slycat | Epic ConFuzzled 2009 Report

So, this past weekend, I attended my first ever UK based furry convention. During my time in the fandom, I've seen many failed efforts to make conventions happen and when they finally did with ConFuzzled and RBW last year, I was initially rather sceptical that they would be any better than a large fur meet. However having now attended ConFuzzled, I can say it honestly felt like a real con and I really enjoyed myself.

Getting There

I made my way up from the south Friday morning via the unusual means of flying from Heathrow with

arakinuk. It pretty much worked out the same cost as getting the train but I didn't have to worry about engineering works and flying is a lot faster and feels a lot more special. The flight itself was pretty painless, however it did mean getting up at 5am to leave Arakin's at 6am(ish) to get to the airport with plenty of time for the 8.40am flight considering it was a weekday and the roads could be busy. Despite getting to the airport with plenty of time, we ran out of time waiting for breakfast to be served due to poor service at the restaurant we went to so we just paid for the drinks and made a beeline for the gate as we were running late. We should have rushed really, despite the ticket saying the gate closes 30mins before departure, they only started boarding about 10 minutes before departure. Fortunately there was a Costa at the gate so I grabbed a hot sandwich to stop me from feeling too hungry.

The flight was about 30mins in the air in total which was barely enough time to play a game on my PSP, certainly a preferable flight time when compared with the 10hrs to California :P On arriving, it didn't take long to disembark, collect luggage and find our way to the train station. After buying tickets, we were told we had 3 minutes to catch our train, so after a mad dash with my 2 bags, we got there just in time.

On getting off the train at Deansgate, we took what could only be described as the scenic route to the hostel via the canal. During which Arakin saw a good photo opportunity and then realised he had left his backpack with his netbook, camera, PSP and passport on the luggage shelf of the train... Arakin kept his cool about it and he managed to call the relevant department to get his bag recovered. In the meantime we continued heading on to our destination, the youth hostel.

Convention - Friday

On getting to the hostel, I found that most people were hanging in the main foyer with their luggage waiting to be able to check in and dump their luggage. We had got to the hostel around 11ish and check in/registration started at 2pm. Arakin got a call to say his misplaced backpack had been located and was waiting for him in Chorley so he went off to collect it while I stayed behind to mingle with people.

On registering, as a sponsor, I got handed a tonne of stuff for that privilege including a t-shirt, eccles cake, mug, glowstick, bag of sweets, Tabbiefox print, Brok Badger pin badge and coupons for a free drink at the bar and entry to a special sponsors only event. It certainly felt like money well spent as normally you only get a t-shirt a mention in the conbook.

The rooms were small but functional having 2 bunk beds plenty of storage and a bizarre pre-fab bathroom. I only just fit on the bed lengthwise so I'm not sure how longer people coped.

badgerguy arrived soon after to the room and brought many handy things which I hadn't thought of such as a power strip so we could all plug in our devices and a portable rack to hang fursuits on.

There wasn't much in terms of events going on other than opening ceremonies at 7pm which was to be followed by a BBQ, however as the weather was really crappy, the BBQ didn't happen and the food was served in the kitchen. It was OK but nothing special, burgers, chicken and ribs. Certainly not as good as what I expect the real BBQ would have been however. There was no dance in the evening so the rest of the day was filled with more socialising and an epic game of Apples to Apples courtesy of

lazerus101. I ended up going to sleep before midnight as other roomies were already going to bed.

Saturday

Was up relatively early on the Saturday and had a chance to try out the dodgy en-suite shower which did the job even it was a bit weak. Then went down to have breakfast which consisted of a buffet of various things including poached eggs, bacon, beans and sausages :). After breakfast, there wasn't much in the schedule so did some more socialising but didn't feel like suiting as it felt too early. Then I had lunch which seemed to be a mistake. I opted for the pasta with bolognaise sauce. It tasted alright didn't seem cold or anything but by the time

sandroo and others had it, the sauce was cold and they had to get it re-heated. Anyway, I say lunch seemed like a mistake and by saying that I mean, I really didn't feel well after eating it which kinda killed my plans to get suited up that afternoon.

However, I did attend the Fursuit Roundtable. I hadn't been to that sort of event before, however as people I knew were running it, I decided to participate. I was glad I did as it was an oppertunity to chat with folks about anything fursuit related, and also resulted in this amusing pic of Sandroo :)

I also watched the Furrylimpics which was a series of mostly incomprehensible games fursuiters played. I despite having a good seat, I couldn't really tell what was going on most of the time due to the lack of space and the number of competitors but it looked like everyone had fun :P After that was dinner which I decided to mostly skip that day due to mostly still feeling the effects of lunch and so just had a few rolls to chew on.

