MFF 2024 came and went last week. It certainly was an... interesting one. This year I roomed with Page and Soul at the Renaissance, which isn't one of the MFF block hotels.

--- Tuesday ---

Tuesday was just a day of finalising everything that I needed to do. I wasn't really under time crunch this year; I'd packed 95% of what I needed to pack early so it was just a day of waiting out the clock. Shops were first, to get last minute supplies; after that, I made notes to go along with the soldering iron doodles that I made for the folks I'd hoped to see and deliver 'em to. (Yes, I sometimes doodle on thermal paper with a soldering iron.)

I tried to go to bed immediately after dinner so I could wake up in time to catch the redeye out, but despite me slightly sleep-depriving myself the night prior, my body decided that 4 hours of sleep was all I needed.

Alas.

--- Wednesday ---

Wednesday was the travel day. Woke up just after midnight to leave at 05:15, so it was just a case of burning out the clock. Played games on my computer until around 04:00, then did final preparations. Shower, shave, shine, and double-check packing. I wound up shedding a lot of weight from the suitcase (hey, a scale tail and gauntlets are heavy, yo).

The drive itself was relatively uneventful - though trying to do the speed limit on roads with no drainage on a car needing new front tyres was a bit of a fun one. Nonetheless, I made it to the airport - if slightly later than I wanted to. I wanted to arrive around 07:00 and ended up getting there closer to 07:20. Of course, catching the start of rush-hour Houston traffic wasn't much help there, but it wasn't a huge loss since my flight left around 09:45.

...and on my way out the car, I forgot my rain slicker. Which is also a windbreaker.

Getting into Chicago, and getting off the el, was hell - and not because of traffic or transit scheduling or anything. It was hell because it was -9 Celsius there, coming from somewhere that it was positive 17 Celsius. And that wasn't helped by the fact that winds were 35 kph sustained, with gusts of 50 kph.

Page and Soul would arrive later that day, and of course, the obvious choice then was to stop by the food court for lunch.

We mostly just hung around the Hyatt and convention centre that day before heading back to the stateroom that night.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Travel's exhausting, yo.

--- Thursday ---

Thursday was even worse than Wednesda , clocking at -14 Celsius and gusts up to 70 kph. My electronic cigarette, which was fully charged when I went for morning smoko, fired four times before going into low-battery alarm. I literally got into stage-2 hypothermia that day because my trusty denim jacket + liner + base layer combo, which had served me well for the past five years, didn't cut it. I got so cold I literally stopped shivering.

So, when we headed down to food court for brekky, we stopped at a place called Mountain Warehouse for a better jacket. I didn't want to lose the distinctive look of the denim jacket, so I wound up wearing that as a jacket liner.

Again, that day, we mostly hung around the Hyatt and convention centre that day just to stay warm. Registration opened, and I went about an hour late to let the lines die down... that was defnitely a mistake. Even though I'd waited, the lines were still 40 minutes for main registration, and - since I was sponsor - it took even longer to navigate through the swag line.

But regular attendee reg was even worse. I went back with Page and Soul after dinner (to be the emotional support reptile), arriving closer to around 8. That line took us an hour and 20 to navigate. To the organisers' credit, it mostly stayed moving!

But immediately after that, we retired to the stateroom for the night. We were all on edge.

--- Friday ---

Friday was mostly uneventful. The weather had warmed up a bit, tickling the freezing mark, and at 15:00 I went over to the panel inkblitz hosts every year, Healthy Fursuiting. The panel was alright - learned a few things about how to be safe in fursuiting that I hadn't considered before, and even learned a couple of things about myself along the way.

From there, I hung around and took photos, until it was time to go to the top of the HRO for the sponsor reception.

It was... interesting. Like last year, I had my fill of dinner, and hit the open bar afterwards. Like always, my limit was two. This year, however, it was different: I am usually a seasonal drinker, and I have a fairly rigid calendar as to when I consume alcohol. I hadn't drank since at least August, so my alcohol tolerance was lower than I thought it was.

I got drunker than I thought I would, even after stopping at one-and-a-half.

Thankfully, Ink was close enough to be able to respond to my call that I'd need a handler, and while waiting for him, Page came 'round in search of food. So, while Page ate, Ink kept an eye on me.

Ink is still an absolute fucking legend and a saint, and Spots, if you're reading this, that's a hill I'll die on.

It took me the better part of 45 minutes to sober up, but after that, it was back at it for another round of photography. I went out in search for a meetup I was going to photograph, and found it relatively quickly - though I did pass it a few times. Took my photos, delivered a couple of things I intended to.

