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Midwest Furfest 2018
7 years ago
General
It's late 2018 so it's time for another writeup from my time in Chicago during one of them Fur thingies! Midwest Furfest that is!
Back to a familiar format (and lazy I know) which is the good, bad and ugly. Will start by saying this year I was once again with Maggie Holt and first timer Neko Nico, all the way from Canada , Eh? Both were great as usual!
The good
The con officially became the first fur con to break the 10K mark in terms of attendance! As someone who has been involved in the fandom since Confurence 9 in 1998, back when the biggest con was about 800 people, I think it's cool to see the fandom continue to grow! Besides, it's fun when certain alt-right apologist numerical avians comment how the fandom is dying because one con doesn't give them free tickets and such anymore!
Also good was spending time with Neko, as I didn't get to interact with her much during the week long trip to Canada as she was partly in charge of the group! Even better, Neko seemed to fit in very nicely during the con and got many good remarks and pictures from folks!
Also, it's not a MFF trip without a Sunday trip to the Ram to see Doggy Radio star Ricochet and watch his Cleveland Browns play and yup, lose again! Such a great tradition, although had I known we were betting food on the game, I would've bought less!!
Finally, after last year being confined to her room, Maggie was healthy the entire con! Even got to run her first ever panel on femme costuming and kigurumi to a near full room! Very happy my emotional support skunk continues to do well!
The Bad
Very minor stuff this year! With MFF slowly moving to the convention center, my hope is that I could not get the main hotel, one hotel a block and a half from the Hyatt would cut it. That might have worked had it not been raining with actually a little snow on Thursday and Monday!I will game plan the overflow situation better in 2019 I swear!
Related to that, due to being at the overflow, I didn't get to see some of my usual group, i.e. folks like Police Dog, Kamadan, Wolfus, ZenWolf to name a few!
The other bad thing, MFF, guys... you're now the biggest furry convention. Now is the time to act like it and get this registration thing figured out. At this point, there is little benefit to pre-registration and in fact I heard some of the folks registering at the door got their stuff quicker!
One more minor thing. Kings has been part of our food rotation since I discovered it a few years back. Last year the food area apparently changed themes or management or both. Since then it's been downhill. This year my group officially had another fail there. Have to take it out of my rotation now.
The Ugly
In a rare moment, really nothing during the con, so I'll come back to this!
Was great seeing frequent folks like Maggie, Angel MacLeod, Lauren Rivers, Shrag, Samantha Skunk, Candace, Yuri, Takeshi, Kira Frost, Miezekatze, Joe Panther, Jovina, Weretiger, Lomax and Kala Silverheart!
Also was great seeing first time folks like Neko, Afrodyte and Rage Berry as well as talking to new (to me) folk like Cloppy, Rhea Algarin and Astaria Naira!!
Overall the con was great! Some minor issues with the size, but guess what furs, you're still tiny compared to anime cons!
…
Now... for the ugly, which actually has happened post convention.
One of my friends, which until it has gone public I will keep the name private, is in the hospital for an extended amount of time. I'm very scared and hoping they will be alright and for now at least, they seem to be just relaxing uncomfortably in the bed. I am sending all my well wishes to them every night.
See you in 2019 at future events!!
Back to a familiar format (and lazy I know) which is the good, bad and ugly. Will start by saying this year I was once again with Maggie Holt and first timer Neko Nico, all the way from Canada , Eh? Both were great as usual!
The good
The con officially became the first fur con to break the 10K mark in terms of attendance! As someone who has been involved in the fandom since Confurence 9 in 1998, back when the biggest con was about 800 people, I think it's cool to see the fandom continue to grow! Besides, it's fun when certain alt-right apologist numerical avians comment how the fandom is dying because one con doesn't give them free tickets and such anymore!
Also good was spending time with Neko, as I didn't get to interact with her much during the week long trip to Canada as she was partly in charge of the group! Even better, Neko seemed to fit in very nicely during the con and got many good remarks and pictures from folks!
Also, it's not a MFF trip without a Sunday trip to the Ram to see Doggy Radio star Ricochet and watch his Cleveland Browns play and yup, lose again! Such a great tradition, although had I known we were betting food on the game, I would've bought less!!
Finally, after last year being confined to her room, Maggie was healthy the entire con! Even got to run her first ever panel on femme costuming and kigurumi to a near full room! Very happy my emotional support skunk continues to do well!
The Bad
Very minor stuff this year! With MFF slowly moving to the convention center, my hope is that I could not get the main hotel, one hotel a block and a half from the Hyatt would cut it. That might have worked had it not been raining with actually a little snow on Thursday and Monday!I will game plan the overflow situation better in 2019 I swear!
Related to that, due to being at the overflow, I didn't get to see some of my usual group, i.e. folks like Police Dog, Kamadan, Wolfus, ZenWolf to name a few!
The other bad thing, MFF, guys... you're now the biggest furry convention. Now is the time to act like it and get this registration thing figured out. At this point, there is little benefit to pre-registration and in fact I heard some of the folks registering at the door got their stuff quicker!
One more minor thing. Kings has been part of our food rotation since I discovered it a few years back. Last year the food area apparently changed themes or management or both. Since then it's been downhill. This year my group officially had another fail there. Have to take it out of my rotation now.
The Ugly
In a rare moment, really nothing during the con, so I'll come back to this!
Was great seeing frequent folks like Maggie, Angel MacLeod, Lauren Rivers, Shrag, Samantha Skunk, Candace, Yuri, Takeshi, Kira Frost, Miezekatze, Joe Panther, Jovina, Weretiger, Lomax and Kala Silverheart!
Also was great seeing first time folks like Neko, Afrodyte and Rage Berry as well as talking to new (to me) folk like Cloppy, Rhea Algarin and Astaria Naira!!
Overall the con was great! Some minor issues with the size, but guess what furs, you're still tiny compared to anime cons!
…
Now... for the ugly, which actually has happened post convention.
One of my friends, which until it has gone public I will keep the name private, is in the hospital for an extended amount of time. I'm very scared and hoping they will be alright and for now at least, they seem to be just relaxing uncomfortably in the bed. I am sending all my well wishes to them every night.
See you in 2019 at future events!!
LaurenRivers
~laurenrivers
Oh god that reg line. I swear... UGH. I don't know why the crowd control couldn't give a time estimate to us or why we couldn't have a better system like alphabet sections for every hour or something. If I'm spending 3.5 hours on a line or have reason to expect such I'd act accordingly and either bring supplies or come back later. I could've read my book. Both our legs hurt. What if we had to pee, or the folks that carried boomboxes? UGH. I was so mad at those people. I'm trapped on line and don't need your loud music or singing. Is there anything the con can do about that sort of thing? Is it worth sending them a message?
