FC
Ok, finally getting around to doing an FC con report.
The trip down was the drive that we've done for the past couple of years. We actually made it down in record time, arriving in San Jose at about 7am on Thursday.
With lots of time to kill, we ended up at the IHOP for breakfast. And even after getting to the hotel, we were told we'd be waiting until about 2-3pm for out suite. Bah. The only entertaining thing was the fire alarm went off in the hotel, apperantly some workers were welding and set it off accidently. Reg was a nightmare (as always for FC), so I waited for a while before going to the prereg line, which I jumpped about half of by running into Carthage in the lineup and joining him.
On Friday, the only room party that was running was the Klingon one. I had recently aquired a par of black leather chaps and was wearing them, my black leather jacket, black leather boots and a skin-tight tshirt and shorts for most of the evenings of the weekends. While wearing that at the Klingon party, I was hit on by a gay, submissive Klingon. It was rather unusual. The Drgaon panel was a lot of fun, and packed to nearly overflowing, as usual.
Saturday is largely a blur to me. I can only really recall going to a couple of room parties with Ann and wandering about, after watching the Masquerade. I noticed that an elevator had broken down sometime early that day, or late the previous (same on that broke down last year).
Sunday is likewise unclear for most of the day. There was some hanging out with friends, and then lounging about to wat Furry Night Live on the TV in the suite, which is kind of a tradition for us, sinc eit's better than going down to the theater to watch it.
Monday, after leaving, we did out traditional trip through San Francisco. Lombard Street's crazy-ass hill. Marina. Golden Gate Bridge. then up along to one of the old costal defence batteries. But instead of sticking aroudn there, we went on to a couple more along the bluff's road. We ended up at a disappearing gun fort. the magazine doors had been broken open by vandals long ago, so Trapa and I crawled inside one, taking lots of cool pictures. Lost of murals drawn on the walls, and even some old wires and wall boxes were left. The other side was more open and completely stripped, but had more murals. The first one that we stopped at, we discovered that someone has pained, high up near the ceiling of the tunnel, a couple of animal sin the cave-painting style. It was awesomely cool. Pictures will follow soon.
On the drive back up, we hit heavy snow almost as soon as we crossed from Orgegon into Washington. That sucked a ton. But we made it back all safe.
Pros:
+ New hotel looks to be awesome. From 500 rooms to 800, and from 10 suites to 100.
+ Only went to Denny's once during the weekend.
+ Met a ton of people. Too many to try and name them all, since I know I'll forget some.
+ The leather chaps were a big success by pretty much everyone I met, including the 6 people that randomly grabbed my ass.
+ Managed to get enough sleep, food, and a daily shower, throughout the weekend.
+ Got a couple of cool pictures. And a couple of badges that will be mailed to me, Dingbat and WolfNymph.
+ Drake for letting us use his shower while we waited for out room (After 19 hours in a van, I needed one.)
+ No con crud.
+ Awesome bunckers got explored on the way back.
Cons:
- Instead of the free food we got the past couple of years for having a suite, we only got breakfast vouchers.
- Reg was a suckfest of ass. As usual. More on this later.
- Having to wait, and wait, and wait in order to get the room.
- Hotel resturant food seemed to be not as good last previous years.
- Room parties seemed to be lacking on sunday and friday.
- The Sunday invite-party I was going to go to was canceled due to sickness.
- Running into heavy snow on the way back.
Achievement Unlocked: Express Elevator. (Rode from the 10th floor to the 1st on the last day of the con with no stops)
Ok, FC's Reg system: In short, it sucks.
This yeah, they had a bunch of kiosks set up for people who were doing at-con reg to enter in all the name/adress/etc details on, to try and save some time so the reg staff didn't have to enter it all.
Which was basically a copy of what was used at Califur and Rain Furrest to great effect. Only it wasn't as good. Not even close. Now, I didn't use it, bu tI talked to someone that had, and was also at Rain Furrest last fall, and he said that "If Rain Furrest's system is Jolt Cola, FC's system is Diet Coke."
Even with the 'new' system, I heard of people that had waited in the reg line for over 2 hours. Compare to Rain Furrest, where we couldn't find anyone that said they waited more than 10 minutes.
Now, to be fair, FC had 4x as many people. But they had the same number of reg staffers as Rain Furrest had. Given the size of the FC, wouldn't make sence to have more people running regestraion, at least when there's huge line-ups. They had 1 person that basically sat around and did nothing for most of Friday, because he was processing sponsers and dealers only. Not to mention the 2-3 other people I always saw sitting around behind the Reg table doing sweet fuck all.
If FC is going to rip-off Califur/Rain Furrest's reg system, they should at least try and do it properly.
