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Back from FAU ...
18 years ago
Back from Newark, New Jersey, and an good mini-vacation break from routine, work, etc.
It was a cozy little con, with its ups and downs.
Pro's: It was small enough that you could get everywhere pretty easily, even using the stairwells. There were about 300 or so people - so it was small enough you'd ruin into the same people over again, and weren't always constantly in a sea of strangers. The dealers rooms were pretty good, relatively busy if small. Good artists generally all around. The other hotel guests I ran into were curious and friendly and seemed to get a kick out of the convention going on around them.
Food at hotel cafe, (Starlight Cafe) was pretty good, and the portions were a bit on the overly generous side. Ran into some pretty nice furs (Roc_Wolf, Mejeep and Dreamwolf - and others - I am -TERRIBLE- with names though >.<), and got to attend a much appreciated nude life drawing class - fast gesture poses (10 second), followed by 5 minute poses and 15 minute poses ... Its been years (and in another millenia) since I'd taken similar classes so it was good to work out some of the rust of shading/flesh/mass rendering.
Got lucky on Saturday night and had a local drive us around NJ, Union City, Elizabeth, Neward etc. to see some of the historical sites (Some beautiful architecture, churches, old office buildings, gorgeous 2 and 3 story houses - and everywhere was -GREEN- swamped in trees bushes, grass, etc.), eat off convention site, and get some fresh air. $700 is a bit for airfare to travel to a little con just to hang out and visit with people I don't know, but - it was worth it - if for nothing else than the atmosphere gets me to draw like crazy, constantly - despite the semi-intimidating state of being surrounded by tonnes of excellent, and often much better artists.
Cons: The hotel. It fronted directly on a highway that looped ridiculously around the airport and environs in a dizzying number of on and offramps without intersections. It was fenced around in all other directions - so you had to have a car, and preferably one driven by a local (Traffic seemed crazy to me, and I'm used to LA/Orange County traffic on a daily basis), to leave for any reason.
All the vending machines were 'out of order' by saturday morning - not usually a big deal, except for the inaccessibility of any store or restaurant off property. There was a little general goods kiosk on the ground floor (bought scotch tape and a toothbrush/toothpaste combo for $5 ... apiece). Rooms had free internet, but the hotel 'internet' room had dollar slots on the computer faces for internet access.
The ATM machine on site ran out of cash on Sunday morning - right as I was getting around to buying stuff from the dealer's room, so I didn't patronize the artists I wanted to as much as I'd originally intended.
The restaurant served good food but was incredibly slow - despite usually having maybe 5-6 tables (and not FC tables of fifteen furs ... these were like 2-4 people max) occupied at a given time, and multiple waiters/waitresses etc. They provided the convention with little coupons good for simple food combos (listed burger and fries), but at what, on the face of it, looked like a $2-3 increase on their base menues. The coupons failed to mention that drinks were included - AND that the coupons were meant to give the restaurant staff time to prepare the food - You were expected to drop off the coupons 10 minutes in advance, then come back later and it'd be ready for you.
At one point I had a frustrated hotel manager pressuring me and another random fur I was talking to to find the owner of a motorcycle blocking the hotel's vans. Not sure if the cycle was related to the con or not, but - wasn't sure why he expected me to know who owned it or what I was supposed to do about it, not being on staff, having just flown in from Orange County California. He found me again a bit later, angry, saying something like "I'm trying to be accomodating to YOU PEOPLE but if you don't find the owner of that motorcycle, we're having it towed!"
Um ... okay? WE people? (Wanted to point out we're not all on some vast furry rolodex, don't all know each other, don't all like watermelon and fried chicken and sing spirituals either - wait, different stereotyped people - but ... I try to be accomodating to HIS people too I guess .... )
So the 'coupons' were the source of much derision, confusion and 'the hotel is ripping us off!' humor.
On Saturday, two furs in the hotel lounge were commenting loudly about the 'funky smell' in the air and eluding to 'unwashed furs' as the cause of the funk - Nevermind, New Jersey jokes aside, the hotel was conveniently located directly between an Airport and a very noisesome WaterWaste reclaimation plant.
As to the con itself - The conbook needed a rundown (glossary style) of what the panels -were-, instead of only the sheet schedule, and a rundown of the people who were on -some- of the panels. Even if there wasn't enough time for it to make the final conbook printing, an insert sheet of what all the panels were would have worked. My mate was also expected to be on a panel or two, without being informed WHAT panels or WHEN he was assigned to, so he just served the one he actually knew about before coming to the convention.
