Pictures from Weyrfest Events
at DragonCon 1999!

The mascot of WeyrFest, newly named Grinnith, was donated by Dancing Dragons Designs in 1998. The banner is that of Belior Weyr (a fandom writing club), and it was made by Crysty's mom Mary (Crysty's pictured below presenting a painting to Anne).

A gather stall of goodies from The Dragon Sisters was in the WeyrFest room.  They sell shoulder bags, purses, notebooks, shirts, pillows, and other items with dragon appliques in a variety of colors.

A common site throughout DragonCon were dragons on the shoulder.  The vendor selling these was hidden away in the art show, but many people did find them. Others came from different cons, like WorldCon, and some ordered from different online stores...

Pictured are Stacy, Mary Alice, and Dove.

Todd J. McCaffrey was kind enough to agree to run several panels for us.  This is the start of his Weyrling Training panel.

The Dragon Sex Panel!
Introducing the panel is Anna Smith, the fearless director of WeyrFest.  Panel members were (I think) Pamela, Lisa, Monica, and Sara.  Oh, what I lively discussion we had!  The fun really began when Lisa and Monica stood up for a visual demonstration, but threatened to disembowel anyone that tried to take a picture then!

I got to finally meet Emerald's owner in person!  This is Becky (aka Coelura) and me.  I'm demonstrating my amazing talent for blinking during photographs...

Gwen acted as Harper for us during some breaks, and later again during our Harper Hall music hour.  She plays beautifully, and was kind and crazy enough to lug her standing harp around for us every day!

The "Eat More Wherry" cow guards the cash box, while encouraging others to stop in at the Blood Drive.  I managed to avoid the blood-sucking vampires, but only because I live a block from a bloodbank and had given too recently!

The Dragonlady zipped around the con in a motorized cart.  This was my first glimpse of Anne McCaffrey in person.  She did appear publicly earlier, and even signed autographs
(her arthritis must not have been acting up), but I missed it! :(  This is her arriving for her private (invitation only) panel for her true fans.  We got to ask her lots of questions, and were
treated to her fabulous wit.

Flowers from the Weyrfester's were set out by Anna Smith at the table.  We pointed out to her that they would block people's view of the great Dragonlady, but Anna didn't come up with a better spot from them.
Good ol' Annie immediately recognized the problem of the flowers when she reached the table, and decided to play peekaboo with us from around the vase, while the audience roared with laughter.  Next to Anne is her daughter Georgeanne Kennedy,
who acted as nursemaid and general protector of her mother throughout the con.  Ms. McCaffrey can be too polite granting all the requests of her adoring fans, so I'm glad she had Gigi along to guard her health.  Even with the flowers gone, the view was probably still blocked for some by the water pitcher!  Luckily, it too was moved.

Todd was persuaded to join the stage with his mother, and it was a great treat to have them both available to answer questions.  Anne is going to be leaving the future of Pern in Todd's capable hands, so she deferred to him on question of technology.

I was fortunate enough to have a front row seat saved for me by Becky and Donna. And when Anne sat off-center because of the addition of Todd, I was directly across from her!

Gift-giving is apparently a very popular thing for Anne's fans.  There were two formally presented items after the private panel,and then Anne was besieged by a number of other fans bearing gifts. This is a small quilt panel done by The Dragon Sisters (who sold items in the WeyrFest room pictured above).

And here is a painting of Jaxom on Ruth.  Crysty Boucher is presenting it to Anne; it was painted by her mother Mary.

The gifts keep on coming as Anne gets ready to leave.

Oh, and the t-shirt Anne is wearing is one of 1000 limited edition shirts sold by Atlantis TV for the upcoming series.  Through the new website, I'm sure they'll be selling more t-shirts eventually, but the limited run that say DragonCon on the back are likely all gone.

Georgeanne, Anne, Adam Summerville (her security escort), and Todd.  Todd's wife Jenna and five-year-old daughter Ceara were also seen around the con, but I never spotted them...

The next panel was Dragonflight: The Game from Grolier.  The two techs showed up a bit late, so Julia, a marketing director for Grolier, had to improvise.  She actually did a good job introducing the game and answering a few questions, but was quite relieved when the guys showed up!

This is Chris, who is the Senior Producer for the Dragonflight game, and who occasionally posts on alt.fan.pern and tries to answer all the emails sent to him by fans.  He's a very friendly and funny guy, with an incredible commitment to making the best possible Pern game.

This is Marilyn and Harry Alm, the famous duo of the Ista 9 fanfiction Weyr, who first plotted Threadfall Charts from Anne's description of Falls, and found out that they actually did fall in a very orderly pattern.  Anne has subsequently become good friends with them, and now has them explain the Threadfall pattern to her!

The game board and winners of the Pern Trivial Pursuit game.  Six four-member teams had fun competing.  There was a prize for the each of the winners, a book of dragon poetry and short fiction, which is "pretty cool" according to Sara.  Winning team members are Sara, Esther, Peter, and Whitney.