After dinner, was the much hyped PawPet show. I'm normally in two minds about puppet shows at furry cons because while I appreciate all the hard work that goes into the productions, I can't help but feel a bit silly for being a grown up willingly watch a puppet show. That said I was rather impressed by the show I saw at EF14 and I knew pretty much everyone who's responsible for the ConFuzzled production so I was happy to go along. I even managed to get relatively close to the front, being behind guest of honour

cheetah_spotty and VIP

unclekage. The show itself was very good; not as epic or theatrical as EF's show but much more funny and a well written, very British script too :) Well done to the director

utlah74 and all others involved.

By the time the PawPet show was over it was already getting very late.

graafen had his rock dance first which I wasn't so interested in due to not being a rock fan and by the time DJ Swolf was on playing his cheesy dance tunes, I felt it was far too late for me to get suited with any energy and so just ended up videoing some of the dancing and hanging out in the foyer. This was also the time I witnessed the single most funny thing which occurred during the convention which was watching a very drunk

shep_shepherd try and fail to pick up a 5p coin for about 5 minutes. Doesn't really sound that funny but I guess you had to have been there. Wish I had caught it on cam!

Ended up going to sleep around 3am. All of my other roomies apart from Rallicat were also asleep by then, however Rallicat went on to participate in what was known as "Carpark Con" in the carpark of McDonalds :P

Sunday

Up earlyish again for breakfast which was the same as before but with scrambled rather than poached eggs. Anyway, after waking up properly, I headed down to the special sponsors only event which was tea and scones with Uncle Kage who did his thing telling about his experience in Europe, etc. Lunch followed the event where I braved the food, this time to have a rather tasteless curry with undercooked rice.

Fortunately however, after lunch was the Fursuit Parade which I got suited the first time for. The parade was more similar to the fursuit walks of the Londonfur meets rather than the parades I'm used to at other cons I've attended. Meaning, the parade headed out of the convention location to a nearby public area where photos could be taken. This is most likely because due to the layout of the convention space, it was implausible to have the fursuiters parade up the steps and round the dealers den. Anyway, the parade was good apart from the photographers having to constantly take shots and then run further up the parade to take more. At one point a little girl ran up to me and held my hand as I walked up some steps during the parade, posing for her Mum once at the top :P One thing I will say about the parade was that there was certainly a lot of steps!

After the parade, I jumped into the headless lounge to cool down and replenish liquids before going out for some more suiting, however it seemed that all the suiters had disappeared so I just went back to my room and got unsuited and showered. Rallicat said he was heading to KFC a bit later on so I joined him for some real food :P Came back to watch the remainder of FursuitTV which was showing at the time.

Dinner came soon after, though I had already eaten. As I felt like nobby no-mates not going into the dinner hall, I ended up going in and having a small portion of the chilli con carne which was on offer, which as expected had pretty much no taste to it at all.

The art auction took place in the evening, starting with a trailer for the new venue which confirmed ConFuzzled was moving to a hotel (which most people had worked out by then anyway). I didn't expect to bid on anything, but ended up making an opening bid of £100 on an executive ticket for RBW2009 (which is worth £175). It ended up going for £135 to

balto_mike I think which was still underpriced. Part of me wanted to bid more but I resisted in the end.

After the auction came the evening's dances. I had gone back to my room for a snooze until the music started playing. When it did, I got suited up and went down to bounce along to DJ Kenai's music. Had a lot of fun doing so, but as usual, wore myself out far too quickly after hearing a song I liked. Ended up going between the dance and the headless lounge 2 more times before calling it a night and getting unsuited and showered.

tabbiefox and

bigbluefox continued the DJing through the night, though I ended up calling it a night around 3am as we had to check out early the next day.

Sunday

Sunday morning held more of the same breakfast and a mad rush to ensure everything was packed before heading downstairs to hand over the room keys. The con ended with a big group photo of everyone before people dispersed to go home. Rather than get my return flight back to Heathrow, I had got a lift from

andysquirrel in his car which made things a lot easier. Took around 4 hours in total to get home with 3 stops inbetween.

I know I'm crap at summarising which is why I've written the epic entry above, however I can say again that I really enjoyed the convention. It was rather unique having a con in the UK which made things easier when it came to language, shopping and transport. Also, virtually all of the people on staff were people I knew which was interesting as it made me feel like I should probably be helping out too :P

I'm pretty certain I'll go to next year's and I hope a lot of my LJ friends (Not just UK ones) will too. Obviously my major down point for the con was the food and fortunately that won't be a factor at next year's con :P

For those who missed it before, my pics are available at http://gallery.slycat.co.uk/main.php?g2_itemId=5466 and the videos I've uploaded are available at http://www.youtube.com/user/SlyCatUK.