The Eurofurence Forum
Eurofurence Information => Feedback => Topic started by: Ragear on 23.08.2015, 21:26:57
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ok, I'll start ...
very very nice and relaxed EF! The crew wasn't as pressed as the last year (just hope they don't get used to it too much, it'd mean no pawpet show anymore ...:)) overall a very relaxing EF! Thank you guys!
Also the hotel felt more relaxed about us. Very nice was that the Biergarten remained opren for the night, that took some pressure from the lobby as a mingling point. Barbecue was nice, too. Still they felt like having to check the hotel rooms every 3hrs or so? seriously?
Only little comment about EF prime: The transmitting/ streaming team needs some sort of feedback about what arrives in the room ... there seemed to have been a loose connector somewhere so transmission was sketchy at times. And when you stream sth with voice: please turn down the background music then :)
will be in berlin again next year!
Ragear
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EF21 was my fourth EF to date and the first one in Berlin (had to skip EF20) and I think it was the most relaxed one (Well, after I arrived, I had a bit of nervous breakdown on Monday, but that was settled very quickly again ^^')
But my first impression very quickly wiped away all the doubts I had and I felt kinda at home at once. Mostly because I ran into some super nice people right from the beginning.
I'm not too much of a Panel guy, but I attended some quite interesting ones.
Plus I had really tons of fun at the Fursuit walk (as a spectator), the story hour, Cosmic & Rhubarb, art auction and several other cool events. And of course at some room parties, mingling in the lobby or at the campfire... just meeting all the awesome people attending the convention. :3
I think most events (aside from the concert maybe) went really smoothly from the organisation, no major delays, unlike some events at past EFs.
Whenever I had contact with the staff, they were always super nice and understanding and I always felt welcome, kudos to that. :3
The only (hopefully constructive) criticism I have was the charity auction.
Namely how the painted Charity bottles, filled with homemade cherry liqueur were handled (and another auction with some pictures that were auctioned off together instead of seperately).
We never really could see the artwork on the bottles (which was great by the way), the artists sadly were never stated and they were auctioned off together...resulting in a quite low bid.
We (so everybody on the con) collected so much money ... but it could have been more. I remembered the charity auction from I think EF19. There was a clock with several pictures of different artists and things were handled in a similar way, resulting in a similar low bid.
I know time was running out and Kage got rushed, because of other items that took more time. Still maybe it's a good idea for the future to plan a lil more time for charity. I think everybody who gives out art or items for the charity auction should have their gifts treated with enough time to get the most of it for charity (especially if people spend a lot of time to create those things).
Just as a lil and (hopefully) friendly suggestion :)
But other than that ... I really don't have much to complain. Some minor things that bugged me (like sadly getting no T-Shirt in my sizes on thursday, only minutes after the Dealer's Den was open for normal attendees, because some guy obviously bought them all off), but not significant enough to spoil the awesome time I had at EF21.
Thank you all for that!
See you all at EF22. :D
Edit: Sorry for the edits, I'm trying to wipe out some spelling mistakes and such. ^^'
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for me it was my first Ef, well my first con ever^^
normaly i am a very shy person, but when i was at the hotel it feel like...how can i say it(my englisch is bad^^)...that we are all...like a big family. i saw many friendly looking person (i talk only to some people, because of my shyness(is that a real word?^^)^^)
most of the time i was at the dealers den(or what it was calling) at the artist Ruki^^ finally meet him personly^^
sadly i couldn´t stay long, because my cat was ill and throw over the whole time, so after 3-5 hours i need to drive back to my flat(i live in berlin^^)
so sadly...i didn´t do anything from the...shows...^^
i was only at the dealers den and the artist show XD
btw. to the one who buy the towel from ruki at the artist show...if i found you, i will hit you >:( i was so hoping to get it XD well i got 2 cute pics(even the one was a little bit dirty...someone touch it with dirty fingers and someone snezz over it...saw it sadly when i was at home with the pic...)
next time i take a room at the hotel^^ 1 hour driving in a full bus and subway is not nice^^
can´t wait for the next one^^
and sorry for my baaad englisch, and i think, i write some words who didn´t exist^^ but well...you should understand me^^
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the artists sadly were never stated and they were auctioned off together...resulting in a quite low bid.
I'll leave it for the responsible people to answer the question about why certain items need to be bundled or otherwise would not even get into the auction at all. But in this specific case, had Kage not decided to deviate from the planned auction schedule and re-split the items by himself, not only all of them would have been shown on the big screen, but they could also have made twice the total because it would have been clear what you were bidding on -- see the two CDs (that went for EUR 550) as an example on how bundling can raise a price, and the (pre-split) Lynx+Bunny pair in the "normal" auction on how splitting a bundle lowers people's interest (first item not to receive a single bid in the auction).
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This was my 14th consecutive Eurofurence, and I have every intention of coming back next year. For all the things that go wrong, and that I might
complain and whine about provide useful feedback on, that fact there is probably the most important one one of all.
Hotel overall:
Public WIFI seemed to be an immense improvement over last year. Check in and checkout were painless procedures. The lifts worked surprisingly well this year - certainly better than last year. They never seemed too busy to use and there were no breakdowns. I can only imagine that Uncle Kage must be insanely jealous. (Again.) Individual hotel rooms though remain very basic. With no kettle or safe the hotel lags behind its peers.
Artists lounge:
It was a bad idea to put the artists lounge into a room which shared lighting conditions with the room which hosted the non-DOPE pawpet show. The moment they started, any one trying to use the artists lounge was plunged into darkness. Quite frankly this was a disrespectful thing to do to the artists contingent. Please fix this for next year. In prior years the artists lounge also had some complimentary refreshments provided. (Water, coffee, etc.) This year that didn't happen. A minor issue in comparison to the above, but it was the cherry on top. I know there are all sorts of details that we don't get to see, but I find it hard to credit that providing some basic refreshments in private con-space would be that difficult - or that it would stop people from spending money at the bar.
Security & Event Management:
During the 12PM Thursday SIG in room 3, I arrived a few minutes late to find the door was locked. After several other people joined me, I went to security who assured me that the door was not locked. Then they followed me back, and low and behold, it was locked! And people still could not get in. A brief exchange on the radio and we were sent around the the doors on the side of the room, which were also locked. Though they were also glass and we could see the talk underway inside. Fortunately they could also see us, and someone was able to open the doors from the inside. If this is a characteristic of the function room doors, even when they are booked and paid for, then convention security should probably know about it. Otherwise please ask the hotel to exercise a little more care when configuring the room locks for next year.
Travel:
I haven't actually looked at the travel section of the EF website for several years. Having just checked (http://www.eurofurence.org/EF21/)I was very surprised to see we don't seem to have one. ??? Just a form to request assistance. Can you put it back please? ::) Can you also please add information to the travel page and/or make public announcements if there is major engineering work scheduled for the week of the convention - as there was this year with a large part of the S41 shut down. I cannot find a service status page, but a link to one might be very useful.
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But other than that ... I really don't have much to complain. Some minor things that bugged me (like sadly getting no T-Shirt in my sizes on thursday, only minutes after the Dealer's Den was open for normal attendees, because some guy obviously bought them all off), but not significant enough to spoil the awesome time I had at EF21.
I am really sorry for that, I felt bad for telling everyone that we didn't had anything bigger than XXL left, AFAIK someone brought them in bulk while they were still sold at the registration. That's something I have on my list for the internal feedback, so cross your fingers for the next year :)
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@ysegrim: Thank you for the feedback here and more detailed in the Notes. :)
@Vulniir: It's okay. I was a bit pissed on thursday, but ..yeah.. first come first serve. Next year I'll just take the Sponsor upgrade ;)
And I really hope I didn't take it out on you.
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Travel:
I haven't actually looked at the travel section of the EF website for several years. Having just checked (http://www.eurofurence.org/EF21/)I was very surprised to see we don't seem to have one. ??? Just a form to request assistance. Can you put it back please? ::) Can you also please add information to the travel page and/or make public announcements if there is major engineering work scheduled for the week of the convention - as there was this year with a large part of the S41 shut down. I cannot find a service status page, but a link to one might be very useful.
Just for reference, I've just looked and there is a travel page (http://www.eurofurence.org/EF21/hotel/travel), though it's not directly linked from the home page. Instead, you have to open up the menu and it's located under the "Hotel" section thereof. Travel updates, which included the closure of the Ringbahn between Bundesplatz and Halensee, were posted in a sticky thread in the "Travel & Ride Sharing" section of this very forum.
In terms of Engineering Work details, they're only fully available in German, specifically here (http://bauarbeiten.bahn.de/berlin-bb) for S-Bahn and other heavy rail services, and here (http://www.bvg.de/en/Travel-information/Traffic-Information) for U-Bahn, Tram and Bus services. However, the BVG Journey Planner (http://fahrinfo.bvg.de/Fahrinfo/bin/query.bin/en) does take them into account when giving you a route.
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Ok, as no feedback is bad feedback here is mine:
The Good
Awesome Con, lots of nice talks with people I couldn't even remember (that's good because when meeting again next year you can have the same talk again ;)), Evlevator-Problems seems to be gone (beside software-Routing-Problems, but that's something we couldn't change, so lets hope Estrel will do optimize the Software next year), Bigger Panelrooms that are not cooled down from Berlin temperatures to Moskow ones (ok, that's not fair for the Suiters but finding a compromise is, so thumbs up).
The not that Good
Sadly the Main entrance security wasn't always at hand. I had reported at least 3 "Photographers". To be fair I wouldn't like a Entrance bouncer but just one or two Secs in disguise so we could pinpoint them more quickly in case something happens. The good point on that is, that as I reported the ones I found Dhary went full Cylon-Mode scanning every person in the Lobby in under 2 minutes. Working on such a level of response time and professionalism really warms my heart
The Bad
Programming - Ok lets be fair, putting the Pannels together so the con wouldn't need another Week to watch them all is a hard one but sadly we had some problems this year that really buggers me. There where several Programming problems with same topics at same time (for example the Music Cafe VS the GoH-Show). I still hope someone recorded some talks I wanted to see but couldn't as I where in another one.
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Artists lounge:
The Artist Lounge was 260qm in size and still was pretty much full all the time. This place is the only one big enough.
You liked the 40qm Artist Lounge better from last year? I prefer to accept the 2 hours of darkness.
In prior years the artists lounge also had some complimentary refreshments provided.
We didn't had it last year. As far as I know this was privately organized in the years before. The hotel does not allow is to provide refreshments in public spaces. At least not for now.
There where several Programming problems with same topics at same time
Do you have more examples? - The schedule is very tight and there are several dependencies that make putting this together a dependency-hell.
The furry music cafe includes many people that have dependencies on their on and it is usually quite long. There is always something on the mainstage that might clash. The schedule is created with the goal to provide something for everyone on each day. Please note that there are additional blockers in the rooms you cannot see as they are internal.
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But other than that ... I really don't have much to complain. Some minor things that bugged me (like sadly getting no T-Shirt in my sizes on thursday, only minutes after the Dealer's Den was open for normal attendees, because some guy obviously bought them all off), but not significant enough to spoil the awesome time I had at EF21.
Going by the numbers that poeple give when signing up, we had exactly 15 shirts in 3XL and 15 in 4XL that were gone on the second day.
You -do- know you can buy shirts right at registration, do you? It's not mandatory to wait until the Dealers Den opens. ;D
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You -do- know you can buy shirts right at registration, do you? It's not mandatory to wait until the Dealers Den opens. ;D
I do know it, but honestly .. I was just so done by the train ride, I completely forgot about it.
In the last years I was always lucky to get one, even if I forgot about it at the reg.
No harm done. It bugged me a bit on thursday, but as I said, it could not spoil the fun I had. :) And I got myself an awesome badge by a friendly artist instead to take home as a memento :3
And next years I'm either a Sponsor anyway or I'll write myself a note to pick it up when I register. ;D
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The schedule is very tight and there are several dependencies that make putting this together a dependency-hell.
I would guess this is a symptom of how many awesome programs there are going on all the time. Sometimes it was indeed hard to decide which one to choose and which one to skip... but oh well, that's life. The con was still wonderful and I had a great time. :)
Huge thanks for all the organizers and panel holders!
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There where several Programming problems with same topics at same time
Do you have more examples? - The schedule is very tight and there are several dependencies that make putting this together a dependency-hell.
The furry music cafe includes many people that have dependencies on their on and it is usually quite long. There is always something on the mainstage that might clash. The schedule is created with the goal to provide something for everyone on each day. Please note that there are additional blockers in the rooms you cannot see as they are internal.
the Fursuit Photoshoot VS The Fursuit Gameshow several times (I don't know if it is handled the way that participating ones from one Event can participate on the next installment of the other)
Btw. I know how hard it is handling all that stuff so please don't take it personal or to hard, as I wouldn't want that job ;)
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the Fursuit Photoshoot VS The Fursuit Gameshow several times
Fursuit Photoshoot runs daily for 8 (up to 9) hours, plus registration times, so it is fairly difficult to schedule around that (as with any All Day event).
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Only little comment about EF prime: The transmitting/ streaming team needs some sort of feedback about what arrives in the room ... there seemed to have been a loose connector somewhere so transmission was sketchy at times. And when you stream sth with voice: please turn down the background
That was indeed a problem that was beyond our control. Apparently some of the distributor-units in the hotel where faulty and the company that installed them couldn't find the faulty units. This, for example, lead to the problem that the entire Wing 3 couldn't watch it. This should be resolved by EF22.
