Giza aka Douglas Muth's LiveJournal

I can't believe I forgot to write more details about my trip to Furry Connection North!

For the impatient, my full archive of pictures can be found on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmuth/sets/72157604580955859/

I flew in on Wednesday night, so I could help out with setup on Thursday. For those of you reading this who have never been to a furry convention before, people tend to arrive early and stay late. So we did setup on Thursday morning to prepare for folks arriving as early as Thursday evening:



As the con started to fill up on Thursday and into Friday, we got the con suite and the "Pimp Suite" up and running. There were plenty of things to munch on, with beer for those over the age of 21:



The layout of the hotel consisted of an atrium with a large central area where attendees could congregate, similar to The Zoo at Anthrocon:



Registration was at the set of long tables that were off to the side of the area. And for those of you were who in that area and saw a wireless network with the SSID of Cheetahs Are Chewtoys? That was my doing. You're welcome.

Let's talk about the dances for a minute. The dances absolutely rocked. With laser lights and fog, they were lots of fun:



I was working on security at this convention, so I didn't get to drop in on as many panels or performances as I would have liked, but I made a few, including Branwyn's performance, and the "Science and Pseudoscience" panel. I didn't get to make all of Uncle Kage's Story Hour, but I did get to "buzz" the Story Hour halfway through with some of the other Dorsai Irregulars. 5 of us just walked in the back, single file, and stood there. This was enough to derail his train of thought and cause him to blurt out, "OMG it's the Dorsai Irregulars!"

On Sunday afternoon, there were fursuit games, held in the open area in the atrium. There was a turnout of 20 or so fursuiters:



One of the things that I liked about working this convention was that the folks running it had the attitude of, "Get the hard work done, THEN party". So when Sunday evening came around, partying was something we did:




Overall, the con went great! The hotel staff were awesome, as were the convention staff. Everyone had a job to do, and they went about doing it. No attitudes, no infighting, just hard work all around. And that's how a successful con happens.

The final attendance of the convention was 372 attendees. This is a record for a first year furry convention held in a new city, and is something that we can all be proud of.

If there's one thing that could be improved on, it would be the temperature of some of the hotel rooms. That was pretty much the only significant complaint we had. And it will be addressed for next year's Furry Connection North. :-)

Our Guest of Honor (Latin Vixen) seemed to enjoy the convention too:

This is the shortened version. A more detailed report and pictures will follow in a week or so.

DAMN I had a good time there! That was one of the best well-run conventions I have seen in a long time. I tip my beret to girtygrin, 2_gryphon, nikvulper, Jibba, Gerret, Ed Hyena, Basil, and all the other staff who worked hard, got things done, made this into a most excellent convention experience.

Did I mention that this was a first year con? The fact that it went that smoothly makes their achievement even more outstanding.

My rating: A+++ Would definitely do business with again.