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[Shex]

...

Hello Shex,
We do have an expanding solution, we can make when the second hotel tower is ready. Then we have enough attendees to rent the second ECC. Or we double the EF price starting next year. Or I ask if we get the basement under the ECC one. The entrance would be through the Dealers' Den - down the staircase through that metal savety door in the corner EZ Wolf had his table. There is the hotel storage and since we use almost all their tables we might have an empty room there. But that would be just 2,5 meters high and I am not sure how large that area truly is.
BELIVE ME when I say we are rolling options around year after year after year. I don't have a Marry Poppins' Bag with space as much as I want. Of course I could reduce the amount of tables at the Dealers' Den to get it less crowded but that also means less artists and that also means a longer waiting list. If you don't like it crowded - go there on Friday or Saturday - these days are usually very good if you want to have a good look on everything.

As for the Artist Alley - if the video makers, photo shooters and the fursuit game show preliminaries doesn't need the hallway for cool pictures, set ups etc. then we can have the area for three days. But artists aren't the only attendees at EF and the rest is not there for only buying nice things. But we all go there to have fun. And for quite a lot of people it is fun to wear a fursuit getting great pictures done. I saw the Rotunde used on Thursday for private photo and dance video shoots.

Artist Alley set up ... hell ... you were lucky that Gekko was the one being there for you ... I would have eaten anyone alive. I was so annoyed that the hotel doesn't read my instructions when it comes to setup. They do that when ever they have time for that. In my setup plan there is mentioned that setting up the tables should happen shortly before 11 am so that we can control and hold back some tables for the people on the the waiting list. That was and is the plan.
We are only humans, we need sleep and a proper breakfast, that is why we don't sit there from six in the morning biting away people till 11 to make sure it works out.
And the seating plan / screen for the Alley - we had an idea to connect the tables with the Smartphone app so artists can ping themselves in. BUT it didn't work out as we wanted it to work so we "just" had a large seating plan banner with the option writing your name onto it - as said on the hand out... no one used it. Having a lottery and "booked" tables would also mean that there is no chance for an artists popping up a point of sales if he or she registered a week before the con. Or if he or she looses in the lottery... the open system gives a fair chance. And I have seen enough empty tables. Plus I have two people selling at the Dealers' Den this year telling me that sales in the Alley either last year or after the Den closes were better than at the Den itself. Just for the statistics.

We are a fan based convention on a very professional level, we are no fair. Please keep that always in mind.

Thank you for explaining everything!
I really wasn't meant as bad criticism, if it appeared as that, I just wanted to share my thoughts.
I believe many many people spend a lot of time and effort for everything and I'm glad and thankful the Convention went as smooth as it did :3

Also, I totally didn't see that Artist Alley banner, but that's a good option, too! :>

[ANTIcarrot]

There are dates for EF24 up on the website, but I don't recall a public announcement that they were available. Could Eurofurence announce the dates with a little more fan-fare in the future?

Over the past month some flight prices into Berlin for August 2018 have gone up by a hundred euros. For anyone flying in it really is helpful to be able to know the dates as early as possible.

[Cheetah]

o I still hope that the "3 blocks only" rule is either a joke, or there is a story behind it that I just haven't discovered yet. Did anyone got hurt by that? o.O

I think it was "4 blocks". That was a safety measure to make sure people don't get too close to the sprinklers when handling the blocks, and to prevent furries to climb too high on top of their creations.

- The event plan was a little bit hard to understand for me and my friends.
  >Fursuit parade during the Dealers-Den opening?
  >Fursuit gameshow during Paws on Fire?
  >Fursuit group foto while Enter the Arena is still going on?
  >Probably more but I forgot.

A lot of events were timed because that was the only way to make them fit in the very tight corset of available space, time, and resources. We were aware of the overlaps, and decided they were the lesser of two possible evils. Sometimes it's not possible to schedule them in any other way.

