EAST 7 Con Report
Tuesday, 11.7.
I went to Amsterdam with Henrieke in the morning since Titash would arrive there later today. Henrieke had to work, so I went to Starbucks and worked myself. Later I went to get out room at easyHotel near the Stadium, then I picked up Titash from Schiphol Airport. Before Henrieke arrived, I went to Media Markt with Titash and got to try the Surface Studio! Pretty nice, but not worth the 4000€ in my opinion.
Got to try the surface studio!
In the evening we met up with Pegla, had some burgers and sat a bit at a Café near our hotel. Henrieke still had to work on her book at night, but everything worked out fine!
Wednesday, 12.7.
Titash and me joined Henrieke to her Office where we met Leon and Wil for a bit, then we headed to Amsterdam to spend the day there. Due to rain we sat at Starbucks for a while, sketching and waiting for the weather to improve. We walked around in the streets mostly, went to comic stores and had tasty pancakes for lunch.
Proper Dutch pancakes!
In the afternoon we went back to the hotel, got our stuff and went to Eindhoven to pick up Mag from theEindhoven Airport. We missed a train, but Mag's flight was delayed so it all worked out fine and we arrived 10 minutes before he came out of the baggage hall. We had dinner at Henrieke's place, packed our things and headed out with the car as soon as possible to an Apartment halfway to Suhl, where we arrived at around midnight.
Thursday, 13.7. (EAST Day 1)
Titash, Mag, Henrieke and me got up at 8:30 and had breakfast in the sole bakery in Bad Wünnenberg.
Breakfast.
After walking around a bit in the town, we drove off to Suhl, which was about a 3 hour ride. We stopped at Rewe to get some takeaway lunch and then went to the hotel, where Krauti welcomed us. I also ran into Shorty and BBF in the lobby right away. We put our stuff on our ridiculous suite where the bathroom alone was the size of a small hotel room! I unpacked a bit while Henrieke lied down to rest a but. I went down to get our con badges and met the others outside. Yotie brought a DJI Mavic Pro drone, an insanely advanced drone.
Drone footage from Yotie's drone.
Another photo made by Yotie's drone.
Everyone is amazed by Yotie's drone.
He took some really nice shots of the hotel while Mag and me were doing some parkour on the playground. For dinner we ordered at the "Bistrorante" in Suhl and ate on our room with Titash, Mag, Sithy, Okill, Yamavu and Shorty.
Tasty food with friends.
We spotted these rude hyenas from our window.
Later I went down to the lobby and ran into some rude Hyenas, took a nice Polaroid! Seeing as there were still some parents with their kids in the lobby and they all really enjoyed the fursuits, I got Baseball down to the lobby who entertained the kids there a bit.
Baseball, Dogula and Eddie.
Not this brings back memories!
The kids sure liked Baseball!
At around half past 11 I went to the lobby again, sitting there with friends for a bit. We also met Dogula for the first time!
Mario Kaaaart!
Later we went up to the room and played Mario kart on the Nintendo Switch that Mag brought until 1:30am
Friday, 14.7. (EAST Day 2)
Thanks to extended breakfast times, we had breakfast with Titash and Mag at the buffet at 10:30.
Always nice to see Timduru in the newspaper, sadly he wasn't there this time!
The hotel with a big sign designed by Henrieke and me!
The cute Dealers Den.
After that, we went out the tiny Dealers Den, located in the room where the EF photoshoot used to be. Henrieke and me talked for a while to the people running KittyFluff, an online shop for fake fur, specifically aimed at fursuit builders. They had interesting and nice quality furs! For most of the day we stayed in the lobby, hanging out with Titash, Yamavu, Mag and other friends. Henrieke and me prepared a bit of stuff to show for our "Meet the Guests of Honor" panel at 16:00. As expected, not too many people attended, but that wasn't too surprising considering that even at giant cons, Meet the GoH panels usually attract few people. We were optimistic about the cartoon drawing panel attracting more people! The panel went well, and Krauti was nice enough to give us convention shirts and the sponsor towels which featured the EAST logo that Henrieke and me designed.
After the panel we ran into Mausie in the lobby who was having too much fun with random cardboard boxes.
But Kiki you don't have a license!
Mausiiiieeee!
Before the con, I made a reservation at Crazy Horse, a Steakhouse at the base of Ringberg that people who went to EF13-EF15 tend to be very nostalgic about. They even cut their vacation short specifically because of EAST, however seeing how many people went, they probably didn't regret that. I made sure that everyone got a ride and we went down to Suhl a little early in order to get some shopping done as well before going to the Steakhouse.
