The Eurofurence Forum
Eurofurence Information => Feedback => Topic started by: Suran on 03.09.2012, 21:39:04
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My feedback:
Starting the dance like this was a safety nightmare.
You never pack fursuiters as tight as possible and you certainly don't tell them to all start dancing in that state.
It is a huge crowd of people with different degrees of disorientation, vision- and motion- impairment dressed in their very best dress for the photo.
(Suffered major damage to the fursuit and nearly lost my expensive prop twice. Luckily easy to repair as the fur itself was undamaged but no fursuiting for a full day of EF.)
Not giving any commands to the crowd for a full minute after Thalian did his photo also wasn't a good idea.
People start to wonder what the heck they are supposed to do now. There would have been ample time to announce what will happen next and for the crowd to disperse enough, so that everyone has some room to maneuver. Being super carefull about the other people's and your own suit you don't just push your way through a crowd like this the way you would do out of suit in a subway.
This can be improved!
Not every suiter is able or willing to dance but I can imagine only few would miss the opportuinty to be on the official fursuit group photo in their "best dress".
Yes, it was announced that the dance would start rigth after the photo. But it was not made clear that there was no chance in attending the photo without the dance or to not bring any props or suit-parts that could break.
Tried dancing in the partial suit later. Too much base drum again=resonated in the head.
Seemed to be more fog then last year (couldn't see any of the black fursuiters right in front of me despite ample experience with the limited vision including dances.).
Lots of others enjoyed it. So I guess it was okay for the ones with a less limited range of vision.
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You never pack fursuiters as tight as possible and you certainly don't tell them to all start dancing in that state.
Oh, yes you do ! I totally loved that way of starting the dance, fursuits everywhere ! I was wondering what to do right after the photo, and the music start was a really nice surprise. Please do the same next year !
(On the other hand, this dance didn't last really long, nearly empty two hours after the beginning, because of the music I think, but that's another point).
Edit : already on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3hvwN1wXZU
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I must admit the first hour of kenai's set was pretty much awesome. But as soon as he removed the head of his fursuit (which wasn't that pleasant, I'm not really a fan of fursuiters doing that in public, but that's another debate) and started to actually mix, we quickly gave up trying to dance on something sounded like a media player randomly switching rythm after a random period of time ranging between 15 and 40 seconds. And if it was impossible to dance for the regular human, i guess it must have been pretty difficult for a fursuiter as well.
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(On the other hand, this dance didn't last really long, nearly empty two hours after the beginning, because of the music I think, but that's another point).
I think that was mostly caused by a miscommunication between EF staff and the hotel, so the doors were kept shut in order to prevent the fog from triggering the fire alert. With the doors closed, it was hard to even notice the music outside, and people were left with the impression that the dance was over. I have to appologize for that.
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hum, anybody passing by the doors could clearly hear that music was being played inside.
as Lightfox said, the first hour (or so) was fun and danceable, after that not so much
I think that was mostly caused by a miscommunication between EF staff and the hotel, so the doors were kept shut in order to prevent the fog from triggering the fire alert. With the doors closed, it was hard to even notice the music outside, and people were left with the impression that the dance was over. I have to appologize for that.
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The first hour or 1 1/2 of the dance was fun :)
I loved that so much "old" and good music was played. :D
But I have to agree with Lightfox and Fafnir: When the music changed to techno or what it was... it became boring and it wasn't fun to dance. I don't like that genre. I don't need music that makes just 'boom boom boom'. (OK, the Buig Blue Dance had it too, but for most time it wasn't that bad)
For the next time, I wish there would be more funny music for at least 2-3 hours :)
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I'd like to emphasize i'm not even commenting on the music style being not suitable to my personal tastes, but on the tempo alone, which switched way to much for the mix to be danceable, whether or not you like that kind of music.
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As it was my first time suiting, being told to jump when you're next to a massive crowd of fursuiters, kinda terrifying!
