Really Belated FC 2012 Report
Well, FWA is this coming week, so I guess that means it's about time I posted a report for FC 2012. I hadn't planned to go to FC this year because I wanted to save both vacation and cost, but when I traveled home in late November, I ended up with a voucher on Delta I could use to make the con a little less expensive, so I decided to give it a go. Thankfully I was able to secure a late notice room share courtesy of Xzadfor and the medical con theme was actually one I could have a little fun with so I was looking forward to seeing what the con would be like in its new digs.
Highlights
- Con Theme: The medical theme "Infurmary" was an easy theme to come up with ideas for and I sons tons of folks doing something theme related. I think other cons need to take note of this. Super specific con themes or those requiring very ornate costumes make it pretty hard for the average, non-artist attendee to do something.
- Location: Referring to downtown San Jose on this one and not the new hotels. Downtown San Jose may be the best location of the cons out there. Tons of stuff withing walking distance, and in an area that you don't feel worried walking about at night.
- Hanging out with some of the West Coast folks including brokkentwolf, jonnywoof, coyotoy, RedXIII, and a surprise mystery guest for lunch on Friday.
- The many new folks I met, including roomies, friends of Xzadfor, Kipfox, and some artists that I follow but had never met like RedRusker, Kyma, and Rararkie.
Lowlights
- Hilton Hotel - Lots of complaints about this hotel. I didn't have too many specific problems myself, but I did get the vibe from them that they didn't really want our business there. There is definitely a reason that people quickly started calling it the Hanoi Hilton.
- Layout - I'm sure they are still trying to work this out given the first year in the CC, but there are definitely improvements to be made. The fursuit lounge was tucked back in an out of the way, hard to find spot. There was no real centralized hangout point. The dealers area was oddly organized, with a huge amount of space at the entry, and really narrow rows on the interior (I felt bad for the dealers in the middle rows). Hopefully this will improve going forward.
- Event delays- Not sure what the basis of the delays were, but many events didn't go off on time, particularly the dance comp, which was almost an hour late.
- Lack of signs & cheap con badges. There may be reasons for this, but it seems like FC was doing a lot of things on the cheap. I heard there may have been some specific city or CC regulations on what they could put up, so perhaps that was the case. Still the lack of signs/information was frustrating and the con badges just seemed cheap for a large con. Having several different artist badges to choose from is nice, but the cheap, office paper print jobs and the flimsy, safety pin attachment created problems with lost badges.
Wednesday, January 11
I flew out from Columbus on Wednesday and had a good time playing "spot the furry" on my flight from MSP to San Jose. There were several obvious candidates, including one guy who sat in front of me and mentioned to the guy seated next to him that he was going to San Jose for an "event" and then referring to it as an "art convention". There are definitely times when I'm thankful that I don't fit the stereotype appearance. It was nice to be able to fly in on Wednesday and not have a day of the con wiped out due to travel. This was possible because DukeHyena and Bluefists were kind enough to both pick me up from the airport and put me up for the night. Duke's new house was very nice. I was impressed with all of the space, and he has a killer master bathroom as well.
Thursday, January 12
In the morning, Baja and I went to pickup Ford at the airport, then they dropped me off at the hotel to wait for Xzadfor the check in to the hotel. I spotted Tahoe at the airport and gave him a "Woo hoo, Tahoe!" for an early welcome to the con. I'm sure that confused a few people at the airport. While waiting in the lobby I got to play furry in disguise again since I was basically in business clothes. Despite the fact that I had two huge action packers next to me and my other bags, I had a random furry come up to me and ask what I though about "all the people in the animal costumes" and proceed to explain to me that the convention ran all the way until Monday and soon it was going to look like Disneyland around there. Xzadfor arrived shortly after that and we found that our room was not going to be ready until 3:00 PM or so, so we stowed our bags and went to Flames for lunch . The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Went out to sushi at a disappointing sushi place with Xzadfor, our Japanese roomies Ken, Trump, and Xzadfor's friends Dave, Jake, and Reganzi. After dinner I went out suiting in Winston with my doctor's coat & handing out “certificates” to various attendees. (See pictures below for what I mean.) While out suiting I lost the my flimsy safety pin badge when someone hugged me and popped it loose. It actually led to a fairly funny story as I had chosen Yippie badge, which had copyright Jimmy Chin on it. Someone turned the badge into the front desk and they ended up calling Jimmy since it had his name on it. Well, funny story in retrospect, but maybe not so funny for Jimmy and for my roomates that I had to wake up since my room card was in the back of the badge.
Friday, January 13
Friday morning I got up and grabbed so coffee and a muffin, then waited to meet up with a special guest that was making his way to San Jose from Sacramento. I met up with this fossil and we wandered around the convention area a bit while he gave me some of the way back history of FC from years past. Later, the fossil and I met up for lunch with Brokken, Jonny, and Yippie, heading to a pretty decent Cuban place that was near by. My ankle was already acting up so we stopped by the Walgreens on the way back so I could pick up a brace and some anti-inflammatories, then wandered back to the con enjoying the very nice day outside. Our mystery guest had to head back to the airport to catch his flight back to Sacramento. I'm glad he took time out of his schedule to stop by as it was nice to meet and chat with him. Perhaps I'll get a chance to say hi again sometime on a future fishing trip up to the Shasta area, or for golden trout in the high Sierras.
Later in the day I went out suiting in Roby, handing out his version of the certificates to folks. I had a good time with it, and most folks were being a good sport about it. After suiting Xzadfor hosted a big pizza dinner in our suit, with lots of tasty pizza from Pizza My Heart. It was nice to meet some more of his friends, including Farralon, who has a long history in furry, and Uniton, who owns the angry otter suit that I've grumped around with before while out in Winston.
