Organiser Shane says “our event features the incredible musical talent of Mikey Mason, a screening of the movie Serenity in full HIGH DEFINITION glory, and, because we made the lawyers happy, THE RETURN OF Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog!!!!
We will AGAIN be doing our annual Peanut Butter drive to benefit the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore! If you don’t have peanut butter to donate that’s ok! Any non-perishable unopened food item will be accepted! Every little bit helps and you guys have been phenomenal with your donations in years past. A special thank you shout out to the loyal fans who keep coming!”… Read more…
Global’s very own Julia is aranging an evening of Browncoaty fun in Victoria, Australia.
She explains “This is the second year I’m doing ‘Come Play in the ‘Verse’, it’s just a few friends and I getting together to play some of the many Firefly boardgames.”
“We started last year as we were trying to get as many events happening for the 10th year as possible and it was a great excuse to get some fellow Browncoats together to play games. Everyone had so much fun last year at the end of the night it was decided we should do it again next year.”
There’s a $10 entry fee for the evening and they have a ‘pun jar’ to help with the fundraising. Julia is also hoping to do some themed food and drinks as well.… Read more…
Holding their 5th event this year, the Grande Prairie Browncoats have found a shiny new location which will allow them to add a twist to the Can’t Stop the Serenity format.
Organiser Nyssa says “Besides the normal viewing of the BDM, costumes, and an auction, our new venue Card’s board game Café will let us also have several Firefly games going on to make this the best event ever.”
“With Fluxx, an RPG adventure, Out to the Black, Shiny Dice, Tall card and our multi day Firefly the board game tournament, there will be no shortage of action going on.”
Nyssa finishes by adding “This will be our best event ever, combining Thrilling Heroics with family fun.”
The event is being held on Thursday 8th September.… Read more…
On Saturday, September 3rd, the Utah Browncoats and Salt Lake Comic Con will host their second major CSTS event of the season.
They will be holding their popular screening of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog at the Salt Lake City Comic Con. All proceeds from this fan favorite event are being donated to Equality Now.
Organizers William Pace and Kerry Gisler explain, “People literally run up to us with excitement when they see us selling tickets because they consider this their ‘Salt Lake Comic Con tradition’.” With a seating capacity of nearly 900 seats, it is one of the largest venues of the CSTS season. Screening Dr. Horrible is a true team effort. The room is donated by the fine folks at Salt Lake Comic Con and many faithful volunteers from the Utah Browncoats help make this event a success year to year.… Read more…
The New Melbourne Browncoats are holding a special event for those Browncoats who attended their recent Serenity screening.
They will be screening Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blogon Saturday Sept 3rd at the Alchemist’s Refuge (located downstairs at Games Laboratory, 328 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne).
Organisers Chris and Jen tell us “This horrible event is exclusively available to Can’t Stop the Serenity ticket holders, and is an additional fundraiser for two special charities, Equality Now and WIRE – Women’s Information Service.
There’ll be a horrible amount of fun as well as cosplay, raffles, collectables auction and best of all, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog!
Tickets cost $15 online (or $18 at the door with proof of CSTS ticket) and this extra special event is limited to 50 tickets so if you haven’t got yours yet, what are you still doing reading this!!… Read more…
The mighty Edinburgh Browncoats are holding their second event of the season this weekend – Saturday 20th August.
Join them from 9pm at the Cameo in Edinburgh as they present Serenity flying again in all her glory on the big screen.
Organiser Graeme says “As well as all the thrills and spills of the BDM we plan to bring you a repeat of our charity auction, raffle, merchandise, and hopefully a surprise or two for our lucky attendees. Our auction runs before the film starts and we are welcoming back the awesome Jollyboat as our auctioneers.”
They have a variety of prizes on offer including signed headshots of various sci-fi luminaries as well as an original piece from Gary Erskine commissioned especially for the event. Gary is probably best known for his work on the Rogue Squadron comics for Dark Horse.… Read more…
New Melbourne Browncoats (NMB) are back for their 11th Can’t Stop the Serenity Screening event on Saturday 13th August but it may be the last.
