FilKONtario is a fan-run convention in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario area dedicated to filk, the music of science fiction and fantasy fandom. Established in 1991, it is the only filk convention in Canada. In its fifth year, the convention initiated the , which continues to recognize those who have made significant contributions to filk music and the filk community, worldwide. This international awards program is administered through FilKONtario, with an international jury.
History
At the time FilKONtario was founded, there were only five filk conventions worldwide: Consonance, ConChord, the Northeast Filk Con, and Ohio Valley Filk Fest, and the British Filk Con. Heather Borean, the first conchair, wanted something a little closer to home and proposed the idea of founding a new con. The name is a concatenation of "Filk", "KON" and "Ontario." The early days of FilKONtario were a bit challenging. Attendance was low the first few years, but a feeling of relaxed inclusiveness, following the lead of the con's first year guests, , became the norm. In 1994, the convention drew a large crowd, with guest Kathy Mar, and has been quietly growing since that time. In the first year the convention mascot was established, which is a penguin with a guitar. Like most filk conventions, other than the Ohio Valley Filk Fest, FilKONtario is a small event, usually with about 130-150 attendees. Gradually the convention has grown from modest beginnings to offer programming Friday evening through Sunday afternoon, with requisite filk circles until the early morning, workshops in the mornings and a "Dead Penguin" sing Sunday evening. In addition, the guest roster has grown from a single guest of honour, to having a GoH, a Filk Waif, an Interfilk Guest and an occasional Special Guest, an author or artist from Southern Ontario. "Filk Waif" is an idiosyncratic term honoring the first waif, , whom two of the concom members brought to the con at their expense because she couldn't afford it. The role is identical to Toastmaster. In 2007, in cooperation with and after two years of fundraising, FilKONtario's only guest was the , a choir of sixteen performers from England. This is thought to be one of the largest guest slates offered at a small convention. FilKONtario has been the honoured recipient of guests funded by since 1994. Interfilk is an international arts charity registered as a 5013 in California. FilKONtario is one of the recognized cons on that charity site.
Typical convention activities
Programming typically includes: Concerts, song-writing contests, workshops on guitar, voice, performance, etc., one-shots, dealers' room, a fund-raising auction for Interfilk, theme circles, and, especially, open song circles where everyone who chooses can sing and play, and listeners are especially welcome. The circles start in the late evening and go into the early hours of the morning, or later. There is an opening reception, and sometimes a CD release. Some children's programming is usually available. Recording of the concerts and filks has been done since the first year of FilKONtario, resulting in the following releases, the first two on tape, the remainder on CD:
Inductions into the Filk Hall of Fame take place at the Saturday evening banquet. The Hall was created to honour "contributions to filk music and the filk community". Each year a jury reviews the nominations and votes anonymously for their selections. Once the votes are tallied, the Administrator contacts the inductees for the current year. The citations noting the inductees' contributions are read at the banquet, and those inductees present are given a copy of the citation and a plaque. These items are mailed to those not present. The next day there is a concert in honour of the new Hall of Fame inductees. Each new inductee selects five pieces of music significant to him, her or them. These are performed at the concert. There is additional extensive material about how to nominate and what constitutes contributions to the filk community on the web site. In addition there is a complete list of inductees and their citations. Citation: Songs noted in citations for inductees to the Filk Hall of Fame were used as part of the empirical database for this academic article
Outreach
The FilKONtario Concom has twice produced the filk track at a Worldcon: At Torcon 3, 2003, Toronto, ON and at Anticipation, 2009, Montreal PQ. In preparation for Anticipation, two of the concom developed a multi-media presentation called "From the Earth to the Moon: a celebration of manned space flight". This presentation included PowerPoint, live narration and live music, with many members of the concom and filkers who were present at the con. It was the keynote filk track item for Anticipation. Since then the concom has staged "From the Earth to the Moon", four more times: FilKONtario 2010, a meeting of the June, 2010; SFContario, November, 2010; and ConFusion, January, 2011. The latter three were by specific invitation of the organizing group. In addition a similar performance focusing on both manned and unmanned space exploration was performed at the invitation of the University of Toronto's Astronomy and Space Exploration Society presentation on 26 September 2009 as an opening act for keynote speaker Dr. David Charbonneau.
