Aside from stand around with weapons and have your photo taken with girls?

Do you have a stand or stall?
An exhibit?

Is there a theatrical display or anything?

Sometimes we have a table, where some props will be displayed. Much of the time, we will patrol the show floor, escorting our vision impaired, latex clad photo whores.

Occasionally, if there is room, we will arrange ourselves in a dramatic pose for photos (marines last stand, Alien v Pred etc)

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A11/TQ1.0.32150E1 Murphy, J - Covert recording headcam. There is no flashing red light when you are on Kona-Cam
Weyland-Yutani: Their projects are intentionally full of bugs. Avoid!

Otherwise, they just kill time until the pub opens.

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-Spat

That's why I go along anyway

Ttaskmaster you should come along to one soon and say hello.

Harry

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http://www.facebook.com/TheHHACA - @TheHHACA

Oddly enough, Harry - That is the plan!!

I'm keeping one eye on the UKCM calendar, one on a map, another on my own schedule, several others on various auction websites, one further flitting between Spatcave and my bank balance.....

Hang on - That's too many eyes!!!


About the only comparable thing I've done to this is Live Roleplay.

Lots of this happens:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbyhryc_AAc

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A11/TQ1.0.32150E1 Murphy, J - Covert recording headcam. There is no flashing red light when you are on Kona-Cam
Weyland-Yutani: Their projects are intentionally full of bugs. Avoid!

There's honestly no way to understand it until you try it.

And even then, there are so many different kinds of Drops. NSC is very different from Memorabilia, which is very different from DragonCon, which is different from ComiCon, which is different from Polaris, which is.... You get the idea. Different venues give the Marines different freedoms or restrictions, and it also depends on how many and which troops show up. Some (like me) spend more time at the bar or mingling than actually trooping, while others are in character all day.

So to learn it thoroughly, you just have to go to them all!

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-Spat

And alot of this:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_rQP8TtKkZU


Or, remain in character at the bar. But be warned: drinking cider through a straw in a rather warm costume that already reduces your inhibitions can cause severe intoxication, silliness and, in extreme cases, death.

And don't think you need a costume to join the fun. As for it being like LARP ... hmm, I'm not sure.

Cannot see YouTube from work PC - Is restricted.
Guess I'll find out when I drop by...

'In Character'?
Wandering about, asking if anyone's seen any 7' tall long limbed drooling alien thingies?

Does that include American accents, movie quotes and so on, or is it more for fun?

We go under the banner of the UKCM; a UK offshoot of the US Colonial Marines, so no accents needed!

There's plenty of opportunities for dropping in movie quotes though. ADC seems to be the king of this in my view.

I've only costumed twice (Dragon*Con 08 and a UK drop soon after) and it feels good to be part of the unit, but it's just as fun to turn up in civvies and have a natter with old mates.

Harry

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http://www.facebook.com/TheHHACA - @TheHHACA

I go to stand around wearing other people's armour.

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"You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water."

I go to chat up Mole.

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You all have forgotten the most important thing we do.

DRINK!!!!

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SFC
Michael Larson
Minnesota-USA

A03/TQ1.0.92141E1

lol! I think that we covered that above. You're drunk now, ain't ya!?

I completely love you lot!

Oh good!!
I'm not so bad at it when I'm in the right mood, but I usually seem to start Canadian and end up sounding like a Texan!!!

So it's not quite as 'serious' as I imagined
(phew)


I'd read a thread or two somewhere about semi-scripted Bug Hunts and such, which is where the whole questions about characters and all came from.

Well, yeah. Semi-Scripted would be the word. The only part that was scripted was the appearance of a screaming scientist and a pursuing Alien, expertly contained by Marines at the end. And that had no dialogue.

We have done (and will do in the future) "Alien Encounters" which was a fully scripted "Alien War" like charity attraction at the NSC. However, that is very much a one-off way of working and is more a theatrical performance (with the added safety and improv issues caused by public audience participation) than LARP.

Oh, OK.

See that, to me would be very interesting.
I've seen pics of the 'Firing Range' from one Drop, too.

Stuff like that is what I could really get into. Having more of a purpose than just standing around, going "Hey look at me - I have an outfit".


I was once an 'escort' for a very tall friend in a Chewbacca outfit (GenCon last year) as he and a few Stromtroopers wandered around, tring not to walk into the tables, small humans and other things that they couldn't see below their masks.

They mainly stood around to hand out the promotional Star Wars game products that were being sold by a manufacturer inside the Con. They did wander once or twice, though and having the vocoder-voice thingies made it cool.

Personally, I'd have had them wander round with the Official Security, as a fun way of checking everyone's passes/tickets!!!



But yeah, I wonder if the US & UKCM could do that?
You'd have the real security bods there with you, but I think people would enjoy the 'In Character' effort!!

Plus, you'd get your photo taken with EVERY girl then!!!

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at. We do these things (AE, Bug Hunt, Shooting range, boot camp ...) at NSC specifically because Malika (Events Manager) puts trust in the UKCM, UKG and other costuming groups to do them, and also it is an event ran totally for charity, not profit.

At other events, getting the organisers to permit or support such activities is virtually impossible.

However, having said that, we have been drafted in to assist seriously with crowd control at previous commercial shows. We're also often persuaded to appear in documentaries, news reports and even ads ...

As for getting all the girls ... Abe doesn't leave till he's evaluated every piece of fine tail (and ass) in the place - as you can imagine, he doesn't use his eyes!

You really need to attend and see us in action before you can make suggestions ... if you want to spend all weekend checking tickets, I'd suggest you apply to the cons to be an un-costumed volunteer.

If we tried to stand by the entrance to check tickets (if that was our idea of fun ... ), it would cause an almost immediate obstruction due to photographers.

And this, ladies, gents and those who can't make up your minds, is most definitely in the top ten fun things to do with your clothes on!

I'd just like to add to what the other guys have said.

With regards to the above, in my opinion it is never a good idea to confuse the 'real' security of an event / venue, with those who are just playing dress up.

Recipe for disaster!

Being asked to 'assist' is another matter, but still problematic!

As we found out at an event where we were supposed to crowd control on the door at a very busy event.

oooooh, the nightmares!

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A72/TQ6.6.95356E8





"I plan to live forever.........or die trying!"

As a guy who runs a convention here in NYC, I can tell you that I would NEVER want a costumed character checking tickets or wristbands at an entrance. First, they can't see a damned thing (troopers, bugs and such), next they have no affiliation to the con, so if they did something stupid, the con gets in trouble, and lastly, because people might want to stop and take a pic of them, and that would block the flow at the entrance to my con.

When we do bring in Costumed folk, we either have them escort, or "guard" a celeb who is from the movie they are dressed as (though there is usually a real security guard doing the real guarding), or standing outside or down the street handing out fliers of the show to people passing by.

Other than that, the costumed folk are expected to wander around and enjoy the con.

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-Spat

Thats why we all go along .... to drink loads and make complete fools of our selfs... and to get told off by the guests in the bar...

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Pfc Glenn Allen ,
1st Batt. 69th Regiment,
Homers Hero's..
Drops so Far.... 29 and counting