We really love Minions and how you can't escape being exposed to them!
Our group at Crazy Horse
They remembered!
The place was packed, waiting time was pretty long, but it was nice to hang out with friends there! While waiting for food, I drew a sign advertising out artoon drawing workshop the next day. They even still had photos of suiters hanging there from long ago.
We stayed until around 20:20, then went back to the hotel with everyone. We had some more art jam in the lobby, spent some time on the room doing dumb stuff andI roamed around in the lobby a bit with Shorty as well.
Oh by the way Mag died temporarily.
Art jam!
Went to bed at 1:30.
Saturday, 15.7. (EAST Day 3)
We had breakfast with Yamavu and DaTi, after that Henrieke worked a bit on a dog drawing for the charity auction. I asked Krauti earlier about having a table in the lobby for selling merchandise and books. He was nice enough to arrange that for us, so we sat in the Lobby, next to the fabulous Eurofurence sign and sold some merchandise.
Fancy table! (Photo by Mag)
Right next to the EF13 sign! (Photo by Mag)
We also unwillingly became the information desk for many old people who asked about when and where the fursuit parade would start. We realized a bit late that the parade was due to start an hour sooner than we thought, so we quickly packed up, went to the room and got dressed for the occassion. Dog and Baseball came down, 15 minutes late but just in time for the parade to start. It started off with a group photo in front of the hotel, surrounded by lots of locals who came up to the Ringberg just to see the parade. Thanks to good work of the press department and 2 newspaper articles prior to the con, the local people all knew about this event!
Getting ready for the parade! (Photo by Mag)
The route went around the con and we were being filmed by an MDR camera crew, who aired a short and very positive report later, with cameos of Dog and Baseball even!
After another group photo all the suiters went to the main stage area. Baseball went to shrink his wings while Dog had a fun time playing with a toddler who was extremely shy at first, but really loved the big animals! She would constantly go up to a suiter, pet them and then quickly run back to her dad, it was adorable!
Baseball, Dog, Eddie and Titash went out to get some Polaroids taken by Mag. Henrieke was already up in the room, Baseball stayed a bit longer in the lobby and had some fun with all the people who came specifically to see some big toony animals!
Baseball, Dog and the Ringberg Hotel.
Henrieke, testing out our new fancy zoom lens.
Shortly before 16:30 Henrieke and me went down to hold our cartoon workshop. It was a small group, but it was a nice amount of people! We went over the basics of drawing cartoons, just like we did at EF14 9 years ago and had some nice discussions about drawing afterwards. Henrieke also sold some of her Artistic Visions books.
Our cartoon drawing workshop.
Wooo DDR!
After that I played some DDR with Mag, then sat in the lobby, almost missing the closing ceremonies and art auction, which would have been embarassing because we had comfy chairs reserved for us in the first row. They did a pretty good job at the auction, having it in both English and German. Henrieke's Dog picture went for 130€, a flipchart sketch she did during the workshop for 80€ and a collab commission from Henrieke and me for 200€.
The auction.
I was asked on stage to say a few words, which I awkwardly did. Of course I would have liked to talk longer about how nice and welcoming everyone at the con was, but I didn't want to hold up the ceremony too much.
After the ceremony we did an art jam in the lobby and ordered some pricey but not bad food from the hotel bar. Mag went to get Baseball downstairs and we went outside, looking at Yotie doing cool stuff with his expensive drone. There was also the inflatable panel going on, so obviously I had to get a photo of Baseball and the ever-adorable sea dragon!
Target acquired.
Baseball and drone.
Baseball and a really cute sea dragon!
Me and my buddy BB!
A Ringberg sunset.
I checked out the dance a bit and got a bit obsessed over a cute visual that was playing on the screens, perfectly synced to the music. We spent much of the night trying to find the source. I got to chat a bit with Krauti, who always made sure we got everything we needed, and the guy who runs the Bavarian furdance. After more artjam, we went up to the room and played Jackbox until 2:30.
Sunday, 16.07. (EAST Day 4)
We barely made breakfast since we didn't realize the buffet officially closed at 10 today. At 10:30, we scraped together some leftovers before the hotel staff removed them. We sat in the lobby a bit, pondering what to do and quickly deciding to go to Tierpark Suhl, the local zoo. We said good-bye to Yamavu and Yotie, who had to leave already and recreated a photo we took back at EF 15.
2009
2017
Then we met up with Mag, Titash and Shorty and drove down to Suhl. At the entrance we noticed a sign saying that it would be possible to feed meerkats for 8€. We assumed it would be sold out, but apparently it wasn't, so we ended up with 3 tickets for a meerkat feeding session at 15:00. Until then, we walked around, had some fun with out fancy new Canon EF 70-200 L IS USM II lens and fed some goats.