As for the background music issue. I guess you are refering to Enter the Arena - this took a while longer until we actually got feedback from you guys since we can't monitor the stream-audio during live shows.
Thanks for the feedback!
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I had already written a report here:
https://forum.eurofurence.org/index.php/topic,6541.0.html so feel free to merge if you want.
Overall it was an incredible experience, here are some nitpicks though:
The setup for the dance contest was far from optimal and many people could not see anything beyond the head of the dancers. The screen didn't really help. Perhaps an elevated stage?
While the fursuit games were fun some games and judging criteria were on the weak side.
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Overall I had a really great time at EF, had a blast Djing at the Fursuit Friendly dance ( 22h30 to 00h00 was me :) ) and finaly able to bring some lasers ! :D Hope you enjoyed all.
I would just like to point out a few things :
- I had no EF Prime at all in Wing 3 floor 2, nothing at all :p
- I tryed 2 days in a raw to enter the fursuit photoshoot, and turned out the queu was insane. Maybee having a second stage for photo to double the amount of people able to take part would help a lot ?
- While I like enter the arena in the center of the room, having dancers on floor level made it hard to see if you waren't on the first 4 rows :) I saw people standing on there chairs to be able to watch. Moving it on stage or on podest would help a lot :)
- Moving the dead dog party back to Paris ? Having it in the club stage was nice, but made it far to reach with nothing in between the lobby and that room. Seems like people where all over the place with nothing really going on :)
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Overall I think the con was very well managed (even if I didn't manage myself very well!) but I do have a few ideas for improvements:
- Room Access - If it is legally possible, can we please get the all the staircase doors unlocked, so we aren't forced to use the lifts? This would also allow those who need the lifts more (suiters and those with luggage) to use them without having to wait so long. Would also be some handy exercise!
- Sponsor Goodies - I think you need a new sticker supplier, the adhesive on mine wasn't very good, and I couldn't get it to stick to my plastic case. Also I missed picking up my sponsor pin, but that was probably my fault.
- EF Prime stream - I think the addition of a simple 24h clock to the banner would be a plus. It's difficult to keep track of time when you're in suit, so being able to see the time in as many locations as possible is very helpful. You could also include the "delays and reschedules" in the feed as a sort of ident that appears every 2 minutes or so, and perhaps some other idents displaying official announcements and such.
- Photoshoot - Better communication with the queue so people don't leave empty handed after waiting 30+ minutes. Having two separate lines for 10 and 20 minute slots would probably help with this, and perhaps some sort of "slots remaining" counter (manual or electronic) so furs who have no hope of getting a slot don't queue up and waste their time. It might be worth having separate quotas for 10 and 20 minute slots, and alternating between the lines. If the 20 minute line is empty and the quota not full, then the slot(s) can be split and taken by 2 furs in the 10 minute line, and vice versa.
- Fursuit Lounge - More Pegs Plz! :P (Mystifur already knows about that one). Also, if some insulated ice buckets could be left out, so furs could add their own ice to their drinks. Finally, there needs to be a equal number of tables for heads and paws/feet, the latter was almost always fully occupied as there was only one of them, so the rules were bent and the heads tables used instead.
That's it for now. I'll edit it if I think of any more. But overall, great job guys!
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This was my 14th consecutive Eurofurence, and I have every intention of coming back next year. For all the things that go wrong, and that I might complain and whine about provide useful feedback on, that fact there is probably the most important one one of all.
I'm glad to hear that ... I'll give a little information regarding the things I know of.
It was a bad idea to put the artists lounge into a room which shared lighting conditions with the room which hosted the non-DOPE pawpet show. The moment they started, any one trying to use the artists lounge was plunged into darkness. Quite frankly this was a disrespectful thing to do to the artists contingent.
It was in the first place an accident ... we didn't know you could not switch the lights individually until, well, we found out that very moment.
During the 12PM Thursday SIG in room 3, I arrived a few minutes late to find the door was locked. After several other people joined me, I went to security who assured me that the door was not locked. [...] If this is a characteristic of the function room doors, even when they are booked and paid for, then convention security should probably know about it. Otherwise please ask the hotel to exercise a little more care when configuring the room locks for next year.
That was also certainly not intended. The thing is, the doors are fire escape doors, so they ALWAYS open from the inside. So you can have doors that are technically locked, but open. As soon as they snap shut, you can only open them from the inside. So someone must accidently locked the door, but not closed it, and since there is no indication wether its locked or not as long as it's open, the conops person in question must have thought it's open. We'll have to double check next time. When in doubt ... nobody will hold it against you if you knock.
Travel:
I haven't actually looked at the travel section of the EF website for several years. Having just checked (http://www.eurofurence.org/EF21/)I was very surprised to see we don't seem to have one. ???
Then check again, because we actually have one :) -> http://www.eurofurence.org/EF21/hotel/travel
... and frequent Updates in the Forum :) -> https://forum.eurofurence.org/index.php/topic,6344.0.html
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Registration : just perfect, fast & effective. Congrats to reg team. :)
Small improvement possible : the machine for punching holes in key cards should more easily accessible.
Opening Ceremony : nice music & intro video. I would love to see that ceremony as a start of a story (CFz did an amazing thing to make it less boring), board directors speeches can be boring sometimes. :/
80s dance : I had a very nice time there but I would love to hear more great classical songs from the 80s next time.
And please please don't put typical 90s songs (ie "I Like to Move It" - 1993) in your 80s set, it kills the entire mood/feeling of a 80s dance.
Dutch Angel Dragon meeting : I learnt a lot about the AD dragons there. It was very well conducted. Next time try to have offline PDF/HTML pages & videos because unfortunately the internet was crappy during the panel.
Fursuit photoshoot : great idea of this QR code receipt. Too bad you can't choose the exact hour & time. Definitely nicer setup than EF20 and the headshoot idea is nice too ! Keep up the good work !
To allow more people to get a pic, would it be possible to allow photographers access outside of the photoshoot time slots?
Breathing Life into Fursuiting : although it was his first time, Blastdav's panel was very interesting. Please make more of this !
Group Photo : maybe having clear instructions from a megaphone from the ground would help next time.
Fursuit group photo : not a very good time there. People were stuck in a massive queue at the door not able to move or to have space to breathe. :/
I can't imagine how it was hard for unexperimented suiters to wait at the entrance & then wait for the pic itself. The fursuit staff tried to provide fans to cool down the queue but it was not effective at all because of the massive & dense queue.
If the main stage is not totally ready yet, you should allow fursuiters to enter the room ASAP and make them wait in a corner of the main stage or make them wait in the fursuit lounge only (same procedure as the fursuit parade)
Dancing panel : please make more of this ! Great time there. ^^
Fursuit Parade : nice & very fast. ^^ Maybe you could offer a small waterproof FM radio + earpieces as a gift to Sponsors next year to fursuiters. ;)
Fureoke : great songs & nice memories there. There is a room to improve sound next year and maybe put the main screen further so it won't be blocked by singers.
Motorfurs meeting : nice cars there, too bad that the ground is dirty and in a very bad shape.
Enter the Arena : lot of good & different performances and no visible technical problems this year. Too bad it was nearly impossible to see the dancers. :/ Put the public on removable grandstands would help (I know it would take a lot of space and money too).
Closing ceremony : I loved the idea of that small film of the convention, very nice editing there. ^^ Having some feedback from the charity was very nice too. Let's make the number & stats things more shorter next time.
Big Blue Dance : well, I have to admit I never got into this. :/ Fortunately there was an alternative dance in the club.
Dead dog party : best dance for me. Congrats to the DJs. :)
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Hotel : very nice place as always with an effective & nice staff. :)
I really hope that the hotel extension will have a swimming pool. ^^'
Dog permit : some of my friends were really pissed off to see that some VIPs & people from staff were allowed to bring their dogs (although they're not obviously guide dogs for blind people). They were missing their dog and they had to find a solution to find a place and someone to take care of it during the convention.
Bar : I know I'm in Germany but no cider of any kind at all ? :/
Beer Garden : lovely place to drink a beer especially on a hot summer night. ^^ The campfire is one of my favorite places. Congrats to the setup team !
Fursuit lounge : large mirrors in the entrance and digital clocks easily visible in room, large fans with benches & plenty of water (although I almost had no drink there) : perfect ! I was just missing "The Blade" from CFz & the fursuit lounge seems to be at 1 km from the lobby with damn stairs. ^^'
Fortunately the little Oasis was much closer to the lobby.
Main Stage : the light show (lasers & stuff) was amazing ! I just find the main stage very dark sometimes : especially during the fursuit friendly dance, it was not fursuit friendly at all. ^^'
I also did not felt very secure when this guy moving at high speed on a wheeled machine was filming very close to me and the other fursuiters.
The theme : the conbook, website & trailer videos were great but the only place I really felt a little bit the theme was the main stage. I really hope that next year more convention space will be used to display the theme.
Staff on wheels : for me, the real theme of EF21 was the song "They see me Rollin', they Hatin'" XD
EF Prime : good stuff there but problems sometimes on the stream.
Schedule : you should allow photoshoot organisers access to the EF smartphone app (with a special tab) & EF schedule on screens/EF Prime.
Dealers' Den : I had the feeling it was lacking of space and the Art show had too much of it. Maybe space could be gained by reducing the space between the Main stage and the artshow itselft (aka the queue room to Main Stage).
Fursuit mobile water service : very nice idea ! Please keep it next year !
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Maybee having a second stage for photo to double the amount of people able to take part would help a lot ?
I guess many people would like that, but we'd need:
- a room (the Photoshoot requires a high ceiling for the light trussing) - this is fairly difficult since at the moment the Photoshoot blocks part of the Art Show already
- a team (or several, to double the working times) - photographers with skills and willing to dedicate their time
- the equipment (to be used in parallel)
I wouldn't even dare to guess what's hardest to come by.
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me again,
I forgot (and probably have forgotten even more :/) the water porters! You are the real MVPs! Thank you for that service!!
on the photoshoot: let's face it: there were ~1k suiters ... 6-10shoots can be handled per hour ... there are 3 days @ 8hrs each ... do the maths, folks, bearing in mind that the photo team is no less than heroic but also wants to see the con from another angle than a 50mm lens ...
Ragear
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EF21 was my second EF and it was pretty fun this year as well ! I'm still very new to furrycons so it wasn't as exciting this year as it was last year, with my very first con ever. But I still had tons of fun and will return next year ! Sorry if this ends up being super long !
The good stuff:
- Hotel check in/check out was quite easy again, had to wait about 15 minutes to check out because of the long queue at 12pm but I was in no hurry so I didn't mind it much. The room card had a cool design on it too
- Stage events were on time or had very minimal delays
- Breakfast <3 Even tho they were always out of shredded wheat when I got to the breakfast (only got to eat them once, I guess I just need to go eat earlier ^^)
- Fursuit lounge was nice and roomy, even tho it was more farther away from the lobby than last year, it was easy enough to get to for me
- Registration was fast and easy even when I got my badge on Wednesday instead of Tuesday when I actually arrived. Got my fursuit badge very quickly as well, even tho it had to be made on-site due me not getting a pic of my suit in time (I had to finish the head in my room on Tuesday lol...)
- Security guys with water supply was such a good thing to have, seriously every time I started to feel tired/thirsty, there was a person with water supply almost sprinting over to me asking if I needed water ! Thank you so much, you guys seriously made suiting so much easier when I couldn't get to the lounge !
- Dealers den was great again, even tho I was sad that Soapasaurus had to cancel in the last minute. But thanks to that artist who had Steven Universe themed stickers on sale, I forgot to pick up your business card but my girlfriend and I loved the stickers !
- Dance competition was great, it was fun to attend again
- Art show was great as well, I forgot to check it out last year and now I have a huge urge to make something for next year !
- All the dances were lots of fun, even tho I didn't attend Fursuit Friendly Dance at all (I was supposed to but I got tired that evening and just went into my room and watched it over EF Prime ^^')
The okay-ish stuff:
- Not a big thing, but it bothered me that the water in the fursuit lounge was a lot of times more room temperature than actually cold. But that is just a small nitpick and it happened to be like that only couple times when I were in the lounge, and I visited it a lot
- My room card worked once, when we got to our room I was able to open it but after that, it never worked. But as my room mate who was with me 100% of the time had a working card so I didn't feel the need to go ask for a new card (if I was alone or with some other friend etc, I would have gotten new one right away of course)
- The motorfurs meet place's ground was in very bad condition and I kept almost falling over when I visited it in my suit... I know con staff won't be able to do much about it but decided to mentoin it
- EF Prime was good but it was spazzing out sometimes, but I see it has been discussed about already here ^^ But the playlist or whatever for the videos seemed to have very few different videos, as I would see the same ones all the time (I don't mind but seeing the same video three times in one hour was kinda annoying)
The bad stuff:
- This is the only thing about the con itself that I was feeling very uncomfortable about: My friend has a stalker who was an attendee. Me and my roommate told him to back off as he was getting bit too touchy-feely and told that we would report him to the security if he didn't stop and then he left our friend alone, we never really got his badge number or name as we wanted to report him anyway but he seemed to be harmless after that. But still it left me bit bothered, my fault that I didn't get to report him but next time if there's someone like this, I will report them right away or as soon as I can. And my friend is still happy to come again next year so it didn't hinder her con experience.