As an FA con, it lacked any kind of programming that made it ... well, FA related. It was kinda a non-distinct small furry con. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but programming related to the site/site community would have been nice.
Things missed from larger cons: Computer/ Internet room, Artists Alley, Art Lounge, Media Room. The con suite, at least, was there, but wasn't open anywhere near enough (most cons run con suites 24 hours ... or maybe 20 or so, with a few hours set aside for general organization in the wee hours). No place in the con was open past 1 or 2 am.
Computer/Internet's a bit of an investment in cheap computers/arrangements with the hotel/and a techie to set up the machines with simple services (mucking/browsing) - so for a first and small con, that's understandable - but its an internet community at the same time >.O - so ... maybe next year?
Artists Alley/Art Lounge - These should have been there - one should have been 24 hours - fill the thing with butcher paper and crayons if that's all you can manage, but a space needs to be set aside for drawing if your con's about artists. Artist's alley, maybe less so, as I've always seen it as more of an addendum to the dealer's room, but still would have been nice.
They coulda used a video/media room - I guess the con suite was intended to serve that purpose, but watching local cable's more of a break from the con itself (and rightly so) than what a media room really is meant to do - and with all the vast collections of anime, furry themed media, talking animal movies, cartoons, CGI out there, someone could have at least thrown together a few tapes and a schedule.
The dance - DJ'd dances were friday during the day and a little into the night - the live entertainers saturday - Probably should have been reversed, or the DJ'd dances put late Saturday night - when the con's at its fullest, after the dealer rooms are closed and most of the panels are over - Some of the alternative artist/guest musicians weren't exactly danceable material (I may be getting older, but that has NOTHING to do with my cat-strangling sound assessment of the Zhazha Ghabortionists and the Back AlleyMcbeals - one of the three live bands.).
Bleah, a little more longwinded than I'd intended.
All in all, had fun regardless of the above critique, and wish them well with next year's con.
It was a cozy little con, with its ups and downs.
Pro's: It was small enough that you could get everywhere pretty easily, even using the stairwells. There were about 300 or so people - so it was small enough you'd ruin into the same people over again, and weren't always constantly in a sea of strangers. The dealers rooms were pretty good, relatively busy if small. Good artists generally all around. The other hotel guests I ran into were curious and friendly and seemed to get a kick out of the convention going on around them.
Food at hotel cafe, (Starlight Cafe) was pretty good, and the portions were a bit on the overly generous side. Ran into some pretty nice furs (Roc_Wolf, Mejeep and Dreamwolf - and others - I am -TERRIBLE- with names though >.<), and got to attend a much appreciated nude life drawing class - fast gesture poses (10 second), followed by 5 minute poses and 15 minute poses ... Its been years (and in another millenia) since I'd taken similar classes so it was good to work out some of the rust of shading/flesh/mass rendering.
Got lucky on Saturday night and had a local drive us around NJ, Union City, Elizabeth, Neward etc. to see some of the historical sites (Some beautiful architecture, churches, old office buildings, gorgeous 2 and 3 story houses - and everywhere was -GREEN- swamped in trees bushes, grass, etc.), eat off convention site, and get some fresh air. $700 is a bit for airfare to travel to a little con just to hang out and visit with people I don't know, but - it was worth it - if for nothing else than the atmosphere gets me to draw like crazy, constantly - despite the semi-intimidating state of being surrounded by tonnes of excellent, and often much better artists.
Cons: The hotel. It fronted directly on a highway that looped ridiculously around the airport and environs in a dizzying number of on and offramps without intersections. It was fenced around in all other directions - so you had to have a car, and preferably one driven by a local (Traffic seemed crazy to me, and I'm used to LA/Orange County traffic on a daily basis), to leave for any reason.
All the vending machines were 'out of order' by saturday morning - not usually a big deal, except for the inaccessibility of any store or restaurant off property. There was a little general goods kiosk on the ground floor (bought scotch tape and a toothbrush/toothpaste combo for $5 ... apiece). Rooms had free internet, but the hotel 'internet' room had dollar slots on the computer faces for internet access.
The ATM machine on site ran out of cash on Sunday morning - right as I was getting around to buying stuff from the dealer's room, so I didn't patronize the artists I wanted to as much as I'd originally intended.
