Eurofurence 14: Report

[slycat]

Photo courtesy of arakinuk, which was taken by whitepaw using Arakin's cam
Well I already did detail about my eventful trip in and first day of the con in my previous post. Now to cover the rest of the trip before it all oozes out of my brain forgotten forever :)

Day 2: Thursday

Started the day very early following our early night. We were early enough for the "breakfast" which was a choice of various dishes. Arakin and I opted for the pancakes and maple syrup, obviously forgetting we were in Europe and not America and the pancakes were the crepe style, not the fluffy American ones. Bumped into Elfasi at breakfast and he offered to drive us into town to get some supplies from the local supermarket. Picked up loads of chocolate, treats, drinks and stuff to stock the room with from Rewe. Back at the con, there weren't any events I was really interested in going on until the Stage Fever event in the evening. Arakin had to go and rehearse for his skit in Stage Fever with Colifox, Badgerguy and Hawthorn and so I spent much of my free time taking photos and bumping into people I know.

As what would become a running theme at EF14, the Stage Fever event started late. Arakin's skit was the second act after the introduction act. He had somehow managed to keep it secret from me and so I was finding out about it with everyone else. Was quite amused to see it was in fact a performance of Michael Jackson's thriller titled Thrillicious which was obviously keeping in with the horror theme of the con. Most of the other skits were great too, a particular highlight was the final skit performed by Yagfox, Rakhan, Emejn and Lone Wolf. It basically made fun of the stereotypical type of skits you get at these events and managed to insult a number of the evening's preceeding skits in the process.

After Stage Fever, I took some more snaps before getting fursuited for the fursuit dance. When it came down to it, I could only manage a few songs (they were awful songs anyway) before crashing in the headless lounge. For some reason the headless lounge was stocked with endless supplies of fizzy apple drinks because it seems everything must be carbonated in Germany. After a bit of chilling out, I went backt o the dance floor for a few more songs, but I was utterly knackered and was getting annoyed at not being able to see anything as the disco lights kept shining in my eyes and so decided to call it a night at that point.

Day 3: Friday

Can't remember when we woke or what we had for breakfast (edit: Just remembered what I had for breakfast, not that interestng, but nice to note down to remember, it was the "French breakfast" which was supposed to be a croissant but ended up being a pain au chocolat with some nutella type stuff) or even if we used the pool this morning or the previous morning (which is a great pool by the way, just seemed a shame more people didn't make use of it... or just at the same times we did). Anyway, what I do remember is that I attended the Fursuit Game Show which again started late but made up for it with a visually spectacular first round made up of a maze built using glow strips (which you can kinda see in the photo I took at high ISO here). The show itself was inherently flawed in that they had 2 teams at a time and they played 2 games. Those who won the most of the 2 games proceeded to the next round. Naturally, it was often 1-1 which meant it went to the pointless roll a massive dice tie-breaker which involved no chance and rendered any efforts in the games played prior pointless. However the show as a whole was rather entertaining.

As for the rest of the day, I can't remember anything specific I did. I know I missed the Kage vs 2 show which I originally wasn't too fussed about as they both recycle jokes so much you've pretty much heard it all before, however people did say it was rather good this year. I guess I'll need to get the DVD to see what I missed out on.

Day 4: Saturday

Already on to the last major day of the con and we had slept in missing the breakfast. We decided to check out the €15 brunch buffet which while expensive, turned out to be really good with a tasty selection of meats, scrambled eggs, bread, cereal and even deserts on offer. Following brunch, more wondering, socialising and photographing took place until around 1:30pm as the fursuit parade was due to start at 2ish (but with the knowledge that every event is delayed). Managed to get suited with enough time for the parade to start which itself was a lot of fun. Some people were concerned about the outside heat and fursuits, but I found it to be much nicer to be outside in suit than inside. Lots and lots and lots of photos were taken, and I did inadvertanly hold up the line due to stopping and posing so much :P

The end of the parade was supposed to be the headless lounge, however it was evident that all the fursuiters who filled the main stage had no hope of all fitting in the tiny headless lounge, however as that's where the end was, I stayed there waiting for Arakin as we had planned to get photos taken around the hotel. I must have waited in excess of 30 mins, maybe even as much as an hour by which time most of the other fursuiters had disappeared. Finally Arakin turned up out of suit as he had been ushered into the lifts at the end of the parade and so he went back to his room. As I was still in the bodysuit, Arakin went off to get suited again so we could wander around and get some snaps outside the hotel.

En route, we bumped into Whitepaw who agreed to be our personal photographer which proved to be very handy. The photos containing myself are in my gallery here. The rest of the photos are in Arakin and Whitepaw's galleries. Had a fantastic time getting lots of funky shots taken. We decided that this was much better than doing the official fursuit photo shoot as there were much better photo oppertunities.

One thing seasoned fursuiters will obvioulsy mock me for is that I had to deal with my first fursuited encounter with a child. Simply put, I've never suited in public before, only at conventions. Thanks to a news article in the German press, there were random visitors coming to the hotel to see what was going on and the family we encountered must have been a result of that. Having been amongst fursuity types for over 10 years, I was well familliar with the do's and don'ts being that you let them approach you and crouch to their height, etc. I did my best to look cute, and I think I did it pretty well. I'm still pretty nervous about the public suiting thing tho.