The stuff that was awful but had nothing to do with the con (= I fricked up stuff by myself lmao):
- I lost my passport on Tuesday and had a panic attack because of it. Gladly it was in the Tegel airport's lost and found in the end, but it was awful :'D So I wasn't able to get my registration on the early-arrival day + I spent the whole day panicking and standing in the luggage tracking/lost and found queue lmao. I'll be more careful next time haha
Other than that, trying to get over PCD and waiting anxiously for next year ! ^^
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I loved the con, this was my first furry convention yet, and I'm real sad it ended so soon!
My favorite thing besides the fursuiters and all the lovely art was the variety of panels and how well they were spread out! They made time fly even more.
If I could ask for one thing with the next con, I'd REALLY like a panel or something dedicated to just finding some people to go around the con with. I really wish I could've made more friends, however being as shy as I am, it's a huge challenge for me to get a buddy or two to hang out with short of flat out saying "be my friend!".
I feel like I couldve enjoyed the con so much more if I HAD found a few furs to hang around with, and I think a meet n greet panel would be great to help out those new and quiet furs who are in a similar situation.
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The only (hopefully constructive) criticism I have was the charity auction.
Namely how the painted Charity bottles, filled with homemade cherry liqueur were handled (and another auction with some pictures that were auctioned off together instead of seperately).
We never really could see the artwork on the bottles (which was great by the way), the artists sadly were never stated and they were auctioned off together...resulting in a quite low bid.
We (so everybody on the con) collected so much money ... but it could have been more. I remembered the charity auction from I think EF19. There was a clock with several pictures of different artists and things were handled in a similar way, resulting in a similar low bid.
I know time was running out and Kage got rushed, because of other items that took more time. Still maybe it's a good idea for the future to plan a lil more time for charity. I think everybody who gives out art or items for the charity auction should have their gifts treated with enough time to get the most of it for charity (especially if people spend a lot of time to create those things).
Just as a lil and (hopefully) friendly suggestion :)
Hi Ghostbear
The charity auction is the result of cooperation between a lot of departments and even some people who are not in any department or officially work for the convention (such as Kage). Therefore, I cannot address all your points, but I will try to address the ones I can, the ones that relate directly to the charity department.
The artists were never stated: Let's go through the possible causes one by one. When the bottles were submitted, were the artists mentioned there? If not then we have no way of knowing who they are. We make a description for each item, and they have to be short. So possibly the artists might have been omitted there. It could also be that they were submitted and put in the description, but that Kage didn't mention them due to time pressure or having to deal with so many items. Sadly I wasn't at the auction as I had other things to tend to, so I don't know how things happened.
Items were bundled: We sometimes bundle items since we can only have a few items at the auction. Either it can be smaller items that together make up a big enough item that it merits one of the few auction slots. Or it can be similar items where instead of only selling one via the auction and the others through the lottery, we decide to bundle them to "wow" people and make the bidding go high. Yes there is a chance it might make less money than unbundled, but we also sometimes see the opposite effect, that the price goes higher for a set than the individual pieces could have gotten. These things are hard to predict, it really depends on the crowd. Plus, we might only be able to auction one item then, the others would go to the lottery.
Incidentally, let me just say that if something goes to the lottery, that could very well be exactly because it is an awesome item which will help us sell lots of lottery tickets because everyone wants it. I heard one or two people ask why their items were lottery items and not auction items, and I just want to say that there is no pattern of size of impressiveness to that. We need "eye-catchers" for the lottery booth too. And this year, we sold out of lottery tickets at the lottery booth! That never happened before. (You guys rock so much!)
Lastly, you brought up two very good points which I have already discussed with some other departments and we will also have a meeting about internally in my team. The first was time for the charity auction. Right now we basically get what time is left after the general auction. But we could have a fixed amount of time like in some previous years. I will look into the pros and cons of that. The second point was treating donated items with respect. I think we do that already, we really try to sell them for the highest amount (remember this is also in our interest). But we will have a general discussion about Donors' Rights, i.e. how much of a say donors get in what happens to their items. I honestly don't know what to say or think about it right now as I'm dead tired and need to hibernate for a few months like your species does ;) But it's certainely worth discussing, which we will.
I want to thank you for your feedback. I hope you are generally satisfied with us. I am taking your points seriously, so even if you do not get a 5-page report on decision outcomes or anything like that, I want you to know that I have heard you and I am listening.
See you next year I hope.
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The only (hopefully constructive) criticism I have was the charity auction.
Namely how the painted Charity bottles, filled with homemade cherry liqueur were handled (and another auction with some pictures that were auctioned off together instead of seperately).
As the person directly responsible for the Charity Auction, I feel that I need to add my two cents here (I apologise if I repeat a few things that have already been said). The problem with the Charity Auction is that there is only a limited amount of time in which to sell the items, given the two hour timeslot and that the time has to be shared with the general Art Auction as well. Because of that, we can only accept a certain maximum number of items to Charity Auction, and sometimes this means that items have to be grouped together, in order to fit them in and to give them the best chance of raising as much money at Auction as possible. I did my best to let the donators know that their items may be grouped this way, and the donator of the bottles was informed that they were likely to be auctioned off together (along with the advertising panels that were also donated later). They made a natural set together, and it allowed more items to make it to Auction overall.
We never really could see the artwork on the bottles (which was great by the way)...
All items accepted to Charity Auction are displayed in their own special area of the Art Show in the days before the Auction, so that anyone interested in bidding on them on has a good opportunity to see them beforehand. Given the size of the bottles on stage, it would have been impossible for the entire audience to get a good look at them during the Auction itself (short of calling for the runner to bring the bottles closer), but their images were displayed on the large projector screen over the stage as they were auctioned off, which is the best we can do under the circumstances.
...the artists sadly were never stated...
The artists who contributed to the art on the bottles were listed on the projector screen, and unfortunately there were so many artists who contributed to the advertising panels that it was impossible to list them all on the screen. Uncle Kage was given full information about the artists on both the bottles and the panels on an auction runsheet, but due to the interruption from the audience during the sale of those items which forced the auction to be split in half, and the fact that he had less than 2 minutes to sell each item in the Auction overall, I really can't blame him for thinking on his feet and skipping the runsheet in order to keep things running on time. I agree that it is unfortunate that the artists were not acknowledged, but this was not our intention, and in a live, fast-paced event like the Auction, mistakes do sometimes happen.
and they were auctioned off together...resulting in a quite low bid.
As others have said already, sometimes bundling items together can actually raise the amount for which they are sold (as in, they sell for more than they would have individually). For example, the Furry Fantasy CD set was originally donated as two separate CDs, but together they sold for 550 Euros. Deciding which items to group and which to leave separate, and which items to accept to Auction and which items to turn down can be a very tricky process, as it can be hard to know what the audience will like. We do our best to give every donation the best chance it can get to raise as much money as possible, but sometimes the crowd just doesn't bite.
Still maybe it's a good idea for the future to plan a lil more time for charity.
This is a good point, and it is definitely something we'll be thinking about during our planning and review for next year. I would personally like to see more time given to the Charity Auction, but we will need to see what our options are and whether it is possible.
I think everybody who gives out art or items for the charity auction should have their gifts treated with enough time to get the most of it for charity (especially if people spend a lot of time to create those things).
Please know that we value and appreciate every donation of prizes that we receive for the Eurofurence Charity Auction and Lottery Booth. It's in part because of these donations that Eurofurence is able to raise as much money for our charity each year as we do, and we try to give every donation the best chance of raising money for charity as possible (I think I already said that, but it bears repeating). In fact, we had so many impressive donations this year that we even added an improvised Charity Panel to the Art Show so that some of our donations that wouldn't fit into the regular Charity Auction could still have a chance to sell on a silent bidsheet along with the other items in the Art Show. This is another possibility we'll be looking into repeating next year.
In closing, thank you for giving us your feedback. We'll take on board as much as we can to improve for next year, and I hope that we've been able to clear up some of your concerns.
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I'm quite relaxed at cons, so a lot of things do not bother me. The one thing that really bothered me was the preparation of chairs and the projection on the canvas at enter the arena. If you did not was sitting in the first two lines, then you could not see the dance floor. Standing did not help to see anything. To look at the canvas was pointless, because due to the light and fog nothing could be seen. So either next year the fursuiter dancing on the stage or you build grandstands.
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- I had no EF Prime at all in Wing 3 floor 2, nothing at all :p
As far as I know, no one had a working EF Prime in Wing 3 - and that would be my biggest complaint about this EF (I had a blast otherwise). I've been told it's been the hotel's fault, and I really hope EF gets a discount on the price of using the TV infrastructure for that (so they have an incentive to fix it for next time).
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Dog permit : some of my friends were really pissed off to see that some VIPs & people from staff were allowed to bring their dogs (although they're not obviously guide dogs for blind people). They were missing their dog and they had to find a solution to find a place and someone to take care of it during the convention.
The frustration is understandable. It's just that with a few people, EF has the options of either negotiating a special permit for their dogs with the hotel, or have them not come at all. And since they're usually quite important for the convention, there's not really a choice. On the other paw, a general permit for dogs is not possible any longer either, it just didn't work out well in the past. So there's really not much EF can do about this point, unfortunately.
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Dog permit : some of my friends were really pissed off to see that some VIPs & people from staff were allowed to bring their dogs (although they're not obviously guide dogs for blind people). They were missing their dog and they had to find a solution to find a place and someone to take care of it during the convention.
On the human side, I can undersand where that frustration is coming from. On the other hand, it's the same way how we sometimes make exceptions for staffers to the "no kids" rule if they're long time contributing members and we need them to run this gig, and we know them personally long enough to trust them not to abuse the privilege and not become a liability.
Being a long time contributing and hardworking staffer has very few privileges, but this is one that we sometimes grant. There was exactly one exception, and that won't likely change. Unless you're volunteering to run the art show :) I
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- Moving the dead dog party back to Paris ? Having it in the club stage was nice, but made it far to reach with nothing in between the lobby and that room. Seems like people where all over the place with nothing really going on :)
You're right, but we had to vacate all conference rooms in the Estrel until Saturday Evening 22:00, some until Sunday Eveniong 22:00 because they were booked by some other party ... so we had to schedule it in the ECC where we could use rooms until Monday. So it was the best available compromise.
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Room Access - If it is legally possible, can we please get the all the staircase doors unlocked, so we aren't forced to use the lifts? This would also allow those who need the lifts more (suiters and those with luggage) to use them without having to wait so long. Would also be some handy exercise!
We tried hard to negotiate this, but unfortunately it is not possible for legal and security reasons. Hotel security insists that you can't accidently depart at the wrong floor in an actual emergency, the only way MUST lead to the emergency exit.
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I tryed 2 days in a raw to enter the fursuit photoshoot, and turned out the queu was insane. Maybee having a second stage for photo to double the amount of people able to take part would help a lot ?
We did discuss that option of a second set internally multiple times already. But unless we find a room that hosts us (unlikely) and get about double the budget (also unlikely) we don't even have to scout for suitable staff to handle the workload. We can think about *maybe* adding an hour or two on the opening times though. Also, having two sets with the same decoration is unlikely, so how would we put people into set 1 or set 2?
Photoshoot - Better communication with the queue so people don't leave empty handed after waiting 30+ minutes. Having two separate lines for 10 and 20 minute slots would probably help with this, and perhaps some sort of "slots remaining" counter (manual or electronic) so furs who have no hope of getting a slot don't queue up and waste their time. It might be worth having separate quotas for 10 and 20 minute slots, and alternating between the lines. If the 20 minute line is empty and the quota not full, then the slot(s) can be split and taken by 2 furs in the 10 minute line, and vice versa.
Thank you for the input on the "slots remaining counter" - I'll consider something along these lines. However the amount cannot be 100% accurate since we are dealing with 10 or 15 minute slots here that are distributed upon demand. But I guess an estimated counter is better than none at all.
Fursuit photoshoot : great idea of this QR code receipt. Too bad you can't choose the exact hour & time. Definitely nicer setup than EF20 and the headshoot idea is nice too ! Keep up the good work !
To allow more people to get a pic, would it be possible to allow photographers access outside of the photoshoot time slots?
Thanks! The praise for that goes out to Karpour, who poked me to add something like that. I really would love a smaller code but the printer quality isn't quite up to par and the density required for a (mostly) working appointment is insane...
The "outside the hours" is basically out of the question, I'm afraid. We need some time to do backups and ready the set/props for the next day. Also we are doing our staff group pictures as well as one or two "extras" for photoshoot staffers already. So there really isn't much time left. Also, the rented equipment would need supervision anyway...
Group Photo : maybe having clear instructions from a megaphone from the ground would help next time.
We did have a megaphone... it was working this year too... but the distance proved a bit too far so nobody down there could hear it :( - we'll think about something for next year!
Fursuit group photo : not a very good time there. People were stuck in a massive queue at the door not able to move or to have space to breathe. :/
This is already in the feedback queue of the stage/security departments - somehow nobody thought about the queue requirement.
on the photoshoot: let's face it: there were ~1k suiters ... 6-10shoots can be handled per hour ... there are 3 days @ 8hrs each ... do the maths, folks, bearing in mind that the photo team is no less than heroic but also wants to see the con from another angle than a 50mm lens ...
