Selina Skies

November 18, 2022 7:45 PM
The concert was easily the most stressful event for Selina as a staff member. The ball and the bonfire probably came with the most interpersonal drama, some of which ended up as her responsibility to deal with the fall out from, but the event planning mostly took care of itself. The fair required organisation, which was sometimes up to the staff and sometimes up to the students, but the concert always relied on the contributions of the students, to be showcased to families. They had approached performance generation in different ways over the years, such as having prefects lead groups, or having house acts, and sometimes it was just a free-for-all. It was always a worry in the latter case that they wouldn’t get enough acts, and in all cases about whether they’d be fit to present. The staff kept an eye on things, helping students to develop rehearsal schedules, and checking in that they were progressing, but it was a lot more work than sticking some tents on the school field and setting something on fire. Especially this year, when it had fallen in line with the challenges.

But, as ever, Sonora’s students had risen to the occasion. There was a suitable number of acts, showing a diverse range of skills, and the challenges had actually provided a further opportunity to generate acts.

The other part of the concert that was stressful—the fact that it was presented to families—was also what made it so enjoyable. Sonora didn’t have a lot of opportunities to have families visit, and it was (almost) always a delight to welcome them to campus. The school had reached out to the families of Muggleborn students to help with travel arrangements, and had the option of a pick up in town. The car involved might stretch their limits of what a car should look like on the inside and how it ought to behave, and there was really no way around just having to sort of… whoosh at some point when entering an itinerant magical school, but it was still gentler than any of the other options. The welcome station was located in the gardens, lined with fireplaces for Floo travellers, and temporarily placed outside the apparition limitations. A number of portkeys had been arranged from major travel hubs, and the school had signed off on any for families large enough and magical enough (and rich enough) to arrange their own. The welcome station was also stocked with water, an anti-nausea potion, and some chairs should anyone feel the need to recover from their journey. There were also sticky labels on which people could write their name and relationship to the students they were there to support.

The faculty were present to greet families, after which they were allowed into the main hall for snacks and mingling and taken on a tour if they wanted to see the school.

After that they were let into the Cascade Hall, which had been rearranged as a theatre for the evening, with rows of chairs facing a large stage. Whilst it might have been easier to use one of the MARS rooms, the hall did have such a sense of occasion.

“Hello, and welcome,” Selina addressed the assembled families. “We’re so pleased to have you here for our concert. The concert is part of an events rotation which occurs every four years, and is a chance for our students to show some of the skills that they have outside of their classes, and sometimes a few of the ones they’re using in them. We have a great range of acts for you tonight, which you can see listed in your programme.” The acts ranged from puppetry to comedy to a… band(?) which was playing some Muggle rock songs in what Selina had deemed a passable enough way to allow in. “The majority of these were devised by the students in their free time or through student-led extra-curricular activities. In addition to this, we have three musical performances from our schoolwide challenges this year. In our second event, students had to use their transfiguration skills and their imaginations to turn junk into musical instruments, conventional or otherwise, and to compose a piece for performance. The three winning teams from that challenge are showcasing their pieces tonight.

“Without further ado, let us welcome our first act…” Selina had asked each set of performing students for a brief introduction for both the program and her intro speeches. She had tidied them up as necessary, and used them to welcome each act onto the stage.

Once the final group had performed, she took to the stage to invite one more round of applause, and then asked the audience to stand and to mind out as the furniture rearranged itself. With the audience off to the sides, several tables trotted in from the lobby, and the chairs gathered around them. At the back of the hall, a buffet table stocked itself. After that, parents and students were free to mingle. Students could leave that evening with their parents, although there would be one more night at school and the wagons in the morning for any whose families hadn’t attended, for whom travelling back together wasn’t practical, or who just wanted one more night to spend with their friends and one more trip on the flying wagons.



OOC: Welcome to the concert!

Some house-keeping:
- Please use the 'other' box and specify the lead POV character if writing a family post (e.g. 'Monica Spellman').

- If a post writes for more than one character, please mark this using 'What of thread is this?' and selecting 'This whole post is mine but writes for more than one character.' Any thread that includes dialogue or actions from another character that wouldn't be within reasonable god-modding limits (e.g. having someone let you into an office, invite you to take a seat etc are defined as reasonable) should be tagged this way. A good rule of thumb is... If they weren't your character, would you need more than a head nod from someone in chatzy to approve the actions? If so, you're probably writing for multiple characters. The purpose of this tag is to keep such posts out of the running for 'longest post' where they would obviously have an unfair advantage.

