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Anthrocon inbound =o
Posted 14 years agowheee, anthrocon is coming up again and Dana and I will be doing another face painting and prosthetics panel this year. Since there is another panel covering masks, prosthetics, and latex in part of the same time slot that I wasn't notified about until recently, I'm going to try and reduce mine down to an hour so people with interest in both can attend both.
My current panel is: Face and Body Painting and Costume Prosthetics
time: (currently) 10 am - 12pm on Saturday June 25th. (new time if approved) 10am - 11am
location: Westin - Pennsylvania Room (Westin, 2nd Floor)
link: http://anthrocon2011.sched.org/even.....bc7254d236ab48
look up all panels at: http://anthrocon2011.sched.org
My current panel is: Face and Body Painting and Costume Prosthetics
time: (currently) 10 am - 12pm on Saturday June 25th. (new time if approved) 10am - 11am
location: Westin - Pennsylvania Room (Westin, 2nd Floor)
link: http://anthrocon2011.sched.org/even.....bc7254d236ab48
look up all panels at: http://anthrocon2011.sched.org
FurFright 2009 is over, what a disappointment it was
Posted 16 years agoI’m probably going to be flamed over some of this, considering I rarely use journals and I’m using one to gripe about a con that is trying earnestly to give people a good time, but FurFright 2009 was several shades of lame I can’t begin to describe. The events were limited, the panels were dull, the vendors were less then plentiful, and there were several things I kept noticing. To review
Problems with Panels – while some seemed well natured, I went into a few where the hosts came in late without having anything setup, con staff came in and publicly bad mouthed the hotel staff, and then when the panel did start the hosts had about 5-10 minutes of content and were expecting audience participation to fill up the rest. Now I can forgive one or two of these things, there are delays, stress, etc. but having all 4 happen in one panel, and repeating in other panels was not good.
Staff members bashing the hotel - when I see someone with a staff badge bitching about the people that are hosting your convention, that falls under my realm of “things I should not hear” as a patron to an convention. Keep that behind closed doors, make a joke or two about it, and use it as material for horror stories next year AFTER you move the con. Negativity generated by other patrons happens, and should be managed, but when the people with authority generate it, the feeling is “why am I attending this” even if you’re right and if you’re trying to fix it.
Not enough events – This sort of falls under panels too, but there were very few events to engage the community as a whole. Most of the stuff was at night, which was alright when it happened but you sometimes need to mix sit down events with dancing events with other types of games. There were huge gaps where I was sitting with the girlfriend asking “what should we do now?” as they tried to setup the ballroom for the next event (there was no time setup in between on the schedule it seems). A lot of the time we spent wandering around meeting with people and looking at other’s outfits. The panels as mentioned before, had several setup issues, and there were very few of them (at most 2 going concurrently, most times only 1). The gaming room was ok, but the tournaments and no one making any short contests made it semi dull. There could have been more general contests (outside of the gaming rooms), something with an entry fee to go toward the charity auction and to help pay for whatever prize was given. Most of the events however were geared toward the nights, which was especially annoying when a lot of attendees were in an over flow hotel a couple miles away, nothing like driving back down town at midnight.
Not enough dealers – enough said. I’m sure they might have had more given a bigger room, or splitting it out into more rooms, but it was still small and didn’t have as much as I would liked. The artists’ alley up the hallway was also limited, and I felt bad when I heard a couple artists were bumped out for space. From the looks of it, it seems like the artists might have outnumbered the dealers as well. You wouldn’t have known you were in artists alley however given the space, and it seemed like any ghoster could have gotten down that hallway and gotten their commissions done, considering none of the staff were watching the hallway.
No meet and greet room – This was something I’ve found in every con I’ve gone to, whether it be official or unofficial, but at this one it was more of a clusterfuck of people in certain areas at time to time. Anthrocon had the den, conneticon had the food area right outside the LARP fighting arenas and right outside the convention hall. They did have a headless lounge, but that was made to be exclusive to fursuiters and their handlers. People would wander around the lobby, the main courtyard, and the bar, but there wasn’t much to that, and there were few places to adjust seats and bring everyone into a circle to discuss things.
I give credit to the FurFright staff for putting on the con and putting up with everything, but I really don’t see it worth my money to attend next year. 40 dollars to attend and 200 stacked on top of that for the hotel stay, not to mention food costs, makes me think I can get a sponsorship registration to something larger, especially when bringing a guest. Hopefully they improve on the venue and some of the logistics before next year.
Problems with Panels – while some seemed well natured, I went into a few where the hosts came in late without having anything setup, con staff came in and publicly bad mouthed the hotel staff, and then when the panel did start the hosts had about 5-10 minutes of content and were expecting audience participation to fill up the rest. Now I can forgive one or two of these things, there are delays, stress, etc. but having all 4 happen in one panel, and repeating in other panels was not good.
Staff members bashing the hotel - when I see someone with a staff badge bitching about the people that are hosting your convention, that falls under my realm of “things I should not hear” as a patron to an convention. Keep that behind closed doors, make a joke or two about it, and use it as material for horror stories next year AFTER you move the con. Negativity generated by other patrons happens, and should be managed, but when the people with authority generate it, the feeling is “why am I attending this” even if you’re right and if you’re trying to fix it.
Not enough events – This sort of falls under panels too, but there were very few events to engage the community as a whole. Most of the stuff was at night, which was alright when it happened but you sometimes need to mix sit down events with dancing events with other types of games. There were huge gaps where I was sitting with the girlfriend asking “what should we do now?” as they tried to setup the ballroom for the next event (there was no time setup in between on the schedule it seems). A lot of the time we spent wandering around meeting with people and looking at other’s outfits. The panels as mentioned before, had several setup issues, and there were very few of them (at most 2 going concurrently, most times only 1). The gaming room was ok, but the tournaments and no one making any short contests made it semi dull. There could have been more general contests (outside of the gaming rooms), something with an entry fee to go toward the charity auction and to help pay for whatever prize was given. Most of the events however were geared toward the nights, which was especially annoying when a lot of attendees were in an over flow hotel a couple miles away, nothing like driving back down town at midnight.
Not enough dealers – enough said. I’m sure they might have had more given a bigger room, or splitting it out into more rooms, but it was still small and didn’t have as much as I would liked. The artists’ alley up the hallway was also limited, and I felt bad when I heard a couple artists were bumped out for space. From the looks of it, it seems like the artists might have outnumbered the dealers as well. You wouldn’t have known you were in artists alley however given the space, and it seemed like any ghoster could have gotten down that hallway and gotten their commissions done, considering none of the staff were watching the hallway.
No meet and greet room – This was something I’ve found in every con I’ve gone to, whether it be official or unofficial, but at this one it was more of a clusterfuck of people in certain areas at time to time. Anthrocon had the den, conneticon had the food area right outside the LARP fighting arenas and right outside the convention hall. They did have a headless lounge, but that was made to be exclusive to fursuiters and their handlers. People would wander around the lobby, the main courtyard, and the bar, but there wasn’t much to that, and there were few places to adjust seats and bring everyone into a circle to discuss things.
I give credit to the FurFright staff for putting on the con and putting up with everything, but I really don’t see it worth my money to attend next year. 40 dollars to attend and 200 stacked on top of that for the hotel stay, not to mention food costs, makes me think I can get a sponsorship registration to something larger, especially when bringing a guest. Hopefully they improve on the venue and some of the logistics before next year.
Anthrocon!
Posted 16 years agoAnthrocon Anthrocon!
25 journals skipped