Thanks for the feedback - oh, and we have a 24-105 lens ;)
We will never be able to squeeze all suiters that attend EF into the photoshoot. Which is why we would prefer to take suiters who didn't have a slot the year before. This is however a "soft" restriction, as a member of a group might have had a slot the year before and we don't want to split a group because of that. Only if *all* of the group had their pictures taken the year before we'd say: "Come back when the queue is gone". We did deny several persons who tried to sign up for a second picture to keep it fair. Sadly there is no 100% surefire way of detecting the "had a slot the year before" case. EF would need to have a permanent registration system for that. We can only guesstimate that and people might slip through.
While the fursuit games were fun some games and judging criteria were on the weak side.
"Weak" as in...? The focus was on entertaining games - however it's next to impossible to predict which games will be fun when you have no idea who is going to play them. Even with incredibly funny TV gameshows, the humor is mostly from the people playing and not the games themself. Which is why we scout for fursuiters who can also act a bit during the preliminaries.
the Fursuit Photoshoot VS The Fursuit Gameshow several times (I don't know if it is handled the way that participating ones from one Event can participate on the next installment of the other)
I wouldn't consider that a problem per se - the photoshoot was going on way longer and had plenty of other possible timeslots that didn't overlap. The preliminaries would only take 30-60 minutes of actual time (the timeframe in the schedule is for *all* the teams) and the show is only "blocking" qualified teams.
That being said: We did not expect that extreme increase in the photoshoot registrations - last year, the queues were only a few people long by the time the slots were gone. We *will* think of possible solutions, but as of yet I don't see any simple ones.
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Putting on the "attendee" hat, I really liked that we were able to spread all over the hotel and CC for the Dead Dog party, so people spread out over all of the hotel and conference center. You never felt alone, but you could always get a seat somewhere.
And can I use the opportunity to say how much I loved the concept of having three stages (plus the extra PPS stage)? So great to have all the different kind of entertainment at any given time in the evening ... Jam Sessions, Big dancefloor, alternatives ... Thank you so much for making this possible! *
(Disclosure: While I'm part of the Stage Team, I could not claim any credit for almost all of them ... I'm saying this purely as attendee)
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Holy moly, that was a great con. Especially how smooth the hotel personnel was working with us this time, and how friendly they were. Conversations with the waitress at the Estrel Stube were part of the joy of eating there, next to the HUGE meals you get for your money.
Also, the hotel didn't say a thing when I picked up my sushi and pizza orders at the reception. Thanks for letting that slip, I guess. :)
Sound and light setup at the stage(s) were very good this time. The "as if they just pushed the Open Air button and left it like that" feeling didn't come up this time. Shame I didn't have much time nor energy to enjoy the dances. Will make sure to do so next year!
Oh, and one more thing that left an impression regarding security: Every single time a situation or person catched my eye that could possibly be in need of assistance, I shortly after noticed that a security guy was already there, standing anywhere nearby and observing the scene. Security was practically everwhere at any time they were needed, and really left the impression that the wellbeing of our attendees is secured. Very well done!
At the moment, I could only think of few things to improve:
- Internet coverage. The hotel wifi was a pain to use, and almost never worked (this login page that would always ask you to choose a data plan would mostly throw me back to the same page; also, there's this certain danger of accidently clicking the wrong data choice...). Dealers in the D-Den didn't seem to have internet at all, which is kinda bad for them, I guess.
...and some minor things:
- The way to the Art Show: Better close the door next to the stage, and open the door between D-Den and AS again. Walking that huge, undecorated and cold hall all the way over to the AS kinda felt like walking to the end of the world.
- Personally, I imagined the Chillout Lounge to be more relaxed. There was enough space for that in the glass-roofed hall where the Fursuit Lounge was last year.
- As much as I was looking forward to the charity photo shoot, I'd like us to reconsider if we want to do that ever again. The otter kinda seemed very unhappy about it.
I think there was one more thing that I needed to get off my mind, but I can't seem to find it in the chaos inside my head that EF has left. The more I'm done, the better the party obviously was! Will post again when it comes back.
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As the person directly responsible for the Charity Auction, I feel that I need to add my two cents here (I apologise if I repeat a few things that have already been said). The problem with the Charity Auction is that there is only a limited amount of time in which to sell the items, given the two hour timeslot and that the time has to be shared with the general Art Auction as well. Because of that, we can only accept a certain maximum number of items to Charity Auction, and sometimes this means that items have to be grouped together, in order to fit them in and to give them the best chance of raising as much money at Auction as possible. I did my best to let the donators know that their items may be grouped this way, and the donator of the bottles was informed that they were likely to be auctioned off together (along with the advertising panels that were also donated later). They made a natural set together, and it allowed more items to make it to Auction overall.
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I found out at art show closing that my two puppet head-bases were bundled. Several people had asked me before EF if they could get one puppet head - nobody had asked for two - I had told everybody that there would be two individual pieces in the auction. After the auction I got all the complains from the bidders that only wanted one. Don't do that again without asking me.
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Heya Pinky and Ray Liehm...
I want to thank you for both your statements.
And I hope I could give some constructive feedback (it seemed that way, judging from both your answers) of things that might have gone wrong. Which totally can happen, we are human after all.
Uhm.
Sort of...
You know what I mean. ;D
Also thank you for clearing up some things I really wasn't aware of.
Overall I totally loved the Charity events as a big whole thing and I'm so happy that I too could play my part in making them speechless again by donating, using the lottery, getting a sketch from Baseball (which was awesome by the way) and getting some items from the Amazon wishlist.
Thank you for providing that possibility to help.
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At the moment, I could only think of few things to improve:
- The way to the Art Show: Better close the door next to the stage, and open the door between D-Den and AS again. Walking that huge, undecorated and cold hall all the way over to the AS kinda felt like walking to the end of the world.
I would disagree on that point.
Last year, the traffic felt a lot higher and more annoying in the DD, especially up to the door leading to the Art Show and Photoshoot.
To lessen that traffic and sometimes forming queues at the entrance to the second room, it was divided.
And to be honest, while the extra way might not have been the best looking part of the convention, how often do you really need to visit the AS?
If enough people are interested in a certain object, it very likely will reach the bid-limit anyway and land in auction.
If there is not enough interest, visiting 2 or 3 times should be enough, especially if you show up before closing to maybe "safe" the bid in case someone else had placed a higher one.
Anyway, I guess the better solution would be to hopefully find a way to decorate the hall and not make it look so bleak. ^^
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The way to the Art Show: Better close the door next to the stage, and open the door between D-Den and AS again. Walking that huge, undecorated and cold hall all the way over to the AS kinda felt like walking to the end of the world.
On the other hand, the queueing space in Hall B proved invaluable. It might have been empty most of the time but there were times when the hall was full of people. I wouldn't know where else to put them. (We also do not have any space in the Art Show any more for people to queue.) Access to the Art Show through the Dealers' Den, as we did in 2014, is a practical, logistical, and security nightmare so this will not return.
I do agree that Hall B was not very pretty though. So much space should lead to some MAD DECORATIONZ opportunities.
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... and finaly able to bring some lasers ! :D Hope you enjoyed all.
They were f*cking awesome. Please bring them next year again! They really helped to fill that large room.
Besides, I liked the overall stage concept. This thing really rocked and fitted perfectly to the convention theme. In total: Just wow!
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Concerning the Art Show Entrance, I strongly agree with Sheena and Cairyn. Making the door in the Dealer's Den the main entrance was (and probably would be again) a nightmare. The long way we had there now indeed had a lack of decoration or meaning so people might not feel so invited to walk there but on the other hand, how often do you really need to go there? From an artist's point of view it's also quite dangerous to drag large pieces of art through the crowded Den, what would probably be necessary during the Art Show closing.
I wondered though how the door placement did affect the buyers this year compared to last year. Did the possible Art Show bidders get "distracted" last year by all those shiny cool Dealer's Den things on there way to the Art Show or did they tend to save the money for the show? Now after a year without the necessity to visit both rooms to get to the Art Show, is it possible to tell that?
Maybe a nice compromise would be to simply open both doors though the one from this year should be clearly marked as main entrance but personally I would rather suggest to decorate it a bit or so.
What I rather like to criticise on the Art Show is the short amount of time it was actually opened. I know how tight the time table had been in the years where the auction was placed right before the PPS or a dance to offer a larger time frame - and how that led to terrible delays. (And as it seems while looking at the criticism about the charity auction the current time frame still is not enough for that.) However: With a set up taking place over two days (one afternoon-evening, one morning) and closing already on friday, there remains a large group of people that never even get a chance to have a look into the Art Show at all: Day visitors and people who can't manage to arrive before Friday evening/saturday because of their jobs. The Art Show has always been a large part of the Convention just as it has been a large part within the whole fandom and apart from making money either for the artists or with charity objects, it is not just a great way but often the only way to really see the pictures of your favorite artist or fursuit maker in HD, without watermarks on and not limited by the size and quality of your monitor. Please give it more time to entertain the guests with that. We're putting a large amount of work and energy in those pictures and the Dealer's Den can't compensate this (or vice versa) because a market place is something completely different than a gallery. Also the Art Show offers a good opportunity for artists without a DD table to present their art, may it be personally or even with an agent because they can't make it to the con at all.
I know arranging a time table is a very tricky thing but please please please think that over.
Another thing about the Art Show: Some panels (e.g. mine) were poorly lit while others had a perfect bright lighting that attracted people naturally. My "masterpiece" that year was a night scene with a strong contrast that looked completely dull because of that. It didn't sell, probably not only because of the lighting and its position but also because people just didn't like it (I guess), but in my opinion it would have a better chance to get actually noticed with a better lighting. (And same problem with the Charity panels that were in that corner, too.)
Apart from that, the management, communication and last but not least polite and patient behavior of the Art Show team was really amazing! (No, no sarcasm here. ;) ) You guys tried your best to handle every needs and questions in the best possible way. Thanks also to the little hard-working minions runners who helped out at the end of the show. The payout at the end was a bit delayed and slow but with those huge sums you have to deal with I'm happy if you rather take your time than messing this up in a hurry. *hugs to you* You guys are awesome!
I have another feedback/critique concerning the Art Show - and it goes directly to the ARTISTS:
1) If you can't manage to visit the con or bring art or have some space left, communicate that. At Thursday 12 o'clock when the Art Show opened up for the Sponsors the other 3 of 4 panels in my corner were EMPTY. Completely. Nobody knew why. If not some good soul would have hanged some charity objects there people would have barely noticed my pancel because it looked so empty. Thanks, dear charity art show person!
2) If you only got a table due to overbooking, move yourself into the Art Show shortly before the Set Up is done and ask if some panels are left. There would have been a few you would have been able to use - if you just would have showed up there in time. Later on it's not possible to move the pictures anymore because possible interested people might miss your artwork at the original table and then won't bid on it. Take care of your artwork, you can only win. :)
Sorry dear Art Show team for this huge Art Show "rant" but due to really bad personal time management I was missing a large part of the con so I can't really judge about the other parts. :/
The Artist's Lounge was great! So much space, so many funny people! Especially in less crowded situations it felt pretty cold in there though and some people might have actually became a cold afterwards because of that. Is there a way to rise the temperature in single rooms or would that have an impact to other rooms, too, that would need a much colder air?
The Artist's Alley got ignored by many people so this wasn't quite helpful but AlphaKi already stated in the Closing Ceremony that was a communication mistake with the hotel and there will be improvements next year.
The people on the bar were nice. 3,50 Euro for a coke seemed to be a bit crazy because you can get a 1,5-2l bottle of coke for this price on the next supermarket but of course you can't empty that bottle in the lounge, so the possibility to drink it in a more comfortable environment than your room is kind of part of the price, I guess. ^^
The elevator I was in was really overheated. Is it possible to improve the air conditioning there?
Apart from that, you guys were all so great and crazy and patient and heart warming and hard-working and funny, both attendees and staff! Although I didn't really had that much time at the consite, I don't want to miss a single minute. ^^
Ok, that's all folks!
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I wondered though how the door placement did affect the buyers this year compared to last year. Did the possible Art Show bidders get "distracted" last year by all those shiny cool Dealer's Den things on there way to the Art Show or did they tend to save the money for the show? Now after a year without the necessity to visit both rooms to get to the Art Show, is it possible to tell that?
I haven't noticed a drop in bidders or bidding last year; this year has an increase in registered bidders again. Seems to follow the upward trend, but I did not make any real statistics to back it up with reliable numbers.
What I rather like to criticise on the Art Show is the short amount of time it was actually opened.
Personally I would love to offer longer opening times. However, we are boxed in by the overall length of the convention and the processes surrounding the Art Show. If we were just an exhibition, we could open Thursday early morning and have artists collect their art Saturday evening - but we do have the whole sales process that surrounds it, and which needs to be executed in a certain sequence (no auction before closing, no payout before sales, no sales before auction...).
Essentially, Saturday is completely taken up with the auction-sales-payout process. With the auction covering both regular and charity items, and being of sometimes unpredictable length, there need to be overflow times and breaks, and as this year shows, the scheduled times themselves may need to be longer too. So, there is simply no room left for a Saturday opening (as sad as this is for Saturday Day Pass owners), and Sunday is already needed for breakdown so no part of the process can be moved there.