The lens works great!
Me and a cute meerkat.
Not your everyday zoo visit!
Henrieke was being selfless and let Mag go feed the meerkats instead of her, so it was me, Titash and Mag in the enclosure. Titash obviously enjoyed it the most. After 40 minutes, we were finally able to pry Titash away. After walking around a bit more at the park, we went to the exit, where Mag bought a cute bat plushie for Sweek. Back at the hotel we mostly sat downstairs and had an art jam. I also checked out the nice renovated spa area with Mag!
More Mario Kart wheeee!
Monday, 17.07.
Awful. We packed our stuff, checked out and I had the grand idea of taking a different route that would take us through Düsseldorf. We could check out the Japanese district and take a bit of a break from the long drive. Sadly traffic made things take so long that the drive was 7.5 hours and it was too late to even go to Düsseldorf. So we did a huge detour for nothing. I wasn't too happy about that. Back in Veldhoven, Henrieke's mom prepared tasty Lasagna for us though, that made the day a bit better!
Tuesday, 18.07.
Henrieke went to work early and I went to Eindhoven with Mag and Titash. We had enough time to go to the Comic store before putting Titash on a Train to Schiphol. Mag and me spent the day in Eindhoven. Went to the art shop, spent a while drawing at a Cafe, went to the comic store again and drew even more at another cafe.
We drew this card for Ekorren, who sadly wasn't at EAST.
Shortly before 18:00 we went to Evoluon to take soem photos with Kiki, who secretly joined us. After that we went to SuperjumpXL to bounce for an hour. We surprised Henrieke with picking her up from the station in Eindhoven, then went back home.
Wednesday, 19.07.
I took Mag to "Oerse Molenbakker", a bakery inside a Windmill that is pretty much the most Dutch place to have breakfast at! After that we biked to the Veldhoven city center to get some tasty haring for lunch. Coorandilla also joined us, we had some coffee and then headed back to Henrieke's place so Mag could pack his bags.
Coora, Nana, Mag.
Coora was nice enough to give Mag a ride to the airport and after Mag left, I spent a while chatting with Coora since I didn't see him in quite a while.
END.
I went to Amsterdam with Henrieke in the morning since Titash would arrive there later today. Henrieke had to work, so I went to Starbucks and worked myself. Later I went to get out room at easyHotel near the Stadium, then I picked up Titash from Schiphol Airport. Before Henrieke arrived, I went to Media Markt with Titash and got to try the Surface Studio! Pretty nice, but not worth the 4000€ in my opinion.
Got to try the surface studio!
In the evening we met up with Pegla, had some burgers and sat a bit at a Café near our hotel. Henrieke still had to work on her book at night, but everything worked out fine!
Wednesday, 12.7.
Titash and me joined Henrieke to her Office where we met Leon and Wil for a bit, then we headed to Amsterdam to spend the day there. Due to rain we sat at Starbucks for a while, sketching and waiting for the weather to improve. We walked around in the streets mostly, went to comic stores and had tasty pancakes for lunch.
Proper Dutch pancakes!
In the afternoon we went back to the hotel, got our stuff and went to Eindhoven to pick up Mag from theEindhoven Airport. We missed a train, but Mag's flight was delayed so it all worked out fine and we arrived 10 minutes before he came out of the baggage hall. We had dinner at Henrieke's place, packed our things and headed out with the car as soon as possible to an Apartment halfway to Suhl, where we arrived at around midnight.
Thursday, 13.7. (EAST Day 1)
Titash, Mag, Henrieke and me got up at 8:30 and had breakfast in the sole bakery in Bad Wünnenberg.
Breakfast.
After walking around a bit in the town, we drove off to Suhl, which was about a 3 hour ride. We stopped at Rewe to get some takeaway lunch and then went to the hotel, where Krauti welcomed us. I also ran into Shorty and BBF in the lobby right away. We put our stuff on our ridiculous suite where the bathroom alone was the size of a small hotel room! I unpacked a bit while Henrieke lied down to rest a but. I went down to get our con badges and met the others outside. Yotie brought a DJI Mavic Pro drone, an insanely advanced drone.
Drone footage from Yotie's drone.
Another photo made by Yotie's drone.
Everyone is amazed by Yotie's drone.
He took some really nice shots of the hotel while Mag and me were doing some parkour on the playground. For dinner we ordered at the "Bistrorante" in Suhl and ate on our room with Titash, Mag, Sithy, Okill, Yamavu and Shorty.