Not much notable happened after that - just the usual photography, and heading back to the stateroom to turn in for the night.

--- Saturday ---

Saturday is a blur.

Saturday was the first day it was warm enough not to use that windbreaker I'd bought and instead use the ol' reliable, and so it was. Went out to the sponsor brunch that morning (as usual, they didn't have hash browns...) and afterwards, met up with Page and Soul for a trip into the DD. I had some stuff I needed to get (a balaclava for racing, among other things) and Page wanted to visit the Adults Only section. I also needed to pick up my con shirt and polo (sponsor swag, yo) but forgot the rainchecks for them in the stateroom.

I remember going with Page (since they were too nervous to go solo) and then getting accosted by some dude who thought I looked like Lynyrd Skynyrd. I deflected, and they didn't clock that - which was the single point of stress for the con. It was so bad we had to retire to the stateroom pretty much immediately. I don't remember anything after that, though apparently I did go down and take photos later that night.

...Saturday was a blur.

--- Sunday ---

Sunday was a bit of a rushed day. I choked down brekky without even having time to sit and wait for Page and Soul to find a seat; the board meeting was at noon and we'd slept in slightly.

After the board meeting, I hung around the convention area trying to get photos, and ran into Dinghy on the way to VolOps. I'd needed to ask them about their socials anyway, so after taking the usual photos (and even letting someone who'd wanted a photo with Dinghy learn how to use a DSLR camera), I got the info I needed.

Up until that point, I had signed up to volunteer but hadn't yet. I couldn't do line wrangling, so I asked the person at the desk if they had anything where I could get my hands dirty. They knew just the thing, but it wouldn't be available for another half hour.

So, I smoked a bit to get my nicotine levels up (as I'd anticipated not being able to smoke for a few hours), I was off in the brown vest to help take down the Art Show. In three hours, we'd managed to transform the room from an art gallery into an empty room with a desk set up in the middle. Even I was impressed.

(I also got carded because I was needed in the adult section and the private security contractor was under orders to card everyone. Been a while since I've been carded.)

Afterwards, it was time for dinner, the last photos of the night, then Soul and I linked back up for the final walk from the HRO/DESCC back to the stateroom.

We wound up having a movie night that night, watching the sequel to Twister. It was a good film, definitely an inversion of the original. I liked it.

We did most of our packing afterwards, and hit the bed early.

--- Monday ---

Monday came, and it was time to inventory the stateroom and ensure everything was present and accounted for. At some point, the lens cap of my macro lens and an entire flash unit became unaccounted for, but thankfully the former is easily replaceable, and the latter was the one I don't really use all that often.

I was first to depart - my flight was scheduled for pushback at 14:25, so I wanted to get there by noon. The metro was a bit of a pain to navigate, but eventually I made it to the airport, got through security, and got back to Houston during rush hour traffic.

Made it home closer to 20:15, and just... checked out of everything.

--- Overview ---

This year's FurFest was... well, it was a thing that had happened. Between not even getting a room in the room lottery (and thus having to pick one a metro ride away) and trying to coordinate stuff with friends, it was stressful as hell. The con itself, felt mid at best.

I love FurFest, really, I do, but 17000 people (and that's just a ballpark from the board meeting about pre-reg only) in that little tiny area of the HRO? Yeah no that's way too many. My comfort zone is ballpark 9000-12000, and this exceeded that by a fair margin. Plus, everything keeps getting done later and later in the year, closer and closer to the convention. Room lottery was in late bloody October! That was less than two months to get all that sorted!

It's safe to say that I won't be back at MFF for the forseeable future, for both that and finances. This year - between travelling for a wedding in August and making the convention come December - really pushed my credit line to its limits, and it's going to take me at least a year to pay it down to a point where I'm comfortable enough conventioning again.

As far as other miscellany, this year Page, Soul and I tried Zello in lieu of Discord for on-site coordination, and that seemed to work a lot better than trying to push everything through Discord and hoping everything held up. Using Zello meant that our ability to communicate wasn't hampered by the regional Discord server being overloaded (as has happened) and comms were near-instant. We didn't need to waste time typing, it was all done by voice.

--- The Future ---

So what's next?

Really, I don't know. I am looking at Anthrocon, but I'm going to have to go through a career change before I can do that - you'd never get a 4th of July weekend off in the gaming/hospitality industry. MCFC is also a potential convention, as is FWA.

Time will tell...