Opening on Wednesday is also not possible since many artists only arrive on Wednesday or even Thursday morning, and we can't open while a majority of artists are still setting up - the danger of damages would be too high (not to mention the certainty of annoyances).
This leaves only Thursday and Friday for opening, which are both already covered for the most part. Closing should not interfere with major evening events either, so... no wiggle room left.
You may have noticed that we already added 2 hours of regular opening time to Thursday evening (until 20:00) to accomodate dealers that can now visit after the Dealers' Den closes.
Another thing about the Art Show: Some panels (e.g. mine) were poorly lit while others had a perfect bright lighting that attracted people naturally.
At the moment there are three light sources: The hall's light, the bleachers' rim light, and the additional lights that we set up because the hall's lighting is insufficient for an Art Show ;D
This causes some inequalities in the lighting. I agree that it is not optimal (we will never have the same kind of overall lighting again that we had in Magdeburg) but for the front part I think the light is sufficient if all lights are switched on. We already got rid of the "wall panels" that we had last year by changing all wall-facing panels into full niches. Further additions to the lighting would be quite cost-intensive and cannot be covered at the moment.
The real pain point for me is the back part of the adult section (where we had the queueing area last year), which was really dark in comparison. Unfortunately additional lighting would disturb the Photoshoot's own lighting, so we had no extra light set up in that area. The black molton of the Photoshoot walls doesn't help the brightness either. Furthermore the panel setup in that area suffered from inferior panels that forced us to create one-panel niches.
A huge overbooking of Art Show panels forced us to set these up, but it really is not optimal. We will work on the lighting issues but it may take some drastic changes to find an effective solution.
Thanks for your positive view though, we are trying to improve on everything!
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Oh yeah, forgot to mentoin ! If the two people from Netherlands are reading this, thanks for keeping company for me and my roommate at 4am when we were waiting for the train (and hope you got to the Hostel safetly haha) ! I wish I got your names but I forgot to ask, I hope we can see each other next year !
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- EF Prime was good but it was spazzing out sometimes, but I see it has been discussed about already here ^^ But the playlist or whatever for the videos seemed to have very few different videos, as I would see the same ones all the time (I don't mind but seeing the same video three times in one hour was kinda annoying)
I'm actually curious to know which one that was, or which day. We had a total amount of more than 40 hours of individual programming this year (not counting the live shows), and the individual show was being rerun only two or three times during the entire 5 days.
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Only little comment about EF prime: The transmitting/ streaming team needs some sort of feedback about what arrives in the room ... there seemed to have been a loose connector somewhere so transmission was sketchy at times. And when you stream sth with voice: please turn down the background music then :)
will be in berlin again next year!
Ragear
We actually did turn down the background music. Or so we thought. The audio mixer showed the channel as muted - but obviously didn't mote it. We had to mute it a second time to fix that after getting feedback from you guys. We're going to establish a way of monitoring the stream in the future, at least during transition periods to keep this from happening.
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The one thing that really bothered me was the preparation of chairs and the projection on the canvas at enter the arena. If you did not was sitting in the first two lines, then you could not see the dance floor. Standing did not help to see anything. To look at the canvas was pointless, because due to the light and fog nothing could be seen. So either next year the fursuiter dancing on the stage or you build grandstands.
Yes, that is a good point. The problem was that as you may have noticed, we had a very unique and different stage layout this year, and with this, a lot of challenges come. In our case, it was the unexpected lighting situation that kept the projection from being clearly visible at times, not only during Enter The Arena.
Moving the dancers to the stage is a no-go - since this greatly limits them with their possibilities. But we'll see how we are going to handle this in the future. :)
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I'm actually curious to know which one that was, or which day. We had a total amount of more than 40 hours of individual programming this year (not counting the live shows), and the individual show was being rerun only two or three times during the entire 5 days.
I think it was on either Wednesday or Thursday, it happened only in one day but I found it strange !
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I'm actually curious to know which one that was, or which day. We had a total amount of more than 40 hours of individual programming this year (not counting the live shows), and the individual show was being rerun only two or three times during the entire 5 days.
I think it was on either Wednesday or Thursday, it happened only in one day but I found it strange !
I'd say Wednesday, after the opening ceremony.
It is quite clear in my head, as I was ill and could not attend the first 2 days and a few minutes before the end of the ceremony I looked at my twitter and saw the link to the stream.
After that I let the stream run for quite a while but the videos got very boring, seeing the same one for the 3rd or 4th time. After that I did not turn it back on since it gave me this feeling "you will only see something else when something on the main stage happens"
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Overall I think the con was very well managed (even if I didn't manage myself very well!) but I do have a few ideas for improvements:
- Fursuit Lounge - More Pegs Plz! :P (Mystifur already knows about that one). Also, if some insulated ice buckets could be left out, so furs could add their own ice to their drinks. Finally, there needs to be a equal number of tables for heads and paws/feet, the latter was almost always fully occupied as there was only one of them, so the rules were bent and the heads tables used instead.
Hi and thanks for the feedback.
Paw Dryers: Your Math is wrong ;) Technically we'd need 4 times the number of paw dryers to the number of head dryers. As every head head usually comes with 4 paws. ;-)
But seriuously, the lounge has been growing and work-in-progress for the last 11 years. Had you come last year, you'd only seen have the amount of head dryers. We had some budget to build more, and we deemed dry heads more important than dry paws. Next year, something else will get some money and improve.
The good stuff:
- Fursuit lounge was nice and roomy, even tho it was more farther away from the lobby than last year, it was easy enough to get to for me
And we even had a secong lounge running in the very same old location as well :)
The okay-ish stuff:
- Not a big thing, but it bothered me that the water in the fursuit lounge was a lot of times more room temperature than actually cold. But that is just a small nitpick and it happened to be like that only couple times when I were in the lounge, and I visited it a lot
Ice and Drinks:
Sorry that you found "every luke warm at times". (Which may actually have happened in the morning hours, but unlikely in the afternoon.)
- Did you try turning it off and on again?... Or rather have you tried different kegs? We keep some of the drinks free of ice intentionally, because suiters also complained about all the drinks giving them brain freeze.
- If you did, and found all of them to be warm.. Did you talk to someone of my team and inform them? I know they'd love to help right there. Such things can be solved easily IF you let us know right there!
- We decided against public access to the ice cubes for 3 reasons:
1) You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get enough ice as it is, because for some reason the hotel also wants it for their cocktails ;)
2) Suiters will fill their cups with ice, drink some, and then throw the cups with left over ice into the bin. ..where it starts to melt and gives us this lovely watery mess to clean out.
3) Health/Hygiene issues. 500 sweaty fuzzy fursuiter paws/hands rummaging through the ice that others are going to consume is a no-go. :)
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The okay-ish stuff:
- Not a big thing, but it bothered me that the water in the fursuit lounge was a lot of times more room temperature than actually cold. But that is just a small nitpick and it happened to be like that only couple times when I were in the lounge, and I visited it a lot
Ice and Drinks:
Sorry that you found "every luke warm at times". (Which may actually have happened in the morning hours, but unlikely in the afternoon.)
- Did you try turning it off and on again?... Or rather have you tried different kegs? We keep some of the drinks free of ice intentionally, because suiters also complained about all the drinks giving them brain freeze.
I am not a suiter, so I can only look at it from the outside and try to be as unbiased as possible.
From a biological point of view, drinking and eating cold stuff while your body is overheating the worst thing you can do.
The body has to heat up the stuff until it reaches a temperature where the body can work with it.
So, you are hot and add cold stuff your body heats up which in turn raises your temperature even more.
There is a reason why in certain hot regions of the world warm drinks like coffee and tea is the drink of choice among the people who live there.
So, personally, I would even advise against any cooled drinks in the lounge... knowing I myself have no experience what is helping a suiter and doubting many would understand my reasoning.
Even knowing the facts above... I find myself enjoying a cooled drink or ice and the likes on hot days... knowing it is wrong and regretting it a lot of times, afterwards.
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First EF, and I really liked it. Something that made me chuckle was this : (http://puu.sh/jP754/b8224e941e.jpg) ;D
I like the idea to "Unite" the former Yugoslavian countries into one, but It would be nice to have each independent countries listed.
Language wise its not that close now than it was 20+ years ago.
Overall it was a really good first experience with a con. Will definitely try to go next year.
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I will separate eurofurence related feedback from hotel related feedback.
eurofurence:
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globally I had a lot of fun, like all the EF I have attended since the 13th,
good job keeping this huge event going on year after year and thanks to all the staff (regular and volunteer) that make this possible.
rooms arrangement:
- separate entry for the dealers den and art show is the way to go, please do it again next year.
non-event waiting queue (registration, art pickup):
excellent, everything went really fast, you did an awesome job
event waiting queue:
it has improved, delays were not as massive as last years, so good work on that, though there is still some way to improvement.
I have noticed most problems seem to come from sound related setup (main stage entrance ceremony, charity concert), and it's certainly not easy to set up, often on the fly, different setup, I dont really know how this could be improved :/ I guess it's something we will have to put up with
earprotections:
there was some earprotections, thank you very much for that,
but it was chaotic at best, as I had to personally ask some staff to have some available at the 80th dance. for the other dances, someone did care of it fortunatly.
about this, I would like very very very highly praise two staff members who put up with me at the 80th dance:
the first was one of the backstage crew, who picked the backstage crew own earprotections box and placed it on the table at the room entrance, because no one else knew where the other earprotections boxes were.
the second one is one of the security guy, who made several travel to conop/secop to ask for the earprotections and print some sign to tell people where to find the box.
I fear I forgot your name but if you read this or if someone of your related group can tell you, know that you are awesome!
I would be SERIOUSLY interested to officially have to handle this particular task next year (availability of the earprotections, table to put them on, having sign printed and placed to inform people)
dealers den:
- the tables in dealers at the back: there was a wider avenue on the back left (artshow wall) and a narrower avenue on the back right (windows side), please can you center a little bit more the table next time so there is a more even spacing around the back isle? it was overcrowded on the windows side.
- side doors: I was bumped quite hardly by some hotel staff suddenly opening violently a door in the side of the room, as I was looking at a dealers table next to it.
as far as I know that door should have been locked and stayed locked. can you inform the hotel they should not use these side door? maybe adding a "NO ENTRY" sign on the other side or something.
- NO BAGS INSIDE THE DEALERS DEN!
in all the EF I have attended since 13 until 19, we have always been allowed bags inside the dealers den, so we can put all the stuff we buy in them.
BUT, last years, since the artshow entrance was through the dealers den, you decided we had to leave all the bag outside.
This year, the artshow entrance was separate, I see absolutely no reason anymore to force people to leave their bag outside the dealers den.
Please re-allow bags inside the dealers den next year
main stage:
- excellent bigger room!!!!!!!
- awesome LASERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:
awesome, thanks Djem!
BUT, when the lasers where on, we could hardly see anything anymore on the main display screen.
that was very noticeable during the opening ceremony, and a good lot of the hard work put inside the opening ceremony displayed animation was lost because of that,
please see if it would be possible to either position the lasers differently or find a way the lasers dont pass in front of the main display.
- backstage crew:
I had the occasion to see how the crew was working and especially the guy at the light management table. I fear I wasnt of much help, since there was so much to learn in a short time, but I would very highly thanks the guy who took the time to explain how it was working (and I would like to quote him: "dont worry, at worst all the lights switch off, but it's ok, we still have the lasers!")
I have a better understanding of all the work being done so people can enjoy dancing, thank you all for everything you do!
lost & found:
- please, dont bring lost & found in the secop room, I had a really hard time finding it there and I had to annoy several conop and security people until we found it in the secop room (yes I know it's my own fault for leaving a bag 10 min on a table, but still)
artshow:
- poor lightning
this was already said and I have read the answers already, still please try to improve if possible.
charity auction:
- as already stated, the charity part of the auction are always rushed because of not enough time, which of course highly depends of how many pieces in the artshow went to auction and how fiery (or slowly) people fight for them. since you wont know that before the closing of the artshow, I dont know how it would be possible to define a fixed time for the charity part, unless it become open-ended (with its lot of problematic consequences). also having the charity at the beginning is not a solution since people would keep their money first for the items they are fighting for and after for charity if they have any left (this is a simplification of course).
I dont have a solution, beside maybe reserve a bit more time as already done, but thats at best a mitigation.
fireplace:
- EXCELLENT!!!!
thank you very much to the staff who handled the fire and kept it running, ESPECIALLY ON LAST DAY! the con is over but you still made the fire, you rock, simply
trash can at every floor:
- excellent idea, thank you for doing that
hotel:
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internet:
wifi: better than last year, though it may depends which aisle and level your room is?
cabled internet: completely unusable, I have no idea how it's possible to fuck up so totally a cabled network
main lobby bar (not the piano bar):
stuck up staff, never felt really welcome there, no food anymore, premixed watered down cocktails
I now avoid that place totally.
beer garten:
excellent, staff super cool, also curry wurst and bbq!
and the the barman!!!!!!! that guy is almost as awesome as Andree! he is an absolute keeper! also he made the EF cocktails on the fly there
breakfast:
OVERZEALOUS WAITERS!!!
seriously, you couldnt look elsewhere for a second before the staff was already picking your plate and stuff on your table,
I mean, ok, they want people to get out at 11 or so, so they can clean up and prepare the place for the restaurants, but this is going way too far.