- Posts with a Sonora character as their lead POV are added to their page/stats for the term even when using this tag. Posts with a family member as the POV aren't automatically added (cos computers cannot understand) but may be included towards a character's activity total at the discretion of the admins.

- Please include a time frame [pre-concert, concert performance, post-concert] in your post title to help others stay organised. Your post may cover more than one of these time frames - go with tagging where it ends.
Subthreads:
13 Selina Skies The Concert 26 1 5

Allegra Brockert

November 23, 2022 7:53 AM
Although she had only graduated a few years ago, this was already Allegra’s second time returning to Sonora. Last year, she had joined some of her female relatives at the alumni career and hobby Fair, at their needlework booth, where she demonstrated how to make small baby blanket quilts and now she was back to watch Esme, Isla, and Olaf at the concert. As it had turned out, her younger siblings had been very successful at one of the Challenge events that involved transfiguring random junk into musical instruments and playing them. Since none of her siblings played musical instruments-and it sounded like most of their teammates didn’t either- Allegra figured it was more the former that they had succeeded in. Also, Isla was doing a puppet act with the Performing Arts club.

She was just glad that her siblings had had a better experience with the Challenges than she had. As in, they weren’t completely traumatized by it, Olaf’s feelings about having to perform in the Concert aside. She didn’t really blame him, as she never wanted to either, granted, for very different reasons. The idea of getting up in front of people and performing in any manner sort of made Allegra feel sick to her stomach. Never mind the judgment of others that would be inevitable,which would have been bad enough, Topaz likely would have found some way to sabotage her and make sure she was humiliated. Not that she would have needed her cousin’s help for that.

At least Allegra did not need to worry about her cousin being here tonight. Ever since they graduated,she had seen much less of the Aladren alumna. Which she thanked Merlin for every day. She wished she could say that she hadn’t seen Topaz since then, but they were still cousins and they were at least somewhat stuck with each other.

Of course, Allegra owed some of the improvements in her life to her fiance Josh. Not only did he make her feel loved and wanted and special, he also protected her from her cousin. Josh was just the right combination of strong and gentle. He was kind and caring with her but tough enough to stop Topaz from bothering her. Although, sometimes, Allegra did worry that Topaz would do something to him .Which terrified her. She would never ever forgive herself if something happened to Josh because he fell in love with her.

And then there was the fact that they would be getting married in just a few weeks. Topaz, for reasons completely understandable to everyone, was still single. Which meant that Allegra would beat her cousin to the altar. She had never been allowed to beat her cousin in anything, and while she was eager to be married to Josh, she still couldn’t help but be terrified of repercussions. Topaz was like a fairy tale villain, both horrendously evil and exceedingly petty. As had been the case when Emerald and Ruby married their husbands, there would be strict instructions to keep Topaz away from everyone’s food, not just Miles’s. Granted, that was probably common sense anyway

The Concert ended and Allegra laced her fingers through Josh’s. Technically, since they weren’t married yet, she didn’t think he was supposed to be here, but they were close enough. “Let’s go get something to eat.” She said.

They made their way to the buffet table and got in line. "I'm so proud of Isla." She told her fiance. "I mean, she won and they were winning all the way through. And her puppet act was amazing as well." It was true. Even though Allegra's own Challenge experience had been horrid-even though the boys on her team had actually been very nice people-she in no way wanted that to take away from Isla. Or her other two siblings either, but Isla had won and she deserved her triumph, her moment.

Because Allegra was pretty sure the Aladren was in for a rough summer. Being one of her bridesmaids would be fine-the Crotalus alumna was naturally more bothered by the fact that she'd been obligated to ask Topaz, just as Emerald and Ruby had even though it was the last thing she wanted-but then there would be all the other balls and events, and while there was quite the difference in their Challenge experiences, she worried that their social experiences would be quite similar, albeit for different reasons.. While Allegra was shy, and seriously traumatized, Isla was just a bit odd. And she loved that about her sister but others might not.

But Josh did. He seemed to get on great with everyone in her family, except the obvious people. He even got on with Olaf . Josh nodded. '"She was amazing. So were the others." Amethyst had been in the puppet show too "I mean, Esme and Olaf-and Isla too-sure did their best for people who don't know how to play instruments."

Allegra chuckled. "I am sure Isla will focus her energies towards her puppets." Which was what the fifth year had always done.. Something that Allegra really always had understood because she knew despite how Isla generally seemed okay with herself, she knew others didn't get her and bonded with her puppets.. "And Olaf will just keep reading and Esme will be a perfect socialite." Everyone would just keep on being themselves.

Everyone would..

And that was what she was most worried about.


11 Allegra Brockert [Post-concert] I just can't stay away. 1426 0 7