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Furrnion II - Oh Dear...
7 years ago
So from 19-23 of April this month I attended Furrnion, a furry convention held in the South of Madrid in Spain. What can I say about it? It was pretty much an absolute shambles.
Anyways, I came 1 day before the con, checked into my overflow hotel and regged and got my badge and met my friends. We could all at first sense that it was quite a boring and relaxed con so far, and were already not looking forward to the rest of the con. We explored the hotel and it wasn't the worst hotel, but the aircon and minifridges were defective in nearly everybodies' room, the heat was hard to cope with. The hotel decor was obviously outdated, my Polish friend even said it looke like a 'Polish communist restaurant from the 80's' which seemed true. The bar area was quite okay, lot's of places to sit near the bar. But the hotel area was so small, the lobby was tiny, and the rest of the convention space was laughable. No matter if you were a suiter or non suiter, you'd get bored with how little there was to explore in the hotel.
Another thing I noticed quickly, the Spanish attendees at the con could A; not speak English at all and B: they were quite rude and unwelcoming to the foreign attendees at the con. They would purposely not interact with non-Spanish speaking attendees. So it was pretty much impossible to speak to people or to make new friends cause of the language barrier.
On the first day of the con, there was the opening ceremony and well... what a clusterfuck that was. The room they chose to have it in was too small, so like 1/3 of people had to stand OUTSIDE the room and had to watch the opening ceremony on a small TV screen. The main speaker of the ceremony couldn't speak English so there was a translator for him... who's English himself was not up to scratch and you could notice he did not fully translate the sentences of the orangiser. Then one of the organisers said this: 'Unfortunatly not every person could fit in this room, let's clap for the people who couldn't fit in'... like really? let's joke at our mistake of choosing a too small room to hold the opening ceremony in. GG.
So let's talk about something that pissed me off so much, which was the worst of all at the con. All the suiters outside were outside the main stage hall, waiting to get in to compete in the fursuit olympics. after some while, one of the staff shouted 'Full fursuits!' and so all the full fursuits came in. then the anouncement was made in SPANISH (Not English, I had to ask someone what was going on) that the main stage was full and therefore the partials were not allowed to come in. So in other words ,obvious discrimination against partials. They then used the excuse that 'fullsuits have worse mobility, and thereforse should have priority' .....but that only counts if there are actually any partials competing??? and also... NOBODY CARES! I can tell you now, how many fullsuiters actually would give a shit if there were partials competing? It's supposed to be a bit of fun, it's supposed to be not serious. Even though I'm a partial, I competed in the fursuit Olympics at Gdakon 2018 and there were partials with SHOES competing even though I had footpaws on, but did you see me having a tantrum because they had a slight advantage over me? No! because it's supposed to be all some good fun for god's sake. I was so angry after being told i was not allowed to compete in the olympics, that I immediatly went to the fursuit lounge and took my fursuit off.
There was a pretty fun activity called the 'Snack Exchange' where people from different countries would bring food and drink of their country with them to share with other people, i took about 20 packs of stroopwafels with me and I enjoyed tasting other peoples' food. Only shame that the place it was held in was too crowded (Main stage room) and that people who didn't bring snacks were BARRED from going in, unless they paid 3 EUROS! I am not making this up. Which is a shame because it meant my friends couldn't come in to enjoy the food with me because I did bring food with me to share.
Fursuiting overall was so boring and unsatisfying, like I said, not only was there hardly any space to fursuit, but the attendees didn't really seem to give a fuck. I did my best to be as cute and interesting as possible, but the Spanish people didn't seem to show any interest in the fursuits, choosing to actually ignore them. Because of this, i didnt bother fursuiting for more than 2 hours per day, wasn't really worth it at all.
So many other bad things, that i'll quickly mention.
-Artists alley was in a ridiculous location, unventilated in a tiny room where hardly anybody visited to. the artists seemed quite lonely
-Badges were awful, wayyy too small
-The amount that panels were delayed was laughable
-registrating was questionable, you had to sign a piece of paper with your name and adress, and accept the rules. one of the rules was: 'I shall not complain about the gifts in the Furrnion welcoming bag' like wtf?
Also, sponsorship at Furrnion works in an awful way, when you sponsor, you get treated like a king and they practically punish non sponsers. Sponsors were given absolutely over the top privileges like 2 hour early access to dealers den, 2 free drinks at Dead Cheatah Party (Which was shit) a seperate queue at reg which meant non sponsor could only use 1 queue and couldnt use the other on when no sponsors were regging at that time, slowing regging time for everyone else, they were also given FREE access to snack exchange activity even if they didn't bring any food. not to mention they got so many lavish gifts back in the con bag, why is the convention spending half of the sponsor's money on gifts to give back to them?
