Two Con Reports: Part I - Furfright 2011
Now that 2011’s MFF and FurFright have receded in the memories of everyone who attended, what better time to drag them to the surface again with a belated con report. Originally, I wanted to write both conventions into one post. But it started to get so long, I had to split the recap in two.
The Furfright part started becoming more of an homage to the convention than an actual report halfway into it, and it still turned out pretty lengthy. Nevertheless, if you have the time, and like to spend hours reading con reports…
--------------------
For Furfright, I somehow got Room 104 in the Crowne Plaza, the main hotel, which to my surprise looked directly over the Atrium area. The picture below shows what it looked like from out the window:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37164168@N02/6278423425/in/set-72157627972529586
...As you can see, you had a view of everything happening in and around that atrium during the weekend; conventioneers of various shapes and sizes doing cannonballs into the pool, crowds of people doing the “Time Warp” in front of a big screen showing of Rocky Horror, Kai and other furs collecting donations for the War Dogs charity, interlopers who were definitely not congoers flailing about until they get kicked out by the hotel staff, a couple putting on each other’s collars right in front of your window after a sojourn in the spa, renditions of 70s classic rock songs tinkling from the piano in the back, a handful of people doing assorted shenanigans by the pool at 6:00am thinking that everyone is sleeping and no one could be watching them at this hour. You would see all of them milling about from this vantage point. Even if you locked yourself in this room for the con, you could spend an entire day sitting back with a beverage, and just watch the Atrium hijinks unfold before you. But you probably could find better things to do at the convention, and there were lots of other things.
-----------------------
For the first time, after going to about a dozen of these furry convention things, I had other people share the room with me in order to split the hotel cost. I was slightly concerned when I posted the spaces available as I had never done this before. I had no idea who I’d get, or what to expect with one of these things. Fortunately I lucked out and got a couple of good people that wound up taking the spots, which happened to be Wildwolf and her hubby, and they couldn’t have been better roommates. They didn’t mind me coming in at 3am and fumble with the air mattress because I had forgotten to inflate it earlier, or me accidentally locking them out of the room because my key card f-ed up and I had to get new ones. So their presence (and patience) was much appreciated.
Actually, they might have lucked out even more, seeing that space for the weekend was at a premium, and they just managed to find my ad at the right time. They actually stayed in another guy’s room for Thursday, but what they weren’t told was EIGHT other people were already in there for the night.
I’m wondering how that’s even possible. Now I know furries like to cram in as many people in one room to make it cheap for everybody. But 10 people in a standard double or king room? You’d need to conjure your Tetris skills just to work out how everyone would sleep in the floor. You can almost (read: almost) understand why some attendees forsake taking a shower during the weekend. Because unfortunately, it’s still noticeable when you walk around the con that a few people haven’t.
--------------------
The Fursuit Games, known here as “The Fursuit Massacre”, is one event I really enjoy. It takes place fairly early on Sunday, so it can be assumed a lot of the people in there are still recovering from the previous night, which makes mundane tasks such as riding on razor scooters, trying to determine which J.D. Puppy is the actual JD, giving instructions on how a game works, or selecting songs for the musical chairs portion all the more interesting (go look for video of it to see what I mean). A few stats from the Games:
Winning Team: Green
Winning Fursuiter in Musical Chairs portion: sadariuswolf
Runner up in Musical Chairs: JD_Puppy: (or one of them at least)
Fashion Disasters during the Razor Scooter “Drag” Race: Several Dozen
Number of Fursuiters demeaning themselves in Charades: about 4 or 5
Number of Pandas making a collision course for my camera: 1
Number of Axe jokes in reference to Nekomon:3
Injuries:0 (surprisingly, after about 7 last year)
Marriage Proposals:1
----------------
I’ll admit to having a biased affinity for Furfright. There is something about that furry con that distinguishes itself from the others I’ve been to. Many have remarked about its tight-knit, family reunion- like feel, which is true. but there’s more to it than that. I’ll need to do it in a separate post in the future, because I’d go on for too long if I tried explaining it fully here. But after the games on Sunday, there was a car meet, and I overheard two people in conversation, and this line from one of them really struck a chord:
“You notice how everyone is really happy this weekend?”
