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science fiction cons for furries
13 years ago
A little over a week ago I was at my local furry bowling meet, talking to some people about the question of what name you offer when you're introducing yourself to someone new. It's a problem I've encountered, it seems like every time I introduce myself as Nomad the other person offers their real first name and I feel like a dork. I commented that the same problem often arises at sci-fi cons, and someone responded by saying that of course you'd have to use your real first name because otherwise everyone would be calling themselves Spock.
And I realized that there's a bit of a misunderstanding of what sci-fi cons are like. My fellow furries, I hope I don't need to explain why misunderstandings are not good. In this case I'm not so much concerned about defending the good name of sci-fi cons, or in trying to make people think I'm not a geek (I totally am). No, the thing that bothers me here is, well... For those of you that have been to a furcon and enjoyed it, imagine if you'd heard bad things about furcons and stayed away because you didn't think you'd enjoy them. If you're not a fursuiter and thought that furcons are only for fursuiters, think of everything you'd have missed out on based on that misconception. Science fiction conventions are more than dressing up in Star Trek costumes and debating who was the better Starfleet captain. I know how geeky my fellow furs are, a lot of you might find common ground with other sci-fi convention attendees and it'd be a shame if you missed out because you fear being trapped into an argument about whether Star Trek or Star Wars is better.
So this is my attempt at a PSA on the true nature of sci-fi conventions. First off it must be said that I'm talking about fancons, as opposed to media cons which are the kind of convention that has a lot of big name guest actors and such. There's one of those coming up in Chicago that has basically the entire cast of Star Trek TNG. I've never been to one of those so I can't really speak to what they're like. But a sci-fi fancon is more or less like what furcons are. It's basically a weekend long party, I've heard it described as a party for you and hundreds of your closest friends that you never knew you had. As with furcons you have panels that can be anything from a small discussion to a large lecture style presentation. You can hang out in the con suite and socialize, and I know people that spend most of their time in the tabletop gaming room.
Understand also that they're really typically science fiction and fantasy conventions. It's really more about alternate realities than the future specifically.
So let's talk costumes. Honestly I tend to see very little Star Trek costuming, except for one convention that has a strong Klingon presence. It's kind of like a furcon, fursuits are not the rule there, people dress up in whatever they enjoy wearing. Both fandoms embrace geeky t-shirts, steampunk is another common element. One thing you see a lot of at sci-fi cons is what I call the generic adventurer, which is typically some variation on the theme of boots, pants, a vest, a hat, and maybe a jacket. The thing to understand is it's not specifically about emulating some specific commercial series, for a lot of people costuming is more about dressing up in a way that they enjoy. I think a lot of people's costume is themselves, what they like to think of their true nature as being. For example, I normally make do with a geek t-shirt during the day, and at night I don the colorful plumage of a Hawaiian shirt. Just like I do at furcons. I don't wear the Hawaiian shirt because I think it's the height of high fashion, I wear it because I enjoy it.
Now let's talk social scene. Oh yeah, you can certainly get into geeky conversations there. I once confessed that I'd always wanted a garage door that sounded like the heavy duty blast doors in the movie Aliens. Someone else responded with his dream of a door that had the alarm sound from a specific model Enterprise's shuttle bay, and when he did an impression of the alarm I knew exactly what he was talking about. But at the same time, again, this is not unique. Heck, I first learned that Star Trek The Original Series had a robotic space probe character named Nomad at a furcon. I've since looked it up, and let me tell you it's weird hearing Captain Kirk yelling "Nomad!" angrily. I keep wanting to yell back "What did I do?" The furry fandom is quite geeky on its own, it's not really a big step up to go to a sci-fi con.
At the same time there's so much more you can get into. I once talked with someone about the procedures for rescuing someone from an experimental stealth aircraft. A long time ago I got to witness an argument between two fairly drunk people at a sci-fi con about the merits of beat poetry versus another kind of poetry. This kind of thing just tends to happen at sci-fi cons, you have an extremely eclectic group of people with experience in a lot of things, and you never know what you might end up hearing about if you're open to talking to new people. A few years ago I got to talk studio lighting with a photographer who was using a compact studio setup in a convention hallway to photograph costumes. At least one local convention has lately had regular hypnotism programming, which has been very interesting. I was actually hypnotized once, not to a large degree but the guy doing it managed to get my arms to rise when my eyes were closed without my intending to do it or even being aware of it. I also saw a stage full of women get hypnotized into seeing the audience as if they were naked. That was interesting, I felt strangely violated.
