Okay, I'll finally give it a try.
It is amazing how long it takes to get everything together, despite having prepared it for the last couple of weeks. Well, it took four hours in this case.
Packed my car and arrived at the con location at 11 am, unpacked the car there, mostly stuff for the fursuit lounge, pawpet show, the SIG, press stuff and of course my personal luggage. I parked my car almost one kilometer away and asked the postal office of my employer whether the T-shirts had arrived (they hadn't at that time.) In the meantime, the light and sound equipment had arrived from the rental company and we unloaded their van.
Afterwards Foxy and I took Nightfox' van and went shopping: 26 pegboards, 100 roof battens, 1000 screws, 40 eyelets, 1 shelf, 1 TV, 6 DAT tapes, 5 DV tapes, 2 stereo cinch female-female adaptors. On the way back to the youth hostel I took a look wheter the T-shirts finally had arrived. They had. In five heavy cardboard boxes. Additionally, I grabbed a ventilator from my office and we drove all the stuff back to the castle.
Uppon return, we from the pawpet crew started to build the background area of the stage. Due to the shortage of ladders we weren't able to finish it on that day, instead we finished some props. Went to bed on 2:30 in the morning, if I remember correctly. I have to admit, I don't remember much of that day at all.
Apart from a strong pain in my right knee, first only while using the stairs, but later also on every single step.
The pawpet show rehearsal was scheduled for 10 in the morning, however since the stage wasn't ready we started to finish that first. I remembered the city maps and gave them to the registration desks. The knee still hurts as hell. Went to Piknik Pide for lunch, along with the puppeteers and Timothy. After coming back, the registration still hasn't started, so I set up the jars for the beverages in the fursuit lounge. Finally got myself registered, got the room key and sweared that I had to wait for the elevator for so long as I didn't want to stress the knee more than absolutely necessary. Together with Reesa, Eisfuchs and FinFareth we fixed some more props while Wolffire (I believe) completed the black background for the stage. Got some salve for the knee from Lynard, which helped a lot even after a short while. Went to the opening ceremony, the BBQ and afterwards, finally, at last, we were able to rehearse the pawpet show. Heather Alexander, although terribly jet-lagged, was very enthusiastic and immediately understood what her role was in the play. Amazing.
That woman is a really, really great musician anyway. While we were busy setting the stage up, she rehearsed with our band for the very first time -- and from the first chord you could get the impression that they have played together for years.
We finished the pawpet show rehearsal some time early in the morning and went to bed, while the musicians rehearsed for the Furry Music Café until 5 AM I heard.
Missed breakfast, of course. Would have been time for lunch, but I've been waiting for the local press to show up, which I had invited. One extremely grumpy freelance photographer for the Nürnberger Nachrichten actually appeared, however he refused to sign our press photo policy which would have required that he'd get a seperate permission from us if he was to sell the photos to photo agencies. With the usual blahblah that we either have to accept that with a photojournalist making photos we have to accept that we are completely in The Public and have to take the consequences and give up all influence on the distribution -- or there is no coverage at all, he rushed out (and I bet would have banged the door, if it were possible.) No wonder why there is only irrelevant crap in German newspapers anymore. It my opinion, the notion that we have to give up all rights as soon as we accept coverage is inacceptable. After all, we do not get paid for anything we do here. Pardon me, but if I'd end up on Corbis I would demand some form of compensation. If even the local press tries to squeeze out every single cent from a topic by selling the rights to their "content" (which, in case of photos of persons or artwork, isn't entirely theirs in the first place according to German law) I'd rather prefer them to fuck off.
Well, at least I got to lunch that way and was able to see some part of the fursuit parade.
On a brighter side, my Furries in the Press SIG was very well received. I'd like to thank all who have attended, especially Chairo for his input on American media and how it differs from European media.
But the real blast was the evening program. Starting with a stunning performance by Heather Alexander -- that woman does not only rock the house, she rocked the fucking whole castle!
Followed by Uncle Kage vs. 2 the Ranting Griffon. Comedy at its best, I laughed so hard I almost fell of the bench. It started with Kage and his story hour, followed by 2's rants and ended with two hours of imprompto performance by Kage and 2 together on stage. I haven't seen comedy of this quality for ages. For me, it was the highlight of all events of the convention where I was in the audiance.
Afterwards, I went to bed at... Um, nevermind.
Oh, and by the way, the knee stopped hurting as well. Lynard, the salve is great!
Who would have guessed, I missed breakfast. However, I got some cookies and an admin coffee at the Furry Music Café, which lasted till lunch. The music was excellent as always: Jumpy presenting his latest song (with Heather and Eisfuchs as background singers), Chama his mini-opera, and lots of other great songs. Got Lunch, joined the certification session for cacert certificates organized by nobs, visited the art show and the dealer's alley shortly and helped a bit at the Masquerade. Afterwards, I finally had some time to talk with people. Shortly before closing of the art show I placed some bids on various paintings and even got two prints by Timothy and one magnet by Tani, yay!
However, far too many pieces went into the auction, which caused the pawpet show starting late, which probably wasn't a bad thing though. Zefiro had some severe problems with his back starting from late afternoon and only was able to walk at all due to pain killers. Thus, FinFareth oook over, we instructed him shortly what to do, and he grasped it immediately. That guy is simply amazing. The pawpet show itself was a huge success, it took three hours but for me it felt like five minutes. Wow!
I didn't really attend the dance this time, though, to not stress my knee. But the lobby of the great hall was an excellent meeting place.
Breaking down the stage, that is. It took us much longer than expected (until 7 pm), with a short break for getting the art I bought and driving my stuff home, getting a shower and dress for the restaurant. We had the traditional staff dinner at the Heilig-Geist-Spital, which is a very nice restaurant built across the Pegnitz, with good food, nice ambience and trained personal. I believe 19 people attended the dinner and we left the place around 10 pm.
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