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Unpacking DenFur 2021
4 years ago
I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
I'm still sorting through my thoughts and feelings about the convention, but I'll go ahead and try making more sense of them at this time.
THURSDAY
Got off of work at 5 PM and started packing up. Had to bring clothes, Covid 19 vaccination card, liability waiver, backpack, water bottle, toothbrush, toothpaste, laptop, Nintendo Switch with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, dice, Magic the Gathering Commander decks, Magic the Gathering Standard and Modern decks, and the Magic the Gathering Draft Booster packs for the two draft events I was running. Had dinner at home, then grabbed some masks, made sure everything was in the car, and then headed out. Took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half to get to downtown Denver, then lost at least 20 more minutes by overshooting the turn to the hotel. Got checked in, took everything up to my room, and went down to pick up my badge. Fortunately that took only about an hour and a half, because I had purchased a Patron level badge last year (the convention was going to fall on the weekend with my birthday, so it was going to be my present to myself before the pandemic occurred,) so I was able to get into the Sponsor/Patron line. However, they didn't have my badge ready because I had transferred my badge from last year, so they had to print one. This would be a problem because they ended up printing it on an Attendee level badge.
FRIDAY
I'm not sure I got more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep that night, between noisy neighbors and waking up every few hours. Had some not very good Starbucks coffee in the room. Went down to have breakfast in the Sponsor lounge. Had some bread, some potatoes, some sort of egg dish I can't seem to remember, and a doughnut. I went back to my room and played some Animal Crossing for a while before going back down for Opening Ceremonies. That ended up being delayed. Plus, there was a line to get in. They did create a new line for Sponsors and Patrons, so that got me in sooner, but they still didn't open the event until noon. I tried getting some pictures with my new GoPro, but it clearly is not really meant to be a picture camera, so I don't think that turned out well. Still, I was able to record the Opening Ceremonies on my camcorder, so I'll have to upload that later.
I think I looked around the Artist's Alley for a bit and then went back to the Main Events room for Furry Themed Game Shows. That was fairly fun to watch. I then went back to the Sponsor's Lounge, where I ended up catching flack for having an Attendee level badge. I had to pull out my phone and show my receipt for my ticket to get in, only to find out that lunch had already ended. The convention website had listed lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge as lasting from 1 PM to 3 PM, but the schedule posted and in the con book only had it from 1 PM to 2 PM, so there was little food left. I was able to grab a soft pretzel with mustard and a green apple.
I think I went to the Dealer's Den mostly just to check things out. Wasn't sure what I was going to be buying yet, but there were a lot of interesting looking things. I also took a look around the Artist's Alley. Ended up chatting with Yudy and Lockjaw for a bit. I was planning on checking out the Corgi Events Meme Hour, but that got delayed as well, so I went back to the Dealer's Den instead and ordered a badge from Bitters and bought some prints and book 1 of Slightly Damned from Raizap. I was able to speak with Newlyn, one of the directors, who told me I should go back to Registration to get my badge sorted out. I did that, and this time they did print a Patron level badge for me, although they got my name wrong this time. I then went to Cassidy Civet's concert, which was pretty good. I ended up buying their CD.
I had planned on going to the showing of The Fandom, but considering I already had it on Blue Ray from the Kickstarter, I went to the panel on Pickup Gaming instead. That was fairly interesting, although I don't know if I would ever really have time at conventions to get into tabletop roleplaying games. I was pretty hungry when that wrapped up, so I went across the street from the hotel to a place selling empanadas and got two spinach and cheese empanadas. I went back and sat in on Foxene's Tattoo 101 panel. After that, I chatted with Mikey, who introduced me to his roommate Skye, and ended up playing some Magic the Gathering with him. Afterwards, he went to meet with a friend of his. I was thinking of checking out one of the later panels, but there didn't seem to be anyone there, so I decided to call it a night.
SATURDAY
I don't think I got more than 6 hours of sleep that night either. Had some more bad Starbucks coffee in my room. I went down the street to a diner called The Delectable Egg for breakfast. I ended up ordering a Denver Omelette, which turned out to be an omelette with ham, cheese, and peppers. Afterwards, I decided to check out something I had seen fliers for around the convention. The people in Room 302 were hosting Saturday Morning Cartoons in their room, which seemed like fun. They had cereal, Pop-Tarts, milk, and coffee available, although I didn't feel like having anything. It was fairly chill. Ended up watching an episode of SWAT Cats, which I had never seen before, an episode of TaleSpin, which I may have seen on ABC in the 90s, an episode of The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which I had seen some of when our family moved to Colorado Springs and we were staying in a hotel, and an episode of Jungle Cubs, which I also had never seen before.
