Urghh... back from the con a couple of days ago. Pardon my lateness with this report but I have finally been struck down by the dreaded CON CRUD. After years and years and a long career of attending conventions, never to catch the crud at any of them, it finally caught me. I bet  missmab is cackling maddly for all the times I told her to suck it up and walk it off. Now I'm the one that's sick and all I want is cuddles. ...and soup. SOUP CUDDLES.

As to the con, This was the third FE and the second I've attended. The first one I attended was the first FE back in 2010. It was interesting to see how the con has grown and changed over the years.

Firstly it has grown, there was easily 3 times the number of people there as I saw at the first con, so good on them. In terms of con space, eh, it has grown and moved to a bigger part of the hotel, but it's still basically just the one hallway of rooms, so not that big. Big enough though. I never once felt that the con needed to be bigger. The programming this year was pretty sparse. I kinda felt that there wasn't very much going on during the con. Most of the fun seemed to be in socializing or heading off to the various room parties. There were many room parties.. it was St. Patties day weekend. I felt the con itself was kinda slow and a bit dull, simply because of the lack of interesting panels or other things going on. Don't get me wrong, there were panels and other things happening, just not that many. I can't really fault the con on that point, since it could have easily just been that there weren't any panels to my taste and so I just didn't take notice of them, but I looked through the booklet and only like.. 3 panels caught my eye over the whole weekend. So hopefully next year there will be more programming.

Where the con hit its stride of course was the socializing. It's a very social con. At all times there are people to talk with, new friends to make, old friends to track down, and people you never expected to see. The zoo is always filled with people as well, and I really liked the open air concept of it this con. Instead of a separate room for the zoo, they moved tables into the foyer area. You could see everyone in there, and there were always artists working on drawings, and active card and board games you could join in on.  ShujinTribble was doing his radio program through the whole thing and playing by request music that gave the zoo a nice relaxed atmosphere. And there was that guy that had the remote controlled flying shark that was always about, attacking people. Seriously. The Zoo was where it was at this con.

Next to the Zoo was the artist alley, which was very excellent this year. Easy to get too, lots of space, and lots of artists at all times. The artists I saw in there were:

They were amazing to see and get art from. I think I spent nearly all of sunday hanging out with them and drawing. It was allot of fun. Big win on the artist alley this year.

The dealers room was great for the most part. Can't complain. It was well stocked with an interesting variety of shops, some old, some new. Was good fun, and I bought probably more swag there then I should have. When I found the lady that had custom spider jewelry, I had a happy explosion.

Now onto the bad stuff. The con was not organized very well at all. In addition to there not being much programming, the fursuit parade was a disaster. They made the fursuiters stand in the sun for 45 minutes while they individually tagged everyone for the group picture. When the suiters started complaining about the heat, they marched them inside... through the convention to one of the halls, where they could finish the counting. 'Cept they marched them THROUGH half the con to get there so most people thought that WAS the parade. But no, after another length of time they began the actual parade through the con proper and we got to see all the same suits... again. They finished this run by going outside, but when we tried to put the tables back so we could get on with the con.. nope.. not done yet! They marched them back through the con for a third time! Not only was this ridiculous and left the suiters tired and half dead, it basically closed the con down for nearly 2 hours, effectively shutting down the zoo, artist alley, and dealers room. Which pretty much WERE the con anyway... so yeah, the parade killed the con. Bad parade. Also for some reason without any notice or prior indication they were going to do this, they put someone at the doors of the dealers room on sunday about 40 minutes before the place was going to close and wouldn't let anyone in. This meant I couldn't get in the room to get the last of my shopping done or say goodbye to any of the friends I'd made in there. I'm just glad I had already gotten my sketchbooks back, because retrieving them at that point would have been a nightmare. After that point because nobody new was coming in and they weren't selling anything, the dealers ended up packing up and leaving the dealers room 15 minutes later anyway. All in all, i think it was a poor decision. Not letting anybody in so the dealers could wrap up their business and get packed up to leave seems fine, but anything over 15 minutes towards the end of the dealers rooms is overkill. Besides, the dealers should not be required to pack up and leave right as the dealers room closes. They're supposed to be able to sell right until closing, and THEN pack up their shop and leave. Not BEFORE the place closes.

So anyway, in short, it was an alright con that was mired by a lack of programming and some poor decisions. I still had a great time. In particular it was great to see and catch up with some of my old friends like:
 netrogo  Furball and  Basilisk2150
and make new friends like:
 darkduck64  sharei and  Asphyxia_Lemieux.

I'm hoping to see most of theses peeps again come anthrocon and condition blue, and can't wait for next years FE to roll around to do it again. Next time I should toss myself into the artists alley with the big fishes and see if I can swim. ^_^

Take care, and much love and kisses and hugs to everyone I met and spent time with at FE this year. You're too many to mention, but you made the con a blast for me. Luvs! <3