tomyboy wrote:Is something happening on the 7th? (What day is that?)
7th September 2007 will be a Friday.
[I drafted this a while ago. Hopefully the extra traffic being generated by the T-shirt competition makes this a good time to share it.]
The ideal celebration of Knightmare's 20th anniversary would indeed be a convention/mass gathering, with original cast/crew members involved. It's very easy for me to sit here typing about how great that would be, but in honesty, I doubt I have the motivation and competence actually to help organise an event like that. I'm not sure how many others would admit to being in that position, though the forum has had several threads where dozens of people have enthused about the idea of a KM convention, with nothing ever actually coming of those discussions.
Now that the candid cynicism's out the way (hopefully having not riled anyone)...
In my opinion, a more realistic aim for this special anniversary year would be for fans to contribute a little extra to the Knightmare community, regardless of their usual amount, and thereby give it a boost. (Note: I'm not accusing anyone of doing too little, I'm purely advocating doing a tad more.) Here are some ideas:
- Post a bit more on this forum. It stretches back to 2002; if you browse the old threads, you could find a forgotten gem and raise it from the depths with a fresh comment, or round it off with one. We could call this endeavour the Project for Unearthing Subjects and Tying Up Loose Ends. P.U.S.T.U.L.E. for short.
- If there is a long-lost forum member whom you admire and miss, you could contact them, remind them of the significance of this year, and encourage them to drop by here and post.
- Submit something creative to the website (which of course includes The Eye Shield). For example, you could write a fanfic (or work on an unfinished fanfic, if you have one), or submit some fanart.
- Try contacting someone from the series, thank them for being part of it, point out why this year is important to Knightmare fans, and (if you feel it's appropriate to say more) politely invite them to mark it in some way, such as signing the guestbook, joining the forum, or sharing some behind-the-scenes anecdotes, even if they have done so before. Various contestants' email addresses are available on their forum profile pages, and many actors can be indirectly contacted using the suggestions on knightmare.com's FAQs page. However, I don't advocate hassling any of them.
Some KM alumni have moved on, and that's fair enough.
- Contact one of the TV/radio stations or publications that has honoured Knightmare in the past (e.g. Warwick Radio, Xfm, talkSPORT, Cult Times, SFX, Micro Mart), and ask if they'd be interested in marking KM's 20th anniverary with another mention.
If enough people follow one or more of those suggestions, then hopefully we can all enjoy a revitalised community by the end of 2007. (The recent T-shirt-related boost, assuming it is more than a very short-term surge of materialism
, is a great start.) I suppose you could say that I'm rejecting 'Operation UNITE' in favour of 'Operation VIM'. I'd also like to say that I'm not looking for argument or cross words - these are simply my opinions, and may be taken or left as desired.
Thank you for reading.