Me, if I knew I was going to be doing this in front of a crowd, I'd want to make it a performance, because, really, it is. The subject, she seemed to get this. Came out a few minutes before things started while we were all just chatting, knelt nude on a tatami mat that had been placed, and meditated. Once the rigger came out, they began. She reacted well (and I don't mean porny, but right), and made a show of her part. However, as the subject, things will quickly get to the point where you're immobile, so it's up to the rigger. He was competent, of course, and knew what he was doing, but I felt like he was rushing things. Maybe it was just my perception (though Dianna agreed when we talked about it later), but he seemed to be in a hurry. Also, the rope work felt messy. Now, true, you'll do slightly different rope style for a suspension than for pure shibari restraint, but still, this is for a performance. It needs to look good, even better than good. Add to this the fact that he just sorta walked out and started, no set-up, no words, nothing, and half the time you couldn't really see what he was doing, and it added up to disappointing. It was good, it just wasn't special. Once they were done, they bowed, gathered the ropes, and walked back out...was there more? no one was saying anything, least of all the hosts, and that's also, for my money, not good.
I dunno, maybe I've just done too much public performance in my life, but I looked at it was competent rope work with no stage presence at all...and I can go see competent rope work lots of places. Also, I'm a snob about rope storage and I felt he could have done that better, but that;s just me and his rope storage is his business. We opted not to stay, as Di had seen what she wanted to see, the people she hoped to run into weren't there, and it was hot and stuffy (if you're going to have an event in hot weather, make sure you have proper air flow, please).
circle23, I hope your event went ten times better.