Tasty food with friends.
We spotted these rude hyenas from our window.
Later I went down to the lobby and ran into some rude Hyenas, took a nice Polaroid! Seeing as there were still some parents with their kids in the lobby and they all really enjoyed the fursuits, I got Baseball down to the lobby who entertained the kids there a bit.
Baseball, Dogula and Eddie.
Not this brings back memories!
The kids sure liked Baseball!
At around half past 11 I went to the lobby again, sitting there with friends for a bit. We also met Dogula for the first time!
Mario Kaaaart!
Later we went up to the room and played Mario kart on the Nintendo Switch that Mag brought until 1:30am
Friday, 14.7. (EAST Day 2)
Thanks to extended breakfast times, we had breakfast with Titash and Mag at the buffet at 10:30.
Always nice to see Timduru in the newspaper, sadly he wasn't there this time!
The hotel with a big sign designed by Henrieke and me!
The cute Dealers Den.
After that, we went out the tiny Dealers Den, located in the room where the EF photoshoot used to be. Henrieke and me talked for a while to the people running KittyFluff, an online shop for fake fur, specifically aimed at fursuit builders. They had interesting and nice quality furs! For most of the day we stayed in the lobby, hanging out with Titash, Yamavu, Mag and other friends. Henrieke and me prepared a bit of stuff to show for our "Meet the Guests of Honor" panel at 16:00. As expected, not too many people attended, but that wasn't too surprising considering that even at giant cons, Meet the GoH panels usually attract few people. We were optimistic about the cartoon drawing panel attracting more people! The panel went well, and Krauti was nice enough to give us convention shirts and the sponsor towels which featured the EAST logo that Henrieke and me designed.
After the panel we ran into Mausie in the lobby who was having too much fun with random cardboard boxes.
But Kiki you don't have a license!
Mausiiiieeee!
Before the con, I made a reservation at Crazy Horse, a Steakhouse at the base of Ringberg that people who went to EF13-EF15 tend to be very nostalgic about. They even cut their vacation short specifically because of EAST, however seeing how many people went, they probably didn't regret that. I made sure that everyone got a ride and we went down to Suhl a little early in order to get some shopping done as well before going to the Steakhouse.
We really love Minions and how you can't escape being exposed to them!
Our group at Crazy Horse
They remembered!
The place was packed, waiting time was pretty long, but it was nice to hang out with friends there! While waiting for food, I drew a sign advertising out artoon drawing workshop the next day. They even still had photos of suiters hanging there from long ago.
We stayed until around 20:20, then went back to the hotel with everyone. We had some more art jam in the lobby, spent some time on the room doing dumb stuff andI roamed around in the lobby a bit with Shorty as well.
Oh by the way Mag died temporarily.
Art jam!
Went to bed at 1:30.
Saturday, 15.7. (EAST Day 3)
We had breakfast with Yamavu and DaTi, after that Henrieke worked a bit on a dog drawing for the charity auction. I asked Krauti earlier about having a table in the lobby for selling merchandise and books. He was nice enough to arrange that for us, so we sat in the Lobby, next to the fabulous Eurofurence sign and sold some merchandise.
Fancy table! (Photo by Mag)
Right next to the EF13 sign! (Photo by Mag)
We also unwillingly became the information desk for many old people who asked about when and where the fursuit parade would start. We realized a bit late that the parade was due to start an hour sooner than we thought, so we quickly packed up, went to the room and got dressed for the occassion. Dog and Baseball came down, 15 minutes late but just in time for the parade to start. It started off with a group photo in front of the hotel, surrounded by lots of locals who came up to the Ringberg just to see the parade. Thanks to good work of the press department and 2 newspaper articles prior to the con, the local people all knew about this event!
Getting ready for the parade! (Photo by Mag)
The route went around the con and we were being filmed by an MDR camera crew, who aired a short and very positive report later, with cameos of Dog and Baseball even!
Click to viewAfter another group photo all the suiters went to the main stage area. Baseball went to shrink his wings while Dog had a fun time playing with a toddler who was extremely shy at first, but really loved the big animals! She would constantly go up to a suiter, pet them and then quickly run back to her dad, it was adorable!
Baseball, Dog, Eddie and Titash went out to get some Polaroids taken by Mag. Henrieke was already up in the room, Baseball stayed a bit longer in the lobby and had some fun with all the people who came specifically to see some big toony animals!
Baseball, Dog and the Ringberg Hotel.
Henrieke, testing out our new fancy zoom lens.