After dinner, I went out to watch the dance competition. The event was full of of issues and when I was asked on Twitter who won, I jokingly replied "time delays and microphone issues". The problems with the event started out with it started nearly an hour late. FC also tried a new format where they had a split competition between a "choreographed" category and a "dance battle" category. Most of the really talented dancers were pushed into the dance battle, which was unfortunate because while the freestyle is interesting, I think choreographed performances are more entertaining for the crowd, and this is all about entertainment. Most of the crowd there couldn't tell you who is the best dancer from a technical standpoint and we are just looking to be entertained. That should be the focus. I do applaud FC for shaking things up, and a dance battle could work out if it was executed differently. First, the music choices were poor, and didn't really give the dancers a show their best stuff. Second, if you are going to do a battle, don't have the dancers go simultaneously. A battle should be a back and forth deal. With both dancers going simultaneously, as a spectator I couldn't really focus on either one and would miss moves. Third, the dancers were exhausted and the end and I don't think we got their best stuff. I'm not sure how you get around that in this format really, but it was definitely an issue.
Saturday, January 14
Saturday started out with the parade for me and Rrruff agreed to go out in Winston (in the duck hunting getup), while I went out in Roby. For Roby I went out basically as an injured patient. Tastyeagle was kind enough to bring a pair of crutches to the con for me to use, so I went out with a crutch, an arm sling, and a ice pack wrapped on my head using an ace wrap, then limped around the con in that getup. The CC was also hosting a major volleyball event with tons of teenage girls competing. The whole center area was filled with players and parents, so Rrruff and I had a bit of fun with them as we made our way to the parade setup. On a side note, the volleyball event made things interesting, with lots of non furs to entertain. At the same time, it clogged up the CC, plus I didn't really want to mess with the volleyball players too much as they were there for the tournament and I didn't want to distract them from their preparations. The parade went off ok. It was actually kind of funny because I was out in a full con theme get up, but with Rrruff in Winston in the duck hunting getup, all I heard the whole parade was "Ooo, it's the Duck Hunt dog!". Grrrrr! The parade route itself was relatively short, which was nice. I also got to see Brawl's new suit, which is really cute. Fake hobbling on one crutch all that time really wore me out though.
After the parade I browsed the dealer’s den and art show, commissioning a sketch from Teaselbone as a thank you to Huscoon for watching Sid while I was out there. The rest of the day was pretty much spent wandering around. I tend to do that a lot at cons. It's actually kind of funny because people often comment about how many people I know in my few short years in the fandom. It's true that I've been able to meet a lot of great folks, but unlike others I don't have a "crew" that I run around conventions with, so I often just end up wandering around taking pictures or just checking out some of the art, while hoping to bump into some folks. FC is a little harder because there are less people I know there, plus I forgot to pack my camera, so it led to some boring points at times. I guess I need to try to plan better in the future or try to make more things happen myself.
I couldn't corral anyone for dinner Saturday night so I went off by myself to Hanuman, a Thai restaurant with decent ratings on Yelp. While there, Zotcoon and some of his friends had just sat down, so I asked if I could join them. It actually made for a nice dinner with Zot, Scout Raptor, and some of their friends. We ordered as a group and shared, which made figuring the check really easy to.
Sunday, January 15
Sunday was probably my best day of the con. It started with breakfast at Flames, where folks were enjoying their bottomless Mimosas. I also got to meek Kipfox, a nice guy who I had heard about from my Atlanta area friends. During the afternoon I went out suiting in Winston, bumping into Coyotoy and RedXIII while I was out. Chance was also hosting a poker game, and I was joined up there with ISO, Arrow and others. I faired quite poorly. I was card dead and it's a situation I'm not very good at playing, particularly with folks I don't often play with, but it was still fun. That evening I went out to dinner with Feartree, Novemurr, Greg, Woofer, Fel, and Greymist. We went to Scott's, a seafood restaurant that was pretty good, though on the pricey side. At dinner I learned that Feartree, Malo, Greymist and I were all on the same redeye flight Monday evening from SJC to Atlanta, and they were planning a trip into San Fran on Monday, so I asked if I could join them.
In the evening I went back out as Dr. Winston, trying to hand out the rest of the certificates I hate printed up. I also went up to a party at Feartree's, as well as the grilled cheese party next door. I was able to meet RedRusker, and Kyma, a couple of artists that I follow. I also bumped into Rararkie later that evening while out in suit. All in all it was a pretty enjoyable day.
Monday, January 16
Monday I spent a very enjoyable day in San Fran with Feartree, Greymist, Malowolf, and Kalendil. We played Ticket to Ride while on the train trip down, the visited the Ferry Building market for lunch, and then walked around Chinatown and the Italian areas. I wish we had more time to spend there. We were all in the same 10:30 PM flight that arrived into Atlanta at 6 AM. We were actually joined by Dibbun and a couple other furs as well. The flight was ok, though it's actually the first time I've ever heard the proverbial "is there a doctor on board" line. Thankfully, we weren't diverted, though medical crews did meet the plane at the gate in Atlanta. Never heard the full story, though I believe it was diabetic related. I ended up landing in Columbus at 9:00 AM, where Truegrave was kind enough to pick me up and I went back home to pass out for the rest of the day.
All an all, FC is a fun con, primarily because of the location. Hopefully the con itself will improve as it goes forward in the new location. I won't be able to make it every year, but I definitely plan to hit it every other year or three.
Since I didn't get any pictures at the con, the best I can do are pictures of the certificates I handed out in Roby & Winston while at the con.
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