I have been seriously annoyed by this and Im not alone.
please tell the waiters manager to calm down next year
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We keep some of the drinks free of ice intentionally, because suiters also complained about all the drinks giving them brain freeze.
Which I was very happy about. I once chose the wrong keg by accident, and the drink was so cold it physically hurt - so I was glad there were others with a more agreeable temperature (not complaining about the cold stuff at all - it's just not for me!).
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lost & found:
- please, dont bring lost & found in the secop room, I had a really hard time finding it there and I had to annoy several conop and security people until we found it in the secop room (yes I know it's my own fault for leaving a bag 10 min on a table, but still)
Heyho everyone,
please note that the official lost & found was operated the whole time in the ConOps-Office. Only at Sunday evening all lost & found related items had to be moved to SecOps on grounds of the ConOps-Breakdown. The easiest way to solve that kind of issues is to just drop by the ConOps-Office and ask. Staff-members sitting there will do their best to help you (This means less work for you ;))
So long,
Honigeintopf
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Staff-members sitting there will do their best to help you (This means less work for you ;))
I know, but poor KingSimba who was at conop at that time had no idea there was stuff in the secop room (I know you did your best :), sorry to have annoyed you), I only found out where it was because I asked the people in the secop room a second time to look for any out-of-place plastic bags. apparently even people there didnt know there was lost&found being deposited there nor if there was a place in the room specifically for that.
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Most has already been mentioned, there were just a couple of (small) things that I wanted to add.
-Lanyards: Would it be possible to get lanyards with break away buckles? This would really simplify putting on my badge while in fursuit. I could use my own but these obviously aren't official EF attendee/sponsor colored lanyards.
-Themed decoration: Last year we had the police car, the crime scenes around the hotel and several other things that delivered the feeling of the theme. I really missed that this year.
-Fursuit group photo: Probably has been covered already but this was my main concern. Even though they put out fans and watersuppliers at some point I think it was better if the Main Stage would have just opened and you had us wait in the back of the hall where there was more space and ample seating. This wait was just way too long and up front where I was it was almost impossible to get out. Dangerous situation in my opinion. Please also communicate better with the crowd, what is causing the delay and how you want us to set up for the photograph, use the microphones from the stage?
-Trash cans near the entrance: Trash cans on all the floors was an excellent idea! The hotel should also consider putting one or two in front near the hotel entrance. The small cigarette disposals quickly overfilled with bottles etc. Meaning that a lot of glass was put on the ground or on the ledges. I sometimes removed bottles because I was afraid people would knock them over and they would fall down on somebody. I think larger trash cans would help fight this problem.
Other than that the con went very smoothly! The suiter lounge was excellent and the general layout of the convention was well thought over. Seperating the Dealers Den from the Art Show and the Fursuit Photoshoot was a good choice. The second bar near the Open Stage was a blessing and really reduced waiting lines for drinks. I had a wonderful time at EF, thank you staff for making it all happen!
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The second bar near the Open Stage was a blessing and really reduced waiting lines for drinks.
ah yes, I forgot about that, it was really nice to have a bar near the dances, to get some refreshing drink without having to walk all the way to the main lobby,
excellent idea
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I'm usually a quiet person, so just a few things to mention.
This year, the theme of the con wasn't really prominent. There was almost no decoration, just the banners in the lobby (which were awesome) and the large panel between registration and rotunda. The way between the hotel area and the conventionspace felt a bit like entering a new world, it was too empty.
The dealers den needs way more space. ;)
At the opening ceremony, the sound at the main stage was kinda bad. A bit too much bass sometimes, and the way too present midrange really did hurt my ears. But I guess it's impossible to find that out at the soundcheck when the hall is empty. So we might need about 1k volunteers next time to fill it up first. ;D
The room for our inflatables panel on Saturday was very nice, we did get a lot of attention because of the glass wall to the hallway. And thanks for LuckyEsel from ConOps to let me in way earlier to start prepairing the toys. It was almost 8 hours of fun there.
Not so nice was, that the room for the plushie panel was used for the snack exchange before and they didn't clean up! So we stood there with our plushies in hand and had to wait for the staff to vacuum the floor and clean the tables. Not to mention the nasty smell.
The hotel staff was very friendly and helpful. But their house keeping needs improvement. It was kinda annoying that they constantly came over to check things. Even worse, that the maids mostly can't speak/understand german or even english. When you have things in your room that you don't want to have been moved/touched, they simply don't get what you want.
A bathroom fan that instantly switches off when you turn off the light is a big fail!
And their shower gel must have an ingredient that causes some kind of allergic reaction. My head started itching after using it, it was almost unbearable.
They need a big pool!!! :P (But spending 24 hours at Tropical Island after EF pretty much made up for that)
The breakfast was awesome again.
Can't wait for next year.
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Hi and thanks for the feedback.
Paw Dryers: Your Math is wrong ;) Technically we'd need 4 times the number of paw dryers to the number of head dryers. As every head head usually comes with 4 paws. ;-)
But seriuously, the lounge has been growing and work-in-progress for the last 11 years. Had you come last year, you'd only seen have the amount of head dryers. We had some budget to build more, and we deemed dry heads more important than dry paws. Next year, something else will get some money and improve.
No problem. Thanks for the reply.
Well yes, ideally that would be the case, but I don't think there would be room! :) So an equal number of tables seems like a more realistic proposition.
- We decided against public access to the ice cubes for 3 reasons:
1) You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get enough ice as it is, because for some reason the hotel also wants it for their cocktails ;)
2) Suiters will fill their cups with ice, drink some, and then throw the cups with left over ice into the bin. ..where it starts to melt and gives us this lovely watery mess to clean out.
3) Health/Hygiene issues. 500 sweaty fuzzy fursuiter paws/hands rummaging through the ice that others are going to consume is a no-go. :)
1. Well, I guess that's a logistics issue really, you could try bringing in your own ice (or ice machine), but I wouldn't know how difficult that would be so I can't really comment.
2. Encouraging suiters to empty any ice left into the buckets beneath the coolers would probably help solve that issue.
3. That's why man invented tongs ;)
Oh and just on a more positive comment, I thought the signage in the lounge was very well made and instructional, especially the heat exhaustion poster. More stuff like that would be great! :)
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Pheew... Where to start...
Looking here at the remains of my pocket-programme I have like 11 event's panels I marked myself for "ATTEND THIS" and I was in like 4... There was always so much awesome stuff going on everywhere, I'd like to have myself cloned to visit everything to greet everyone, to hang arround with... - you get the point.
Nevertheless I took myself some time and suited about ~ 1 hour a day or so. This year was the first time I took the chance and was at the Fursuit- lounge and I was like: "Wow these fans are great" - perfect for cooling down and the drinks also helped alot since I think fursuiting gets you dehydrated quite fast. After walking from the Lounge back to the hotel and jumping arround a bit in the lobby, I was like "Well, it is quite far from here to the fursuit lounge... damn" but a security-member showed me the little area where the lounge was last year (Yeah I know >read the conbook<- I did but I simply forgot this).
What I want to say with this is: realising you put this little area there for the suiters who where at the lobby shows how much planning and effort went into this all. Mystifur, you and your team did a great job!
Art Show: difficult to start with, since I did not register myself as a bidder. I enjoyed the variety and the skill of all the artists who participated and also the professional way the whole thing was managed. Also I am glad I got to sell some of my stuff there. People told me the place where my stuff was located was not optimal and I think that's quite right but I do also think that a better location/ light/ weather/ whatever would not have made any influence, since I got a big eyecatcher there and ceramics /figurines will always have the problem of the difficult transportation.
Speaking of transportation I just realised that the otter-figurine for the charity auction did not have any packaging included although I clicked "yes" in the google-doc. I am very sorry for that. During all that hurry I forgot to give you the box. I hope you somehow managed to wrap it anyway.
The charity team itself managed to pull alot of money out of my wallet. Bad for me good for the Wildtierhilfe Fiel so... not bad at all... :P You did a great job!
Artist Alley: I did not want to stay all day inside the dealers den and miss half of the con (therefore I did not register for it at all), so the artist alley was the perfect opportunity to sell some stuff and have time. I think I was there between 15:00 and 18:00 on saturday and actually I think it was quite good - not like everything sold out but people where interested and bought a few things. It felt a bit like dealers den - second choice but as I said that is quite fine. 'Just angry about myself that I was there just on saturday and not on the days before... When will cloning be legal?
The Dances are not my kind of event but you did a great job with the alternatives: The Karaoke sessions where great and the open stage itself was one of my favourites - highlight on saturday: Rhubarb, Eisfuchs, Fox-Amoore and (sorry I don't know your names drummer and accordeon-player) and their impro-concert: Awesome!
Question to Eisfuchs: Did you bring the instruments? Could everyone played with it? I was kinda afraid since some musicians don't like when you touch their stuff... Anyway I consider bringing my own guitar next year. :P
Last evening I was not at the DDP but at the Campfire which showed to be an awesome alternative to the noise music.
After all I'd just like to say that this con was r e a l l y a w e s o m e and thank everone I met there as well as everyone I did not met, for making it awesome the way it was.
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artshow:
- poor lightning
this was already said and I have read the answers already, still please try to improve if possible.
and who else found the lighting situation insufficient: Can you tell us when exactly you were visiting the Art Show? I am asking because, for technical reasons, for a short time on one day we had a different lighting situation than the rest of the time. We know already lighting at this specific time was not too good, we want to make sure people can at least live with what we had the rest of the time :)
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I visited the Art Show a few times, mostly at afternoon/evening except during the set up at thursday noon. Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to the light all the time. At the beginning it felt more like "something is bothering me about that but I can't name it" until someone mentioned the lighting. (I think that was friday.) Therefore I can't give you a clear and helpful answer. :(
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I like the idea to "Unite" the former Yugoslavian countries into one, but It would be nice to have each independent countries listed.
Language wise its not that close now than it was 20+ years ago.
*chuckles* Well the reason why there's even this choice (Former Yugoslavia) is that the country selector is basically a dump of ISO country codes, and it has some obsolete assignments in it :) But I noticed you are half right anyways ... we list Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegowina and Macedonia, but somehow the list is missing Montenegro and Serbia. I guess the list is a little too old - I agree we should update it.
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-Lanyards: Would it be possible to get lanyards with break away buckles? This would really simplify putting on my badge while in fursuit. I could use my own but these obviously aren't official EF attendee/sponsor colored lanyards.
Just as a note - we had this for one year, and we got a flood of complaints that it was now far too easy to lose your badge - I guess you can't have the cake and eat it too :)
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and who else found the lighting situation insufficient: Can you tell us when exactly you were visiting the Art Show? I am asking because, for technical reasons, for a short time on one day we had a different lighting situation than the rest of the time. We know already lighting at this specific time was not too good, we want to make sure people can at least live with what we had the rest of the time :)
I visited the artshow several time between the 3 days, not just once.
please dont misunderstand me, Im not saying you did a bad job, Im saying quite several panel are not lighted correctly, due to the room lighting possibilities, but this made some of the art either hard or difficult to appreciate at their correct value or even not really noticeable, for example, some of the tables along the wall or several in the adult area.
but all this has already been discussed in previous feedback in this thread, thats why I didnt elaborate
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This was my third EF and not my last, each time I have attended I have left for home with great memories and a good experience along with the minor downsides that failed to dent my enthusiasm for having a good time with a great group of people.
My first EF was also the last one held in Magdeburg, the city that introduced me to: A fantastic steakhouse with good beer, Jägerschnitzel, Currywurst, how to properly 'toast' by clinking the bottom of the glass and not breaking eye-contact and other fun things about Germany I never knew before. My second EF brought me to Berlin and to completely new experiences which were only improved upon many-fold this year.
I enjoyed my first EF though getting to and from Magdeburg proved to be a frustrating excercise with delayed trains and a missed return flight, yet for all that I couldn't help but discuss the good fun I had with two other friends who had never been to a furcon before - they came for EF 20 and enjoyed it so much they were with me again this year along with another friend from America who sadly could not stay for the whole event. My overall experiences have been very positive even with the occasional issues and problems, none of them were particularly unpleasant enough to ruin my fun or deter me from returning.
Getting there:
I would recommend trying to catch a flight into SXF, the train station is less than 300m away, the instructions on the website do assume a familiarity with how to find the correct train, I found the station signs confusing and a bit contradictory but I've yet to see any train station get this right so not a big deal overall.
Checkin & Registration:
The staff at reception are very helpful, my room wasn't ready but they were happy to hold onto my bags so I could come back later. Registration is also quick and smooth, it was nice to have Registration open on Tuesday morning so I could get that out of the way to save queuing later when more people would arrive, even upgrades to higher levels was straightforward and quickly done.
Elevators & Stairs:
With only two or three elevators for each wing, there are inevitably long queues and delays as the car stops at almost every floor, my only issue which I note has been addressed already is the lack of stairs forcing everyone to use the elevator when going up, this was at its worst during the arrivals and departures. Even if they can't unlock them to permit you to go up, is it permitted to use them for going down to the lobby?