But it's also something I'll never forget and I really look forward to the picture ^_^
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From speaking to other Fursuiters, it seems that Disco and 80's music fits the Fursuit Dance a lot better, since it's not heavy trip-hop bass and acid house which encourages fast dancing which really can't be done in a suit. I was at the Fursuit Dance for a while before I had to go back to work on The Daily, but that style of music fits perfectly!
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I enjoyed it a lot, and thought the way it began was actually a brilliant idea, starting up immediately after the fursuit group photo while we were all still on the dance floor.
About the perennial topic of the electronic music - I can only imagine how much of a challenge it must be for you DJ's to try and please as many people as possible, the work you put into setting everything up, etc, overall you do a great job and even if a lot of the music itself doesn't give me ecstasies of delight, the dances are still my favorite part of the conventions.
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Starting the dance like this was a safety nightmare.
You never pack fursuiters as tight as possible and you certainly don't tell them to all start dancing in that state.
It is a huge crowd of people with different degrees of disorientation, vision- and motion- impairment dressed in their very best dress for the photo.
(Suffered major damage to the fursuit and nearly lost my expensive prop twice. Luckily easy to repair as the fur itself was undamaged but no fursuiting for a full day of EF.)
Oh man, I knew I had a good reason for not bothering with the group photo.
Also, I thought the whole point of a 'fursuit friendly' dance was good visibility? Whenever I went in there the fog was so thick I could barely see anything out of suit, let alone while in suit. D:
I did enjoy the music selection though. As others have said, the cheesy pop stuff is generally more fun/easy for suiters to dance to.
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Hey Suran,
OK I see your point, about packing us close together if you have props or wings or something like that which could be damaged.
About "fursuit friendly" dance: to me it seemed like just another dance, not somehow aimed at fursuiters. That didn't bother me, I actually prefer the funny lighting and fog etc, but I do understand if some fursuiters were hoping for something different or more brightly lit.
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My Staff-Answer part:
The idea off having the picture taken both,
- on the dance floor and
- as start of the dance
worked really well for the purposes we had in mind. We already had a lot of positive feedback from suiters and DJs that having an instantly filled dancefloor was great, and we will stick to that concept.
Admittedly the "Do not move away, we will shoot a short music video right now!" part was a last minute change of plans we did upon request of the video team. A tight pack of hundreds of suiters in simultaneous dance motion sounded like a nice thing to have on the con video, and I believe you will all love it when the video is released.
However, lessons learned, next year, we will instead tell everyone to spread out some before the dance starts.
My personal Fursuit-Answer part:
I totally agree that "Fursuit-Friendly-Dance" should mean slower and danceable music, rather than utz-utz-utz-utz hardstyle techno!
And that fog should be kept to a minimum, so
- suiters can see each other,
- attendees can watch them,
- and cameramen can get clear shots of them dancing !
(I also like the effect of fog-clouds that eventually dissolve much much more than a homogeneous persistent everywhere-fog, just to show off look-how-much-spectecular-light-efffects-we-rented-for-you.)
From my experience when asking DJs to play Disco/80s/Funny music, the usual answer is "When I start a dance with 80s, it's always empty for the first 2 hours." Well, most dances start with a less populated dancefloor anyways. However, with EF having all suiters on the dance floor already, that reason seems to be not valid for EF any more. So, please I can haz 3+ something hours of that cheerfull/emotional 80s/Disco/silly stuff next year ? ::)
Conclusion:
We all, staff and attendees need to understand that it is never possible to make everyone absolutely happy. especially not with 1300 attendees. So we wont even try to find the tiny denominator that no one can complain about. Instead EF will always try to get the maximum out of what makes the most people most happy.
And of course this is why we like your constructive positive and negative feedback, so we know what the majority likes. (And to the topic starter: Your way of bluntly putting things like an earthshaking disaster, specifically designed to destroy everyones fun is, as usual, unmatched and uncalled for.)
Cheers,
Mystifur.