Organiser Christopher explains “The NMB team has been working tirelessly over the years to bring this event to life, but attendance has been waning in the past few years. And this year, ticket sales are lower than ever. So if you’ve been meaning to attend our CSTS screening and have been thinking “well, there’s always next year”, then now is the time to get on board. We’d really like to go out on a high, and not only break even (cost wise) but make a significant donation to our two chosen charities – Equality Now and WIRE.“
WIRE stands for Women’s Information and Referral Exchange and women across Victoria (Australia) contact WIRE for support, information and referrals on issues, such as family relationships and legal issues, domestic/family violence, homelessness and mental health issues.… Read more…
The Browncoats in Fairfax are back at the Arlington draft house for this year’s Can’t Stop the Serenity event. Their event runs from 2.30pm until 5.30pm on Saturday 13th August and features some awesome raffle prizes plus the Big Damn Movie all in a venue with food and beer on tap! This does mean that Browncoats under 21 will need to be accompanied by an adult of course…..
They’re also running a costume contest where you can dress as anyone from the Whedonverse. The two characters that receive the most votes will battle it out for an enviable prize in a heads up trivia competition.
Organiser Ray explains “There are five levels of tickets available at https://cant-stop-serenity-dc.ticketleap.com/csts/ ranging from $10 to $100. The different levels include various bonuses such as additional general raffle tickets or entry into an additional exclusive raffle for an autographed action figure available only to Captain Tight Pants’ level viewers.”… Read more…
The Can’t Stop the Serenity team in Minneapolis are excited to present their event on August 11th at the historic Riverview Theater in Minneapolis. The Riverview, a beautifully restored Art Deco treasure, has hosted their event since the inaugural event in June 2006.
In addition to raffles of Firefly and Serenity merchandise and t-shirt sales, they’re having a costume contest for adults and under 13s.
Organising team member Barbara says “All of our funds go to Equality Now but at the same time we provide a platform for many local members of fandoms to appear in costume and promote their own charitable endeavors. The 501 Legion, Royal Manticoran Navy and USS Nokomis send contingents to our event.”
The team are all involved because they believe in the mission of Equality Now – that women and girls deserve to live in freedom and dignity and have the right to education and good health.… Read more…
Pittsburgh is one of the cities that has held a CSTS screening every year since it all started back in 2006 and they are rightly very proud of this fact.
This year their event is going to be held on Saturday, July 30 at the historic Hollywood Theater in Dormont, PA (which is featured in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” during the Rocky Horror scenes).
Doors open at 5pm for an evening of games, raffles and live entertainment, topped off with a showing of “Serenity” on the big screen at 7pm. Admission to the event itself is free, but a minimum $10 donation to Equality Now is required for admittance to the film. And of course costumes are encouraged!
The Hollywood Theatre is a classic movie theatre with a balcony and a stage in front of the screen.… Read more…
Founded by Jen Hilton in 2006, The Raleigh NC Browncoats have sold out their 200 capacity theatre in advance for 5 years running. They will be hoping to do the same again for this year’s event which will be on Sunday 24th July at Raleighwood Cinema Grill – doors open at 6pm and the movie starts at 8pm.
5 years ago Jim Shires took over as local coordinator along with his small but mighty crew of helpers and sponsors.
Jim explains “At the very first Raleigh CSTS in 2006 I met then local coordinator and founder Jen Hilton. We had e-mailed each other about the possibility of an after party after the event. The CSTS itself was a great success but only myself, Jen and one other attendee showed up at the after party.… Read more…
The SRF Browncoats are holding their tenth annual screening this weekend on Saturday 16th July.
The event will include a screening of both Serenity and Dr. Horrible along with some great raffle prizes, and swag bags for sale with all kinds of goodies. Last year they made backpacks out of old Serenity T-shirts and loaded them up which sounds like a fantastic idea.
They are also having a local game master host a Whedon themed game and a Whedon themed T-shirt contest. The audience will pick their favorite and there will be prizes for the winners.
Lead organiser Emma says “I originally went to the first screening in Fort Lauderdale due to my being a huge geeky Whedon fan. Buffy was and is my favorite tv show of all time (sorry Firefly….)… Read more…
Also on Saturday at Penn Cinema, Lititz, Pennsylvania the Susquehanna Valley Brigade of the Pennsylvania Browncoats are holding their event. For more information check out their Facebook page– link below.