For those of you that enjoy alcohol, sci-fi cons again cater to that. Don't get me wrong, I've met a lot of people lately that don't drink, and that's fine. More power to you. But to those that do enjoy the sauce, you need to know that sci-fi cons are often a good place to go for that. See, whereas most furcons I've been to specifically forbid throwing public parties in your hotel room, with rules against propping your door open and such, sci-fi cons actively encourage it. They tend to have a designated party floor to try to keep the noisy rooms in one area. You'll find advertisements for the parties everywhere, often in the main convention space as well as on signboards near the elevator on every floor of the guest room space. It was just outside a room party that I got into the talk about experimental stealth aircraft. In a chat with someone who was checking IDs at the door (often they wristband or handstamp you to try to cover their butts with regards to age checking) I learned of a local, regularly recurring poi spinning event that I still need to check out. Sci-fi cons usually have official competitions for best room party drink and decorations and such, you can vote for your favorites which get announced at closing ceremonies. So rooms compete with their own signature drinks. I'll tell you one thing right now, if they pull out the virgin punch beware. That stuff is basically liquid hazing.
Science fiction conventions also have their own musical subculture. This one surprised the heck out of me when I first learned of it, but it's called filk (apparently that can be traced back to a typo of folk) and is often folk styled but can be anything including rock or rap. Step into the right room at night and you might find a circle of people holding guitars and drums, rotating around playing and singing songs. I've encountered someone playing a banjo, and once there was a lone drummer in a hallway playing something that sounded just perfect echoing through the long corridor as the soundtrack of the night. I even got to play with a theremin once.
There's one last thing I want to mention. Sci-fi cons are often more fur friendly than you might think. I've been surprised how many tails I see worn at a Chicago sci-fi convention called Duckon, but I really shouldn't be. See, there's this little event called Midwest Furfest that you might have heard of, and it got its start as the furry programming track at Duckon. Eventually it got to be too big and split off into a separate event, but Duckon still sometimes has furry programming. I've attended a talk by a former Disney animator, as well as panels on fursuit construction and fursuit animatronics at Duckon.
I'm bringing all this up because there's a good Chicago sci-fi con fast approaching, called Capricon. So sci-fi cons are on my mind. Capricon has an especially strong party floor, actually it seems to usually run two designated party floors. Don't misunderstand, this doesn't mean that each floor is full of nothing but party rooms, you end up with a handful of rooms on each floor, but still it makes for a lot of parties to check out.
I was going to say that Capricon is the same weekend as the furry rave, but I see that it's been postponed until further notice. I'm disappointed that I have to wait, but hey, now I don't have to skip out on the Saturday night parties. Often Saturday can be the best party night.
So hey, if you're sitting there asking yourself if a sci-fi con might be right for you, check one out. Look up a local event and see what shenanigans they get up to. The schedule for this year's Capricon is now up at http://www.capricon.org/capricon33/.....ex.php/reports for an example of the goings on. Just don't be surprised if you decide to attend one and end up finding some familiar faces. The sci-fi fans live among you.
As for me, I'll be at Capricon. I'm always a little intimidated heading towards one of these things, but I know it'll be a good time. Incidentally Capricon is always a bit weird for me, because it's held at the Westin Chicago North Shore, which is the previous location MFF used before moving to their current hotel. I attended two MFFs there, so the memories tend to bleed together, and when I'm walking through a dark hallway in the middle of the night feeling the mixture of fatigue and happy, comfortable relaxation that you get at a con, I sometimes have a difficult time remembering I'm at a sci-fi con and not a furcon. It'll be even worse this year because Duckon is being held there as well. So many memories are going to end up co-mingling, I'm not going to be able to keep anything straight anymore.
And I realized that there's a bit of a misunderstanding of what sci-fi cons are like. My fellow furries, I hope I don't need to explain why misunderstandings are not good. In this case I'm not so much concerned about defending the good name of sci-fi cons, or in trying to make people think I'm not a geek (I totally am). No, the thing that bothers me here is, well... For those of you that have been to a furcon and enjoyed it, imagine if you'd heard bad things about furcons and stayed away because you didn't think you'd enjoy them. If you're not a fursuiter and thought that furcons are only for fursuiters, think of everything you'd have missed out on based on that misconception. Science fiction conventions are more than dressing up in Star Trek costumes and debating who was the better Starfleet captain. I know how geeky my fellow furs are, a lot of you might find common ground with other sci-fi convention attendees and it'd be a shame if you missed out because you fear being trapped into an argument about whether Star Trek or Star Wars is better.
