This year’s Finncon masquerade ran pretty much flawlessly. The only real issue was the lack of entries. We were supposed to have 9, but Kisu dislocated her knee during the day and was in hospital having it checked out when she was supposed to be on stage. The only comment I’d make is that contestants do need to remember to spend more time on stage, and stand still occasionally.

As usual, I was one of the judges. Some of the GoHs declined the honor, and very sensibly, rather than strong-arm them, Hanna (co-chair and masquerade director) chose to offer the job to others. So Hanna and I were joined by Tom Crosshill (Latvia), Nene Ormes (Sweden) and the brilliant Finnish artist, Ninni Aalto. We had plenty of time to sort the prizes, and just enough time to grab dinner at the nearby Italian restaurant, before having to turn up at the evening party for the prize-giving. Everyone else was happy to let me make a fool of myself on stage, so I did. That included a whole bunch of bad tree puns and proposing marriage to Tony Stark. Apparently it went down well, but I won’t bore you with the details, I’ll just show you some pictures. These are all by Sanna Pudas (FantasyFan on Flickr) and used under a Creative Commons license.

Medusa and Daphne

Ghostbusters

The Dwarves

It was the beautiful singing of the dwarves, plus the fabulous facial hair (several of those dwarves are women) that won the dwarves Best in Show. However, the Ghostbusters were great too, even if they did exterminate one of their children (the kid playing the ghost). If it is any consolation the Ghostbusters were the subject of the best photo of the convention: this one by Mikko Löppönen, which makes magnificent use of the Cable Factory setting of the convention and the aftermath of the thunder storm.