AC 2022 Part IV: Sundayness
Once again, it was Up Early for breakfast down in the Drury cafe.
And once again, it was scrambled eggs and breakfast potatoes.
I skipped the buttermilk biscuit this time - too crumbly. I also skipped the Mello Yello, having finally discovered the orange juice dispenser. And thus did I have a fairly normal breakfast for a change.
Back up in the room, I brushed my teeth and suited up for my panel while Soggy started his own prep work for it. He’d forgotten to bring along the spare roll of raffle tickets left over from our previous panels (well, it had been three years since the last one, so can you really blame him?), so he’d spent part of Saturday tearing and writing out improvised tickets on paper provided by the hotel front desk. Now he set out for the Fayette Room to scope it out and get stuff moved into place there. I’m glad he was free for such duties, since before I could even think about the panel, I had the Very Serious Business of the Art Show Auction to tend to.
Knowing I’d have no time to return to the hotel between the Art Show and my panel, I set out for the DLCC fully festooned with a dozen Zootopia badges hanging from every available pocket, collar and lapel of my black semi-dress shirt. Perhaps I was making a bit of a spectacle of myself, but then, this was the con where some 2,500 fursuiters were on the loose, so my spectacle was decidedly low-key compared to much of what was going on around me. I did make a point of dropping by Brian Reynolds’ table to show off my toony bling, knowing him to be a huge fan of the movie himself, but then it was off to the Art Show to see how my preliminary bids were holding up and make any new ones as needed. With my panel starting a half hour before the bidding was to close, I was left no choice but to throw out bids I hoped would stand up in my absence. I ended up placing bids on eight items before I had to skedaddle, some of which had no other bidders and some of which did. How would I fare? I would have to wait to find out.
I did find out that one can make it from the Dealers’ Room to the Westin in seven minutes … provided one does not get stuck behind any fursuiters along narrow passages. That can add a minute or two to the commute. Thus was I a minute or two late to my own panel. I arrived to find the audience already seated and my cohost already having started the presentation, so I slipped in past Soggy at the door and hustled up to my waiting seat at the head of the room, offering cursory apologies for my tardiness and settling into place to take on my moderating duties.
Since my traditional cohost Skarlath had been unable to make Anthrocon this year, I’d arranged for longtime attendee AnthroCoon to take his place, and I couldn’t have made a better choice. Not only had Mr. Coon attended (and recorded!) all my previous Zootopia panels, but he’d also done one or two of his own at other cons, so he was experienced at exactly this sort of thing. (He may also be even older than I am, if only by a year or two, so I was no longer the sole creaky old Greymuzzle up there on the dais.) Between the two of us, we delivered a fine panel, if I do say so myself. One early moment of note occurred when I inquired how many of the audience members had attended any of the previous panels, and not a single hand went up. Grinning mischievously, I leaned into my mike and cooed, “Oooo - a virgin audience!” Only around 21 attended, but in the smaller Fayette Room we were given this year, that still looked like a pretty good showing. (Soggy had counted the seats on his earlier reconnaissance, and come up with a total capacity of just over 60; if any more than that had shown up, we would have been in trouble, or at least standing-room-only territory, which was something we truly wished to avoid. Fortunately, it all worked out.)
Were there prizes? Aren’t there always? And I’ve already mentioned Soggy’s efforts at improvising our raffle tickets, so might as well get to that. Between the two of us (we didn’t impose upon AnthroCoon to contribute, since he was essentially our “guest cohost,” joining us at our invitation) we managed to give out plushies of Nick, Judy and Finnick (R.I.P., Tiny Lister), a tiny Japanese cast-iron toy of Finnick’s van, a group of Zootopia greeting cards (which were originally meant to be the Grand Prize of the event), and the eventual Grand Prize, picked up by me earlier that morning in the Dealers’ Room: a wonderful full-color, double-sided dakimakura of Nick in all his head-to-toe splendor. Won’t disclose here how much I paid for that beauty, but let’s just say it’s likely the most extravagant prize yet awarded at our panels. Hope the happy new owner finds a place for Nick in his domicile!
No time to head back to the room to change if we wanted to catch the Charity Auction, so Soggs and I grabbed our things (including the rather massive and unwieldy Costco Point-of-Sale display panel) and rushed off to catch that. Turns out it must have started earlier than we’d realized (or our panel had run later than we appreciated), or else there were just far fewer items in it that usual, because we only caught the tail end of it. NOW it was time for us to retire back to the Drury for a change of clothes and to deposit our belongings, and perhaps grab a drink and a nibble, before heading out to the Art Show Voice Auction. Soggy decided to skip that event, and I had a little trouble finding it, since they’d changed the location and I was still going by my now-outdated paper Schedule. I finally found it - may have missed the first few lots - and settled in near the back of the room to see what came up for sale. None of the pieces I’d bid on made an appearance, which was what I’d expected, since none of mine had shown any indication of garnering enough bids to send them to the Voice Auction. Alkali was helping Kage with the auction, and there went any pretense of this being a family-friendly event, with a few less-than-judicious F-bombs being thrown about at whim. Didn’t really bother me, but I did see some in the audience with children get up and leave well before the auction was over. Whether that had anything to do with Alkali’s language we shall never know.