So this is my attempt at a PSA on the true nature of sci-fi conventions. First off it must be said that I'm talking about fancons, as opposed to media cons which are the kind of convention that has a lot of big name guest actors and such. There's one of those coming up in Chicago that has basically the entire cast of Star Trek TNG. I've never been to one of those so I can't really speak to what they're like. But a sci-fi fancon is more or less like what furcons are. It's basically a weekend long party, I've heard it described as a party for you and hundreds of your closest friends that you never knew you had. As with furcons you have panels that can be anything from a small discussion to a large lecture style presentation. You can hang out in the con suite and socialize, and I know people that spend most of their time in the tabletop gaming room.
Understand also that they're really typically science fiction and fantasy conventions. It's really more about alternate realities than the future specifically.
So let's talk costumes. Honestly I tend to see very little Star Trek costuming, except for one convention that has a strong Klingon presence. It's kind of like a furcon, fursuits are not the rule there, people dress up in whatever they enjoy wearing. Both fandoms embrace geeky t-shirts, steampunk is another common element. One thing you see a lot of at sci-fi cons is what I call the generic adventurer, which is typically some variation on the theme of boots, pants, a vest, a hat, and maybe a jacket. The thing to understand is it's not specifically about emulating some specific commercial series, for a lot of people costuming is more about dressing up in a way that they enjoy. I think a lot of people's costume is themselves, what they like to think of their true nature as being. For example, I normally make do with a geek t-shirt during the day, and at night I don the colorful plumage of a Hawaiian shirt. Just like I do at furcons. I don't wear the Hawaiian shirt because I think it's the height of high fashion, I wear it because I enjoy it.
Now let's talk social scene. Oh yeah, you can certainly get into geeky conversations there. I once confessed that I'd always wanted a garage door that sounded like the heavy duty blast doors in the movie Aliens. Someone else responded with his dream of a door that had the alarm sound from a specific model Enterprise's shuttle bay, and when he did an impression of the alarm I knew exactly what he was talking about. But at the same time, again, this is not unique. Heck, I first learned that Star Trek The Original Series had a robotic space probe character named Nomad at a furcon. I've since looked it up, and let me tell you it's weird hearing Captain Kirk yelling "Nomad!" angrily. I keep wanting to yell back "What did I do?" The furry fandom is quite geeky on its own, it's not really a big step up to go to a sci-fi con.
At the same time there's so much more you can get into. I once talked with someone about the procedures for rescuing someone from an experimental stealth aircraft. A long time ago I got to witness an argument between two fairly drunk people at a sci-fi con about the merits of beat poetry versus another kind of poetry. This kind of thing just tends to happen at sci-fi cons, you have an extremely eclectic group of people with experience in a lot of things, and you never know what you might end up hearing about if you're open to talking to new people. A few years ago I got to talk studio lighting with a photographer who was using a compact studio setup in a convention hallway to photograph costumes. At least one local convention has lately had regular hypnotism programming, which has been very interesting. I was actually hypnotized once, not to a large degree but the guy doing it managed to get my arms to rise when my eyes were closed without my intending to do it or even being aware of it. I also saw a stage full of women get hypnotized into seeing the audience as if they were naked. That was interesting, I felt strangely violated.
For those of you that enjoy alcohol, sci-fi cons again cater to that. Don't get me wrong, I've met a lot of people lately that don't drink, and that's fine. More power to you. But to those that do enjoy the sauce, you need to know that sci-fi cons are often a good place to go for that. See, whereas most furcons I've been to specifically forbid throwing public parties in your hotel room, with rules against propping your door open and such, sci-fi cons actively encourage it. They tend to have a designated party floor to try to keep the noisy rooms in one area. You'll find advertisements for the parties everywhere, often in the main convention space as well as on signboards near the elevator on every floor of the guest room space. It was just outside a room party that I got into the talk about experimental stealth aircraft. In a chat with someone who was checking IDs at the door (often they wristband or handstamp you to try to cover their butts with regards to age checking) I learned of a local, regularly recurring poi spinning event that I still need to check out. Sci-fi cons usually have official competitions for best room party drink and decorations and such, you can vote for your favorites which get announced at closing ceremonies. So rooms compete with their own signature drinks. I'll tell you one thing right now, if they pull out the virgin punch beware. That stuff is basically liquid hazing.
Science fiction conventions also have their own musical subculture. This one surprised the heck out of me when I first learned of it, but it's called filk (apparently that can be traced back to a typo of folk) and is often folk styled but can be anything including rock or rap. Step into the right room at night and you might find a circle of people holding guitars and drums, rotating around playing and singing songs. I've encountered someone playing a banjo, and once there was a lone drummer in a hallway playing something that sounded just perfect echoing through the long corridor as the soundtrack of the night. I even got to play with a theremin once.
