Here are some tips on London Transport for those spending time in London before or after the convention.

Fares on the Tube and buses have been restructured so single and return fares quickly add up. You are almost always going to be better buying a Travelcard.

Perhaps more importantly, Transport for London is aggressively trying to get people to use the Oystercard Smartcard. Oystercard fares can be half the cash fare, as well as automatically capping at the Travelcard rate if you use them enough in a given day. If you live outside the UK, you will need to use the Prepay option. You can get one at the Tube stores at Heathrow or at Victoria station, and can get more information at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2006/oyster/general.asp

(Thanks to Lissa Allcock for suggesting we include this information.)

Registration opens at 3:00 PM on Friday afternoon.

New memberships are now only available at the door with the following rates:

£36 Waged
£18 Unwaged / Children over the age of 5
£1 Children under the age of 5 / Soft toys

Lissa Allcock is spearheading the UK Filk Awards once more. Nominations and voting will be at the con. As traditional, a special concert will take place showcasing the award winners.  And once again, Omega is designing the awards.  Our thanks to Lissa and Omega.

The Filk Fund is the source of funds for an overseas guest to the UK filk convention each year. 1812Tone thanks the Fund very much for providing the means to bring Sam Baardman to the convention. The Filk Fund annual meeting will take a Very Brief Slot on Sunday before lunch.

Roger Robinson will be hosting the auction on Saturday evening, just before the dinner break. As stated in PR2, all funds from this year’s auction are being graciously donated by the Filk Fund for the nMC/Interfilk/FilKONtario joint project to get the nMC to Toronto in 2007.

This year’s auction contains some very special items from the collection of the Dutch fan HANS LOOSE, who sadly died in early 2004. Because of the special nature of these items – and to raise more money for the Filk Fund’s support of the nMC project - we are trying an experiment involving pre-bidding for these items.

The starting price in the at-con auction will be determined by any pre-con bids. All the items listed will be displayed at the con. As usual a table will also be provided to display all the other items attendees bring along for the auction.

Please turn to page 6 of  PR#3 for the list of items and bidding instructions. Please note that this is not the complete list of items, only those qualifying for pre-bids.

Currently assigned tables:

• Tales from the White Hart
• Beccon
• At the Sign of the Dragon

Because Roger Robinson will be at the back of the main function room where he cankeep an ey e on the auction goodies, we may be able to squeeze in one or two more tables. Please send an email to conchair@contabile.org.uk to enquire.

Tech

First, calling all performers, particularly those doing things with lots of other people! Let Martin "GK" Gordon-Kerr know in advance (email to gk@scrumpy.org ) what tech requirements you have for your sets. If you don't know what you will need in the way of tech, tell him what you want to do, and he'll see what you need from that. If you think you might have people joining you, but don't know for sure, include them - its much easier not to use a microphone than it is to magic three at no notice ("Oh, by the way, Divine Strumpet and Phoenix are joining me on this song, and the nMC are singing backing - didn't I tell you about that before?")...

Second, calling anyone who wants to be involved with tech (previous experience or not). We will be setting up a rota for running the desk during the day. We will also be trying to relay what is going on in the main room through to the kids’ rooms and potentially the dealers, which means we need someone to drive a video camera (or at least to set it up and leave it running). Please let us know in advance if you can help with this. We will also be doing a few things to help those who would like to learn more about tech - at least at the level of being able to operate a system once set up. We will be having a "grasshopper slot" on the main rota, where people can sign up to watch/assist/learn from the main tech.

Martin Gordon-Ker will be leading a "mixing workshop" on Saturday morning to help people learn to mix both live work and recordings, with a chance to get your hands on a real sound desk!

Any questions, please contact GK on gk@scrumpy.org. 

Hotel

The booking period has expired. A very few rooms being held - if you need one, please contact the liaisons as soon as possible, via email:

hotelliaisons@contabile.org.uk

or snail mail:

1812Tone Booking
c/o 165 Cold Overton Road
Oakham, Rutland LE15 6NU
UK

We apologize for omitting the postal address in PR2. If you have already booked, thank you very much! You should have been contacted by our friendly hotel liaisons to confirm sharers, room type, and the like.

Breakfast is INCLUDED in your room cost. Also, DON’T bring any alcohol into the hotel.  British hotels aren’t that keen on you bringing food in either, except in the case of particular dietary needs.

The hotel has a very nice Leisure Centre, complimentary to residents, which contains a heated (indoor) pool, spa bath, sauna, steam room, and exercise equipment.

For liability reasons, 1812Tone cannot provide childcare as part of the convention membership. A parents’ rota is being organized by Annie Walker that will allow cooperative child minding in a function room near the main convention space – hopefully, with piped-in audio (and perhaps video) of main room events. If you are interested in participating, please contact her at: stevieannie@btopenworld.com.

1812Tone cannot be responsible for the behavior or safety of the children at the hotel.  It is vitally important that all children under the age of 10 be supervised at all times.  Yes, fannish children are generally well behaved, but we also remember when we were small and inclined to get into...mischief.  Be aware that parents will be held responsible for their children's activities.

FilkFund Auction News

For 1812Tone, the UK Filk Fund has generously offered to allow all proceeds from the 1812Tone auction to flow to the joint FilKONtario/N'early Music Consort/Interfilk project aimed at transporting ... er ... allowing the NMC to travel to Canada as guests for FKO 17 in 2007. We hope that donors will keep this in mind when bringing items to donate for the auction. Funding so many guests is extremely expensive, and it is only through the amazing efforts of everyone involved that this huge project will be successful.

Roger Robinson reminds us that this is the "coming of age" of British filk cons — items apropos of this theme and/or reflecting back on previous conventions would be most welcome!

Dealer Information

The dealers' area at 1812Tone will consist of multiple small rooms directly across from the main programming area. At this time, we expect to be able to pipe sound from the concerts and activities into the dealers' rooms, allowing everyone to shop without missing a single beat.

If you would like to have a dealer table at 1812Tone, please contact conchair (at) contabile (dot) org (dot) uk. Please include a rough estimate of the number of tables you would like and/or the square footage of space required to for display.

Recording Policy

Recording for personal use has always been allowed at UK FIlk Conventions, but certain rules are put in place to make sure the recording does not impact either the performers or the audience.

• Recording is for personal listening use only. Recordings must not be made public in any way, either on media or on the internet, without the explicit permission of both performers and composer/lyricists. Permission from the committee to record at the convention does not give any permission to distribute the recordings.
  
• Should performers not wish to be recorded, this must be obeyed. Performers can either mention this in the programme if doing a set, or can mention it before performing.
  
• No unattended recording is allowed without the explicit permission of the committee, and agreement as to where such equipment is put. In particular, equipment must be kept out of all aisles and walkways.
  
• At the end of the day, those playing at the con are playing to the membership that have paid to attend. In no way should recording impact the performance, either in terms of the noise it makes or comments like "Can you stop a minute? I need to change tapes..." (both of which we have had!).
  
• Summary: Discreet recording for personal use is fine. Anything else — isn't.

12-Tone Technique bases the melodies and harmonies of a piece
on an ordering of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale.
The 12 tones of an octave are not centered around any single tone,
but are united by the composer's selected order of tones for a given composition.
This technique represented a clear break with the harmonic formulas of music
that had been developed during the 18th and 19th centuries.