Christopher Paolini came to my library!

In the last couple of years we've had some amazing events at my library, in large part due to our new PR person who has been getting some great authors to come visit us.  On Friday night we had Christopher Paolini, author of the Eragon books, which are hugely popular, especially in my community.  I think I can safely say it was our largest event so far.  From what I remember, we had about 650 people come, not including the 100 or 150 we had to turn away because we had reached capacity (we were really sad about that).  We've never been unable to seat everyone before, so maybe we'll have some contingency plans for next time, even though we had an overflow room for this event.

Our PR person usually asks the staff to come dressed in costumes for events like this, so that we can show a little extra effort and excitement to the authors and publishers who come.  And I'd have to say that she works the hardest out of anyone to make her costume absolutely amazing.  Here is a grainy photo I took of her:

Unfortunately, you can't see the extra details: the scales of blue-ish green glitter she patterned over her shoulders and arms, and the blue sequins she added to her face and skin.  Maybe someone will have taken a better photo and I can post it later.  By the way, if you've read the books, you get that she's Saphira, right?

Anyway, she had some people come over from the sword and quill club at BYU who played flutes and recorders while walking around the ballroom before Paolini spoke.  I'll admit I thought that would be kind of dorky, but it was actually kind of amazing.  The patrons attending were all so crazy excited about this event, and I think it really added to the atmosphere.

When Christopher Paolini entered the ballroom, he did so under a sword salute with all the staff lined up behind him.  I think they were playing a fanfare, too.  I snapped this photo as he ran through:

I enjoyed the address he gave.  It was cute and charming and funny and the patrons!  My goodness, they were SO excited and gave him a lot of feedback as he spoke.

 

You can see a little over half of the people in the room in this photo (500 people)

We also had a costume contest for the patrons, and a bunch of people showed up in amazing costumes.  You can vote on Facebook for your favorite, and the winner gets a full set of the Inheritance series books, all signed by Christopher Paolini.

After he spoke, Christopher Paolini signed hundreds and hundreds of books, and went at an amazingly fast pace, he was done in about 2 hours!  We had Markus Zusak last year, who was really friendly and chatted a lot with the patrons as he signed the books, but it ended up being about 1 in the morning before my co-workers were done for the night.  C. Paolini is also very friendly, but he was a bit more streamlined as he signed.  I think he did a good job, actually, he was really personable and managed to get a few exchanges in with people before they left him, but he did it quickly enough that everyone else wasn't waiting for a long time.  It's a fine line to walk, I think, but I know he did a good job because everyone who walked away from their chat with him was glowing and excited and smiling like crazy.  

At the end of the night the staff who had worked the event lined up for a picture with the author.

OMG!  That's Christopher Paolini standing next to me!!  WOO!

Do you want a better look at my costume?  I was going for kind of a dark assasin/shade-y type thing.  My skirt is actually really cool, made of a dark fabric that glistens silvery when I walk.  Michael said it reminded him of dementors from Harry Potter, which it actually reminded me of, too.  I found the belt at DI and painted it silver (it was black originally).  The vest was the hardest part, because believe it or not, there aren't too many leather vests out there these days.  After two DIs, a costume shop, and much pestering of my co-workers for their opinions, I finally found this vest at Savers for $4.  I took it home and cut slits down the front so I could lace it up like a bodice.  Oh, and my co-worker noticed a rubber dagger in the library's lost and found the day before, so I "borrowed" it for a couple of hours for this event.  Here's how everything looked:

I probably should have had someone take a picture with a better camera because the lacing turned out kind of cool.  Oh well.

Anyway, it was a really cool night.  I really enjoyed the Eragon books, even though I read most of them before I started working at the library and it's hard to remember a lot of the details now.  But it's also cool to meet a big author and be a part of a big night that people are excited about.  So many of the patrons were thrilled to be there and to meet Christopher Paolini, and their excitement was infectious.  Lots of fun!