Extended Family.

But, you might ask, "Why 14 people? There are only 7 in the Addams Family!" (It'll make sense once you see the video.....)

Organizing 14 costumers is no mean feat.  Our wonderful group director (who played Morticia) managed all of the aspects of our group skit / presentation --- including putting together our choreography, arranging our music,  scheduling our many, many rehearsals, and coordinating with the masquerade staff. On the flip side, each individual is responsible (more or less) for their own costumes and props --- although we all chip to help whenever it's required.

Over the course of many months, we got to know our music arrangement and rehearsed our skit. (You didn't think we just made costumes and strut them on stage, did you?)

As our group was scattered between northern and southern California, we had to arrange last minute rehearsals with the entire group once we arrived at SDCC. Some of us had practiced by watching the rehearsal videos.

 On the day of the masquerade, there was a lot of preparation.

It took about 4 hours to do our last few rehearsals, the "final" rehearsal on the secondary stage to show the masquerade staff, AND then finally, to get into our costumes --- makeup, any prosthetics, and finally our costumes. We all helped each other get dressed and ready.

Some of the group had to change from their day cosplay to their actual masquerade outfits.

There was a total of 35 contestants. We were #23. So, we had a bit of a wait before we even got onstage. The curtain went up around 8pm.

We were not allowed to wander the hallways in our costumes, so we stayed in the Green Room along with everyone else. It was a bit of organized chaos. :-)

While we waited, I took a few photos of the contestants. There were some amazing costumes.

Fortunately, the masquerade show let the contestants view the rest of the masquerade from the green room.

Uncle Fester, Lurch, and Cousin Thing watch  the MCs announce the next act.

The presentation before us was a couple who played Kylo Ren & Rey. Their skit was the fight scene from the movie. However, unbeknownst to "Rey",  "Kylo" got on his knees and proposed to her on stage! It was pretty amazing and she said YES. I bemoaned to my fellow group members that we had to follow THAT act......

When we finally went onstage, it seemed that everyone got the jokes inherent in our presentation. At least one person loved our skit so much that they tweeted this......

Here's the full video.

Here's how it was shown on the big video screen. I kinda like see'ing the MC (Phil & Kagia Folio)'s introduction.

(Can you name all of the Adams?)

The end of our presentation didn't mean the end of the masquerade. We had to wait for everyone else to finish. We couldn't get out of our costumes, but we did chill for a bit.

Cousin It playing with Grizzly's beard.

Eventually, the winners were announced.

We took home a medal for the Most Humorous (and given the laughter from the audience, I did think we nailed it!)

(From the next day's newsletter)

Ecstatic, we stumbled out of the convention center after midnight. We were exhausted as it had been 8 hours just for the masquerade; happy with our presentation and our win.

Photo - ©Ryan Orange. LA Weekly