The trip down was the drive that we've done for the past couple of years. We actually made it down in record time, arriving in San Jose at about 7am on Thursday.
With lots of time to kill, we ended up at the IHOP for breakfast. And even after getting to the hotel, we were told we'd be waiting until about 2-3pm for out suite. Bah. The only entertaining thing was the fire alarm went off in the hotel, apperantly some workers were welding and set it off accidently. Reg was a nightmare (as always for FC), so I waited for a while before going to the prereg line, which I jumpped about half of by running into Carthage in the lineup and joining him.
On Friday, the only room party that was running was the Klingon one. I had recently aquired a par of black leather chaps and was wearing them, my black leather jacket, black leather boots and a skin-tight tshirt and shorts for most of the evenings of the weekends. While wearing that at the Klingon party, I was hit on by a gay, submissive Klingon. It was rather unusual. The Drgaon panel was a lot of fun, and packed to nearly overflowing, as usual.
Saturday is largely a blur to me. I can only really recall going to a couple of room parties with Ann and wandering about, after watching the Masquerade. I noticed that an elevator had broken down sometime early that day, or late the previous (same on that broke down last year).
Sunday is likewise unclear for most of the day. There was some hanging out with friends, and then lounging about to wat Furry Night Live on the TV in the suite, which is kind of a tradition for us, sinc eit's better than going down to the theater to watch it.
Monday, after leaving, we did out traditional trip through San Francisco. Lombard Street's crazy-ass hill. Marina. Golden Gate Bridge. then up along to one of the old costal defence batteries. But instead of sticking aroudn there, we went on to a couple more along the bluff's road. We ended up at a disappearing gun fort. the magazine doors had been broken open by vandals long ago, so Trapa and I crawled inside one, taking lots of cool pictures. Lost of murals drawn on the walls, and even some old wires and wall boxes were left. The other side was more open and completely stripped, but had more murals. The first one that we stopped at, we discovered that someone has pained, high up near the ceiling of the tunnel, a couple of animal sin the cave-painting style. It was awesomely cool. Pictures will follow soon.
On the drive back up, we hit heavy snow almost as soon as we crossed from Orgegon into Washington. That sucked a ton. But we made it back all safe.
Pros:
+ New hotel looks to be awesome. From 500 rooms to 800, and from 10 suites to 100.
+ Only went to Denny's once during the weekend.
+ Met a ton of people. Too many to try and name them all, since I know I'll forget some.
+ The leather chaps were a big success by pretty much everyone I met, including the 6 people that randomly grabbed my ass.
+ Managed to get enough sleep, food, and a daily shower, throughout the weekend.
+ Got a couple of cool pictures. And a couple of badges that will be mailed to me, Dingbat and WolfNymph.
+ Drake for letting us use his shower while we waited for out room (After 19 hours in a van, I needed one.)
+ No con crud.
+ Awesome bunckers got explored on the way back.
Cons:
- Instead of the free food we got the past couple of years for having a suite, we only got breakfast vouchers.
- Reg was a suckfest of ass. As usual. More on this later.
- Having to wait, and wait, and wait in order to get the room.
- Hotel resturant food seemed to be not as good last previous years.
- Room parties seemed to be lacking on sunday and friday.
- The Sunday invite-party I was going to go to was canceled due to sickness.
- Running into heavy snow on the way back.
Achievement Unlocked: Express Elevator. (Rode from the 10th floor to the 1st on the last day of the con with no stops)
Ok, FC's Reg system: In short, it sucks.
This yeah, they had a bunch of kiosks set up for people who were doing at-con reg to enter in all the name/adress/etc details on, to try and save some time so the reg staff didn't have to enter it all.
Which was basically a copy of what was used at Califur and Rain Furrest to great effect. Only it wasn't as good. Not even close. Now, I didn't use it, bu tI talked to someone that had, and was also at Rain Furrest last fall, and he said that "If Rain Furrest's system is Jolt Cola, FC's system is Diet Coke."
Even with the 'new' system, I heard of people that had waited in the reg line for over 2 hours. Compare to Rain Furrest, where we couldn't find anyone that said they waited more than 10 minutes.
Now, to be fair, FC had 4x as many people. But they had the same number of reg staffers as Rain Furrest had. Given the size of the FC, wouldn't make sence to have more people running regestraion, at least when there's huge line-ups. They had 1 person that basically sat around and did nothing for most of Friday, because he was processing sponsers and dealers only. Not to mention the 2-3 other people I always saw sitting around behind the Reg table doing sweet fuck all.
If FC is going to rip-off Califur/Rain Furrest's reg system, they should at least try and do it properly.