A quick Star Wars troop

Earlier this spring I was very happy when the Nordic Legions got a request to appear at a concert with some Star Wars music, what made me happy was that the concert would be in Avesta, so for the first time I would be able to troop a short distance from home. I of course volunteered to coordinate us and contacted the orchestra. The orchestra is a small semi-professional orchestra and they were actually going to have two concerts, one in Avesta and one in Grängesberg. Unfortunately the date collided with NärCon so it was clear from the start that most of the Nordic Legions' members within driving distance wouldn't be available. In the end it was me and Ingeli who were there on Friday, and I went there myself on Saturday.

 The concert in Avesta was in a venue called Verket, and it's so cool. It's an old ironworks, built in brick and with the furnaces still there. Nowadays it's the host of a yearly art festival, that's quite a big. Me and Ingeli complemented each other as X-wing and TIE pilot and had some fun. I even managed to find some pieces of art that matched my costume.

Bad lightning and no supporters meant that these were the only pictures.

On Saturday the venue was Cassels in Grängesberg. This is a very special building, built in the early 20th century, in fact modelled on the Bank of England in London, it has some wonderful acoustics as well. I had loved to wear my Amidala in these beautiful surroundings, but I talked with Ingeli about it and we agreed that since I was going to be alone it was probably best to wear my most iconic costume, so I took out my old classic Leia.

It turned out that was a good idea. Due to some missteps in my planning and with the traffic, all of a sudden I just had 5 minutes to get into costume! Three of those minutes were spent on the hairbuns, and I also had missed to bring enough hairpins I think I had a total of 6 with me. All in all I'm still pretty satsified with the look of my buns. I did waste one of the hairpins to pin up the hood though, so that most of the hairbuns and the back of the head would be covered.

I did the same thing as on Friday, but I would say that this audience was smaller and older, so I got less recognition. I think the most common comment I got was "you're beatiful, what are you supposed to look like?".

Still the orchestra was happy that I was there, and over the two days I managed to collect around $150 to Barncancerfonden (the Children's Cancer foundation) just by standing with a bucket so that people could put some spare change in it.

On the way home I took the chance to combine two of my nerdy interests and visited the minehads in Grängesberg. Grängesberg used to have one of the biggest iron mines in Europe, but it was closed down in 1989.