After suiting and a well deserved shower, I checked out the sig miyabisan was holding called "Basic Dance Moves". Miyabi had advertised it as a set in the style of The Hard Drive, however it ended up being a sig about how to get the confidence to dance. I felt rather self conscious being the largest person there and this not being what I was there for, I managed to sneak out before they expected me to dance for them.

The next stage event was the infamous Pawpet Show which I had never bothered with before due to me being unable to comprehend sitting in front of a 3 hour long puppet show. It did seem as though everyone at the convention was going to see it so I decided to joing the queue. The show was delayed at least 45 mins and considering where we were in the queue, we decided we may be better off watching it from the TV feed in our hotel room. However, we found out that they were unable to pipe the sound down the TV feed which would mean that a puppet show would be incomprehensible. By the time we got back downstairs again, everyone was seated. However Arakin spotted Skunki and Tes sitting on an available bench with a decent enough view and so we joined them for the show.

The show itself was suprisingly very good for a puppet show. I had heard stories of those who watched last year's being so emotionally entangled that it reduced them to tears at a particularily emotional point however this show didn't do that to me. The story was well written and could have easily have passed for decent a kids animated TV or movie. I was very impressed with the skills of those who performed the show as they put a lot of time and effort into it. I can certainly see what people see in the puppet shows now. However 3 hours on a wooden bench isn't the most comfortable way of watching it.

Due to the delays of the puppet show and subsequent applause, the Big Blue Fox dance which is pretty much a signature of any Eurofurence these days didn't kick off until midnight when it was supposed to start at 10pm originally. For this reason combined with the fact that Arakin and I had to be leaving at noon the next day, I decided to not bother fursuiting for the dance and ended up just sitting near the bar with folks I new chatting, drinking and socialising. I finally went to bed around 2am.

Day 5: Sunday

Woke up earlyish to find that Arakin had somehow made it into the room without the door key as I had fallen fast asleep soon after. Got everything packed by around 10am and took our bags down and checked out of the hotel, booked a taxi for noon and left bags in the locker room while we went for another brunch. However this time round, I had trouble finding anything on the buffet I really liked as there were random things like chicken legs, beef joints and pork curry on offer and none of the breakfasty things I enjoyed from yesterday's brunch which was a shame. Certainly wasn't worth the €15 this time round. Noon was fast approaching so we had to make our goodbyes to those who were about and then hop into the taxi to get to the train station.

When we got there, we had plenty of time to spare and so ended up sharing a seat with Loupgarou and Sal, a friendly Malaysian and German respectively. They proved to be great travelling companions and made the fact that we had no seats and were standing in the non-air conditioned vestibules of the train more bareable. Sal was going off to Frankfurt and so stayed on the train when Arakin, Loup and I got off to get our connecting train to Nuremberg. Turns out that Loupgarou was actually off to Frankfurt too but his travel agent had decided to book him on a flight from Nuremberg to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Malaysia... most odd. Anyway, Arakin and I appreciated the company while we camped out at the Nureberg central train station (knowing there's bugger all at the airport) and enjoyed food and drinks.

We got to the airport together, got to check in together, Loupgarou had to check in with Lufthansa while Arakin and I had to check in at Air Berlin. We had agreed to meet up again once checked in but Loupgarou seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet. Despite spending some time searching for him, we ended up going through security as we couldn't see anywhere else he could have gone. He wasn't at his gate for his plane either so we just hung out there as he had to go there sometime. After at least 30mins, he did turn up, apparantly he was elsewhere sitting down... not sure how we missed him. However didn't have a huge amount of time remaining until we had to be present for boarding our plane and so I took a snap before going on to our gate. Pretty much at the last moment, Anticarrot turned up as he had recorded the wrong flight times and almost missed the flight.

The flight back was pretty pain free. No issues with delays, luggage or passport control. Drove back to Arakin's after sorting out the parking which wasn't an issue at all like we first thought. Got back to Arakin's about midnight and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I was knackered.

Epilogue

Eurofurence was a great con, though I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I did with EF12. EF12 was easier to get to and language didn't seem to be as much of an issue as it was this time round. I think due to the extra travelling, I felt that I really should have known a bit more of the language. Also, it's a minor thing, but I was expecting them to carry the zombie thing they did on the Wednesday on throughout the con like they did with the murder mystery at EF12 but nothing more came of it. The people I did meet were great, and I had fun suiting and stuff. However, I'm currently uncertain if I'll be going to next year's. It's been announced to be in the same place as this year which just seems insane with the numbers of people who clearly want to attend. I may give it a miss and go to another con, or just save the money. I'm gonna have a lot of debt from FC after all...

Again, my photos are available at: http://gallery.slycat.co.uk/v/cons/ef14/

Comments

[durandal2uk.livejournal.com]

I too fell a cropper to the "French Breakfast" croissant/pain au chocolat scam... much disappointment!

It was interesting reading your report. The constant delays were a little frustrating, but I came to expect them by the end.

Regarding the emotionality of the Pawpet show, this year's wasn't as emotional at all. There was a death scene in the EF13's Pawpet show that was truly a work of art - it's this that people mean when they talk about crying. Crazy to think that a puppet show can inspire such emotions, but they managed it!

I didn't realise you've not fursuited in public before :). Yeah, I had fun with some of the kids on Sunday, although I think I attracted the slightly older ones, so I could hi-five them, etc., rather than just trying not to scare them :P.

[slycat.livejournal.com]

So now I need to get to RBW :P