Welp, I just got back from a long weekend at FAU, and figured I'd dust this thing off to write up my con report while everything's still fresh on the brain.

We left on Thursday around 1:00 with two vehicles, including my old '64 Corvair, packed to the gills with liquor and beer and headed off to pick up Doral. We arrived at the hotel soon after, settled ourselves into the room, and once a few friends showed up, we started drinking the beer out of our collective trunks. This would turn out to be our "theme" of the con, and we somehow managed to destroy three coolers full of booze by Sunday night, a downright impressive feat of endurance. Good food was had the entire weekend (I frigging love Cinnamon and Nikko), and we partied hard all weekend. including long into Sunday night. The wine and cheese party I attended was fucking great, screaming at each other while playing Spaceteam was fantastic, and there was a surprising lack of drama - wedding party aside.

That all being said, the con did feel surprisingly empty this year. The reg numbers were up from years prior, but it just felt... quiet, I guess? Like at any given time throughout the weekend, there was only a handfull of people in the common areas, and even less fursuiters out and about. The obnoxious wedding party guests felt more numerous than the furries. A few other cons I've been to have had the same feeling lately - do people just not hang out in the lobbies / bars / ballrooms anymore? Am I just getting older? Don't get me wrong, room parties are a huge reason I go to cons, but that always felt like more of a late night thing - seemed like everybody was doing it for the entire day. Maybe the fandom demographic is changing, and my kind of crowd is now the minority, with people preferring quiet nights instead of "traveling parties" and crazy fursuit antics in the conspace.

Also, I really need to make a point to hang out with folks I rarely see, when going to these cons. A big highlight of my weekend was the aforementioned wine / cheese party, since I got to hang out with a few friends I almost never see, along with THEIR friends who were completely new to me. Despite the vibes I often put out, I actually really do enjoy meeting new folks as long as they have a decent personality, and parties like this give me the opportunity to do it. Without that, I usually just end up hanging out with my usual group of friends, and while they ARE all awesome as hell, I see those guys on a weekly / monthly basis. The weekend went by, and while I did meet a few new (and awesome as hell) folks, I ended up kicking myself for not hanging out with like 6-8 people that I wanted to. Thus is the nature of conventions, I guess - so much partying, so little time, and everybody is doing their own thing.

In all, the con was really damned fun, and I really wish I had just one more day to hang out with all you awesome folks. That being said, the place was a ghost town by Monday morning (even late Sunday), and I have the first case of PCD that I've had in years. It's been a great weekend, and I'm really looking forward to my next con / next FAU. Any awesome ones coming up in the near future?

PS: You guys need to pat yourselves on the back. The 10K+ raised for charity was just stunning to witness. For what is essentially a small con, that's an absurd amount of generosity.