There's one last thing I want to mention. Sci-fi cons are often more fur friendly than you might think. I've been surprised how many tails I see worn at a Chicago sci-fi convention called Duckon, but I really shouldn't be. See, there's this little event called Midwest Furfest that you might have heard of, and it got its start as the furry programming track at Duckon. Eventually it got to be too big and split off into a separate event, but Duckon still sometimes has furry programming. I've attended a talk by a former Disney animator, as well as panels on fursuit construction and fursuit animatronics at Duckon.
I'm bringing all this up because there's a good Chicago sci-fi con fast approaching, called Capricon. So sci-fi cons are on my mind. Capricon has an especially strong party floor, actually it seems to usually run two designated party floors. Don't misunderstand, this doesn't mean that each floor is full of nothing but party rooms, you end up with a handful of rooms on each floor, but still it makes for a lot of parties to check out.
I was going to say that Capricon is the same weekend as the furry rave, but I see that it's been postponed until further notice. I'm disappointed that I have to wait, but hey, now I don't have to skip out on the Saturday night parties. Often Saturday can be the best party night.
So hey, if you're sitting there asking yourself if a sci-fi con might be right for you, check one out. Look up a local event and see what shenanigans they get up to. The schedule for this year's Capricon is now up at http://www.capricon.org/capricon33/.....ex.php/reports for an example of the goings on. Just don't be surprised if you decide to attend one and end up finding some familiar faces. The sci-fi fans live among you.
As for me, I'll be at Capricon. I'm always a little intimidated heading towards one of these things, but I know it'll be a good time. Incidentally Capricon is always a bit weird for me, because it's held at the Westin Chicago North Shore, which is the previous location MFF used before moving to their current hotel. I attended two MFFs there, so the memories tend to bleed together, and when I'm walking through a dark hallway in the middle of the night feeling the mixture of fatigue and happy, comfortable relaxation that you get at a con, I sometimes have a difficult time remembering I'm at a sci-fi con and not a furcon. It'll be even worse this year because Duckon is being held there as well. So many memories are going to end up co-mingling, I'm not going to be able to keep anything straight anymore.
I still enjoy Duckon. You kind of have to understand that these things are all volunteer run, and when snafus inevitably pop up you just take 'em in stride and try to make the best of it. I think of Duckon as my home con, partially because it was my first local con. I'd been to one sci-fi con in Tennessee, but that was quite a while earlier, and Duckon was a hesitant attempt to get back into cons at a local level. I had such a good time that I wanted to do something else, and ended up doing MFF for the first time that year as well. I was quite surprised to find that furcons seem to lack the room party system that sci-fi cons have, I'm still puzzled over that. I was not expecting to find furcons seemingly more uptight than sci-fi cons. I mean you do not think of geeks as being wild and crazy guys. But maybe that's the point, maybe the staff of furcons are concerned about what would happen if the party situation was opened up a bit and restrictions on boozing were loosened. I've actually seen wine and alcoholic cider served at sci-fi consuites. Can you imagine that at a furcon?
That's not the only seeming contradiction. Every furcon I've been too, basically, has rules against use of leashes in public spaces. Much to the dismay of a certain fox friend of mine. Meanwhile I regularly see a few people on leashes at Duckon. One year it was some polyamory people, a woman leading two guys around on leashes. I ran into them on the party floor. The sci-fi fandom is of course very child friendly, often with extensive children's programming options, but they're definitely not afraid to get adult at night. I'm not even saying everything I've seen, because some of it can't be known by that certain fox friend until I expose him to it first hand.
I don't know if furcons have this, if they do I've never run into it, but sci-fi cons have the concept of a con virgin. I asked and the definition is based on never having been to a sci-fi con before, so I think you'd qualify. Last year I ended up seeing my first ever virgin sacrifice. This is the thing that I'm unwilling to speak about in the open, because I'm trying to get this done to that certain fox, and he can't know what is going to happen to him until it happens. He's probably not reading this anyway, but I can't risk it.
I can't say if you'd enjoy it, because there are certain things I don't know about you, and as asking you would ruin the surprise you'd just have to chance it. But it does involve that virgin punch I mentioned, hence the name. And if I already told you what's involved at MFF last year then damn.
I'll have to see if I can find a sacrifice happening at Capricon. I've never seen it there before, but then again I'd never seen it at Duckon until last year either. It's far too late for me to be sacrificed, by more than a decade, I've missed my opportunity, but watching others go through it is still fun. A little pseudo occult ritual sets the mood for the night quite nicely.