(Especially the vast amount of fursuiting events we have is quite a challenge. Not having two of them ever overlap is like trying to square a circle.)

- THE MAIN STAGE VOLUME
  > I HAD A TINITUS SEVERAL TIMES JUST FROM ATTENDING NORMAL EVENTS, NOT DANCES. YOU DON'T EXPECT TO BRING EAR PROTECTION THERE. AUDIO WAS CLIPPING SO HARD.
  > I WRITE THIS IN CAPS SO THAT YOU GET AN IDEA HOW IT FELT TO SIT THERE WHILE NO ONE IT PUTTING THE VOLUME LEVER DOWN
  > No but seriously, so many complains about it and nobody was able to fix it. It is a bit hard to understand how this was not possible to change.

The sound system seems to have a few hot spots that are hard to judge when you set up the sound from the FOH all the way in the back. The sound was often perfectly okay when hearing it form the sound desk, and we obviously tended to underestimated the volume in the front.

-  It is forbidden to cover your real name on your badge with removeable duct-tape

Yes, that has been a policy for more than 10 years. We know that there are cons that do not require you to show your real name. We decided for ourselves that it not only makes it a lot easier for paramedics and hotel security to do their work, but we also believe that it provides a psychological incentive to show your best behaviour in public, since you can't hide behind a random nickname. Especially in times where it's common to register under one-time-nicknames.

That may not apply to you personally, but we're talking about a mass of almost 3000 furries of varyied mental maturity and social aptness.

   PLEASE find a solution so that people don't have to run around at cons, showing everyone their real name, if they don't want to.

Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don't It's something you have to be aware of when attending EF, and the vast majority of attendees didn't have a problem with it for the last 10+ years, so that policy is here to stay.

     This being said, I was deeply shocked to see that filming the dances was not possible at all. Not even at ISO12800 (I used ISO640 all the years before).

The dances are not lit to be filmed. That doesn't mean we don't want anybody to film them, but that overall brightness is not something we take into account when designing the dance lights. Those are chosen by their effectiveness as effect lighting, and (more importantly) the budget. We went a little bit overboard with our budget last year and we had to scale down the dance lighting this year, to save money. Sorry it didn't work out for you. It was not an oversight.  Some years will have more lights, some will have less.

[nobs]

"The dances are not lit to be filmed."

statement of the year

Some of the photographers really should note that this is not all about them. They hop around their favorite suiter like as the dance is their personal photo shooting event.

[Timmy Fox]

On the subject of the dance lighting .. I'm not sure if it was the flashing or the dimness overall but I actually found, as a fursuiter, it was actually very hard to see very much at all during at least the main stage dances on the last two days (the big blue dance as well as the one the night before; I only attended these in fursuit).

Due to how the vision works through the eyes in my fursuit, it's very hard to see clearly in dim light and I actually had to rely on the bright flashes to be able to navigate the room and see most of my surroundings. I understand the point is to keep the lighting down but brightening the dimmest points just slightly (or at least having fewer/shorter 'pitch black' moments would probably help tremendously here I think).

[Cheetah]

Hey Timmy, for next year, can I recommend attending the "fursuit friendly" dance. We intentionally leave some permanent lights on and use a little less fog during that one.

[Timmy Fox]

Hey Timmy, for next year, can I recommend attending the "fursuit friendly" dance. We intentionally leave some permanent lights on and use a little less fog during that one.

Ah yeah, I'm sure that would be better indeed!

Also, just to be clear; I don't mean to suggest the lighting should be dramatically different. Just that I agree with previous comments that it overall was a little darker than it could've been - Obviously fursuiting in such lighting conditions won't be optimal no matter how you do it but I guess it's mainly the difference between "hard to see what's around you" and "near impossible", if that makes sense?

[Drachetto]

First: thanks very much to all the EF staff and volunteers, who provided such great event once more.