I had a little talk with some of the organisers in private, and they seemed actually really nice, and they took criticism very well and understood the problems that I talked about. They don't seem to be doing this on purpose at all, it's just that they don't seem to have any experience at all and can't cope with all of the work. but there were so many rookie mistakes made that made this con awful for ALOT of people. there was a severe amount of complaints from tenths of other people, who were very unhappy about how the con was run. Not just me!
SOME good things
-Fursuit lounge was actually pretty decent, i've seen far better ones but it was actually alright and i managed to cool off quite quickly in there
-Atmosphere in Bar area was good and I loved the special furrnion drinks, 'Poro' which was an alcohol milkshake beverage with cream was absolutely delicious!
-Even though I actually didnt go to the rave to dance because me and friends were in a bad mood, it still looked like an absolutely lit party
Furrnion didn't feel like a Furry convention, more like a meetup with old friends. The only people that made it somewhat managable were friends from previous furry cons and their friends which I quickly got attached to. The con itself contributed absolutely nothing to my good times. THANK YOU SO MUCH to my good friends who I had a good laugh with and enjoyed drinking and hanging out with.
Me and my friends have decided not to attend next year, but if next year's edition has really good reviews, we might come the year after that one. But we'll see for now. You make your mind up if you want to go or not, but these are complaints from 30+ people.
Anyways, I came 1 day before the con, checked into my overflow hotel and regged and got my badge and met my friends. We could all at first sense that it was quite a boring and relaxed con so far, and were already not looking forward to the rest of the con. We explored the hotel and it wasn't the worst hotel, but the aircon and minifridges were defective in nearly everybodies' room, the heat was hard to cope with. The hotel decor was obviously outdated, my Polish friend even said it looke like a 'Polish communist restaurant from the 80's' which seemed true. The bar area was quite okay, lot's of places to sit near the bar. But the hotel area was so small, the lobby was tiny, and the rest of the convention space was laughable. No matter if you were a suiter or non suiter, you'd get bored with how little there was to explore in the hotel.
Another thing I noticed quickly, the Spanish attendees at the con could A; not speak English at all and B: they were quite rude and unwelcoming to the foreign attendees at the con. They would purposely not interact with non-Spanish speaking attendees. So it was pretty much impossible to speak to people or to make new friends cause of the language barrier.
On the first day of the con, there was the opening ceremony and well... what a clusterfuck that was. The room they chose to have it in was too small, so like 1/3 of people had to stand OUTSIDE the room and had to watch the opening ceremony on a small TV screen. The main speaker of the ceremony couldn't speak English so there was a translator for him... who's English himself was not up to scratch and you could notice he did not fully translate the sentences of the orangiser. Then one of the organisers said this: 'Unfortunatly not every person could fit in this room, let's clap for the people who couldn't fit in'... like really? let's joke at our mistake of choosing a too small room to hold the opening ceremony in. GG.
So let's talk about something that pissed me off so much, which was the worst of all at the con. All the suiters outside were outside the main stage hall, waiting to get in to compete in the fursuit olympics. after some while, one of the staff shouted 'Full fursuits!' and so all the full fursuits came in. then the anouncement was made in SPANISH (Not English, I had to ask someone what was going on) that the main stage was full and therefore the partials were not allowed to come in. So in other words ,obvious discrimination against partials. They then used the excuse that 'fullsuits have worse mobility, and thereforse should have priority' .....but that only counts if there are actually any partials competing??? and also... NOBODY CARES! I can tell you now, how many fullsuiters actually would give a shit if there were partials competing? It's supposed to be a bit of fun, it's supposed to be not serious. Even though I'm a partial, I competed in the fursuit Olympics at Gdakon 2018 and there were partials with SHOES competing even though I had footpaws on, but did you see me having a tantrum because they had a slight advantage over me? No! because it's supposed to be all some good fun for god's sake. I was so angry after being told i was not allowed to compete in the olympics, that I immediatly went to the fursuit lounge and took my fursuit off.
There was a pretty fun activity called the 'Snack Exchange' where people from different countries would bring food and drink of their country with them to share with other people, i took about 20 packs of stroopwafels with me and I enjoyed tasting other peoples' food. Only shame that the place it was held in was too crowded (Main stage room) and that people who didn't bring snacks were BARRED from going in, unless they paid 3 EUROS! I am not making this up. Which is a shame because it meant my friends couldn't come in to enjoy the food with me because I did bring food with me to share.