The restaurant served good food but was incredibly slow - despite usually having maybe 5-6 tables (and not FC tables of fifteen furs ... these were like 2-4 people max) occupied at a given time, and multiple waiters/waitresses etc. They provided the convention with little coupons good for simple food combos (listed burger and fries), but at what, on the face of it, looked like a $2-3 increase on their base menues. The coupons failed to mention that drinks were included - AND that the coupons were meant to give the restaurant staff time to prepare the food - You were expected to drop off the coupons 10 minutes in advance, then come back later and it'd be ready for you.
At one point I had a frustrated hotel manager pressuring me and another random fur I was talking to to find the owner of a motorcycle blocking the hotel's vans. Not sure if the cycle was related to the con or not, but - wasn't sure why he expected me to know who owned it or what I was supposed to do about it, not being on staff, having just flown in from Orange County California. He found me again a bit later, angry, saying something like "I'm trying to be accomodating to YOU PEOPLE but if you don't find the owner of that motorcycle, we're having it towed!"
Um ... okay? WE people? (Wanted to point out we're not all on some vast furry rolodex, don't all know each other, don't all like watermelon and fried chicken and sing spirituals either - wait, different stereotyped people - but ... I try to be accomodating to HIS people too I guess .... )
So the 'coupons' were the source of much derision, confusion and 'the hotel is ripping us off!' humor.
On Saturday, two furs in the hotel lounge were commenting loudly about the 'funky smell' in the air and eluding to 'unwashed furs' as the cause of the funk - Nevermind, New Jersey jokes aside, the hotel was conveniently located directly between an Airport and a very noisesome WaterWaste reclaimation plant.
As to the con itself - The conbook needed a rundown (glossary style) of what the panels -were-, instead of only the sheet schedule, and a rundown of the people who were on -some- of the panels. Even if there wasn't enough time for it to make the final conbook printing, an insert sheet of what all the panels were would have worked. My mate was also expected to be on a panel or two, without being informed WHAT panels or WHEN he was assigned to, so he just served the one he actually knew about before coming to the convention.
As an FA con, it lacked any kind of programming that made it ... well, FA related. It was kinda a non-distinct small furry con. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but programming related to the site/site community would have been nice.
Things missed from larger cons: Computer/ Internet room, Artists Alley, Art Lounge, Media Room. The con suite, at least, was there, but wasn't open anywhere near enough (most cons run con suites 24 hours ... or maybe 20 or so, with a few hours set aside for general organization in the wee hours). No place in the con was open past 1 or 2 am.
Computer/Internet's a bit of an investment in cheap computers/arrangements with the hotel/and a techie to set up the machines with simple services (mucking/browsing) - so for a first and small con, that's understandable - but its an internet community at the same time >.O - so ... maybe next year?
Artists Alley/Art Lounge - These should have been there - one should have been 24 hours - fill the thing with butcher paper and crayons if that's all you can manage, but a space needs to be set aside for drawing if your con's about artists. Artist's alley, maybe less so, as I've always seen it as more of an addendum to the dealer's room, but still would have been nice.
They coulda used a video/media room - I guess the con suite was intended to serve that purpose, but watching local cable's more of a break from the con itself (and rightly so) than what a media room really is meant to do - and with all the vast collections of anime, furry themed media, talking animal movies, cartoons, CGI out there, someone could have at least thrown together a few tapes and a schedule.
The dance - DJ'd dances were friday during the day and a little into the night - the live entertainers saturday - Probably should have been reversed, or the DJ'd dances put late Saturday night - when the con's at its fullest, after the dealer rooms are closed and most of the panels are over - Some of the alternative artist/guest musicians weren't exactly danceable material (I may be getting older, but that has NOTHING to do with my cat-strangling sound assessment of the Zhazha Ghabortionists and the Back AlleyMcbeals - one of the three live bands.).
Bleah, a little more longwinded than I'd intended.
All in all, had fun regardless of the above critique, and wish them well with next year's con.
If you're east coast or midwest in -general- there's other cons that may be closer. Anthrocon in Albany. There's also Morphicon in Ohio, Mephit Furmeet in Memphis Tennesee, Rocket City Furmeet in Huntsville, Alabama, Oklacon (formerly Festival of the Feral) in Oklahoma - just off the top of my head.
Eurofurence is also good, though from what I understand, varies drastically in content, quality and location every year. The time I went, it was held in a castle that had been converted into a youth hostel in Germany - it was an unforgettable, incredibly cool experience :>