I will skip the What is #PSUpFes, if you never heard about it feel free to read the guideline. Not only English but fellow penspinners from around the world helped me translate into various languages including Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, Vietnamese, etc.
So let’s talk about my POV about this event.
Why #PSUpFes?
Probably burning out from the competitions, as well as there’s some people asking for the non-competition events too. SpinFest is a wonderful non-competition event but I decided to not host it this time, it’s not a season of SpinFest anyway, as well as the format is already stable, so when the time comes someone will host it anyway.
Also SpinFest has some weaknesses, it is undoubtedly a good non-competition BIG event. But since the main objective of it is to make CVs, so that means the participants need to collaborate with other people, as well as some more complex process like organizing and editing. But what I was looking for is a chill event that anyone can join. UpFes seems to fit with my requirement perfectly.
UpFes, a.k.a Upload Festival, is a completely relaxing event. Anyone can join even you cannot make CV or don’t want to join the tournament. It has less impact than SpinFest and you cannot gain any awards or title from its. But that also means it’ll be more beginner friendly than the big events. Surely oldies can join too!
In the past there’re some UpFes events like JEB UpFes and Up[sb]Fes before. But since nowadays many people are in the social network like Twitter or Instagram more than old-fashioned forum, I think it’ll be nice that anyone can participate by just upload their videos to their own accounts. Plus no need to stick with the community name, so I decided to go with the hashtag+PS+UpFes, #PSUpFes.
Isn’t 1 month for each theme too long?
To tell the truth, it is.
For the regular penspinners, filming a freestyle, which probably is the majority of the submissions in #PSUpFes, can be done in less than 30 minute. Well it’s not like I can just announce the theme and give people 30 minute to film, still consider that different people live in different time zones and many need the weekend to film, 1 week per theme should be enough. And this number was what I came up in the first place.
But that’s only about the regular spinners filming the regular freestyles. Beginners may need more time and I want them to join this too, as well as some people who want to experiment something about the theme. And if someone want to create a surprisingly amazing combo, 1 month is gonna be a good time for them, not sure if there will be anyone who do this though.
Another reason will be my own convenience. Since coming up a new theme every week will be pretty hard for me, and I may end up forget the schedule in some weeks. Even I want to make this a theme a week, my irl schedule won’t allow me to do that anyway.
Well if you’re a regular penspinner what to submit a regular freestyle to the event, and feel like it’s too long, I always welcome 2nd submissions from everyone, even 3rd, 4th, or more too. I actually have a plan for something like mini-theme or challenge in each theme, like for this month theme Thumb Around, something more challenge for experience spinners like PD Double TA or some fun mini-challenge like Doing Thumb Around at least 5 times in a combo can be added in the middle of the month. But these kind of things won’t be in the first few months, just an idea that I may or may not use in the future.
What kind of theme you will bring it to #PSUpFes?
Since I want #PSUpFes to be beginner friendly, you won’t see many hard themes in this event. I’ll focus on the trick theme (like doing the trick or its variation at least 1 time) the most, it’ll be switched between the basic tricks that anyone can do and the easy not-much-used interesting tricks.
The pen-specific theme like Using RSVP MX or etc. will be hard since it means people who don’t own that pen won’t be able to join that theme, but for the bigger kind (like instead of RSVP MX it may be Asymmetrical Mod) I think we can expect this sometimes.
For the concept theme like Wiper&Infinity or 2Hands, they’re actually interesting, but in the same time can be hard for beginners. I myself love this kind of theme the most but I’ll need to think much more before I use some, maybe I’ll try with some easy one like Wiper&Infinity first. But please don’t expect the hard ones like 2P1H, at least until I run out of ideas.
What is your plan in the future about #PSUpFes?
Firstly, making the cover picture for the official Twitter account. I’ve left it empty since I have no idea what to do with it. Will update it as soon as I can!
There’s also the sub-theme or mini-challenge I talked in the 1 month topic which I think it can be fun to do, but currently I want it to be as simple as it can be, so everyone can join it without unnecessary problem. After I get some feedbacks I’ll see what to apply to #PSUpFes.
Another one I think it can be nice is to invite a famous spinner to do an example combo for each theme. It’ll be the best if I can upload it at the same time as the theme announced, but that means I need to come up with the theme very early so the invitees will have enough time to film their combos, which I don’t know if my schedule will allow me to do that or not. So like the sub-theme idea, let’s keep it to the future.
That’s all for now, I may come up with something new to add in the future but let’s leave it to my-future-self. And if you have any ideas about the theme or anything else, feel free to tell me in this form, I may or may not use it but ideas and feedbacks are always welcome.
Also please follow @PSUpFes on Twitter, and join it sometimes when you can 😉
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