Leighton Buzzard on the Edge of Forever,

About the event

In the Summer of 2016 we will turn the beautiful ancient market town of Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire into a vision of the future, a celebration of modern culture and pop culture, of scince, science fiction and fantasy and of peoples imagination. We will involve the comunity run competitions for children, invite groups and organisations to display what they do, and put activities for the people of the town to take part in, organise cosplay events and generally give the town an educational and fun weekend whilst bringing pop culture fans of multiple genres to the town to join in.

The Town has always sought to attract people into the town centre by putting on events to educate and entertain the people and this event is designed to offer       the town a new event that whilst in keeping with the established tradition of being entertaining and educational brings something new and is designed to involve the whole community.

In this event, we are proposing what some might call a science fiction weekend, others may call it a celebration of our popular culture or a science and fantasy fair, or you could describe it as a look at what the future might have in store for us. What we offer is really all of those.

2016 marks the 50^th anniversary of Star Trek, which has influenced our lives and our culture in so many ways, the new Star Trek Movie – Star Trek Beyond- hits the cinemas in the summer and this is the inspiration which sowed the seeds and started the process of planning for this event. However, the new Star Wars movie is released just before the turn of the year and Leighton Buzzards Children’s trail will be celebrating its 4^th anniversary in August so 2016 is set to be an interesting year, it’s the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, which has influenced our lives and our culture in so many ways, the new Star Trek Movie – Star Trek Beyond- hits the cinemas in the summer and the new Star Wars movie is released just before the turn of the year and Leighton Buzzards Children’s trail will be celebrating its 4th anniversary in August. So why restrict the event to just a celebration of Star Trek and all its inspired?

In recent 2014 nearby Milton Keynes regular ‘Collectormania’ show was hugely popular, Northampton had their first such event and with very little going on besides a collector’s market and a ‘Cosplay’ competition, (Ill come to what that implies later). It seemed to have been announced late and with little publicity and poor parking facilities around the County Cricket Club where it was held still managed to sell out. This year’s London Winter Comic Con Expo in October attracted 130,000 people over 3 days, a record and increasing numbers of people are taking up ‘Cosplaying’ (or building and dressing up in costumes that represent their heros. A group of us were in costume in Leighton Buzzard recently and there were a lot of people who wanted to have their photos taken with us.

What we are proposing however is not a comic and collector’s convention (although we are proposing that this could be an element of the event).

In the next section we will give you an overview of the event and then we will go into some of the details.

Overview

The event itself would take place over the August Bank holiday weekend (although any other weekend would be shorter that would merely mean some of the elements proposed for the bank Holiday Monday would instead have to take place on the Sunday).

The intention is to involve the whole community in the build-up and organize an event that has something for everyone.

In the months before hand my team would visit schools and youth groups, churches and other community organisations, businesses too and set out our vision to them. The event will include displays and entertainment brought in from Organisations of re-enactors, cosplayers, collectors and prop builders, examples of the sort of organisations we will reach out to being Region 20 of Star Fleet, The UK Garrison of the Star Wars 501st legion, dalek builders, R2 D2 Builders, Her Doktor (Steam Punk) and others but more important we will also invite the community to participate and show us their vision of the future, their love of popular culture, their hobbies and their heros. We’ll set up competitions and invite children to take part from all over the town. We will engage with people’s imagination, draw them into and mold our event.

We propose that the event will take place over the August bank holiday weekend

We will start off on the Friday evening, we can have a film showing at the library Theatre, where we will put on an exhibition from the Kids competitions through the weekend, and cosplay workshops.

We will ask the café’s, restaurants and pubs in the town to enter into the spirit.

On the Saturday we’re asking the market manager to run a themed market, but we will also be working around the market. We’d take on the pedestrianized areas around Market Square, High Street, Waterborne Walk and the pedestrianized area between the Market square and Hockliffe Street and put on displays and activities. If we could have Church Square we can run entertainment in there too.