He was right, everyone did seem really happy at Furfright. And I know that attendees enjoy themselves greatly at any furry convention, but they were particularly buoyant at FF, almost TOO happy at some points, such as on Saturday night…
That night brought the Masquerade, and while every convention has their own stage variety show, Furfright’s has an almost burlesque feel to it, even if there aren’t any signs of scantily-clad dancers on stage. But we did have an entertaining MC in the form of Belic Bear (also the con chair) cracking jokes and mildly insulting the judges (in good spirit of course). Then there was the Frankensuiter competition where the participants were trying to act sexy (I think), and the usual skits, song numbers, and stand-up routines. The room actually fills up for this show with people standing in the back, so it gets really nutty and boisterous in there during the Masquerade. But most of all they’re laughing and just enjoying themselves, while a real sense of camaraderie gets built up amongst everyone there. And it doesn’t matter if the performances are good or so-so, or the lighting or sound stops working properly (and something always blows up at some point, like the video crashing in the middle of Tilt’s Psycho spoof. The wacky spirit of the whole thing is what you go for, in my case at least. It’s why I’ve come like this furry variety show more than any other.
If there weren’t any burlesque dancers up on stage that night, there were more than a couple of guys in the audience in drag that were going for that look. A couple of them had an interesting exchange with another audience member when Wag was doing his stand-up bit on stage and asked this to the crowd:
(Wag): Anybody listen to dubstep?
(Guy in the audience to the left of me): WHOOT!
(One of the two guys across the room): DIE IN A FIRE!
Apparently, while Dubstep is currently all the rage, it hasn’t captured the hearts of everyone.
-------------------------------------
Those two would get in an argument later on with someone else in the crowd, and left early, while the nuttiness of the Masquerade reached its climax. Soon the rest of the crowd spilled out of the room to join our earlier couple in the bedlam of the convention. And it wasn’t just guys in drag in the wandering the halls of the hotel that night, some congoers were in leather, others were in spandex, one guy roamed about as a humping robot. Many wore rave gear while many others opted for the simple t-shirt with ironic line or geek-related reference plastered in front of it. And oh yes, there were all those people wearing those animal costumes. But it wasn’t what everyone was wearing but what was happening that had me wondering.
Outside the main entrance in the valet area, a lot were just standing about smoking and in conversation, or at the very least shouting to each other, despite dance music pumping from a car’s sound system parked in front. A whole of shouting; it was clear that it was a really raucous atmosphere all around. Then, as soon as I think that, one guy bolts out holding an empty 4-pack carton of Guinness which I assumed he drank the entire contents of earlier.
I think Matthew Ebel had an impromptu performance at the piano at one point during the night and a small crowd gathered around to join in and sing along. They were singing elsewhere too, as well as dancing, toasting, vomiting, and all that shouting, hugging, scritching, and possibly even a little inappropriate groping for all I know. You could add “pelvic thrusting” to the mix when the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show started (a movie tailor-made for the fandom when you think about it) . Oh, and of course the drinking, lots of drinking. Not out in the public of course, but it was obvious that some staggering about were a bit tipsy. Plus all sorts of other zaniness of every sort, A long-tailed crux was seated at the bar area while a fox was playing saxophone in the lobby. The kind of random scenes and surreal quality that you could only see, or try to explain, at a furry con, such as:
...In short, everyone looked to be having a lot of fun, so much fun it almost seemed too good to be true.
I know that you can see a lot of this described above at other furry conventions, particularly in the room parties. But here, it was as if that crazy energy you find at a room party had broken out and spilled throughout the halls of the hotel, and outside of it too. Maybe it was the fact that it was October, and the Halloween mood added to the buzz of the whole thing, or that the perennial “Cake Con” shut down early that night due to some unforeseen events, or that despite Furfright being one of the largest furry conventions around, it was held in a relatively small hotel space compared to other major cons, and all that energy of a large convention was bundled tighter than normal.
Despite the good mood around, I had the ominous feeling that everything was teetering on the edge of disaster. Something would happen; an incident that would put a damper on the whole thing, or change the whole atmosphere. Someone important from the outside would just wander in, be aghast at what they saw, and demand a halt to all this depravity immediately. Or ultimately, all that energy in the place would finally blow, and the whole damn thing would come crashing down in a fiery blaze. And when townspeople woke up the following morning, all that would be left would be a smoldering crater where the Crowne Plaza once stood, with a few attendees staggering about.
But it never happened, the con didn’t spin off its axis, kept going without any major problem. That was part of the magic of the thing, the feeling that the whole convention on the edge of chaos, because the mood was so uproarious. But it never crossed the line. So I witnessed the craziness revolve around me that night, and even if you did nothing but stand silently, watched, and took pictures, which is what I pretty much did, it still was fun to be in the middle of it all.
Again, stuff like this can happen at any convention, but it happens particularly at Furfright. I think it’s all the better because of it. Needless to say, I enjoyed watching it.