<Blametaker for fursuit things>
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I have to agree with the music commments as well- last year it was the sort of cheesy sort of europop and stuff that I love, and that's what it was for the first hour or so this year, but after an hour it just seemed to change to all the boom-boom-boom techno stuff. Not that I have a massive problem with that, and we all have different tastes in music, but that's really the sort of music that tends to get played at the Big Blue Dance on Saturday, so it's good for the fursuit dance to be playing something different.
My feelings on the cartoon animations being largely missing from the projections screens this year has already been voiced elsewhere. As I said there, it was a bit disapointing that the screens were largely showing rather generic effects you could see in any nightclub, with the cartoons from last year only making a couple of brief appearances, and live footage from the dancefloor not appearing at all.
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We figured, if people didn't feel like dancing at the beginning, they wouldn't do it. And we left the house lights on for the first minutes so everybody who'd rather not be in the dancemob has the chance to locate the nearest exit. Since most of the people did join in and didn't seem to have a problem with it, we'll do it again next year, though :) It's not like we didn't have a few hundret of happy suiters there, that's for sure. Next year we'll leave everyone who doesn't want to dance more time to escape.
We did recognize the drop in dancers over the first two hours, and we figured it had both to do with the fact that the Thursday evening dance has ALWAYS been less popular than the one on Saturday, and that due to a communications messup, the hotel insisted on having all doors closed because of a smoke detector in the lobby being triggered, and a non-authorized party going on the second floor elevator platform that took away lot of the attention.
I wasn't at the dance myself, so I can't comment on the music being played, and if there is any correllation. There will always be complaints about all kinds of music, and the type of music being played has not really changed during the last years except for the natrual tendencies within the genre. So if we did have a noticeable drop in attendance this year, either everyone suddenly changed their music preferences at once (unlikely) or we had some other kind of problem. We know that fast, electronic music is not everyone's cup of tea, but we had 1300 people on site, and we know that, on the other hand, a large majority DOES enjoy this kind of music - and kenai usually knows what furries like. He's not doing it for the first time. We are going to review the recordings though, and discuss it with the other DJs - who I consider our panel of experts on issues like these.
So, I'm invoking the same rule like last year: Please no discussions about music styles. It really IS pointless. We're sorry the music doesn't make everyone happy, but it's unrealistic to expect it EVER will. It's impossible :)
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*** NOTICE BY THE MODERATORS ***
So, I will not allow any musicial style discussions here - it's just the same discussion every year, and it really does not contribute anything constructive. We can't play everyone's favourite music, no matter how honestly and passionately tell us about what YOUR favourite genre is.
So I will moderate this thread, and remove musicial style discussions in order to keep it readable.
I am very interested in hearing more about having the dance start after the photo (how did you feel about it)? Please answers only by people WHO ACTUALLY WERE THERE. "Good thing I wasn't there" is not criticism, but entirely destructive, and I will remove answers like that from now on.
Criticism of sound/light/fog are welcome - but it would help if you could tell us how you liked it IN COMPARISON TO LAST YEAR. Did it get better? Did it get worse? What has changed from your point of view?
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As a casual photographer / filmer, I was pleasantly surprised by the phasing of the group photo into the fursuit dance. You had almost every fursuiter at EF packed together on the dance floor at once, jumping, paws in the air, with no non-fursuiters. It was quite awe inspiring to watch, and made for some pretty good footage. Wouldn't mind if you did it like that next year, too.
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To start the dance after the photo was a nice idea, but like someone said: It should be told to use the whole room the next time. ^^
The volume of the sound was the one I really like listening to.
The light was find too. But I didn't liked it if that flickering light on the stage was used, it just hurts in my eyes. I'm glad it was rarely used
Even the fog was OK for me. Normally I don't like it because I feel like I can't breath with that around. So I think the amount was just right and not to much. And the fans kept the air moving on the dancing floor, think that helped too ^^
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Cheetah, the not talking about musical styles and the fact EF staff knows by now what most people love was the first thing I had in mind when I was at the dance. That because it seemed like there was something different than usual.
