I'm seriously considering not running Festival next year.

I mean, Festival I was an okay year - but the first one's allowed to be what it is, right? It's like a pilot episode of a new TV series. A tester.

Festival II ran like a fever dream. Lots of entries, the tryout of a new voting system that picked up over 120 voter's opinions . . . . I definately owe that year to Myrror. Or at least her mailing list, because she had so many people on it that they all pitched in. Myrror did get her dues, tho: she won most of the categories that year.

This year should have been the granddaddy of them all. I had streamlined the nomination AND the voting sytems. I had tradition behind me. I had it all.

Or so I thought.

The only category that got a decent number of nominees was the Equine category. I had to extend the deadlines for voting by almost a whole month just to get 1/4th of the voter response I had last year. And school pounced me like a leopard, leaving me with no time to write an awards ceremony.

And while I can pin the credit on Myrror for last year, I can't pin the blame on her this year. Not entirely, anyway. It's my fault (maybe more so) as much as it is hers. A lot went into the disaster. The overall lack of steadfast adoption agencies like those run by Silvanon, Myrror, DarkHorse, Dragonflight, etc  . . . . The basic deterioration of the community as we knew it. A lack of real updates to the SIZ to keep a strong supply of regulars. Myrror deleting her aforementioned mailing list didn't help, either.

All the same . . . I'll record what I can. See if I figure out what exactly can be done about this, if anything can really make up for it. I'm trying to do the revamp to the SIZ that I promised myself right now, instead of over the summer like I was supposed to. I'm giving the entire place a visual revamp - maybe I can manage a content revamp, too.

In the meantime, here goes something . . . .