Fursuiting overall was so boring and unsatisfying, like I said, not only was there hardly any space to fursuit, but the attendees didn't really seem to give a fuck. I did my best to be as cute and interesting as possible, but the Spanish people didn't seem to show any interest in the fursuits, choosing to actually ignore them. Because of this, i didnt bother fursuiting for more than 2 hours per day, wasn't really worth it at all.
So many other bad things, that i'll quickly mention.
-Artists alley was in a ridiculous location, unventilated in a tiny room where hardly anybody visited to. the artists seemed quite lonely
-Badges were awful, wayyy too small
-The amount that panels were delayed was laughable
-registrating was questionable, you had to sign a piece of paper with your name and adress, and accept the rules. one of the rules was: 'I shall not complain about the gifts in the Furrnion welcoming bag' like wtf?
Also, sponsorship at Furrnion works in an awful way, when you sponsor, you get treated like a king and they practically punish non sponsers. Sponsors were given absolutely over the top privileges like 2 hour early access to dealers den, 2 free drinks at Dead Cheatah Party (Which was shit) a seperate queue at reg which meant non sponsor could only use 1 queue and couldnt use the other on when no sponsors were regging at that time, slowing regging time for everyone else, they were also given FREE access to snack exchange activity even if they didn't bring any food. not to mention they got so many lavish gifts back in the con bag, why is the convention spending half of the sponsor's money on gifts to give back to them?
I had a little talk with some of the organisers in private, and they seemed actually really nice, and they took criticism very well and understood the problems that I talked about. They don't seem to be doing this on purpose at all, it's just that they don't seem to have any experience at all and can't cope with all of the work. but there were so many rookie mistakes made that made this con awful for ALOT of people. there was a severe amount of complaints from tenths of other people, who were very unhappy about how the con was run. Not just me!
SOME good things
-Fursuit lounge was actually pretty decent, i've seen far better ones but it was actually alright and i managed to cool off quite quickly in there
-Atmosphere in Bar area was good and I loved the special furrnion drinks, 'Poro' which was an alcohol milkshake beverage with cream was absolutely delicious!
-Even though I actually didnt go to the rave to dance because me and friends were in a bad mood, it still looked like an absolutely lit party
Furrnion didn't feel like a Furry convention, more like a meetup with old friends. The only people that made it somewhat managable were friends from previous furry cons and their friends which I quickly got attached to. The con itself contributed absolutely nothing to my good times. THANK YOU SO MUCH to my good friends who I had a good laugh with and enjoyed drinking and hanging out with.
Me and my friends have decided not to attend next year, but if next year's edition has really good reviews, we might come the year after that one. But we'll see for now. You make your mind up if you want to go or not, but these are complaints from 30+ people.
I agree with you on the fursuit olympics. What bullshit is that? "Oh, sorry, you're wearing a partial, you can't compete". Like. What's wrong with a partial? It's mad. Stupidly mad. Con activities (not that I've been to a con yet, but it's basic common sense) aren't meant to be competitive or serious. They're meant to be fun and games. Everybody who has any form of fursuit, partial or full, should be allowed to compete. The name isn't "Full Fursuit Olympics". There's nothing in the name indicating that only full suited furs can compete. Being told that you're not allowed to compete because you don't have a full suit I'm sure is absolutely infuriating.
The facilities too. What even? I know that not every convention can afford a Hilton or some other very popular, very expensive and well kept hotel. But surely they could find a more modern looking hotel that has better ventilation in the rooms and with working minifridges etc.
As for attendees not giving fursuiters the same kind of attention you'd find at other cons? Well. I wish I had an explanation for that, but I don't. Don't blame you for not suiting for long periods of time because you don't want to be in a boiling-hot suit for long periods if nobody's going to try and interact with you.
As a whole though. I hope you're able to get your money back from the organisers. I'm positive they'll offer refunds out sooner or later if they had multiple people complaining about similar things or the same things.
Despite your bad experience, though, at least the friends you spent time with at the con made some of your time there worth it. And it is really good that the organisers of the con actually spoke with you and listened. But overall, I'm really sorry to hear that you had a bad experience at that con and I hope your future con experiences are much, much better than this. But let's be honest, any future cons you attend will have a pretty easy job by the sounds of it at giving you a much better experience.