Some minor loose change:
*While I understand EF wants to reward sponsers, I found it frustrating to get to only find out long after the convention started how many things regular membership didn't cover. Though I've been busy the past few months and might have simply missed the announcements. Could this possibly be better advertised next year? Thinking of LSD & DOPE in particular, Could sponsers be given a half hour opertunity to get whatever seat they wanted, and then let the rest of us is?
*The two small panel rooms at the front of the hotel become almost unusable during the fursuit parade when every motorost on the road outside started to test their horn simultaniously. Just something to bare in mind for next year.
*One or two events were held up for lack of a data cable. Can panel organisers please remember to bring essential spares next time?
*Dark Natasha and Shinigamigirl were opposite each other in the dealers den this year. Both are popular artists and it made the issue of narrow isles worse. Given how furs tend to clump around popular artists, could high-throughput artists get a double wide isle nest year?
*While we were in a town centre, some things were still hard to find. Could you add locations of non-obvious essentials like the pharmacy/apothetek? That was a rather painful experience the first day.
*And another vote for removing that awful safe sex guide. Or alternatively add in some other guides, which also have nothing to do with the fandom.
And now some herasy...
The size of the room and stage the pawpet show were held in and on this year seemed to create some dificulties that DOPE and LSD hadn't encountered before. Dispite their best efforts I think there might be still have been some growing pains during the performance. I don't know if any of this affected other people, I can only speak for what I did and did not see.
Sadly, the biggest was the cave paintings. While I know these were hand painted by TaniDaReal, and therefore must have looked beautiful up close, from the back of the room, they looked about six inches high, and blurry. I found it very hard to see any detail. The video feed wasn't much better. While you had a better view, the camera had difficulty focusing, and never showed the whole picture. Without naration I would never have understood what I was looking at. If you are going to use illustrations as plot points in the future, could you please consider:
*Making them twice as big
*Filming them in advance under more ideal lighting conditions and angles.
*Use blue light sources in dark conditions carefully; especially when combined with fine detail. The human eye has difficulty focusing such.
It might also be time to start using makeup on the puppets; at least on the one off custom puppets. Furries like to give their characters facial markings for fun, but social animals have these for a reason. They magnify the location of the eyes, and general expression, and make it easier to track where an animal is looking. For the four core characters this wasn't a problem, but the lions and hyenas both had very dark fur, and at times the only reason I know who was talking was because the outline was moving.
Both are technical issues related to venue size. Or it could be both are related to me needing new glasses. As I said, I can only speak from personal experience.
[edit] Since Cheetah asked, from the first line of
The Muppet Show. "It's time to put on makeup. It's time to light the lights..." Something which seemed appropiet given the multi tiered structure of the hotel. Or alternatively, from the dozens of fursuits which had highlights in their fur. You don't make a cheetah costume by sowing in hundreds of blackpatches, you use spotty fur or you 'paint' the spots on yourself. Which effectively amounts to makeup; whatever you want to call it.[/edit]