After that, I went back down to the convention for the Animal Crossing Furs panel, which ended up being a bunch of people just playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I tried to find any open islands on local play, but it didn't look like anyone had their island open, so I opened my island up. I ended up getting two visitors, which was neat. I went for lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge. I think I ended up having some salad, a hummus wrap, and some soup. After that, I think I went back to the Artist's Alley, and ended up purchasing a pendant from Lockjaw, then went back up to my room to get ready for the Magic the Gathering Strixhaven draft I was going to be running.
So, every time I leave the house, I seem to forget something, usually something important. It turns out I had forgotten to pack the basic lands I was planning on using for the draft. I thought maybe I could pull basic lands out of my decks, and maybe make proxies if I didn't have enough. I took everything down to the event, expecting for it to be a complete disaster. Luckily, it turned out some other attendees were planning on running a Magic the Gathering draft of their own, and they allowed me to use their basic lands, which they had brought a lot of. Still, there were way more people than I had expected. I was able to provide support for 12 players and the other group was running Commander Legends, which meant they could support 8 players, but we still had to turn people away. But it seems everyone who got to play had a good time. Plus, I asked people in my draft to make a $10 donation to the convention charity, Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, if they wanted to keep the cards they drafted. We ended up raising $100 for the charity on that event.
After that, it was time for the Patron dinner, although I had to run everything up to my room first. Of course, once I got there, I learned that I had not been provided a ticket for the dinner at registration. So I had to go back to registration and ask them to give me a ticket, which they did. I went back and was able to get in. I ended up having some salad, couscous, chicken with artichoke, and some sort of chocolate cherry thing for dessert.
I was starting to get tired, but I stuck around for the Adult Improv with the Unmentionables panel. They tend to be funny and they were on point that night. I was planning on attending Foxene's second tattoo panel that night, but I was so exhausted after everything, so I just went back to my room for that night.
SUNDAY
I think I may have gotten 7 hours of sleep that night, because I woke up feeling good. Had more bad Starbucks coffee in the room, then walked about a mile to have breakfast at Sam's No. 3 Downtown. I ended up having two eggs over easy with sausage links, potatoes, whole grain toast, and a glass of orange juice. Went back and purchased a print, a deck of cards, and a grab bag from Foxene's table, along with some soap from Carambella Creations in the Artist's Alley. I then sat in on the Tech Furs panel, which was kind of interesting. I'm currently working in tech support, but I'm not very happy with it, so connecting with other tech furries seems like a good idea.
I went back to the Dealer's Den afterwards to pick up my badge from Bitters. I then went to the Magic the Gathering Commander event RitzBitz was running. I tried out my Slimefoot the Stowaway deck, but got stomped by Bird Wizards and Dinosaurs. I ended up not winning anything in the raffle either, so I left to get lunch. There was a lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge, but it seems I missed it again, so I went down the street to Subway and had a sweet onion chicken teriyaki sandwich with chips and root beer. I went back and made some more purchases in the Dealer's Den. I got some books from Fenris Publishing, who had a selection of materials from SofaWolf, Rabbit Valley, their own stuff, and some volumes of Beastars as well. I also purchased a balaclava from Fursuit Supplies, as I'm wondering if that will work with my mask piece. I also purchased a CD from Avian Invasion, since I'm a sucker for music. And I purchased two pins from Sherbert Jungle, one of a Croconana, and one of a Plancaiman.
After that, I went back up to my room to get everything for the Throne of Eldraine booster draft and started setting up a half hour before the event this time. The people from yesterday were back, because they were also doing a Time Spiral Remastered draft on the side. We ended up having 6 people in the Throne of Eldraine draft and 6 people in the Time Spiral Remastered draft. It was much less stressful, probably because there were not as many people to handle and because we had a plan in place. Plus, it helped that everyone had a good time. We ended up raising $70 for Tenacious Unicorn Ranch that day, as we had a last minute donation added from Saturday.
After that, I took everything back up and came back down for Closing Ceremonies. I was able to record that one as well, so I'll have to upload and edit that. Afterwards, I went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I ended up having one of their Legendary burgers, which was pretty good. I went back to my room for a bit. It turned out one of my noisy neighbors was hosting a room party, so I checked that out. It wasn't really my thing, though, so I left after half an hour and went back to my room for the night.
MONDAY
I wouldn't normally bother with Monday, since the convention was over at that point, but I felt this deserved notice. I went to have breakfast at a coffee shop, and when I pulled out my wallet to pay for the meal, I found that I had lost one of my credit cards. My best guess is I left it at Hard Rock Cafe, because that was the last time I had used it, but I could have dropped it at the room party. So that massively upset me. I was upset for pretty much the entire drive home. I ended up having to deactivate that card and having my account transferred to a new card number.