On the Sunday there will be more of the same, but without the market we can bring in more of the specialist vendors and put in more displays, there will be more going on in the entertainment areas too.

On the Monday we will put on a parade and award the prizes for the Cosplayers and for the competitions.

To be your hero, or to meet your heros, that is the question

The details.

The competitions mentioned earlier which will be for kids at the various schools and community groups will work as follows.

Competitors can design, write about or make a picture of a Society, City, Technology or ‘look’  (costume, fashion etc.) of the future, and we will raise sponsorship for prizes. The categories will be under 7s, 7 to 9 year olds, 9 to 11 year olds 11 to 16 year olds and a group entry prize.

There will also be a daily prize for the best adult and the best childrens costume and for the best costume performance.

Meanwhile, we will have costumed members of the various groups mentioned earlier patrolling the town and we will have photo opportunities (back drops etc) staffed by costumed volunteers. The volunteers will need to be provided with parking spaces, drinks, a meal and a rest/changing area. When you give me the go-ahead I will talk to the relevant local businesses about getting help with that, or maybe the sponsorships that I will look for once I get the go ahead would pay for this.

We will also run a competition to find certain characters located all around town and collect the stamps. From them on a sheet When the sheet is full, people can return them to a central point such as Alternative Universe Comics to be entered into a draw to win a Mystery Prize Pack! Entry sheets will cost a £1.00 donation.

Displays,

There are groups have said they would have people who could put on displays but would need to have the confirmed dates in order to advise exactly what they could do.

We would put  R2 D2 builders and the Star Wars displays and photo ops would go on Waterborne Walk.

The Judge Dredd displays in the area in front of Olly Vees (I would also by the way seek to involve their assortment of mods and others in that as they would make very good citizens of Judge Dredds Mega City One if you have ever seen the comic strip, there is a resemblance.

The Steam Punks would go into the pedestrianised area at the town end of Hockliffe Street

Along with the Doctor Who builders                             

There are more possibilities too…

We were also discussing ‘Cosplaying’.  There are many people who travel the country to attend events where they can wear the latest costumes that they’ve made.

A large part of this event will be about inviting people to come to our town dressed as their heros or to see those who do in their costumes.

We’re going to give them a platform in the town centre where they can perform as the characters they’re dressed as
 

And on the Monday, we can hold a parade. 

We would move the performances and the vendors and displays to Pulford Park for the Monday morning.

At say 12 noon we would start lining people up for the parade into ‘theme’ groups.

I’m going to use the Storm Troopers and Judges to keep order and keep people entertained whilst we line them up and start the parade at 1pm

We would leave the park progressing

along Grove Road, Lake Street, Market

Street, High Street, Church Square and

Pulford Road, then back into the Park.
I’m allowing 90-120 minutes for the parade to complete, so by 3pm the parade should be back in the park and then. We would make the awards for the kids competitions and the Overall Cosplay competitions. Allow until five pm for the people to look at the stall holders and the displays and then we close out for the weekend.

ITS NOT JUST FOR FUN

Many of the re-enacting groups and the cosplaying groups don’t just do it for the fun they do it to raise money for charity and I’d like to be able to raise a meaningful sum for charity on the back of this event. The Charity I’m thinking of is Shelter.

FOR THE TOWN

By selling the event we’re going to sell the town, we will have a big social media presence and we have access to groups like the Judge Dredd costume group, which has over 1500 members and is growing all the time. The UK cosplayers and geeks groups who between them have thousands of members. We’ll set up a website and work hard to get media coverage, all of which will help raise the profile of this town.

The events we will be holding in the town leading up to the event will help build community spirit and this event will bring a buzz of excitement and fun to the town in the weeks and months leading up to it.

We’re going to seek sponsorship not only within the town but from organisations that publish films, TV programmes and magazines, this event is going to be the most exciting thing that happens to Leighton Buzzard. Let me get it rolling as soon as possible and we’ll have a great weekend.

Why should you sponsor?

Steve Bennett

Contact the Organizer Contact the Organizer