Vivisector
Public Discourse => Other Topics => Topic started by: Kindrift on January 21, 2013, 12:28:16 am
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San Jose Convention Center, January 17-21, 2013. And now over.
A positive experience, it shows signs of improvement beyond last year's fairly minor fuckups (https://forums.vivisector.org:443/index.php?topic=575.0), and tacked on some 200 additional attendees. There were fursuiters. How many? Nobody but Larry cares, regardless the photoshoot was busier than years past.
Pre-registration was far improved from last year, cutting out the iMac bottleneck with (at last) pre-printed badges, though at-con registration remains unchanged: we're still forcing every registrant to sit down at one of four workstations to proceed. Do picture furries fatfingering the little Mac keyboards, four at a time, while working out their addresses and credit info. The line is short for a con this size, but it never moves.
Programming was solid, fewer rescheduling errors than the year previous. (The printed guide was invalidated only an hour before registration opened.) The spirituality track was gutted, as the experienced panelists had entirely moved away from giving them, leaving only the newbie who was still lost on his path of finding his inner mouse and was "just learning like the rest of you." Pokefurs was a good fun trainwreck of a meet and greet, led by someone with no interest in guiding it and a sex offender in a fursuit (https://forums.vivisector.org:443/index.php?topic=239.msg1927#msg1927) who never spoke. The Hypnotic Beast had deep complaints about getting shuffled into a smaller room for his infomercial, only $55 for a Skype call that'll make it all better. The writing track had been largely taken over by a panel of bad furry porn writers, wherin Kyell Gold wants to tell you how to remember the most generic characters in print. Matthew Ebel was back. Matthew Ebel is in demand at conventions, because he plays music at conventions, because conventions want him, inexplicably. Old white men were complaining about the number of fursuiters who'd dare take their heads off and break the ~magic~
The Hilton experience was improved with far lighter management than before, following a published announcement (http://www.furtherconfusion.org/content/2013/hiltonLetter.pdf) and sorta-apology after last year. Meanwhile the Marriott had some issues getting people into their rooms anywhere near check-in. Elevatorcon had a strong launch when the Marriott became horribly slammed with elevator problems, leading up to FLARE barricading the elevators. (Unconfirmed rumors suggest that the fire truck calls were elevator-related.) Mingle areas were still kinda hard to come by. We're starting to miss the free wifi offered at the previous hotels: tethering quality drops when so many furries (and teenage girls) get thrown into the same place. And yes, there was fake drama between the volleyball players and the furries.
The party floor was somewhat better, with more parties spreading the crowd around. Improved weather opened up the balcony, though very few parties were on the correct side of the building to open onto it. It's def. a party convention, the hashtag is flooded with intoxication and attendees were keeping the local EMTs busy. City police had set up checkpoints within the convention to screen for alcohol. Teenagers (in their mid and late 20s) came visibly loaded with cheap wine boxes, shit booze, and expensive ipod speakers.
The dances were abysmal. The convention absolutely needs to stop hiring fuckwits from Second Life: with con attendance above 3200 for the first time ever, nightly peak dance floor attendance around 50 is just embarrassing. The floor is definitely less crowded than it has been in years past, and Frolic (down the street, $10 cover charge, $5 for fursuiters) is drawing better crowds than the free inside dance event. There's brostep every night, DJs are mixing Skrillex to Deadmau5 to Skrillex to Deadmau5. DJs leave full minutes of slow to no-BPM drops between dancable segments, and don't actually mix beyond throwing airhorns into inappropriate places. The floor regularly goes still. The only people who seem to be really enjoying this are the DJs, his friends, and a small child in Renamon pajamas. More attendees were having fun outside the main stage than inside. The convention really needs to dump the @furtherecord morass, pick out the few good DJs from it and from the community, let them self-promote, and go back to having themed nights. This shit peaked at the Fairmont, where floor numbers were 3-4 times better, despite having 500 fewer people at the con.
Prawst status: still not funny.
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This was in fact a pretty decent con. I feel like I got to observe a reasonable cross-section of furries in their native habitat. In between bouts of dealing plain old playing cards at people for no reason, I performed my duties as a member of the Monolithic Anti-Furry Conspiracy; seeing fursuiters get into an argument with people about the meaning of 'staff only' signs was a particular treat.