So, that was it for DenFur. For the most part, the convention was fine. But I realize my experience is majorly different from most peoples. I saw the massive lines on Thursday night and most of Friday, and I did hear about the person who reported being in line for 7 hours. Fortunately, the convention was apparently able to speed up the line at some point. I'm not sure what they did that was causing it to take so much time, especially since there was no at-con registration this year because of the pandemic. At least they should have a better time next year.
I also learned a lot trying to run two drafts at the convention. If I want to try another draft event next year, there are some things I will have to take into consideration:
1. I can't realistically do this on my own. It helped that some of the people on Saturday volunteered to act as judges and helped with the draft, which made that day go more smoothly for me, and Sunday was relaxed enough that I was able to handle the event, but I clearly need to find more support if I want to do this again.
2. I may only want to run one draft per convention. That way, I can concentrate resource into the event, which should let me accommodate more people. Plus, with the same amount of resources, I could run up to 3 pods at once, allowing me to manage 24 players at the same time. There were about that many people at the Strixhaven draft, so that might be the ideal amount of resources to invest in the draft.
3. I will probably need to petition the convention for additional time and resources. The Strixhaven draft was scheduled for 2 hours, which was barely enough to get through the draft and the first round. The Throne of Eldraine draft was scheduled for 2 and a half hours, which at least let some people get through 2 rounds. The round tables, while good for drafting, were not great for playing at with 12 people. We ended up having to move one of the panel tables to accommodate everyone. Plus, I probably could have used the projector with my laptop to display a timer, so I could have put time limits on drafting, deck building, and on rounds.
4. I definitely need to have players sign up before hand. Having people sign up for Throne of Eldraine at the Strixhaven event allowed me to prepare a bit better for that, and we may have been able to better anticipate for the Strixhaven draft if players could sign up for that before the event.
It's giving me a lot to think about. I'm just not certain there's any sets that will match with the theme for the convention next year. The theme being Quest for the Holy Grail this year made Throne of Eldraine a practically perfect fit. Next year's theme being Furries in Wonderland doesn't map too well to Magic the Gathering. I'll put some more thought into it as the year progresses.
But yeah, overall the convention was fine. Hopefully the lessons learned from this year will make next year much better.
THURSDAY
Got off of work at 5 PM and started packing up. Had to bring clothes, Covid 19 vaccination card, liability waiver, backpack, water bottle, toothbrush, toothpaste, laptop, Nintendo Switch with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, dice, Magic the Gathering Commander decks, Magic the Gathering Standard and Modern decks, and the Magic the Gathering Draft Booster packs for the two draft events I was running. Had dinner at home, then grabbed some masks, made sure everything was in the car, and then headed out. Took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half to get to downtown Denver, then lost at least 20 more minutes by overshooting the turn to the hotel. Got checked in, took everything up to my room, and went down to pick up my badge. Fortunately that took only about an hour and a half, because I had purchased a Patron level badge last year (the convention was going to fall on the weekend with my birthday, so it was going to be my present to myself before the pandemic occurred,) so I was able to get into the Sponsor/Patron line. However, they didn't have my badge ready because I had transferred my badge from last year, so they had to print one. This would be a problem because they ended up printing it on an Attendee level badge.
FRIDAY
I'm not sure I got more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep that night, between noisy neighbors and waking up every few hours. Had some not very good Starbucks coffee in the room. Went down to have breakfast in the Sponsor lounge. Had some bread, some potatoes, some sort of egg dish I can't seem to remember, and a doughnut. I went back to my room and played some Animal Crossing for a while before going back down for Opening Ceremonies. That ended up being delayed. Plus, there was a line to get in. They did create a new line for Sponsors and Patrons, so that got me in sooner, but they still didn't open the event until noon. I tried getting some pictures with my new GoPro, but it clearly is not really meant to be a picture camera, so I don't think that turned out well. Still, I was able to record the Opening Ceremonies on my camcorder, so I'll have to upload that later.
I think I looked around the Artist's Alley for a bit and then went back to the Main Events room for Furry Themed Game Shows. That was fairly fun to watch. I then went back to the Sponsor's Lounge, where I ended up catching flack for having an Attendee level badge. I had to pull out my phone and show my receipt for my ticket to get in, only to find out that lunch had already ended. The convention website had listed lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge as lasting from 1 PM to 3 PM, but the schedule posted and in the con book only had it from 1 PM to 2 PM, so there was little food left. I was able to grab a soft pretzel with mustard and a green apple.