It seemed to me very different from the past EFs. There was like a big gap between playing the Fursuit Friendly music (old classics and that) to playing Eurodance (hands-up). I think the dance floor was lost due to that gap. Not sure what genre was played, but hope you can review the recordings.
In compression, the panel room dance and the BBF dance was more in style of what I remember from previous years.
P.S.
The gap was between 2-3 hours long!
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Mystifur: Sorry if I came across more fatalistic then intendet.
Being a feedback, this was just how it apeared and happend to me from inside the crowd
and getting your fursuit damaged doesn't exactly help to see the positive sides.
(Yes, I know I'm more on the limited and easily-disoriented part of the spectrum. So these things just happen.)
Just one of the many voices giving very subjective feedback in the hope of preventing a safety issue next year.
With a bit more space to move and an announcement it should be perfectly fine.
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I liked the idea of the mass of fursuits on the dance floor, looking forward to seeing the video! Didn't find getting out of the dance an issue once it started, though I did stay to dance for a bit.
The only issue was that was that with many fursuiters attending the dance at one point, the lounge was pretty rammed for the first hour or so, but there's no real solution to that, and it was nice to see a lot of suiters dancing all at once! :)
Not having to mess around with the photo before or after the parade was also a bonus! :)
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Imho, the quality in terms of musical content was better than last year, thanks to the first 1-2 hours, but after that, it just wasn't danceable anymore. And I'm not talking about a matter musical taste here, but simply of rhythm being being constantly broken. We even noticed with a couple friends that kenai didn't seem to check the dancefloor much as he was mixing, which gave us the feeling he was mixing more for himself than the crowd.
Moreover, if there was so much smoke doors had to be closed to prevent smoke detectors from triggering, i think there is a real problem here, since it means there was more of it at the fursuiters friendly dance than the big blue dance. It should have been the opposite.
As for the unauthorized party at the first floor's balcony, maybe there was a reason it got more attention than the main stage.
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As for the unauthorized party at the first floor's balcony, maybe there was a reason it got more attention than the main stage.
Purely as my private opinion - of course it did attract attention, because that thing was TOO FUCKING LOUD. >:(
I seriously hope that next year this thing is prevented from the start. Not only was the music carried through the whole airspace of the lobby, but the yelling of the drunken yobs was so loud I could still hear it loud and clear in my 7th floor room with the door closed and the TV turned way up.
Seriously, people. No more C-floor party. That just doesn't work.
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Moreover, if there was so much smoke doors had to be closed to prevent smoke detectors from triggering, i think there is a real problem here, since it means there was more of it at the fursuiters friendly dance than the big blue dance. It should have been the opposite.
Nothing triggered the smoke detectors, and nothing would have. It was just a missunderstanding.
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Well I wanted to atend the dance and probebly the music was better and more bearable later on BUT it started with a very LOAD and unbearaeble (to me, even in suite) techno dance thing that was just like a minor war has broken out. Scared me away right after the photo. I dont know what sort off music to espect from a fursuit friendly dance but that was simply just to load, specially since I didnt have earplugs. You should have provided them (as you did with other events that doesnt needed em) before the dance started, and warned for strong music.
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I didn't even realise that party on the balcony was unauthorised, I'd been told it was a special invite-only party for some of the British furs. It was a bit loud and rowdy for the lobby either way.
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Nothing triggered the smoke detectors, and nothing would have. It was just a missunderstanding.
My bad on this one then, i didn't understand that part very well, sorry. But i still got the feeling there was more smoke at the fursuit dance than the big blue dance.
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then maybe provide an alternate space for such kind of thing?
if it was possible at the Ringberg (though admittedly on sunday), it may be possible at the Maritime?
Seriously, people. No more C-floor party. That just doesn't work.
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My opinion concerning the photo being before the dance:
Starting the dance just after the photo had its advantages but also its disadvantages.