---------------
Next, I’ll try to write up the Midwest Furfest portion in the near future, and it should be a lot different in format (and hopefully shorter) than this one.
The Furfright part started becoming more of an homage to the convention than an actual report halfway into it, and it still turned out pretty lengthy. Nevertheless, if you have the time, and like to spend hours reading con reports…
--------------------
For Furfright, I somehow got Room 104 in the Crowne Plaza, the main hotel, which to my surprise looked directly over the Atrium area. The picture below shows what it looked like from out the window:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37164168@N02/6278423425/in/set-72157627972529586
...As you can see, you had a view of everything happening in and around that atrium during the weekend; conventioneers of various shapes and sizes doing cannonballs into the pool, crowds of people doing the “Time Warp” in front of a big screen showing of Rocky Horror, Kai and other furs collecting donations for the War Dogs charity, interlopers who were definitely not congoers flailing about until they get kicked out by the hotel staff, a couple putting on each other’s collars right in front of your window after a sojourn in the spa, renditions of 70s classic rock songs tinkling from the piano in the back, a handful of people doing assorted shenanigans by the pool at 6:00am thinking that everyone is sleeping and no one could be watching them at this hour. You would see all of them milling about from this vantage point. Even if you locked yourself in this room for the con, you could spend an entire day sitting back with a beverage, and just watch the Atrium hijinks unfold before you. But you probably could find better things to do at the convention, and there were lots of other things.
-----------------------
For the first time, after going to about a dozen of these furry convention things, I had other people share the room with me in order to split the hotel cost. I was slightly concerned when I posted the spaces available as I had never done this before. I had no idea who I’d get, or what to expect with one of these things. Fortunately I lucked out and got a couple of good people that wound up taking the spots, which happened to be Wildwolf and her hubby, and they couldn’t have been better roommates. They didn’t mind me coming in at 3am and fumble with the air mattress because I had forgotten to inflate it earlier, or me accidentally locking them out of the room because my key card f-ed up and I had to get new ones. So their presence (and patience) was much appreciated.
Actually, they might have lucked out even more, seeing that space for the weekend was at a premium, and they just managed to find my ad at the right time. They actually stayed in another guy’s room for Thursday, but what they weren’t told was EIGHT other people were already in there for the night.
I’m wondering how that’s even possible. Now I know furries like to cram in as many people in one room to make it cheap for everybody. But 10 people in a standard double or king room? You’d need to conjure your Tetris skills just to work out how everyone would sleep in the floor. You can almost (read: almost) understand why some attendees forsake taking a shower during the weekend. Because unfortunately, it’s still noticeable when you walk around the con that a few people haven’t.
--------------------
The Fursuit Games, known here as “The Fursuit Massacre”, is one event I really enjoy. It takes place fairly early on Sunday, so it can be assumed a lot of the people in there are still recovering from the previous night, which makes mundane tasks such as riding on razor scooters, trying to determine which J.D. Puppy is the actual JD, giving instructions on how a game works, or selecting songs for the musical chairs portion all the more interesting (go look for video of it to see what I mean). A few stats from the Games:
Winning Team: Green
Winning Fursuiter in Musical Chairs portion: sadariuswolf
Runner up in Musical Chairs: JD_Puppy: (or one of them at least)
Fashion Disasters during the Razor Scooter “Drag” Race: Several Dozen
Number of Fursuiters demeaning themselves in Charades: about 4 or 5
Number of Pandas making a collision course for my camera: 1
Number of Axe jokes in reference to Nekomon:3
Injuries:0 (surprisingly, after about 7 last year)
Marriage Proposals:1
----------------
I’ll admit to having a biased affinity for Furfright. There is something about that furry con that distinguishes itself from the others I’ve been to. Many have remarked about its tight-knit, family reunion- like feel, which is true. but there’s more to it than that. I’ll need to do it in a separate post in the future, because I’d go on for too long if I tried explaining it fully here. But after the games on Sunday, there was a car meet, and I overheard two people in conversation, and this line from one of them really struck a chord:
“You notice how everyone is really happy this weekend?”