Shortly before 16:30 Henrieke and me went down to hold our cartoon workshop. It was a small group, but it was a nice amount of people! We went over the basics of drawing cartoons, just like we did at EF14 9 years ago and had some nice discussions about drawing afterwards. Henrieke also sold some of her Artistic Visions books.
Our cartoon drawing workshop.
Wooo DDR!
After that I played some DDR with Mag, then sat in the lobby, almost missing the closing ceremonies and art auction, which would have been embarassing because we had comfy chairs reserved for us in the first row. They did a pretty good job at the auction, having it in both English and German. Henrieke's Dog picture went for 130€, a flipchart sketch she did during the workshop for 80€ and a collab commission from Henrieke and me for 200€.
The auction.
I was asked on stage to say a few words, which I awkwardly did. Of course I would have liked to talk longer about how nice and welcoming everyone at the con was, but I didn't want to hold up the ceremony too much.
After the ceremony we did an art jam in the lobby and ordered some pricey but not bad food from the hotel bar. Mag went to get Baseball downstairs and we went outside, looking at Yotie doing cool stuff with his expensive drone. There was also the inflatable panel going on, so obviously I had to get a photo of Baseball and the ever-adorable sea dragon!
Target acquired.
Baseball and drone.
Baseball and a really cute sea dragon!
Me and my buddy BB!
A Ringberg sunset.
I checked out the dance a bit and got a bit obsessed over a cute visual that was playing on the screens, perfectly synced to the music. We spent much of the night trying to find the source. I got to chat a bit with Krauti, who always made sure we got everything we needed, and the guy who runs the Bavarian furdance. After more artjam, we went up to the room and played Jackbox until 2:30.
Sunday, 16.07. (EAST Day 4)
We barely made breakfast since we didn't realize the buffet officially closed at 10 today. At 10:30, we scraped together some leftovers before the hotel staff removed them. We sat in the lobby a bit, pondering what to do and quickly deciding to go to Tierpark Suhl, the local zoo. We said good-bye to Yamavu and Yotie, who had to leave already and recreated a photo we took back at EF 15.
2009
2017
Then we met up with Mag, Titash and Shorty and drove down to Suhl. At the entrance we noticed a sign saying that it would be possible to feed meerkats for 8€. We assumed it would be sold out, but apparently it wasn't, so we ended up with 3 tickets for a meerkat feeding session at 15:00. Until then, we walked around, had some fun with out fancy new Canon EF 70-200 L IS USM II lens and fed some goats.
The lens works great!
Me and a cute meerkat.
Not your everyday zoo visit!
Henrieke was being selfless and let Mag go feed the meerkats instead of her, so it was me, Titash and Mag in the enclosure. Titash obviously enjoyed it the most. After 40 minutes, we were finally able to pry Titash away. After walking around a bit more at the park, we went to the exit, where Mag bought a cute bat plushie for Sweek. Back at the hotel we mostly sat downstairs and had an art jam. I also checked out the nice renovated spa area with Mag!
More Mario Kart wheeee!
Monday, 17.07.
Awful. We packed our stuff, checked out and I had the grand idea of taking a different route that would take us through Düsseldorf. We could check out the Japanese district and take a bit of a break from the long drive. Sadly traffic made things take so long that the drive was 7.5 hours and it was too late to even go to Düsseldorf. So we did a huge detour for nothing. I wasn't too happy about that. Back in Veldhoven, Henrieke's mom prepared tasty Lasagna for us though, that made the day a bit better!
Tuesday, 18.07.
Henrieke went to work early and I went to Eindhoven with Mag and Titash. We had enough time to go to the Comic store before putting Titash on a Train to Schiphol. Mag and me spent the day in Eindhoven. Went to the art shop, spent a while drawing at a Cafe, went to the comic store again and drew even more at another cafe.
We drew this card for Ekorren, who sadly wasn't at EAST.
Shortly before 18:00 we went to Evoluon to take soem photos with Kiki, who secretly joined us. After that we went to SuperjumpXL to bounce for an hour. We surprised Henrieke with picking her up from the station in Eindhoven, then went back home.
Wednesday, 19.07.
I took Mag to "Oerse Molenbakker", a bakery inside a Windmill that is pretty much the most Dutch place to have breakfast at! After that we biked to the Veldhoven city center to get some tasty haring for lunch. Coorandilla also joined us, we had some coffee and then headed back to Henrieke's place so Mag could pack his bags.
Coora, Nana, Mag.
Coora was nice enough to give Mag a ride to the airport and after Mag left, I spent a while chatting with Coora since I didn't see him in quite a while.
END.