Oh no! And just as I was getting into this whole mousefest thing too! Lets do a TMIP meet anyway! No rushing off to other meets, we'd have lots of time! Whos in?
i was thinking the same thing. let me do some brainstorming. might be time to call a meeting of the TMIP executive board (whoever that is...)
It seems like a lot of other smaller communities might do the same thing, and not being linked to the cruise dates would allow meetings to be scheduled not during pop warner...or so close to Christmas. I think that organizing events for TMIP would be great. It's kinda hard to stop taking pictures once you start, and you can take pictures everywhere (even while waiting for food!). By arranging main events (say two during the day and one at night--I'm thinking the first session of the day would be a 101, 102, 103, and then one day shooting meet and one night shooting meet) and more flexible secondary events (in between events), you can let people schedule their day with family and friends. Plus the advantage of a smaller group than all of mousefest is there is no need for the overhead of ballrooms, etc. The big meet and greet could just be an extended 101 session at Tomorrowland Terrace.
Ill be there Sunday December 6th until I think the morning of Friday December 11th. My brain is on jetlag mush but Ill think about it too!
Well you know whatever is decided, I'm likely in, unless it falls on a cruise or business trip. It's easy enough for me to pop up to Disney, and though it's too bad to hear Mousefest is canceled, I pretty much just had myself a Disney trip and came to the TMIP events anyway - I never even registered for Mousefest. So if TMIP wants to organize something to keep it going, count me in and assisting as needed.
I haven't missed MouseFest since it began in 2003. I'll be sorry to see it take a year off, but I'm sure that with the thousands of hard core WDW fans in dozens of communities all over the web, I'm sure they'll find a new chair before the time comes to start planning MF2010. At least some Passporter folks are already planning to hold their site meet on the original MF2009 dates. The folks at Tagrel.com had already started planning on holding our main yearly site meet separate from MouseFest, because MF has been getting too late in December for many peoples' taste. We're planning on October 21-26 to coincide with MVMCP and F&WFest. There's no reason TMIP can't hold their own gathering in 2009.
I wouldn't complain if it were at a different time of year. And as a DVCer, I certainly wouldn't mind if it fell in Value season!
For those interested, on today's (02.16.09) WDW Today Podcast, Mike Scopa and guest Deb Wills talked a little more in depth about the decision to put on hiatus Mousefest 2009. You can either download the episode from the ITunes store or from their website at www.wdwtoday.com
I appreciate everyone's optimism, but I'm a pessimist by trade and hope this "hiatus" doesn't go the way of Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland. What started out as a temporary removal pretty much became permanent (there are rumors that it's coming back as a joint Lincoln/Obama attraction now). A coordinated event like MouseFest will require more money than the community is willing to shoulder in an economic downturn or not. Even events with heft pricetags and entrance fees like ComDex and ComicCon are struggling to stay open. If MouseFest does return, I'll be surprised if it returns in its current form. If it does return it'll be more controlled with mandatory registration with more limited availability. But, what I really think will happen is more communities planning events similar to what we are batting around here and if they try to pull everyone together again into uniform timeslot it will be harder to pull off.
Tim, might be time to think about a TMIP Photo Workshop to be held at WDW and/or other places. Not sure if that can be done at WDW without their consent. If it's just a gathering, then set the dates, schedule and see who shows up. I had not made plans for MF this year so I'm open depending on airfare and such. If you made it before the MF dates, I'd still be able to use my AP. That's a plus. ;D