What I liked the most:
+The new main halls of the hotel: there is more space avaiable now and no queues to the door at the bar which divides the two big rooms;
+The hotel itself: the A/C hadn't working properly in my room, but after I pointed it at the reception, the problem was solved quickly. The hotel also kindly lent me a vacuum cleaner (for my fursuit's vacuum bag);
+The fursuit helpers and the security: they were always kind and I saw them always around if somebody would have needed.

What may be improved next year:
-The warm temperature in the main halls of the hotel: often it was impossible to stay there while in fursuit due of the high temperature and humidity, please the let's the windows in the glass roof opened during all the convention days;
-The security check at the Fursuit Lounge and the Rotunda: Me and my friends never met somebody to check our badges;
-The Fursuit Group Photo: It's very exausting and frustrating waiting standing and still for 30-40 minutes until the pictures are taken. That happens to wait fursuits who join with a small or big delay the event. I think that EF should take the picture at the time which was scheduled and doesn't wait for stragglers, making the event even less stressing and probably getting back a part of the fursuits who don't attend the Group Photo anymore.
And please, don't wait for the desperate request of the fursuits to move some big fans to the room of the photo;
-The Opening and Closing Cerimonies: a bit meh comparated to the last editions.

[amee2k]

Much has been said, so here is pretty much what I agree and disagree with. This is like the first time I'm doing the feedback thing so I hope it isn't too long or repetitive.

the app is nice, though somehow I could not watch the maps in landscape mode, for some reason. am I the only one who had that issue?

Nope - had the issue on several (all android!) devices every year so far that i can remember. A landscape image on a portrait screen is kinda like vertical video on youtube...

Notifications being slow can easily be helped by using the Telegram announcement channel which has basically the same content as the App notifications but is more reliable.

I also used a lot less mobile data compared to the years before despite little change in phone usage that I'm aware of, so I think wifi coverage was a thumbs-up.

Speaking of announcements... Am I the only one who missed any and all announcements where the parade route was going to be? None of my "good spots" from the last years seemed to work well which left me constantly hunting for a useful spot during a comparatively short event.

Switching between events and the map in the mobile app always resets the view to Tuesday morning, so you constantly have to go scrolling around for what is happening right now. The "funnel" icon in the event view was mildly misleading, in my opinion. I was hoping to be able to *filter out* events by type or interest. E.g. I'm not a fursuiter, so I don't care about fursuiter-only events. I'm also not a dealer, so I don't care about artist-only or DD/artshow/... ancillary events. But since these facilities are open throughout most of the day their event entries are near the top of the list and I have to scroll through them every time the event view opens - even though I will almost never find them relevant. (Same kinda goes for done events... if they're more than an hour or two in the past, the entries are not very interesting anymore.)

Speaking of the DD... Yeah, the U shape and the small blind alleys behind the stairs (around Starburrow's table) were annoying with this many people. I didn't go through there at all and instead spent the extra cash at the tables on the window side of the room.

I know the con's not even over yet, but I have to complain about those damn portable bluetooth speakers people are carrying around with them. I'm quite sick of them, they're so loud, you can't hear yourself think or have a conversation within about 10 meters of someone with them.

This. Have you ever heard a really bad DJ practice his mixing? Thats what hearing three completely unrelated songs at the same time sounds like...

The DJs were actually great this year. But I don't get the comments earlier about the stage having great sound either. Room and volume distribution issues aside, I thought the concert (despite being a great show in general) was somewhat less enjoyable than it could have been. It ranged from really badly boomy and distorted basslines ("This Suit") to very faint and drowned-out vocals ("Stay as you are") and being generally very quiet in some places ("Lighthouse" / beginning of "Starry Destination" ... yes, these are slower songs, but *that* quiet?). Did the bass drum even have a mic at all...? This situation was much better at other events though, with no distortion or boomyness in the music and clear voices. You guys have great gear back there, so use it!

