First of all, the Fairmont hotel is great. The staff is friendly and competent, the rooms are nice and well maintained, only the light in the lobby and conference center could be a bit brighter. The bar is quite expensive, unfortunately, but hey, I was on vacation. And except for their Manhattan the cocktails are excellent.
The convention itself had its issues. The art show was quite disappointing with many artists hanging exactly the same stuff that didn't sell for the previous three years. What made them think it would sell this time? The lighting could have been better, too.
As far as I can tell the SIGs were better prepared this time, but I was missing the puppetry track. What definitely was missing was the theming. I hope they'll bring back the the signposts in the style of the convention theme next time, it always added a lot to the atmosphere.
There is also room for improvement of the parade, just walking around the main ballroom and through the dealers room didn't make it seem like a parade. I liked the shorter fursuit destruction derby, um, critterlympics, though. In the previous years it started to become boring after half the show, this time is was entertaining from start to end.
I've got the impression that a lot of the staff from previous years was missing, and also many of the non-staff folks who contributed to the unique atmosphere of the convention were not there. It didn't feel like a furry convention until Furry Night Live, which by the way was a great show, even though with too few acts. The following dance was also nice, I would have swapped the DJ slots, though.
Talking about dances, the hotel forgot to cancel the band at the bar for two days, which lead to hilarious interaction between the fursuiters and regular hotel guests. Also, the dead dog dance was much fun, why didn't we have such dances during the convention? At some point, the dead dog party moved to the outside, which was even more fun (and drama-inducing, as some of you might have heard.)
Even though it may not had been the most memorable FC, it was a lot of fun.
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zefirodragon.livejournal.com 14 years, 9 months ago
Good to hear the convention got better after the first day.
What happened at the outside party? I'm always interested in soap op... drama, I mean.
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