Denver July 27th 2001 : This was my first and long planned trip to this major event. I have frequented other major USA events within the Leather/ BSM calendar, but after several false starts the ever-growing Thunder event beckoned. This is a Pan sexual event and was open and attended by groups with interest in BDSM from both Gay & hetro communities.

The web page offering full descriptions of the event, the speakers, workshops and other important information was posted well in advance, and to me was easily navigated and made making the necessary reservations easy. The one minor draw back was, that I had to make an international call to the hotel to get the special event rate of $92 (about £65) for a room that would sleep upto 4 adults

I arrived and found the organisation that I experienced via the web had been carried forward, there was a dedicated team erecting and preparing the market and dungeon areas.The registration upon arrival, the rules and the security offered were superb, the days were filled with all manner of things.

The Fetish Market

Was supported by all the local stores and some major names on the USA scene from out of state, for me the lack of major makers / players in favour of the small local stores was a little disappointing.

The Dungeon

Huge isn't the correct adjective to describe the dungeon offered, it filled two thirds of the hotels convention area, a floor space of over 25,500 square feet ( a couple of football pitches could have fitted inside here. The dungeon we screened and well away from any public area, and offered a centre raised stage with a flying rig of some 30ft x 30ft for Bondage and suspension use. There were two main * lanes each having St Andrews X along each side (10 per lane , making 20 in total plus others * dotted around.There were fighting areas; needle & blood play areas and numerous other whipping flogging benches. The dungeon was open 9pm till the small hours.

The Workshops

These were designed to run during the day but for me a 9am start after playing till 2-3am was a little too early. The range of speakers has been growing over the years and this year was as mixed and as interesting as any you could find. The web page had carried Biographies of the main speakers, so one was able to prepare for the event and work out who one wished to visit and study or learn from. The speakers covered all sorts of topics from Molly Devon on relationships and her famous book, Screw the Roses, send me the Thorns. Molly was around all weekend chatting and meeting folks answering questions and signing copies of her book folks had brought with them to the event. I had lunch with molly and she described herself as a Connecticut housewife who wrote about her kinkiness, not as an author!!!.

I attended workshops by the legendry Fetish Diva Midori (San Francisco) who is retiring as a Pro-Domme to work within the D/s word as well as to write books. Over 150 people attended the class on "Humiliation play". It was to say the least enlightening, stunning in its visuals and demonstrations and presented with humor, pathos and a real concern for the effects on both Top and bottom involved in this kind of play.(Most classes had high attendances)

The final class I attended was Peter Fisk again another name of repute, who will we were told soon be in the Guinness book of records as the man owning the most whips in the world (he collects). His class enabled those attending to sample feel and use whips, Cats and floggers. That he had collected from all over the world, some modern some over 350 years old. The class learnt the difference between the makers, the style and use of whips not to mention the way they handle and feel. Alas this like all the workshop/classes was over far too soon.

The weekend ended with all the guess speakers splitting into two panels to host a round robin forum from attendees to discuss a number of topics.

For those staying in town a local club opened its doors and enabled us to carry on playing just one more night before we all left and this for the modest sum of $20 including supper, and free transport to and from the hotel.

Conclusion

Over 1000 people attended the event, I know of no incidents or problems and in chatting with the hotel managers over a beer on the day I left, I found that they were delighted and were already negotiating next year's deal, or trying to.

Links

Main Thunder web is http://www.thunderinthemountains.com/main_frame.htm

Bio web sub page is http://www.thunderinthemountains.com/main_frame.htm

Speakers

Patrick Califia-Rice
Cleo Dubois
Frank Strona
Peter Fiske
Molly Devon
Mark Frazier
Roger Leighton
Joe Gallagher
FetishDiva Midori
Max and Tom Wood
Fakir Musafar
Dossie Easton

Topics covered

Fisting, Humiliation, Whips in general, The use of long whips, slave ownership, Top/Bottom relationships, Hypnosis and others to numerous to mention, a read of the biography's will show the type of speaker and their specialty.

Pagliacci
<Pags4canes@hotmail>