As the years have gone by and the actual "camping" itself is lasting longer and longer, we've had to become better prepared. However, in many cases we got to be "better prepared" by learning from our mistakes.
Back when I used to join the line in the middle of the night (at the Manulife Centre for those who can remember that far back) I showed up with no more than the program book, pen, paper, and maybe a snack for breakfast. I was also younger then and saw no issue with sitting on the floor for a few hours.
As the length of the wait grew, my tolerance for concrete floors lessened. There were a couple of years when my trusty picnic blanket would provide a few of us with a place to lie down in the wee hours, it's "easy-to-clean" nylon backing also kept me dry the year security kicked us out of College Park and it started to rain (that was easily the most miserable overnight line I ever did).
There were a few other locations we migrated through until the hub of festival activity moved down the city's core and the line-ups were consistently at Metro Centre (which lasted until last year when the volunteer box office got moved to TIFF but that's beside the point)
By this time I'd learned the wonders of the camping chair and wheelie duffel bag. I also own tarps now in the event of rain. Prepared as we are, we still forget some of the most basic human needs sometimes... ie. food, warmth, and washrooms!
Ok, I guess most of us are smart enough to prepare for potential temperature dips in late August/early September. But it's always a gamble whether we'll have access to washrooms at 4am, the supposed 24 hr Tim Hortons, is sometimes not open 24 hrs we've discovered. Thankfully we've had friends who work in the area let us into their buildings in the middle of the night for pee runs. Or during the years we do have access to Tim's, we'll go around taking timbit & coffee orders so we can do ourselves and others a service at the same time.
The first year I had my tablet/ipad (I think it was the tablet) and cellular data, I tried my hand at a little live-blogging from the line. Turns out I'm miserable at live blogging! Anyway...
I'm much better at blogging re-caps though, and I think my entry from 2011 speaks about line-up comradery best: http://blogginginoblivion.blogspot.ca/2011/09/tiff-overnighter-2011.html (actually, as I re-read this entry, I see that this was the year of 3am frisbee as well!) Overall, I think TIFF 2011 was my favourite overnight line-up of them all.
You should read the 2011 article, but for those who don't, I have to especially commend my good friend Chris (better known in some parts of TIFF as "Captain Boy Chris") whom I dubbed as the "overnight line hero" in my entry, here's the except:
...Overnight line hero has to be Chris B. who drove down from Yonge and St. Clair at 2am with a jug of coffee, cheese and cracker packs, and a stack of tuna sandwiches! It was more than we could finish so we went scouting for tired, famished faces in line.
In the photo is Hope, sitting in the foreground, and Chris on the right. Hope still remembers this night and how nice it was to get some hot coffee and a sandwich from a fellow volunteer. Captain Boy Chris, we miss you in these TIFF parts and hope you come back one of these years.
This other instance of teamwork probably pales in comparison to Chris' heroics, but as our reliance on electronic devices grew over the years, so did the need for a/c to charge them. One year in line, Marc produced a mile-long (ok, I'm exaggerating, but not by much!) outdoor extension cord and plugged it into the base of a tree! Fine, fine, it was an outlet at the base of a tree in David Pecault Square, which is wired there so that they can plug in holiday lighting in December. Genius! After those of us who lived nearby procured a few more power bars, we were able to keep all our devices fired up through the night! Amazing!
Can't wait to see what urban camping adventures we get up to next! Swing by TIFF Lightbox in the wee hours on Sep 6th (so basically Saturday night) to see us in action.
I don't know about you Ada, but I plan on being there September 6th, not December!
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