For four years the Richard Armitage blogosphere held an event in March called FanstRAvaganza, and many of us had a really great time participating. But last year there was no FanstRAvaganza. Hopefully that was just a respite and the blogosphere can and will do something in future. And perhaps it doesn’t have to be in March or be called FanstRAvaganza but can be another blogging event. It would just be great to do something as a community if possible. I hope the spirit of community that was originally in the FanstRA event doesn’t pass away completely and someone can breathe some life into it in the near future.
In the meantime, there is a Facebook page, a Twitter id and a website called FanstRAvaganza if someone is inclined to take it on. That will mean the parties who set up those three accounts will have to be approached, Luckily, I set up two of them, and I’m really easy to deal with because I don’t want to control anything other than to see us come together as community in a way that would be fun and appealing to a large cross-section of fans.
The only advice I would give in order to effect this is that there probably should be a group to run things instead of one person running all of it. It’s a drain on a single individual. It’s also difficult for the vision of one person to facilitate community since we have such a multifaceted fandom. I could be wrong about this and there’s a dynamo out there who’s all seeing and all knowing, but I doubt it. LOL! It’s also been my experience that someone who does have a knack for managing people and events will welcome a group’s input to the process.
Whatever happens, I would love to see us all come together.
edit: I’m getting all sorts of comments and questions, and it’s good stuff. I’m in the process of writing a post to cover what’s being said. I will also put the link here when I’m done.
second edit: follow-on post is here.
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RAFrenzy 
Sounds interesting! What did it involve last time? :)
I replied on Twitter, but I’ll do it here as well for those reading.
I’ve already gotten several notes and DMs. Literally within moments of this post going out. People are definitely interested in this event and are asking and commenting about the past process. I think it’s wise to visit that since we did learn some things over the four years. I don’t remember everything, but I will write a follow-on post to give some input into what I do remember.
The last one was my first & it was such fun! The recipe blog was a real favorite. I thought last time it happened, most of the work was fairly DIY for the participants, but maybe there was more behind the scenes than I realized. I’d love to see this happen again. So much so that I might even be willing to help make it happen. I think I need to end off a couple of emails.
I’m so glad you had fun. That was the point and hopefully would be the point of a new event.
Please yes! I’ll help – anytime after March though ;-)
I’m a little confused. I checked out the Facebook and Website and both look like they have posts from just one year ago. I hope your follow-up post will explain exactly what it is and how everyone can participate, and what is required of any potential administrators.
I’m not sure exactly what you read, but the last thing posted on the website was in 2013. The last thing on the FB page was a request for anyone interested in organizing 2014 to get in touch. The last thing on the Twitter account was talking about no event in 2014. There is also a pinterest page, but it’s never really been used.
Whatever happens, we have to poll all those interested to find a good time for all. I don’t care when we do it as long as it’s not during a holiday. LOL!
I realize that I got caught in the ” is it really 2015?” loop. Thought 2013 was last year.
You and me both! LOL! 2014 was a blur.
So if people ARE willing to commit to making this happen & doing the work, are we supposed to wait for another blog post? The event is a wonderful celebration of the creative outlet that the “fan” part of fandom offers us. I remember a bit of chatter about it last year, but this time last year was chaos for me. I might have thrown my hat in the ring later but I honestly forgot about it completely. I’d don’t want to see it fall through the cracks again.
I’m just going to collect what I’m hearing from others and also throw in my comments as well. So far I’ve heard from a little over a dozen people who are very interested. Are you interested in being part of the group to put this on if it’s at a good time for you? And please know the time is up in the air. It will be up to the group who pulls this together.
Yes, I am. I would love to help this happen in any way that I can.
As a past contributor I can say that FanstRA is a lot of fun and it grew FAST. The first two years there were only a handful of blogs but the third year, when I did it, there were over thirty. CDoart kept everything straight, blessedly, and I still get hits at the old blog from her links.
[…] So is FanstRAvaganza Still Alive? […]
As a contributor to the first ever FanstRAvaganza, I can say it honestly was great fun. But I think the secret is making it new and innovative each year. That’s the really hard part. Yes, there are new fans who might welcome it any form but perhaps for the fans who’ve been around since N&S first went to air, it needs a really new and exciting format/programme. I can think of one thing straight up but not for publication here, will talk to whoever takes up the reins of the new event. Onward and upward…
Fanstra is Fun! I learned how to “schedule” my posts for it. Ha! Keeping it simple is best. Instead of having to put links forward and back to other people’s posts within our own posts–when other people might not have post links yet–we could just put the link back to the main Fanstra index of Fanstra posts and their links.
As a reader, I found it much easier to go to the man Fanstra index of Fanstra post links and clicking on the topics i wanted to read 1st, then 2nd, etc.
And kudos to all the past Fanstra organizers! Thanks for all of your hard work!
I did FanstRA in 2013. It was fun but a bit of work since I did the recipe blog. It would be fun to do again since there are always new recipes out there.
Last year was hard because I was pregnant and definitely not motivated.
This year if someone would helm and organize it, I’d like to participate again.
[…] comment on Frenz’s recent post about the event. Here are the links to Frenz’s posts on RAFrenzy (1)Â and […]
I think it was just that no one picked it up last year. I did the 2013 event and to my recollection, no one approached me about it for 2014, either to ask “are you organising it again?” (to which the answer would have been “nope”) or to ask “do you know if someone’s organising it this year?” (again, “nope”) or even “could I organise it?” (“please do, I’ll give you the details of the people in 2013 if it will help”).
The website is currently hosted on my hosting account. If someone else wants to host it, I’m happy to send over all the files and a database backup so it can be reinstalled somewhere else. Just let me know! :)