I think I went to the Dealer's Den mostly just to check things out. Wasn't sure what I was going to be buying yet, but there were a lot of interesting looking things. I also took a look around the Artist's Alley. Ended up chatting with Yudy and Lockjaw for a bit. I was planning on checking out the Corgi Events Meme Hour, but that got delayed as well, so I went back to the Dealer's Den instead and ordered a badge from Bitters and bought some prints and book 1 of Slightly Damned from Raizap. I was able to speak with Newlyn, one of the directors, who told me I should go back to Registration to get my badge sorted out. I did that, and this time they did print a Patron level badge for me, although they got my name wrong this time. I then went to Cassidy Civet's concert, which was pretty good. I ended up buying their CD.
I had planned on going to the showing of The Fandom, but considering I already had it on Blue Ray from the Kickstarter, I went to the panel on Pickup Gaming instead. That was fairly interesting, although I don't know if I would ever really have time at conventions to get into tabletop roleplaying games. I was pretty hungry when that wrapped up, so I went across the street from the hotel to a place selling empanadas and got two spinach and cheese empanadas. I went back and sat in on Foxene's Tattoo 101 panel. After that, I chatted with Mikey, who introduced me to his roommate Skye, and ended up playing some Magic the Gathering with him. Afterwards, he went to meet with a friend of his. I was thinking of checking out one of the later panels, but there didn't seem to be anyone there, so I decided to call it a night.
SATURDAY
I don't think I got more than 6 hours of sleep that night either. Had some more bad Starbucks coffee in my room. I went down the street to a diner called The Delectable Egg for breakfast. I ended up ordering a Denver Omelette, which turned out to be an omelette with ham, cheese, and peppers. Afterwards, I decided to check out something I had seen fliers for around the convention. The people in Room 302 were hosting Saturday Morning Cartoons in their room, which seemed like fun. They had cereal, Pop-Tarts, milk, and coffee available, although I didn't feel like having anything. It was fairly chill. Ended up watching an episode of SWAT Cats, which I had never seen before, an episode of TaleSpin, which I may have seen on ABC in the 90s, an episode of The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which I had seen some of when our family moved to Colorado Springs and we were staying in a hotel, and an episode of Jungle Cubs, which I also had never seen before.
After that, I went back down to the convention for the Animal Crossing Furs panel, which ended up being a bunch of people just playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I tried to find any open islands on local play, but it didn't look like anyone had their island open, so I opened my island up. I ended up getting two visitors, which was neat. I went for lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge. I think I ended up having some salad, a hummus wrap, and some soup. After that, I think I went back to the Artist's Alley, and ended up purchasing a pendant from Lockjaw, then went back up to my room to get ready for the Magic the Gathering Strixhaven draft I was going to be running.
So, every time I leave the house, I seem to forget something, usually something important. It turns out I had forgotten to pack the basic lands I was planning on using for the draft. I thought maybe I could pull basic lands out of my decks, and maybe make proxies if I didn't have enough. I took everything down to the event, expecting for it to be a complete disaster. Luckily, it turned out some other attendees were planning on running a Magic the Gathering draft of their own, and they allowed me to use their basic lands, which they had brought a lot of. Still, there were way more people than I had expected. I was able to provide support for 12 players and the other group was running Commander Legends, which meant they could support 8 players, but we still had to turn people away. But it seems everyone who got to play had a good time. Plus, I asked people in my draft to make a $10 donation to the convention charity, Tenacious Unicorn Ranch, if they wanted to keep the cards they drafted. We ended up raising $100 for the charity on that event.
After that, it was time for the Patron dinner, although I had to run everything up to my room first. Of course, once I got there, I learned that I had not been provided a ticket for the dinner at registration. So I had to go back to registration and ask them to give me a ticket, which they did. I went back and was able to get in. I ended up having some salad, couscous, chicken with artichoke, and some sort of chocolate cherry thing for dessert.
I was starting to get tired, but I stuck around for the Adult Improv with the Unmentionables panel. They tend to be funny and they were on point that night. I was planning on attending Foxene's second tattoo panel that night, but I was so exhausted after everything, so I just went back to my room for that night.
SUNDAY
I think I may have gotten 7 hours of sleep that night, because I woke up feeling good. Had more bad Starbucks coffee in the room, then walked about a mile to have breakfast at Sam's No. 3 Downtown. I ended up having two eggs over easy with sausage links, potatoes, whole grain toast, and a glass of orange juice. Went back and purchased a print, a deck of cards, and a grab bag from Foxene's table, along with some soap from Carambella Creations in the Artist's Alley. I then sat in on the Tech Furs panel, which was kind of interesting. I'm currently working in tech support, but I'm not very happy with it, so connecting with other tech furries seems like a good idea.