The Albuquerque Browncoats are very pleased to be hosting Can’t Stop the Serenity 2016 at the marvelous KiMo Theatre on Saturday, July 9th 2016. The KiMo is a New Mexico historic landmark built in 1927 in a “Pueblo Deco” (Art Deco + Pueblo Revival) style, which is very “Browncoaty”! The theatre has been lovingly restored and now features state-of-the-art projection system and surround sound that really shows the Big Damn Movie in all its glory!
Doors open at 5:00pm for shopping and raffle selections. The Albuquerque Browncoats have really outdone themselves this year with an incredible array of Firefly merchandise and highly collectable raffle items. The pre-show at 6:00pm will be opened by local nerdy comics, Genevieve Mueller and Joe Quesada (these two will also be emcees for the event throughout the night) and will feature Con Man comedy videos – they were granted permission by show creators PJ Haarsma and Alan Tudyk!… Read more…
Toronto’s CSTS event will be on Saturday 9th July at the Royal Cinema in Toronto.
They’re keeping it simple with a screening of the Big Damn movie followed by an auction and the money they raise will be split between Equality Now and the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape (TRCC/MWAR).
TRCC/MWAR is a non-profit feminist organisation committed to fighting violence against women and children. They work both independently and together with other community organizations to provide support services for all survivors of sexual violence, sexual harassment, human trafficking and other forms of gender based violence.
The Utah Browncoats have held CSTS events since the very beginning. Some large, some small, but all of them filled with great people who love to make a difference. Their most recent CSTS was no different in that respect, but they did do things a bit differently this year in that they split the event between two different venues.
With 110 Browncoats in attendance, the event started at Brewvies Cinema Pub with musical singalongs of the Hero of Canton and the Firefly theme. They were also able to have a small Easter egg video from Done the Impossible with a short introduction by Brian Wiser and they replayed the introduction video from 2015 because the end clip with Joss Whedon had not been shown at that year’s event.… Read more…
This weekend the Browncoats of New York City will be holding their 11th Can’t Stop the Serenity fundraiser at Slattery’s Midtown Pub in Midtown Manhattan.
To celebrate, they have packed an amazing number of fun things into their afternoon which starts at 2pm on Saturday. There will be various raffles, a costume competition (Firefly, Serenity or wider Whedon-verse costumes all eligible), charity auctions of memorabilia and autographs and a live music performance by the amazing and very popular Sean Faust.
There will even be a Serenity photo booth and the evening will culminate in dinner and a screening of the Big Damn Movie itself – Serenity.
The venue features a projection screen and multiple TVs throughout, so there are no bad seats.
If you are anywhere near this event it sounds way too good to miss.… Read more…
This weekend sees the first Firefly class vessel of the CSTS season leave the Independents’ base – the Utah Browncoats with their Salt Lake City event.
They are holding a daytime screening event at a cinema pub. Since they could not get a longer time slot from the cinema pub, they had to get a little creative so within the same area as the theater, there is a sports bar and grill, and they were able to secure a donated time slot in the VIP room to be able to hold the raffle, costume contest, and live and silent auctions.
Organisers Halo and Anastasia say their motivation for getting involved with CSTS is that they wanted to make a difference. Halo has a lot of experience with organising events for non-profit groups so when she became a Browncoat she says she “wanted to put that experience to use so that we could become a greater force for good.”… Read more…
Can’t Stop the serenity is changing the way we do our Global T-shirts! We’ve partnered with Represent, and for the first time ever, T-shirts are available to the general public through online sales, allowing anyone to support CSTS regardless of their proximity to an event location. Whether you can attend an event or simply want to add your support, join us as we aim to misbehave for a good cause!
As you may be aware, Represent is a T-shirt printing company specializing in charity drives. They’ve been the powerful machinery behind several high profile celebrity fundraisers, including efforts by Nathan Fillion, Jared Padalecki, Felicia Day, and many others. In order to maximize the profits for Equality Now, our campaign will work a little differently than a typical short term Represent fundraiser.… Read more…
Second in the series of posts on the amazing people planning amazing things for this year’s CSTS season is the Susquehanna Valley Brigade from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Amber and Tim are planning a screening of Serenity and an after party at a local restaurant, with live music, raffles, silent auctions and giveaways.