Internet Access:
I think it's nice that the hotel provides us with "free" internet access but the hotspot system is not without a number of flaws. Moving from the "rooms" network to the regular network would require you to log back in, in some areas the network was completely unstable and unusable; connecting to the "rooms" network would work while the regular network would not get you a connection at all and in other areas it was the reverse. None of this was helped by a bad actor interfering with the WiFi! Highly recommended you stick with mobile data if you can, you can't get 4G on prepaid and it's a bit of a pain if you don't have a German address but I had the most reliable internet connection care of Telekom.de!
Food and Drink:
There are a few nice places within walking distance, but I found the Estrel-Stube restaurant to be quite reasonably priced and the staff there to be very helpful and friendly - the supervisor in particular. Good food, generous portions and nice beer all made for a good evening. While others didn't express the best view of the staff at the Atrium Bar, I always found them reasonably quick and quite friendly. I recall one of the wait staff asking me twice if I wanted anything to eat when I just needed to sit with a friend and chat over a drink, great service.
The Convention Itself:
What can I say that I haven't said already? I spent so much time moving between different groups of friends, that I didn't spend quite as much attending all the panels, but it's obvious that the programming team go to lengths to keep most of us happy with more things to do than hours in the day. My only comment is that there doesn't seem to be quite that many useful perks in paying for a Sponsors badge such as early access to the Dealers Den but that's also a minor thing, I'll be paying out for a Sponsors badge again regardless as overall I enjoy my time there and would like help keep it going year on year.
So a big thank you to the con staff and hotel for making this another fantastic year for my friends and I.
One last thing, and something of a tip for the Security section in the conbook. I had left my phone down as I went to go get some fresh air and realised my mistake, it had been handed into security but they had no idea who owned it. If you do own a Smartphone, make sure your name is programmed into the "Owner" information so that Security can identify who it belongs to when you come to claim it.
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One last thing, and something of a tip for the Security section in the conbook. I had left my phone down as I went to go get some fresh air and realised my mistake, it had been handed into security but they had no idea who owned it. If you do own a Smartphone, make sure your name is programmed into the "Owner" information so that Security can identify who it belongs to when you come to claim it.
Or make it very easy to recognize ^^
Unless someone removes it to own it for him/herself, I doubt there wil lbe any mistake with my actual hardshell as the picture on it is rather unique... and only furry-related if you know the connections.
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and who else found the lighting situation insufficient: Can you tell us when exactly you were visiting the Art Show? I am asking because, for technical reasons, for a short time on one day we had a different lighting situation than the rest of the time. We know already lighting at this specific time was not too good, we want to make sure people can at least live with what we had the rest of the time :)
I visited the artshow several time between the 3 days, not just once.
please dont misunderstand me, Im not saying you did a bad job, Im saying quite several panel are not lighted correctly, due to the room lighting possibilities, but this made some of the art either hard or difficult to appreciate at their correct value or even not really noticeable, for example, some of the tables along the wall or several in the adult area.
but all this has already been discussed in previous feedback in this thread, thats why I didnt elaborate
No, no, thanks for letting us know! I was just curious whether this was something we had already fixed (by fixing the technical problem I mentioned), or whether we still need to see whether there is an affordable way to improve the lightning situation. Seems it's the latter, but I can't promise anything :)
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After my second EF I just have to write a few words here. I was having some great days like last year and I will definitly come back again. It is just like a step into that other world I ever dreamed of when I read the books and comics or watched the tv shows that got me into this ;-)
At first I want just to say thank you to the staff for the great work and to the other attendees for great time there.
It is just fun to watch the fursuiters in action in the hotel lobby, on the dance floor and on stage in the events. The Dance competition had some great performances and the game show was fun too. I hope I have my own suit till next year (pointing out to the person who knows... ;-)
Last years pawpet show was really great so I was a bit dissapointed that there would be none this year, but the swiss team did a great job. It wasn't that "epic" like Keepers of the Light but with a lot of humor. I really liked it.
With all that space available there where a lot of places to go to and with different things going on. A lot of Events and Panels at day and at the evening/night the campfire was good to relax, the open stage had some really cool events and the dance events where a good finisher of the day. Some special thanks to the DJ at saturday in ECC3, that was some really cool music.
The only thing I could criticize is that compared to last year the decoration was a bit "missing". The banners in the lobby where cool, but last year there was just more around that pointed out the theme. Like the police car in the chill out lounge and so on. And as others mentioned earlier the room for the queueing was really looking "empty", even with a lot of people in the queues (but having that space for the queues was a lot better than last year)
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I have nothing to complain about the EF21. It was great.
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Overall a great con, and it was nice to see the return of the fire pit, but I do have a few thoughts:
- Badge Holders : To save having to punch holes in all the badges (which must take hours with other 2100 badges to print and punch), how about trialling the use of badge holders for next year? They could also be double-sided so folks can put their room key on the other side. Obviously this has a financial implication, and experience says that con budgets tend to run pretty close to the wire, but it's a thought.
- Hotel Bookings : I missed out on a room at the Estrel this year as I was at work when reg opened. When I got home about three hours later, the hotel was already operating a waiting list. From speaking to others, rooms were freed up close to the con as people arranged room shares and cancelled duplicate bookings. Sadly this was too late for me, as I'd already booked elsewhere.
Going forwards, I would suggest it may be necessary to follow Anthrocon's approach and charge for the first night's stay as a non-refundable deposit at the time of booking. Whilst this wouldn't solve the problem completely, it would hopefully discourage people from making "speculative" bookings just in case they can't find a share. On the plus side, staying elsewhere meant I was walking at least 1.6km a day, and that's without the walking around the Estrel.
- Main Stage Queuing : Having the space between the Art Show/Fursuit Lounge and Main Stage for queuing for stage events was a great idea, but could have benefited from additional signage from the "Chillout Lounge" and both sets of doors from the lobby area being opened to make it more obvious.
- Delays : Technical problems happen, but EF seems to have more than its fair share. Posting messages about delays on Twitter and the App is fine, but not everyone has data connectivity at con, and if you're half way along the queue you can't see the TV screen by the stage entrance. For next year, having Security (given they're in charge of Crowd Control) or someone from Programming or Ops going along the queue telling people about delays would help a great deal. When it gets to the point that the majority of main stage events at the con are delayed by at least thirty minutes, something has to give. One particular case being the Bandthro Concert, where I got fed up and left the queue 1 hour 15 minutes after the advertised seating time, as the start kept getting slipped in 15 minute increments with no sign of it starting.
- Con Ops : As one of the two main "Customer Service" departments at the convention (the other being Security), I have to admit to finding it rather baffling that Ops is tucked away in a corner, and closes whilst events are still running. Whilst I don't think there would be any benefit to providing 24 hour Ops cover, I would certainly suggest it should open earlier and close later and have a dedicated "Front Desk" for fielding queries from attendees (with an intercom link to the "back office" for anything that needs referral elsewhere). Having said that, I realise that getting people to volunteer for Ops isn't the easiest of things to do!
Apologies for the rambling, but I find it best to write up things whilst they're still fresh in my mind...Now if you'll excuse me, by my reckoning I've got about 355 days in which to grow my hair long enough for a mullet so I'm on theme for EF22.
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That delay issue is something that bothers me too... this year the only delay i was really affected was the bandthro concert and it was to my advantage since I was at the pawpet show first...
But I'm still thinking about it. How does other Events handle that? Do you need a really huge budget to handle that by using extremly expensive but good Equipment and professionals or where is the problem really?
It's not really a complaint, but I'm just wondering.
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- Badge Holders : To save having to punch holes in all the badges (which must take hours with other 2100 badges to print and punch), how about trialling the use of badge holders for next year? They could also be double-sided so folks can put their room key on the other side. Obviously this has a financial implication, and experience says that con budgets tend to run pretty close to the wire, but it's a thought.
I somehow doubt this will be considered all to much, not really thanks to the money-issue but take a look at your badge.
It has the same information on both sides so even if it flips around, and badges do that a lot, it always can be identified.
Uncle Kage mentions this even in some of his speeches as improvement he could not think of after being asked to do something against this issue of turning badges and EF introduced this solution the same year.
As Security doing duty at doors as well, it helped a great deal, especially at the Dealers Den.
You see attendees closing in, likely wanting to enter.
With your solution, we would have to stop most people just to have them turn their badge holder around, making the next people wait.
Without, you can already search for the badge, identify the design and colors on a distance and just let the person in.
So no... as Seccie I would clearly vote against that idea as it would make our work a bit more annoying for attendees.[/list]
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Really had a great time. Lots of friendly peoples, no drama. Perfect week :)
Here are the random thoughts:
The queues for the main events were a great improvement from last year. No chaos, everything was clear.
The only downside is that they felt boring in that empty, unanimated room.
The other queues I faced(charity and fursuit photoshoots) were not that annoying.
Registration was fast and without any issue (thank you for finding last year's photo for my fursuit badge)
The fursuit lounge, wow, that was a huge improvement. I mostly used it to cool off in front of those big fans, but it felt great. Even when everyone was gathering there before the parade, it didn't feel cramped as last year.
The hotel still was nice and the staff friendly. Good to have that part of the hotel available. There are a lot of stairs to get from the rooms to the fursuit lounge or the main stage, but there aren't many things we can do about it. I'll train myself to climb up and down stairs in fursuit :D
No issues with the elevator's speed but I was in wing 4, last floor. I guess it was the perfect spot :D
It was too hot(not in a good way) but it's only for a couple minutes a day so it's not a big deal.
I missed the PPS but undestand perfectly that the staff needs a break.
I'm more curious about the impossible fursuit charades. It was so much fun last year I'd be sad to see it go away for good T_T. Please, bring it back!
Fursuit photoshoots. I like those photos, they are wonderful memories but I didn't think there where that many people who couldn't get a slot. I'll skip it next year to allow others to have their chance. (unless there is a massive increase of availability)
Before the con, I didn't know what to expect from the GOH but they were a lot of fun. Hope to see them again!
The parade went smoothly. Great job. I just didn't notice after the photo where we were supposed to go so I went from my side(the stair near the bridge) straight back to the lounge. I just noticed when getting back to my room that the parade went another way. My fault for not studying the road beforehand :D
If you keep the idea of radio broadcast during the parade, can you link what we should buy for next time? (e.g. an amazon link)
There was a great improvement in both the fursuit game show and enter the arena. The settings, the quality, the preparation, the presentation, the contestants, everything seemed so much better! great job!
As already stated by others, it was not easy to see in the dance arena, even if I was in the second row. And there was a huge pillar between me and the screen. Bah, it was still great.
Opening and closing ceremonies still bring tears to my eyes. Keep them :)
Dance nights were funs. Especially the big blue dance for me. And the light effects... wow, just wow!
Too much smoke on the first night (the 80's). I could not see anything in suit but it was only that night. Also it takes a lot of work to avoid cameras but from the other point of view, it's fun to be able to watch it going on on TV when exhausted in the room.
Enjoyed the charity events. Can't wait to see the final amount collected.
As for the security, I didn't need them so that means they were doing a perfect job too.
A big thank you to all the staff and the attendees who made this week that wonderful!
See you next year!
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The first thing I want to mention about EF21 is: it was AWESOME!
I really liked the fursuit photoshoot setup with all the decorations, the seperate entrance to the Art Show was a great idea (as much as I like the Dealer's Den, it somehow freaked me out to press through the crowd before the stands when wanting to enter the Art Show, so this year it was a great improvement) and the fursuit lounge was just huge, so that I could always find a spot for myself to cool down. Since the walking ways from the lobby to the fursuit lounge were so far, it was an awesome idea to set up the "Little Oasis" in between. I used this quite often and hope to see it again next year. :) And the open stage and chillout-lounge with the bar were awesome, too! I think you made good use of the additonal space you've got there. I don't want to miss this for next year.
My absolute highlight though was the Big Blue Dance! There has been so much space to dance this year and I enjoyed the music setup very much! Also the lasers were really nice and the two big fans made it possible to dance in fursuit for a very long time since I could cool off in between without having to go to the fursuit lounge.
I also enjoyed the Fursuit Dance Competition and the Art Show. I liked it how much room to walk there was between the panel setups.
There are only a few things that bothered me a bit.
First, as mentioned before, I was a bit sad about the issues with EF Prime in my hotel room in wing 3. I like to relax after some shows and dances and watch the dances going on from my room, but sadly this was not possible this year. I'm looking forward to next year though and hope you can resolve this issues. :)
Second, the air conditioning in our room in wing 3, 6th floor did not work properly: on the first and second day it did not work at all, we complained about six times at the reception and there were several technicians at our room and finally on saturday afternoon/evening it worked as it should. I wish this could have been solved earlier because it was a pain to exit the elevator in 6th floor in fursuit and immediately walking against a wall of hot air which was even hotter in our room.