Costumes abounded for the Pern Gather.  See all the fine Ladies who attended.   We were a bit short on Lords, however...

People are (from left to right) ?, ?, Jaime, Marya.
2nd row: Angel, AJ, Crysty.
Angel may be better known as Caryn of Telgar 12th Pass or Lanya of StarRise.

Dove and Gwen provided excellent impromptu music for our Gather.  Any Harper Hall should be proud to claim these fine musicians.  Both of them are Master Harpers for Dragonsfire Moo.  More info about them is included in my summary of the Harper Hall Hour.

Sue, Chantal, and Natascha presented an informative panel on Plagues and Potions.   Earlier, Natascha ran a great solo panel called ER on Pern: When Threadfall Injures.

A very fancy shoulder dragon.  Way over-decorated to be a Pernese fire-lizard, though.

This was the first person I met at DragonCon.   I was sorting through all the registration materials, and when she sat down in a nearby chair I immediately pegged her as a Pern fan by the bronze on her shoulder.   Later I saw her again at the Pern Gather, where she came dressed as a member of the Butterfly Clan (her own invention).  I did see a few other people with the same style dragon, which is latex and was sold at a previous WorldCon.  I liked the way it sprawled across her shoulder and curled its tail around her neck--this style was the most fire-lizard-like of the shoulder dragons I saw.

Pixie had a wonderfully elaborate green and purple costume!

Artist Rob Prior, who will be doing the sequel to The People of Pern.   He sat on the sidelines for the formal panel done by Anne, Grolier, and Atlantis, and then went to chat with Anne afterwards.

The formal panel done by Anne, Grolier, and Zyntopo.  Jerome was late again, but Chris was on time...  From left to right in the second picture we have:  Jerome & Chris (Grolier), Eric & Joanna (Zyntopo), and Todd & Anne.

Anne's daughter Georgeanne sat on the sidelines during this panel, but her presence was eventually pointed out by Mum!

After the panel, Gigi quickly came to help Anne down the platform steps, as fans began to mob the great Dragonlady.

On her way out, Pern fan Amethyst happened to pull up along-side of Anne.  An impromptu race took place between the two, and then they posed for pictures.  Do you think Amethyst would have dared give Anne rabbit-ears if she'd had a dragon along with her?  In the 99x shirt is Anne's securtiy escort Adam once again, trying to help her past the throngs of eager fans so she go back to her room to rest.

The Dragon Hatching sands were covered with colorful eggs!  Names were "Searched" from entrants who'd bought tickets.

A number of methods were used by the Searchees to hatch their chosen egg, from bare hands to feet (left) to the classic Jaxom belt-knife maneuver (Jim, middle)
to the innovative vampire teeth (Monica, right)!  Afterwards, only shards remained... 

Those successful at Impression (all who were chosen, actually) won prizes donated by Baen Books, DelRey Books, the Dragon Sisters, and a few fanfic Weyrs.

Todd gave a great panel about his biography of his mother.  Look for Dragonholder in stores this December!

Donna and Becky are part of a trio of McCaffrey collectors from the Seattle area.  Diana, the third collector, couldn't make it.  :(  Becky & Diana co-wrote A Collector's Guide to the Works of Anne McCaffrey.

Chantal taught us the Pernese Toss Dance (known to SCA members as Toss the Wench).   Chantal mostly gave directions from the sidelines, but when it came to tossing, she had to demonstrate!

Once instruction was over, the dancing began.  It was great fun, both for participants and spectators.  I arrived late and thus took many pictures before someone bowed out and I could join in on the second dance Chantal taught, Runner Stop.

More Toss Dancing

Here's the second dance, called Runner Stomp (I think).  We started off with an inner ring of men and outer ring of women (okay, so some women had to join the inner ring to equal out the numbers...).  Then we went through the flirtatious dance steps as prancing colts and fillies.

One young dancer was too small to join in, but practiced on the sidelines for a future WeyrFest.

Artwork done for a fanfic Weyr publication, which was auctioned off.

Artwork drawn for Anna, the director of WeyrFest.

Thanks for pulling together such a great set of events, Anna!

One of the last events of WeyrFest was the runner racers.   Only five of us wanted to participate, so we each ran our chosen runner in three races.  I ran the leopard appaloosa (which I named Appy), who you can see tied for the lead in both above pictures.  We drew cards to run the horses down the track, and found that food and bad smells were great motivators for our runners, while fire-lizard attacks and tired horses that went to sleep(!) were a problem...  One of the other runners was named Dragon-Fodder...I hope he didn't live up to his name afterwards!

Luck was with me throughout all three races.  On top you can see Appy in the lead, and on the bottom, she's so far ahead she's out of the picture!  I managed to win all three races (and not get lynched), and got a runner necklace as a prize.