Particular highlights in no particular order:
- The 'adult dragon' panel had a lovely 30 minute delay, only to start with a bunch of slides full of LOLCATS XD ROFL OMG. When it got to the Twilight slide, I got up and left, without seeing a single dragondick. If I cared, I'd say something about false advertisement.
- The Pokéfur panel evidently never got out of the "let's go around the room and do introductions!" stage, seeing as it was what was still going on when VivCorp representatives rolled in an hour late. They were really sad when I passed up the opportunity to introduce myself — "Awww, now we can't get a perfect score for 'enthusiasm' on our survey! :(". Really, I should've gone off about being a MISSINGNO, but I didn't have it in me.
- "The Hypnotic Beast" put up (easily-vandalized) advertisements for a combination "become-your-fursona" (ugh) hypnosis scene and unsubtle car-salesman-like pitch to buy more hypnosis. At the panel, one of the people in the room started snoring during the "talk about your fursona" (ugh) stage, and never stopped.
- "Hey! Random person! Can I have a hug???" "No."
- The Brony panel was basically a live podcast, to steal Kindrift's phrasing, and would have been much improved with a laugh-track. I might try and find some video to work with towards that end.
- I had a huge batch of stereotypical con experiences that nobody actually cares about: meeting internet-famous people (hi GreenReaper!), having an awkward "oh, you're a $SPECIES? Me too!" conversation, seeing people with characters that are clearly born of the escapist-fantasy mindset that permeates furry, yelling at idiots standing in high-traffic doorways (that sort of thing).
My biggest gripe: even though the thing is 5 days long, there are simply not 5 days worth of convention. I know a few people on staff, and by the end of the con they were utterly fried. It would probably be less stressful on staff if the con were officially scheduled for one fewer day, and it would avoid the large gaping blank spots on the schedules (Counterpoint: those gaps are to be read as "hangover-recovery time")
From what I've heard, the Marriott really shit the bed on getting people into their rooms in a timely fashion — reportedly, rooms that were preregistered well in advance were not actually ready on the day of the convention, resulting in multi-hour waits between checking in and getting room keys. You'd think that the hotel would be prepared for an event of this magnitude, seeing as they've done this before. There was also a bit of noise about the volleyball convention that was booked simultaneously with the con, but I didn't really pay much attention to that.
Finally, have a sample of Twitter posts hashtagged with FC2013:
(http://www.vivisector.org/fc2013/drunk.png)
(http://www.vivisector.org/fc2013/airhorn.png)
(http://www.vivisector.org/fc2013/pokefurs.png)
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The adult dragon panel also included very helpful advice from popular dragon artists, including the fact that you should draw dragons all loose, like they're "going to fall apart any minute."
The hypnotic beast's media blitz must have paid off because now everyone knows that one picture on his business card where his shirtless lion is jizzing across the universe.
Those volleyball girls LOVE fursuits. They couldn't get enough of them. They all wanted their photos taken with one.
Everyone knows that the only worthwhile panel was the SHOW panel, though. I hear that it was quite brilliant!
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A couple videos (http://youtu.be/0iHQkjzv0mQ) from the Sunday dance (http://youtu.be/FNj1kMhm3TQ). Goddamn action packed nothing.
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Two more minor amusements:
Last year, the con made special keycards with rape otter pictures by Adam Wam, but apparently failed to check that the Hilton hotel uses key slots of an irregular size. So the useless rape otter keycards were just given away as free swag. The same thing happened this year, because, I guess, they forgot that the hotel still uses the same irregular sized keycards as it did last year.
Egypt-Urnash, despite having "gracefully outgrown the fandom" last year, was back and hosting panels on something or other. HAR HAR HAR.
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Egypt-Urnash, despite having "gracefully outgrown the fandom" last year, was back and hosting panels on something or other. HAR HAR HAR.
Egypt Urnash doesn't identify as a furry, not exactly. She's conflicted about it—in some ways, she's growing out of the fandom, in others, she is still a part of it.
