Saturday Night: Exotic Halloween Ball

The next night was the big contest, with a $5,000 costume contest ($2,500 / $1500 / $500 / $250 / $250). Scott's friend Cooter joined us. He had just finished his massive sock monkey costume.

Odd isn't it? I always make friends with the best competition. Cooter's costume was on stilts, nine feet tall and completely awesome. He even had fans inside for cooling.

Where do these people come from?

Getting inside was easy, and the first order of business was qualifying for the costume contest.

After failing to legitamately win a finalist bracelet last year, I was nervous. The pre-qualifying was done by a little panel of radio employees, who tried to determine the best 10 costumes in the building before seeing all of them. They have to resist handing out bracelets too early and running out before any final superstar costumes arrive. But they can't be too stingy, they also have to ensure that at least 7 or eight of the best costumes make it on stage.

I did my best at the audition, and it worked. I got a finalist bracelet.

I was in.

Near the stage, another costume friend came over to offer congratulations. My friend Rich, in an extremely funny "Shake Weight" costume.

We said hello and he showed me the spring action on his shakeweight costume. It worked! He asked me if I had seen the Transformer yet.

"Bumblebee?" I asked.

"No. A black one." He answered.

Rich had a finalist bracelet, but Cooter got denied.

No bracelet for the giant sock monkey. I couldn't believe it. I can't remember seeing a stilted costume NOT get a finalist bracelet.

It didn't take long to find the black transformer. It was huge.

There isn't anything in this photo to indicate the scale, but he was on stilts, and he had a robot head perched on top of his head.

That wasn't all. He had a wing on his back with jet engines and missles, that was suspended even higher than his head.

It was massive.

This was Francois Tau.

Meanwhile, Greg was squeezing his Bumblebee costume into the room. The only doors that were open were man-sized, so he had to disassemble it outside and cart it inside in pieces.

Assembled, it looked awesome. Not only is it a supersized stilted costume, it is also painstakingly detailed.

Inside, he got a good reaction from the pre-judging panel and was rewarded with a wristband. Of course.

Now, we walked around enjoying ourselves, and waited for the costume contest.

Having the party at Cal Expo means that its in a huge room. There are probably 3,000 people inside at the party, but there is still enough room to get away from the crowds.

Did I mention that the paparazzi costume is really fun to wear? It is. It really makes people happy, until they are blinded.

Snow White.

At one point, most of the great costumes in the building were on the left side of the stage, posing for photographs in a large cluster, like the seven wonders of the costume world. That was awesome.

An appreciative crowd went from one to the next, posing and taking photos with us.

It would have been fun to talk, but everyone else had masks on.

If you want a lot of hugs, dress up like a sock monkey.

At 11:45, we all lined up at the stage entrance and waited for the contest to begin.

Bathroom tile man was in the finals.

Rounding out the costume contest were the Winter Princess, Lars in Greg's Whiplash costume, another predator costume, different from the one from the previous night.

And two gigantic transformers.

The MC was a radio station DJ, assisted by Sasha Grey. Its always a little nerve racking when the MC doesn't take the contest seriously, as he's the only one on stage who isn't in the contest, and he can sway the audience with a few poorly chosen words.

It did not go well for paparazzi. A blind man could see that Bumblebee and Optimus Prime were going to take first and second place, and after a brief demonstration by paparazzi, Rich's Shake Weight costume took third.

Hard to believe, but the paparazzi costume got beat by better costumes. Both transformers were absurdly large, yet reasonably mobile, and the shake weight was a brilliant idea, something that everyone loves, beautifully rendered with a shaking effect!

I couldn't complain. It was a great batch of costumes this year.

Posing on stage with Sasha Grey.

Scott, Cooter and I stayed until 2, filling up memory cards and avoiding drunks. When we could no longer lift our shoulder brackets we walked back to the cars and shed our costumes, recounting the adventures of the night and the perils of dark crowds and hot glue.