Author Archive: Shadow Dan

Policy Updates

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Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! We have a couple quick items to announce. No, we do not have dates for Mysterium yet but are close and expect to announce that before the end of the year.

Policy Updates

We made a few changes to the Mysterium policies. Note the following:
  • We received some complaints about heckling and shouting out during presentations. While audience reactions and cheering are fine, repeatedly interrupting presenters is not.
  • Attempts to circumvent our refund policies via charge dispute may result in a permanent ban from future events.
The full set of policies is available on the Policies page of our website.

October Prompt Winners

We have our two winners for October’s community prompt topic of “Noir”. First, the visual winner angelmyst with this photo collage:

Captioned:

“There it stood, in all its splendor, pulling me to its craggy feet. Not just a mountain, The mountain. The mountain of my dreams…calling, ever calling. My childhood games were all compassed in its majesty. I had to see what it held.
Home, cozy and dark, it enveloped me in its depths, and held me breathless. Echos from my past played on the vaulted ceiling.
I shall never leave.
I can never leave.
I am its prisoner.”

Next, Talashar was selected as the written winner with “The Hidden Way”.
There are still a few days to submit entries for November’s topic of “Found Family”.

That’s it for this one. Again, we expect to have dates very soon and should be following up with another post in December.

Mysterium 2024 co-chairs
Annacat and Dan

Writing & Artwork

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Greetings from snowy Colorado! Yes, snowy. We just saw our first snowfall of the season. We have more submissions open plus another round of prompt winners.

Writing and Artwork Submissions

In addition to co-chairing this year, Annacat has once again graciously offered to run the writing and artwork table. We have decided to add a limit of 5 pages for any printouts to save the trees and wallets. If your piece is longer you may wish to direct people to a website or other location where they can read the full text. See the Writing & Art Table Submissions page for details.

September Creativity Prompt

We had some more great submissions for the month of September. This month’s written winner was Salvo Ludus with the story “The Linking Game”.
The visual art winner was Grayson aka redwoodrroad with this image of a young Gehn at his desk:
There are still a couple more days for October’s topic of “Noir”.

More announcements to come, but for now, happy Halloween!

Annacat and Dan,
Mysterium 2024 co-chairs

Pins

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Hello all! We have a few more items to announce.

Pins

First, we’re opening pin submissions for Mysterium 2024. For more information see the Submissions page. Pins are not required to follow the Mysterium theme, but if you’d like to incorporate it, remember this year’s is Serenia.

August Creativity Prompt

We are continuing to showcase two winners. This month the visual art winner was laughingpineapple with “Blazing Mentor”.
Blazing Mentor

The written winner was Salvo Ludus with the story “The Bad Ending”.

September’s prompt has now closed, but there’s a whole month to submit entries for October’s topic of “Noir”!

COVID Vaccines

We wanted to give a quick notice for anyone who hasn’t seen: there is a new COVID vaccine available as of last month for the latest variants of the virus. We’d recommend everyone obtain it when you can!
Additionally, we have received reports of pharmacies no longer updating or providing vaccine cards. If you are looking for an updated proof of vaccine, then it is advisable to specifically request a card if possible, or look into electronic vaccine records if available for your location.

We’ll have more to share in the coming months. In the meantime, happy spooky month!

Annacat and Dan
Mysterium 2024 co-chairs

T-Shirts and Passports

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Shorah! We’re getting underway with planning for Mysterium 2024 and have a few updates to provide.

Traveling to Canada

Since Mysterium will be in Canada next year, it’s important to pay attention to any immigration requirements. There are a few links on the Location page to help direct you. Most importantly: if you don’t have a passport, don’t procrastinate, since it can take a few months for the application to be processed.
Also, and this cannot be overstressed: rely on official sources for immigration information. We are simply providing these links for convenience. Do not rely on advice from our Discord server or any other unofficial source.

2024 Theme and T-Shirt Designs

We have chosen a theme for Mysterium! Since this will be the 20th anniversary of Revelation, we’re going with Serenia (think of Montreal’s waterways).
On that note, we’re also opening t-shirt design submissions. Submissions will be accepted until February 25. Details are available on the T-shirt design page but in general we will look favorably upon designs that incorporate this year’s theme and the host city.

July Creativity Prompt

In recognition of the variety of creative submissions we receive, we decided to choose two winners for July’s topic of Sun: one for visual, and one for written.
The written winner is Salvo Ludus with the story “Gehn’s Sun”.

The visual winner is Grayson aka redwoodrroad for this image of Gehn’s lab with the sunlight streaming in through the windows:

There are still a few days left for August’s topic of Blazing.
That’s it for now! We’ll have more soon on additional submissions and 2024 logistics.

Annacat and Dan
Mysterium 2024 co-chairs

Mysterium Returns Home

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Hello all! This will be my last blog post for quite some time (you can stop celebrating now), as I am handing off the reins to next year’s co-chairs - although first a few 2022 housekeeping details.

YouTube Videos

If you’d like to relive any moments from this past year’s convention, all YouTube videos from Mysterium 2022 are now available on our channel.

Survey Highlights

Thank you to everyone who filled out our 2022 survey. There were a few responses we’d like to highlight:
  • Meow Wolf went over quite well. We’ll look into similar excursions for future locations. (Chair’s note: I’m really glad people enjoyed this. I went there in January and my immediate reaction was “we have to do this during Mysterium”).
  • Cavern Feud was well-received. We’ll see if we can come up with enough questions to do it again, but regardless, we’ll aim for any game show events to involve larger groups like this.
  • A number of people asked about the possibility of ASL or captions. An ASL translator is most likely out of our budget; however, while we cannot yet make any promises, we are looking into captioning options for 2023.

August Prompt Winner

We received what might have been a record number of submissions for August’s topic of "Travel" and this was not an easy one to choose. However, we ultimately had to go with laughingpineapple’s submission of the three siblings on a trip together:

Mysterium 2023

As you may have heard at the end of this year’s Mysterium, we will be heading to Spokane for 2023! Cyan has once again invited us to their area, and we hope to see you all join us there. We have not yet determined dates, but we hope to announce those sometime this fall. That said, I’d like to introduce you to next year’s co-chairs:

Elliot "Taniith" Borenstein - Known primarily for chairing several Mysteria over the past 10+ years, you may also recognize him from his brief stint in the early 90s on the hit U62 show, "Cooking With Esher". Despite saying in 2019 that he would never chair a Spokane year again, his plan to talk Kelly into the role backfired spectacularly, leading to their partnership this year.
Kelly "Rayne" Coston - Kelly hails from the Pacific Northwest and has been drawing since she could crawl. Her days are usually filled with coffee, running a small business, and staring at her screen until art magically appears. Her evenings are usually filled with husband or cat snuggles and video games. A long-time Myst fan, she discovered her Myst family in 2014 and quickly joined the staff as the primary Creator of All Things Pretty and the Tormenter of Attendees on the Puzzle Team. She and the other members of the Puzzle Team are looking forward to tormenting attendees with brain melting puzzles this year!

Once again, thank you to all who joined us for Mysterium 2022 in Denver, whether in person or online. I’m glad I was able to welcome so many of you here, and look forward to seeing you all in Spokane.

Dan
Mysterium 2022 Chair