He was right, everyone did seem really happy at Furfright. And I know that attendees enjoy themselves greatly at any furry convention, but they were particularly buoyant at FF, almost TOO happy at some points, such as on Saturday night…
That night brought the Masquerade, and while every convention has their own stage variety show, Furfright’s has an almost burlesque feel to it, even if there aren’t any signs of scantily-clad dancers on stage. But we did have an entertaining MC in the form of Belic Bear (also the con chair) cracking jokes and mildly insulting the judges (in good spirit of course). Then there was the Frankensuiter competition where the participants were trying to act sexy (I think), and the usual skits, song numbers, and stand-up routines. The room actually fills up for this show with people standing in the back, so it gets really nutty and boisterous in there during the Masquerade. But most of all they’re laughing and just enjoying themselves, while a real sense of camaraderie gets built up amongst everyone there. And it doesn’t matter if the performances are good or so-so, or the lighting or sound stops working properly (and something always blows up at some point, like the video crashing in the middle of Tilt’s Psycho spoof. The wacky spirit of the whole thing is what you go for, in my case at least. It’s why I’ve come like this furry variety show more than any other.
If there weren’t any burlesque dancers up on stage that night, there were more than a couple of guys in the audience in drag that were going for that look. A couple of them had an interesting exchange with another audience member when Wag was doing his stand-up bit on stage and asked this to the crowd:
(Wag): Anybody listen to dubstep?
(Guy in the audience to the left of me): WHOOT!
(One of the two guys across the room): DIE IN A FIRE!
Apparently, while Dubstep is currently all the rage, it hasn’t captured the hearts of everyone.
-------------------------------------
Those two would get in an argument later on with someone else in the crowd, and left early, while the nuttiness of the Masquerade reached its climax. Soon the rest of the crowd spilled out of the room to join our earlier couple in the bedlam of the convention. And it wasn’t just guys in drag in the wandering the halls of the hotel that night, some congoers were in leather, others were in spandex, one guy roamed about as a humping robot. Many wore rave gear while many others opted for the simple t-shirt with ironic line or geek-related reference plastered in front of it. And oh yes, there were all those people wearing those animal costumes. But it wasn’t what everyone was wearing but what was happening that had me wondering.
Outside the main entrance in the valet area, a lot were just standing about smoking and in conversation, or at the very least shouting to each other, despite dance music pumping from a car’s sound system parked in front. A whole of shouting; it was clear that it was a really raucous atmosphere all around. Then, as soon as I think that, one guy bolts out holding an empty 4-pack carton of Guinness which I assumed he drank the entire contents of earlier.
I think Matthew Ebel had an impromptu performance at the piano at one point during the night and a small crowd gathered around to join in and sing along. They were singing elsewhere too, as well as dancing, toasting, vomiting, and all that shouting, hugging, scritching, and possibly even a little inappropriate groping for all I know. You could add “pelvic thrusting” to the mix when the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show started (a movie tailor-made for the fandom when you think about it) . Oh, and of course the drinking, lots of drinking. Not out in the public of course, but it was obvious that some staggering about were a bit tipsy. Plus all sorts of other zaniness of every sort, A long-tailed crux was seated at the bar area while a fox was playing saxophone in the lobby. The kind of random scenes and surreal quality that you could only see, or try to explain, at a furry con, such as:
...In short, everyone looked to be having a lot of fun, so much fun it almost seemed too good to be true.
I know that you can see a lot of this described above at other furry conventions, particularly in the room parties. But here, it was as if that crazy energy you find at a room party had broken out and spilled throughout the halls of the hotel, and outside of it too. Maybe it was the fact that it was October, and the Halloween mood added to the buzz of the whole thing, or that the perennial “Cake Con” shut down early that night due to some unforeseen events, or that despite Furfright being one of the largest furry conventions around, it was held in a relatively small hotel space compared to other major cons, and all that energy of a large convention was bundled tighter than normal.
Despite the good mood around, I had the ominous feeling that everything was teetering on the edge of disaster. Something would happen; an incident that would put a damper on the whole thing, or change the whole atmosphere. Someone important from the outside would just wander in, be aghast at what they saw, and demand a halt to all this depravity immediately. Or ultimately, all that energy in the place would finally blow, and the whole damn thing would come crashing down in a fiery blaze. And when townspeople woke up the following morning, all that would be left would be a smoldering crater where the Crowne Plaza once stood, with a few attendees staggering about.
But it never happened, the con didn’t spin off its axis, kept going without any major problem. That was part of the magic of the thing, the feeling that the whole convention on the edge of chaos, because the mood was so uproarious. But it never crossed the line. So I witnessed the craziness revolve around me that night, and even if you did nothing but stand silently, watched, and took pictures, which is what I pretty much did, it still was fun to be in the middle of it all.
Again, stuff like this can happen at any convention, but it happens particularly at Furfright. I think it’s all the better because of it. Needless to say, I enjoyed watching it.
---------------
Next, I’ll try to write up the Midwest Furfest portion in the near future, and it should be a lot different in format (and hopefully shorter) than this one.