(The star piece of the Auction - and the final one - turned out to be a one-of-a-kind woven tapestry-blanket by Silent Ravyn, showing a very cute and appealing wolf. This item was notable for two reasons. First, it happened to be prominently featured in the con book. Secondly, at the Artist and Dealers’ Reception on Friday night, I happened to be standing with Uncle Kage in the bay where that piece was on display, and asked him (most frivolously), “What should I bid on?” After a moment’s hesitation he pointed to the hanging and said, “That.” And then he was gone, as Kage always is during AC, giving no clue that Silent Ravyn’s hanging would eventually win one of the Best-in-Show prizes. Could I have influenced him in that moment? Most likely not, although there’s no denying it WAS a fine piece.)
By then it was almost 3:00, and with the Dealers’ Room closing at 4:00, that left me a very limited window to see to any additional purchases. I first went into the Art Show to check how my bids had stood up, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I’d won seven of the eight pieces I’d bid on. (One in particular earned an actual, honest-to-goodness fist pump from me.) Thus knowing how much I owed at the Art Show, I was able to venture forth into the wider Dealers’ Room and spend my excess cash accordingly. I grabbed a book and a couple of sketches in Artists’ Alley, another ShinigamiGirl and another FeretStudios piece, and a whole bunch of books from Ursula Vernon, all of which she was happy to sign in spite of the fact that it was now a few minutes of 4:00 and she was, like most of the dealers there, in the midst of dismantling her table and packing up for the trip home. (Which hardly strikes me as fair; if the Dealers’ Room is officially open until 4:00, potential customers should be free to browse and purchase right up until the stroke of four without feeling like they’re inconveniencing anyone, and if Anthrocon is perhaps being so draconian about enforcing their schedules that most dealers feel the need to start packing up early to meet these deadlines, that’s a situation I feel needs to be addressed.) I also stopped by Bill Holbrook’s table and apologized to him for not bidding on any of his Art Show pieces this year (I’d meant to, honestly! things just got away from me), but he was exceedingly gracious about it, just as he always is. One of the finest fellows in the fandom, Bill is. We could use more like him - not that this isn’t, on the whole, a fine fandom already.
Any hopes on my part that waiting until the Dealers’ Room was closed might save me some time on the Art Show checkout lines were dashed when I caught a glimpse of those lines, stretching all the way from the checkout tables to the very back of the exhibition area, and then snaking around sideways to accommodate it further. Well, I was used to such inconveniences from prior cons, so I dutifully collected all my winnings and made my way to the back of the line, hoping I hadn’t spent so much in my final Dealers’ Room sprint that I hadn’t left enough to pay for all my Art Show pieces. (Turned out I’d calculated correctly, although the margin was slimmer than I might have liked, and I returned to the Drury with mere dollars left in my pocket.)
We watched a stream of the Closing Ceremonies on Soggy’s laptop, which turned out to be a wise choice since we likely would have had to stand in a ridiculous line just to get into the Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom, and I’d had my share of long lines for the day, thank you very much. Taking due note of all the figures and stats presented by the full board, along with a tearful appearance of a very grateful representative of this year’s charity recipient, we then turned our attention to the evening meal. Once again, Soggy wasn’t in the mood for any big dinner, not wanting to fill up on anything when he knew he had to be up so early the next morning for our departure from the Burgh of Pitts, as he likes to call it. He did join me for a trip down to the Drury cafe, and when I saw that that evening’s dinner offering was pasta in alfredo sauce with chicken, well, there was no way I was turning THAT down, so I filled a plate of my own and grabbed my last cup of Mello Yello for the weekend while Soggs satisfied himself with some more of that on-tap beer he’d developed such a taste for.
Soggs had actually gotten a head start on his packing and getting things moved back to the truck Sunday afternoon while I was finishing up in the Dealers’ Room and Art Show, and turned in at around 7:00. (Yes, while the sun was still shining.) I spent about an hour getting most of my own packing done, but that only got us to 8:00pm, and I steadfastly refused to go to bed while it was still light out. So, I hit the streets for an hour or so, wandering around outside the DLCC and down by the riverfront and along the local side streets, finally settling myself down in a tiny mini-park across from the Westin and just sat there for some time, watching the various fursuiters interacting with the general populace. I swear that never gets old.
Now it was around 9:00pm, and I couldn’t really think of anything else to do with myself, and I *did* want to be up bright and early in the morning to get a head start on the journey back to NJ. After all, it was going to be the Fourth of July - a MONDAY Fourth of July, when the long holiday weekend would be wrapping up for most folks and they’d be on their own way back home from wherever they’d traveled, increasing the odds of congested roadways and delays. So, with full night not yet fallen, I headed back up to the room and turned in for the few hours’ rest and sleep that I needed, thoughts of the previous three days tumbling and percolating through my mind in a happy, fuzzy buzz.