Speaking of other events... The Game Show was fun and awesome - no prop failures during the games, and the video and scoreboard was working great! The pawpet show also turned out quite awesome! (Even though I thought the ending of the story was a bit rushed to make time for naughty scenes in the middle...) <3

I didn't watch as much EF Prime this time as in the previous years (mainly because of the lack of public TVs). But would it help with the rotations at the end if people brought down their material during the con to tack on the end for as long as you can keep the channel going? Also, are recordings of the current year's events/panels/presentations an option?

The breakfast itself was delicious, but I rarely eat the sausages in question so I can't comment on that. The rest of it was still great regardless of the sausage situation. I agree that the tables are really cramped for four people if everyone is eating. The triangular decoration/advertisement thingy doesn't help with that. Being able to get some fries for a midnight snack was a very welcome addition though.

However, I would pay for personal cuddle time So maybe that is an idea ^^
Or anything else more personal that has nothing to do with dancing. Imagine going with a fursuiter to a restaurant

My first thought when the auction was announced was like "... Can I have a pole dance please? I would like to be the pole..."
<3
(p.s.) If the scope of the fursuiter auction is expanded beyond dance performances, it is probably a good idea to unambiguously differentiate which fursuiters are available for which kinds of activities, to avoid ... disappointed expectations. If you get my drift. Or other ideas could be for example exclusive photo/video sessions (both in front and behind the camera) with particularly good looking (or well known) suiters.

And last but not least... Besides getting into random badge checks twice for the first time ever (which I didn't mind - the security guys were quite friendly about it despite my dumb stare surprised look), i didn't get the feeling that the amount of security at large was much different. That said, I did notice quite more stories about ... incidents, that were circulated compared to the previous years. So it probably ended up being less security *subjectively*, but possibly not in a way that more *objective* presence could help with.

There probably is a reason why it isn't done that way, because it has been mentioned every year before... staircases not being a one-way route to ground floor could help a lot to take load off the elevators. Even well after midnight, you had to routinely wait 15+ minutes just to go one or two floors to another room. This was particuarly pronounced near the ends of the elevator where it shows twice in quick succession - then no more for some 30+ minutes. Also, despite an announcement to avoid using the hotel's service elevators, there was a LOT of hotel personel every day using the main elevators to move cleaning supplies...

In the end, I had a blast and a great con experience again - so thanks a lot to everyone, and I hope to see you all again next year! <3

[Atkelar]

-The Fursuit Group Photo: It's very exausting and frustrating waiting standing and still for 30-40 minutes until the pictures are taken. That happens to wait fursuits who join with a small or big delay the event. I think that EF should take the picture at the time which was scheduled and doesn't wait for stragglers, making the event even less stressing and probably getting back a part of the fursuits who don't attend the Group Photo anymore.
And please, don't wait for the desperate request of the fursuits to move some big fans to the room of the photo;

There seemst to be some misunderstandings here, so please allow me to clarify:

With a group picture of that size, it takes quite some time to line up everybody even with the lines on the floor. We did try to announce a "click time" in the past, but that only lead to people arriving at that time, thinking it would be enough. Well, it isn't by far.

This is why we announced the picture as an affair that would take half an hour over all, with the "click" somewhere in the bottom half of that period. We ask people to be there as early as possible so everything can be smooth and on time. Even the announcement during the opening ceremony was to that regard.

We also ordered the blowers from the fursuit department before the con, they were not brought out upon request by desperate suiters - they may or may not have been a bit late, I cannot tell that, but they were ordered and planned for, just like the fact that the area was considered a headless zone and thus off limits to cameras.

If we were to do it with a fixed "click time", we would have to add a queue up front and hurry people into position then which would be way worse that the way it was planned and executed.

The only thing we all were a bit unhappy with is the wedged timing between the two other events, with little to no buffer - but that was still the best option overall I'm afraid.

Next year will most likely have do be a different location/time anyhow, so it is too early to tell specifics now but we definitely won't announce the event with a "click time" ever again as that was positively the worst way of doing it.

[Twillight]

Where are the official Groupfotos from the EF 23?   Or are they not finishd?