+ Was a good idea to do the photo in the main stage room (easier to seperate suiters from non-suiters)
+ Very convenient as you could just start bouncing right after the photo and the atmosphere with so many suiters starting to dance at once was just FANTASTIC.
+ Also loved that it was shot in the evening :P As im not a morning person (and from what i remember last year it was shot pretty early and i was a tiny bit hung over ;D )
- With having ALL the fursuiters starting the dance at once, and I really mean almost all, since everyone having a suit, usually wants his suit on the group photo, you shoot your bolt way too fast. Not everyone is sporty enough to stay on the dancefloor for more than 30min (me neither) and most ppl will only suit once during the evening and then head to shower and change into their ordinary clothes to continue partying.
So for it being the Fursuit Dance... there were almost no fursuiters on the dancefloor and I think that was part of the reason why.
With the photo not being just before the dance some ppl would have suited very early, some later and the number of suiters on the dancefloor would have been more steady.
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then maybe provide an alternate space for such kind of thing?
if it was possible at the Ringberg (though admittedly on sunday), it may be possible at the Maritime?
It's the same issue as with the rock party that has been suggested for years.
Basically, if you fart a melody that sounds similar to anything a German GEMA-listed artist has composed, the German content mafia has got you by the balls.
People didn't seem to be pissed of the night the party happened, so we decided we'd keep an eye on it and let it go as long as it stays like that. But in general, we cannot have parties in public spaces since literally EVERY room that music is being played in needs to be registered.... and paid for.
Fun fact: Anthrocon, a con four times the size of ours, pays a fragment of what we have to pay for loyalty fees.
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http://youtu.be/cyqyUZiNuJk?t=13m50s
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Not giving any commands to the crowd for a full minute after Thalian did his photo also wasn't a good idea.
I commanded the crowd to stop moving so I could take a few shots of video without interfering too much with Thalians camerawork. Lacking a microphone, I yelled out loudly. People did as I told, so apparently they must've understood me.
People start to wonder what the heck they are supposed to do now.
They stood perfectly still, as I had told them too.
Yes, it was announced that the dance would start rigth after the photo. But it was not made clear that there was no chance in attending the photo without the dance or to not bring any props or suit-parts that could break.
Sorry, but this sounds like complete BS. You make it sound like we forced people to dance. Anyone could just have left anytime they wanted. Also, if you KNEW that the dance would start right after the photo, why didn't you leave when the dance started? Why did you bring any fragile parts to begin with?
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then maybe provide an alternate space for such kind of thing?
if it was possible at the Ringberg (though admittedly on sunday), it may be possible at the Maritime?
It's the same issue as with the rock party that has been suggested for years.
Basically, if you fart a melody that sounds similar to anything a German GEMA-listed artist has composed, the German content mafia has got you by the balls.
People didn't seem to be pissed of the night the party happened, so we decided we'd keep an eye on it and let it go as long as it stays like that. But in general, we cannot have parties in public spaces since literally EVERY room that music is being played in needs to be registered.... and paid for.
Fun fact: Anthrocon, a con four times the size of ours, pays a fragment of what we have to pay for loyalty fees.
And don't forget, they want to raise the fees! And that not just a little ^__^
OK, somehow they have to pay the gas for their big expensive cars... haha...
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I commanded the crowd to stop moving so I could take a few shots of video without interfering too much with Thalians camerawork. Lacking a microphone, I yelled out loudly. People did as I told, so apparently they must've understood me.
For next year I suggest that we have at least TWO microphones available: One for me (if I do the stunt on the lifter again), and one for someone down in the dance area. This will make everything a LOT easier. And, even better: If I do this again next year, then I can use the photo from this year as a reference and simply put some duct tape markers on the floor to show where people have to stand to be on the picture :)
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The duct tape will probably only be visible to helpers but the idea is good.
Assuming that the number of fursuiters doesn't change that much.
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AC used a way of several tape lines parallel to the camera position.
Suiter had told to row up at these lines.
The lines separated by a distance to make shure that everyone is fine visible and not hidden behind someone bevor him.
