FA+
Shop
AC 2024 Report
a year ago
Breaking news…..I’m back from AC! This year I had the pleasure of rooming with 
geldazane, 
ArgentVZ, 
Vonadi, and Merc, often joined by our pal 
Vamux.
New hotel for us this year, the Homewood Suites a little further down Smallman Street than the AC Hotel. The hotel itself is fine (Covah actually calls it his favorite and I understand that…ceiling fan, full size fridge and kitchen, free breakfast). They don’t put a door on the shower, though, and that led to some flooding in our bathroom. Didn’t really get it. The distance was a real drag on such a muggy weekend, though they did provide a shuttle back and forth.
As for food, we ate at a place new to us called Iron Born Pizza a bit further down into the Strip District. Lemme say this - Bronze really fuckin’ loved that pizza. Me, I think it was very solid - it had that carmelized crust that I love so much at Chicago’s Pequod - but it is Detroit style and the bready crust is just alright. If your crew is looking for a joint that’s a cut above, say, Pizza Parma, but not too fancy, definitely add it to your list.
We could immediately tell that attendance was way, way up. We had to wait about 2 hours to get our badges on Thursday evening, and then we found out that they had closed the reg line soon after we joined. I think I’m willing to wait, say 30 minutes, maybe as long as an hour, but two hours is too long. Solution? I think most realistic option is staffing. Are they paid? If not, could we maybe hire and pay some more staff for badge distribution only? And maybe only on the busiest day? Spitballin’ here.
More logistical growing pains with the fursuit parade, which is now so long that I’m not bothering to film it anymore. Once again the route involves descending escalators which is causing some big hang ups. What I would do is start the parade in the room where it currently ends, go through the short hallway in the con center, outside, go the reverse direction around the con center loop, then extend the route down Penn Ave up to Garrison Pl, back down Penn to the con center, have a shunt where suiters who want to bow out before the end go up the escalator, then end the parade in the same room it starts. The indoor space is reserved for sponsors and those with a need to be indoors. I believe Penn Ave is already blocked off there for the block party so I think it could work. The big change is forcing most of the con-goers who want to see the parade outside, which will pad the crowd. But I think we need to start playing around with the formula from year to year to see what works and what doesn’t.
Props to the growth of the Dealers’ Den, I saw so many booths with awesome stuff for sale. The diversity of what was available really impressed me. Also saw they added an 18+ area - ooh, spicy for Anthrocon - tho decidedly mid compared to MFF’s version.
The con proper was loads of fun. I got to handle Covah as he ran around in a self-built rollercoaster seat, I had a hell of a time playing Jackbox and “Beerio Cart” with the room (I don’t think I can chug more than a few beers in a go, lol), I got to see a bunch of size friends at the macro meet and a macro party, and was even able to dance a bit on Saturday night.
Going to the cons rekindle my interest in the fandom, and now I’m really looking forward to my next con, which might be Megaplex but will definitely include MFF. I think I’m gonna try to get a few people together for FWA 2025 too, since it’s more or less the same size as the other “big two” now.
geldazane, 
ArgentVZ, 
Vonadi, and Merc, often joined by our pal 
Vamux.New hotel for us this year, the Homewood Suites a little further down Smallman Street than the AC Hotel. The hotel itself is fine (Covah actually calls it his favorite and I understand that…ceiling fan, full size fridge and kitchen, free breakfast). They don’t put a door on the shower, though, and that led to some flooding in our bathroom. Didn’t really get it. The distance was a real drag on such a muggy weekend, though they did provide a shuttle back and forth.
As for food, we ate at a place new to us called Iron Born Pizza a bit further down into the Strip District. Lemme say this - Bronze really fuckin’ loved that pizza. Me, I think it was very solid - it had that carmelized crust that I love so much at Chicago’s Pequod - but it is Detroit style and the bready crust is just alright. If your crew is looking for a joint that’s a cut above, say, Pizza Parma, but not too fancy, definitely add it to your list.
We could immediately tell that attendance was way, way up. We had to wait about 2 hours to get our badges on Thursday evening, and then we found out that they had closed the reg line soon after we joined. I think I’m willing to wait, say 30 minutes, maybe as long as an hour, but two hours is too long. Solution? I think most realistic option is staffing. Are they paid? If not, could we maybe hire and pay some more staff for badge distribution only? And maybe only on the busiest day? Spitballin’ here.
More logistical growing pains with the fursuit parade, which is now so long that I’m not bothering to film it anymore. Once again the route involves descending escalators which is causing some big hang ups. What I would do is start the parade in the room where it currently ends, go through the short hallway in the con center, outside, go the reverse direction around the con center loop, then extend the route down Penn Ave up to Garrison Pl, back down Penn to the con center, have a shunt where suiters who want to bow out before the end go up the escalator, then end the parade in the same room it starts. The indoor space is reserved for sponsors and those with a need to be indoors. I believe Penn Ave is already blocked off there for the block party so I think it could work. The big change is forcing most of the con-goers who want to see the parade outside, which will pad the crowd. But I think we need to start playing around with the formula from year to year to see what works and what doesn’t.
Props to the growth of the Dealers’ Den, I saw so many booths with awesome stuff for sale. The diversity of what was available really impressed me. Also saw they added an 18+ area - ooh, spicy for Anthrocon - tho decidedly mid compared to MFF’s version.
The con proper was loads of fun. I got to handle Covah as he ran around in a self-built rollercoaster seat, I had a hell of a time playing Jackbox and “Beerio Cart” with the room (I don’t think I can chug more than a few beers in a go, lol), I got to see a bunch of size friends at the macro meet and a macro party, and was even able to dance a bit on Saturday night.
Going to the cons rekindle my interest in the fandom, and now I’m really looking forward to my next con, which might be Megaplex but will definitely include MFF. I think I’m gonna try to get a few people together for FWA 2025 too, since it’s more or less the same size as the other “big two” now.
Someone else mentioned they doubled the size of the dealer's den by adding one of the adjacent rooms. The last time I went was in 2018 and I thought that the one room they had was enormous as it was, combining two of them had to have been one hell of a sight.
It was enormous in there. They didn't even have the art show in there anymore, just DD, AA, then some tables for people to hang out at.
But its good to know everyone enjoyed themselves.
As that all that matters in the end, if you can look back and smile at the memories you made.