I went back to the Dealer's Den afterwards to pick up my badge from Bitters. I then went to the Magic the Gathering Commander event RitzBitz was running. I tried out my Slimefoot the Stowaway deck, but got stomped by Bird Wizards and Dinosaurs. I ended up not winning anything in the raffle either, so I left to get lunch. There was a lunch in the Sponsor's Lounge, but it seems I missed it again, so I went down the street to Subway and had a sweet onion chicken teriyaki sandwich with chips and root beer. I went back and made some more purchases in the Dealer's Den. I got some books from Fenris Publishing, who had a selection of materials from SofaWolf, Rabbit Valley, their own stuff, and some volumes of Beastars as well. I also purchased a balaclava from Fursuit Supplies, as I'm wondering if that will work with my mask piece. I also purchased a CD from Avian Invasion, since I'm a sucker for music. And I purchased two pins from Sherbert Jungle, one of a Croconana, and one of a Plancaiman.
After that, I went back up to my room to get everything for the Throne of Eldraine booster draft and started setting up a half hour before the event this time. The people from yesterday were back, because they were also doing a Time Spiral Remastered draft on the side. We ended up having 6 people in the Throne of Eldraine draft and 6 people in the Time Spiral Remastered draft. It was much less stressful, probably because there were not as many people to handle and because we had a plan in place. Plus, it helped that everyone had a good time. We ended up raising $70 for Tenacious Unicorn Ranch that day, as we had a last minute donation added from Saturday.
After that, I took everything back up and came back down for Closing Ceremonies. I was able to record that one as well, so I'll have to upload and edit that. Afterwards, I went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I ended up having one of their Legendary burgers, which was pretty good. I went back to my room for a bit. It turned out one of my noisy neighbors was hosting a room party, so I checked that out. It wasn't really my thing, though, so I left after half an hour and went back to my room for the night.
MONDAY
I wouldn't normally bother with Monday, since the convention was over at that point, but I felt this deserved notice. I went to have breakfast at a coffee shop, and when I pulled out my wallet to pay for the meal, I found that I had lost one of my credit cards. My best guess is I left it at Hard Rock Cafe, because that was the last time I had used it, but I could have dropped it at the room party. So that massively upset me. I was upset for pretty much the entire drive home. I ended up having to deactivate that card and having my account transferred to a new card number.
So, that was it for DenFur. For the most part, the convention was fine. But I realize my experience is majorly different from most peoples. I saw the massive lines on Thursday night and most of Friday, and I did hear about the person who reported being in line for 7 hours. Fortunately, the convention was apparently able to speed up the line at some point. I'm not sure what they did that was causing it to take so much time, especially since there was no at-con registration this year because of the pandemic. At least they should have a better time next year.
I also learned a lot trying to run two drafts at the convention. If I want to try another draft event next year, there are some things I will have to take into consideration:
1. I can't realistically do this on my own. It helped that some of the people on Saturday volunteered to act as judges and helped with the draft, which made that day go more smoothly for me, and Sunday was relaxed enough that I was able to handle the event, but I clearly need to find more support if I want to do this again.
2. I may only want to run one draft per convention. That way, I can concentrate resource into the event, which should let me accommodate more people. Plus, with the same amount of resources, I could run up to 3 pods at once, allowing me to manage 24 players at the same time. There were about that many people at the Strixhaven draft, so that might be the ideal amount of resources to invest in the draft.
3. I will probably need to petition the convention for additional time and resources. The Strixhaven draft was scheduled for 2 hours, which was barely enough to get through the draft and the first round. The Throne of Eldraine draft was scheduled for 2 and a half hours, which at least let some people get through 2 rounds. The round tables, while good for drafting, were not great for playing at with 12 people. We ended up having to move one of the panel tables to accommodate everyone. Plus, I probably could have used the projector with my laptop to display a timer, so I could have put time limits on drafting, deck building, and on rounds.
4. I definitely need to have players sign up before hand. Having people sign up for Throne of Eldraine at the Strixhaven event allowed me to prepare a bit better for that, and we may have been able to better anticipate for the Strixhaven draft if players could sign up for that before the event.
It's giving me a lot to think about. I'm just not certain there's any sets that will match with the theme for the convention next year. The theme being Quest for the Holy Grail this year made Throne of Eldraine a practically perfect fit. Next year's theme being Furries in Wonderland doesn't map too well to Magic the Gathering. I'll put some more thought into it as the year progresses.
But yeah, overall the convention was fine. Hopefully the lessons learned from this year will make next year much better.