Video game journalism. (http://kotaku.com/5978236/my-weekend-at-a-furry-convention)
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egypturnash is also a member of the community MetaFilter, and in the metafilter discussion on the Kotaku article (http://www.metafilter.com/124199/My-Weekend-At-A-Furry-Convention) she shows up on metafilter to say:
"And I guess, well, I'm a lady who draws furries sometimes and sells stuff at furry cons regularly. AMA."
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Pokéfurs spent a lot of time during introductions (including the fursuiter) talking back and forth about the various games (video/card) and anime. For someone who attended without actually having a Pokémon character or having played any of the games, it was mildly informative. The title was Pokéfurs, not Pokémon, so at least it wasn't misnamed. I left early to try out the Dessert Social, but since it was InTheOtherCastle I got there 20 minutes after the start, by which time they were out of everything but cookies. Shame they weren't rocking like 2007 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenreaper/2363277018/in/set-72157604255518042), but I guess they have to cut back on costs given the last two events made a loss.
Someone stole my DSLR while I was petting bunnies, which I was rather disappointed about, though I should have known better than to leave it on my chair in an open room. Overall a fun time, though - kept running into people (hi Pi!) and had some good chats. And hey, I made $300 on the trip home getting bumped off my connection in Denver, which covered the cost of my flights and then some.
There were fursuiters. How many? Nobody but Larry cares
I counted 589 in the parade, 29 more than the official count - but some may have come back for another go around the end.
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Pokéfurs spent a lot of time during introductions (including the fursuiter) talking back and forth about the various games (video/card) and anime.
How did you endure an hour of introductions? I guess the panel fulfilled its goals as stated in the conbook, but if the short time I was there was at all representative, the panelists would just let anyone drone on for however long they wished. Kinda defeats the purpose of having moderators in the first place.
There were fursuiters. How many? Nobody but Larry cares
I counted 589 in the parade, 29 more than the official count - but some may have come back for another go around the end.
I'm glad we can rely on you for the fascinatingly inane trivia. Next time, try not to double-count.
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Egypt-Urnash, despite having "gracefully outgrown the fandom" last year, was back and hosting panels on something or other. HAR HAR HAR.
Egypt Urnash doesn't identify as a furry, not exactly. She's conflicted about it—in some ways, she's growing out of the fandom, in others, she is still a part of it.
So she's a furry.
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As I sit here feeling very cruddy, I really question the logic of bringing 4000 hygiene challenged, touchy-feely individuals together to party in close quarters, during the peak of flu season.
That said, I feel like the FC weekend is a great way to kick off the year with a bang, to celebrate the end of the stupid "holiday season" and it's something I definitely have been looking forward to for some time.
This year's FC did seem a lot more subdued than last year, though I can't put my finger on exactly why... like who exactly it was that didn't show up.
I was a bit surprised seeing the volleyball people, expecting them (at least some of the parents) to request "any weekend as long as it's NOT THE FUR CON WEEKEND..." for their tournament.
I arrived sort-of late and the Marriott could not honor my room reservation, which I had made half a year in advance. They were actually pretty embarrassed about it and it actually worked out OK because they offered to completely refund any of my money they had on deposit, and they put us up in a nice room in the St. Claire, for the remainder of the con, for free! I'm definitely very happy with the Marriott hotel for doing this but I really wonder what their issues were if this happened to other people too.
Some guy carrying around a box of wine and wearing vibrating gloves kept trying to touch me inappropriately in the Marriott jacuzzi.
I could probably count the number of female attendees I saw on one hand.
They had a go at elevator management this year, which I think was a good idea, but it seemed poorly handled, with different FLARE staffers seeming to have vastly different ideas on how to run it, where to route the line, how many handlers should accompany a fursuiter in the fursuiter line and exactly where to draw the line on what is or isn't considered a fursuit, for elevator priviliges. I'm not sure why the Hilton didn't suffer this problem, other than the number of furries who didn't want to stay there after last year.
For 2 years in a row now, I've made the mistake of missing panels I wanted to see, because they were early on Friday, and sticking around on Monday when there is absolutely nothing happening (besides people checking out).
But in the end I had a lot of fun. See you next year, San Jose!