Ok, AC had a way bigger Hall, also Only for the fotoshoot, and with a camera positioned in more then dopple or tripple the height as we can do in the Maritim Hall ( and also the x2-3 number of suits)
But nethertheless its possible a inspiration for an idea or adaption.
And yes, Thalian you have a good voice ;) but the Maritin Hall eaten it completly and total,
i did not get one word still with the listen amplifier on ;P
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And yes, Thalian you have a good voice ;) but the Maritin Hall eaten it completly and total,
i did not get one word still with the listen amplifier on ;P
Ah, now we're talking about the main group photo? Yes...I feared that nobody would really understand me. That's why we simply used some security people on "remote control" to get everyone into the "photo-safe area", and I used my voice mainly to get everyones attention. Anyway, it seems that people at least understood that I was doing a countdown :)
By the way - Last year I tried one of these megaphone thingies, while I was standing on the balcony at fourth floor. I tried to talk to the crowd twice, using different settings. After that, I simply put this thing away and used my voice alone, and THIS time everyone understood. That's tha main reason why I didn't even TRY to use a megaphone from the 7th floor ;D
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No i am talking about the fursuit group foto, ok, your counting was just to imagine ;)
In Maritin Hall a megafone had worked i think, in the lobby the echo effect is way to bad.
But anyway, like you stil sayed, next year a microfone :)
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+ To combine the foto with the dance was a good idea.
+ It was mentioned beforehand that the dance would start right after the shoot, it did not come as a surprise!
+ After the foto you could have moved away from the crowd easily at the beginning of the dance, as there was plenty of space in the room to manouver around the central dancers - it only meant some carefull positioning of yourself according to your needs at the beginning of the shoot (reason one I was in the very last row).
+ I brought props to that event (plate armor, cape and banner), and positioned myself in a way that the props were unlikely to break and to prevent knocking other people out with it (reason two for beeing in the last row).
+ Vision was perfect - again, the room is big enough, you can avoid to stand right in front of the fog machine or in the way the fog takes.
+ Music was not to loud (earplugs help as well when you are in suit).
+ Music was danceable (you can do slow movements on umpa umpa umpa music).
+++ For all the staff: good planing, good handling, good job! I felt safe and secure and well taken care of over the entire shoot/dance. Thank you, you rock! :)
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+ Directions were clear :) I knew what was going to happen as it was announced well
+ Dancing right after the photo worked fine, I could easily move to the side a little
+ Music initially was quite nice and worked well
+ Wasn't too loud, at least not when I was in suit
- There was a cable somewhere on the way from fursuit lounge to danceroom. Was it meant to be taped down? I almost tripped over it a few times D: Not so worried about myself but much more worried about damaging equipment! I noticed most of the cables were neatly tucked away or taped down though, so I assume this one had simply come loose.
Due to being packed closed together, the person in front of me smacked me full on in the face and hurt my nose in the progress (suit is fine) :( HOWEVER this is also largely due to this person apparantly not getting the "don't put your hands up" part that was very clearly said to us. He ruined the picture for me and hurt my nose quite badly, so uhm...thanks dude :/. I understand why we were packed together closely and had he listened it wouldn't have been a problem, perhaps next year threaten to hunt down and publicly shame anyone who does flail their arms around ;)
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About the photo: Where is it posted or where can you buy it? I havent find it yet and would love to keep it as a memory.
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Wait for it.
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About the photo: Where is it posted or where can you buy it? I havent find it yet and would love to keep it as a memory.
Don't worry, you don't need to buy it :) If evereything goes well, then I will get the group photos (main and fursuit) posted this evening. You will get them in two sizes: 1280 x something for desktop, and the full available size (about 5000 pixels wide) for printing or whatever.
There's some last fine tuning to do (as I just found out), and because I'm in the office right now this will have to wait until when I get home again.
Edit: Here we go :) https://forum.eurofurence.org/index.php/topic,4067.0.html