When asked why they had got involved in CSTS, Amber replied “Tim and I started our own business this year. Inspired by the movie that brought us together in the first place and it’s many great quotes, of course, “If you can’t do something smart, do something right”, we knew the right things was for our company to be able to give back to our community, and to be able to sponsor and donate to local charities.… Read more…
To help shine a shiny light on the amazing people who are joining in CSTS this year, we’ll be posting a series of articles introducing them to the rest of you and explaining not just what they’re doing but hopefully why they’re doing it too.
The first of these articles focuses on the Alamo City Browncoats led by the lovely Mel.
They will be holding an affiliate event at SciFest in San Antonio, Texas, on July 9th & 10th. This is an annual free convention held at Wonderland of the Americas, formerly known as Crossroads Mall. Alamo City Browncoats will have a collection jar at their table for those feeling generous. Assuming Mel’s origami skills improve (her words not mine!), there will be a ship in the jar that they hope will fly on the love and donations from those that stop by their little corner of the world.… Read more…
We are very proud to be able to announce the winner of this year’s CSTS logo design contest: Congratulations and well done Jeffrey Weniger! We would like to extend a heart-felt thank you to each entrant for their time and talent. We know we had a hard time deciding which logo to vote for! They were all brilliantly done and all four did very well in the poll, generating some fierce competition. We received a record number of votes with this year’s contest and we’d like to thank our hundreds of voters as well as our artists – your enthusiasm and support are very much appreciated! This winning logo will be featured on our 2016 t-shirts and used for the promotion of events all across the ‘Verse.… Read more…
Click here to vote! Thank you to each artist who took the time to share their talent with us. We have some tough choices to make this year in choosing a logo design.
What design do you want to represent CSTS this year?
Voting is open here on the official CSTS website as of 10 March 2016, and we will close voting at 11:59 p.m./PST on 24 March 2016.
In the event of a tie, the Global Steering Committee and Global Team will choose the winning piece.
You may only vote once, however, there’s nothing stopping you from soliciting votes for your favorite, including your own entry.
Voting is open to the general public.
We will be posting links to the voting page via our social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)… Read more…
We are delighted to announce that we have two new members on the Global Steering Committee! Please join us in welcoming Sheilah O’Connor and Stephanie Leasure!
Serving as an executive and consistency committee, the Global Steering Committee (GSC) is responsible for maintaining the high standards and reputation of CSTS, and is a repository of CSTS knowledge for the Global Team and Local Event Organisers. We also support the Global Event Coordinator (GEC), can step in if the GEC is unable to continue in that capacity or needs additional help, and provide a recourse for Local Event Organisers if they have issues that need additional support beyond the Global Team. The GSC is made up of past Global Team members with lots of experience with CSTS at a global and local level, and who are passionate about CSTS.… Read more…
That’s right, it’s time for the Promotional Art Contest! Do you think you have what we’re looking for?
As we go into our eleventh year, Can’t Stop the Serenity is looking for a new logo. The logo will be featured on posters, t-shirts and will be a focal point for every event. The winning artwork will help build excitement and draw people into theaters around the world, and will be prominently featured on our website and social media outlets.
The Short and Sweet of It
Anything you submit must be your own artwork, your own designs. Any stock imagery you incorporate into your entry must be accompanied by documentation showing you have permission to use and reproduce it. This goes for any copyrighted imagery as well.
Can’t Stop the Serenity (CSTS) is a unique opportunity to indulge your geeky side while doing some good! Since 2006, fans have organized screenings of Joss Whedon's Serenity to raise funds and awareness to support Equality Now in their work for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. Join us as we aim to misbehave for a good cause!
There are two ways to fight a battle like ours. One is to whisper in the ear of the masses, try subtlely and gradually to change the gender expectations and mythic structures of our culture. That’s me. The other is to step up and confront the thousands of atrocities that are taking place around the world on an immediate, one-by-one basis. That’s a great deal harder, and that’s Equality Now. It’s not about politics; it’s about basic human decency.