Third, I really missed some decorations fitting this year's theme, the decorations were really scarce. Only during the fursuit photoshoot I really felt like being in the greenhouse world scenario because of the numerous props they've used there. Ok, I have to admit that I felt like being in a greenhouse all the time in the lobby because of the hot and humid climate below the glass roof ::) but that was not quite what I expected. ;)
The last thing that bothered me a bit was the charity auction (as multiply stated before). I don't quite like it that there is so much time planned for the regular art auction, which is indeed mainly for the personal profit of the artists, while the charity part seems to play only a minor role. I missed an information about the charity percentage of the pieces in the regular art auction, please consider to display this also on the screen next time. I kind of like it how Confuzzled manages the art auction, so that every piece that enters the auction automatically gets a ten percent charity on it (if I remember that one right). In order to have more time for the charity auction, how about putting the number of bids until a piece enters the art auction even higher? That would certainly reduce the regular art pieces in the auction and give more time to charity. I think that would put the emphasis of the auction more in a charity direction than in a personal profit direction. Personally I think a higher emphasis on charity would capture the spirit of the furry fandom better, putting the generosity of the community in the foreground.
I'm looking forward to EF22 because after all, I just love the con and the people who make this possible every year. :) You do a great job and I was enjoying every single EF I attended so far (from EF16 until today). I appreciate all the improvements you have made since then! Thank you for giving me a good time year after year. ;D
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-Lanyards: Would it be possible to get lanyards with break away buckles? This would really simplify putting on my badge while in fursuit. I could use my own but these obviously aren't official EF attendee/sponsor colored lanyards.
Just as a note - we had this for one year, and we got a flood of complaints that it was now far too easy to lose your badge - I guess you can't have the cake and eat it too :)
Alright I was unaware this had undergone trials before! Makes sense!
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I missed an information about the charity percentage of the pieces in the regular art auction, please consider to display this also on the screen next time.
We're already working on that :)
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I don't have much to add to whats already been said, but here's some items:
At one point during the convention I accompanied a friend to get a medical check. ConOps was closed but locating a member of security wad easy and we were quickly guided into the ConSec room where the medics were quick at hand with heart and blood pressure monitoring. So I'm very happy with the effectiveness and the technical stuff. The thing I'd like to make a minor complaint about was how they spoke quickly and urgently between themselves in German. I understand the need for quick and effective communication in such a situation, but for the person being ill was very uncomfortable and made him very stressed. More communication in english, and some more effort to calm down the patient would be nice, as this turned out to most likely be stress related after we spent a few hours in the hospital.
The bag storage service was great, I loved the option to drop my bag there when visiting the Art Show, also nice when going to the Dealers Den where there's usually quite crowded.
Force a strict 10 euro minimum increase no matter the starting cost in the auction to speed it up. Also encourage people to not wait until the "going twice" to bid, sometimes it felt like people did it just for fun.
I had almost only positive experiences with hotel staff, and only one I feel like mentioning. At the Biergarden BBQ the food was really good, and the price was good, but the service... The two cooks who stood there were not welcoming. The sign made it look like you could choose one meat item, but it was apprently two. But now free choice, and if you asked for something wrong, or tried to take something wrong you got yelled at. Sometimes they would also just give you something and the get mad at you if it wasn't what you wanted.
The lobby bar had some really good baguettes, but the service was very formal. I'd prefer to order and pay right away, but the waiter insisted on table service, and a proper bill delivered at the table. Nice and fancy, but very time consuming when you just want a quick bite and a soda between events.
EFprime is nice, but I'd like to see more fandom productions like the Country song video from AntroCon rather than various anthro related adds and YouTube videos (not counting the animated shorts, they're a nice part of it)
Also seems people complain about programming, while I don't watch much EFprime it seemed to me the already mentioned AC video, the flying dog animation, some Disney mash-up and the werewolf short aired very often.
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EFprime is nice, but I'd like to see more fandom productions like the Country song video from AntroCon rather than various anthro related adds and YouTube videos (not counting the animated shorts, they're a nice part of it)
Also seems people complain about programming, while I don't watch much EFprime it seemed to me the already mentioned AC video, the flying dog animation, some Disney mash-up and the werewolf short aired very often.
Hi!
Thanks for your feedback. It is very much appreciated.
In several tweets we asked for people to send us furry-related (youtube)videos. The ones you mentioned where not among those we received.
If you could link us to the mentioned videos we would be happy to add them to our next-years program! :)
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Tillikum
(You can mail the links to video@eurofurence.org, send us a DM on Twitter (@EF_Prime) or send me a note on the forum)
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Force a strict 10 euro minimum increase no matter the starting cost in the auction to speed it up. Also encourage people to not wait until the "going twice" to bid, sometimes it felt like people did it just for fun.
auctions are by nature very volatile,
for example, last year a vast majority of the auction went to the bidsheet winner, saving lots of time.
this years, only 2 or 3 went to the bidsheet, all the other were fought, and there was quite a lot of them, hence taking a lot more time.
fixing in a limited timeframe something that can take half or twice that time is not going to work, whatever what is tried.
forcing a 10€ increment may save some time, but may also deter people from biding at all.
a lot of pieces are going away at relatively low prices, because people have limited amount at disposal, and these people would not go into the fight if you force a min amount from the start.
but Uncle Kage manages that well already by doing it by steps, he just tends to need one or two annoying bidder to warm up :D
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I think this wasn't mentioned before, so I'd just like to say thank you for the designated "unisex" toilet! As a trans-gendered attendant, I was really happy about that. :D
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It was an really nice convention!! so thank you so much for make it real! All the stuff ppls /securitys thanks to all of them!
We had so much fun > i have an hard PCD now but looking forward to the next year.. we will be there! ^-^
. ah before i forget.. this fursuit photoshoot set up > detailed decorations was total awesome!. its my 3rd. Eurofurence i had visit.. and this one was the absolutely adorable :D the best of all!
So the suiterlounge had enough place for cooling down, was very good. But an bit too cold i found..
The next great thing > the spotters were was walking around and asking the suiter about theyre need water.. total comfy, much fursuiters was very happy about this help ! :D
THX so much!
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Just to follow up on some comments:
More time for the charity auction: I think we might go back to the old system of assigning a fixed timeslot for the charity auction, so there is more time for it no matter how many items there are in the general auction, but it is something we will have to look into in terms of consequences for programming and other stuff
The otter seemed nervous: I can 100% guarantee that the otter was not harmed, we would NEVER do that. In the end I am not an expert so I trust what the professionals from the charity say. He was a lot more calm and playful on day 2, but the first day they had to drive at 4 in the morning, so he was just tired and like babies they react by making a lot of noise and being unruly. But no harm at all was done, and he was with his "mummy" all the time in a safe environment. That said, I think the poster had a good point in the way that we will recomsider the format for the photo shoot. Maybe we can do even more to make it a nice experience, we will have to think about that.
Grouping items: I refer to what I said earlier. We will have a meeting and discuss how donations are handled in general. I make no promises for what the outcomes will be, but I can promise that they will jhave been discussed through and there will be reasons for whatever we decide. And everyone will be told in the future what the terms are. We already tell people, but we can do even more to spread the information and we will.
Lastly, I hope everyone remembers that we all have the very best of intentions and we just want to help out suffering animals. I'm sure we make mistakes and I know we improve a lot of things every year (which is how we got to where we are today) and we will continue to do so. We thank you for the feedback given to us, and I want you all to know that I'm reading it and taking notice. Let's try to do what we can to keep this amazing, awesome side of the fandom running. I'm so impressed with all of you, and how generous you all are. Thank you all for that! It makes me proud to be a furry.
*hugs to everyone*
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Alrighty.. most things already mentioned.. in short... AWESOME CON!
A few details anyway:
* Absolutely smooth checkin/checkout/Estrel_elevator/breakfast, very nice - lot of detail improvements
* Overall, much more relaxed staff and Con, also much better organized - way to go!
* Very nice medical help when my partner needed it - much appreciated!
* Chairman turning into Bikeman.. so much envy :D
* EF-Prime broke a few times in Wing 2, but was quickly fixed, thx for the program, I'm sure that was a hell of a work for all the clips
* Bar outside mainstage: keep it! Too bad they had only limited drinks - this lion runs on whisky-cola :P
* Too bad Kalte Muschi ran out early.. again.. need even more
* Alternative hardstyle/hardcore dance: keep it! it was really nice to bounce back and forth between the dances and styles, did that till the early morning =)
* Lasers/lighting: absolutely awesome, much more than I expected considering German regulations and prices. Would be nice to be dimmed for video-screen clips though
* Enter the arena: good show but couldn't see much from 5th row, unfortunately hard to solve. Maybe alternate seating rows? Or show on video screen?
* Background work/helpers: I really wish there was as video for that (buildup/teardown/behind the scenes) - like a "How to Con". So much work went into so many things, and only when looking a bit behind the scenes, you became aware what immense effort goes into this Con. Will definitely be sponsor next time, but having that as a clip (BBF?) might move other folks to be that too. Props to all the helpers!
Thx for the great time!
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btw, did I miss the elevators tweets or were they speechless this year?
at least only one freaked out, but probably more of physical exhaustion than mental breakdown ;)
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I missed an information about the charity percentage of the pieces in the regular art auction, please consider to display this also on the screen next time.
We're already working on that :)
... and done :)
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btw, did I miss the elevators tweets or were they speechless this year?
at least only one freaked out, but probably more of physical exhaustion than mental breakdown ;)
Speechless. Guess the joke didn't kick in this year.. same for the "I survived 'seating'" t-shirt slogan ;)
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btw, did I miss the elevators tweets or were they speechless this year?
at least only one freaked out, but probably more of physical exhaustion than mental breakdown ;)
Speechless. Guess the joke didn't kick in this year.. same for the "I survived 'seating'" t-shirt slogan ;)
I miss the "10 people, 5 fursuiters, 2 fanboy" sign
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I had a great con! I don't have any complaints!
Registration was smooth, as was checkin. The hotel staff were helping direct people to the desks which sped things along!
I was worried about the lifts being on the 13th floor but it turned out fine. I hardly waited and it ran smoothly. The lift only broke one(of which I had video as it was amusing!) and we got stuck on the 5th floor but I rung the reception and they sent someone to help straight away and we helped carry someone's trolley down the stairs. I was impressed with their quickness in helping:)
- rooms were nice, as were room service. I left a note probably terribly translated! But illustrated by art! Asking for another pillow , and they found me a super comfy one:) I did leave them tips ! They left me a thank you note at the end of my stay :)
- bar staff were great:) friendly and quick, esp Reggie outside who was proudly wearing his con badge someone drew him last year!
- lots of nice food options! Eventually found the food bar at the back of the hotel ( me being blind!) bbq was a good idea, as was the bar by the fur suit lounge.
- I liked how the hotel staff joined in because they wanted to. Some people said they were made to wear ears and tails but the staff I saw were enjoying it! I saw them rushing up to registration to get con badges printed before running back happy and showing their friends who then ran and got some too. It's nice to find somewhere so accepting.
- I liked the dances this year, there was a lot of good songs that kept you coming back on the dance floor! Even getting up to dance to The Wurzles Cider drinker song at one point at the Dead Dog Party! The fans on the dance were nice, as was all the fur suit lounge! But Mystifur already knows how good he is ;) there was a big choice of drinks spread out over several tables and also fabreeze and food:) there was always staff to help if you needed it and it was great:) and I took home some Eurofurence Green so I can carry on the con forever! ( or until I run out of green)
Thank you to the people giving out water, I though this was a great idea and revived tired paws to dance that little bit more! Thanks for the kind idea and for making sure everyone was ok:)
And thank you for the bag lockers service:) really good useful idea! Thanks to the staff who took time out to keep it going.
Some people mentioned they couldn't get earplugs for the dances etc... But I saw them everywhere with big signs to tell people where they were, more than I've seen before.
Also I know people said they didn't like the stairs to the fur suit lounge etc but..... There was a lift right next to the stairs that largely went unused! And worked fine:)
So to sum up.... Great company, great con, great hotel and no complaints here apart from it should never end!
Thanks to everyone who bidded and bought my art:) you helped towards the charity and my smile^^
P.s. A thanks to Cairyn for your hard work organising things for the art show and everyone else:)
P.p.s I didn't have a problem with the lights in the artshow I thought they were fine.
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- Badge Holders : To save having to punch holes in all the badges (which must take hours with other 2100 badges to print and punch), how about trialling the use of badge holders for next year? They could also be double-sided so folks can put their room key on the other side. Obviously this has a financial implication, and experience says that con budgets tend to run pretty close to the wire, but it's a thought.
I somehow doubt this will be considered all to much, not really thanks to the money-issue but take a look at your badge.
It has the same information on both sides so even if it flips around, and badges do that a lot, it always can be identified.
Uncle Kage mentions this even in some of his speeches as improvement he could not think of after being asked to do something against this issue of turning badges and EF introduced this solution the same year.
As Security doing duty at doors as well, it helped a great deal, especially at the Dealers Den.
You see attendees closing in, likely wanting to enter.
With your solution, we would have to stop most people just to have them turn their badge holder around, making the next people wait.
Without, you can already search for the badge, identify the design and colors on a distance and just let the person in.
So no... as Seccie I would clearly vote against that idea as it would make our work a bit more annoying for attendees.[/list]
Yes I agree with you, that would make our work really heavy/irritating :)
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btw, did I miss the elevators tweets or were they speechless this year?
at least only one freaked out, but probably more of physical exhaustion than mental breakdown ;)
That was one of the two elevators that sounded like it was hitting off things half-way up the shaft. Plenty of rounds of Elevator-Tetris though throughout the con.
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I did forget to mention this:
On Sunday, there were a lot of new guests coming in or visiting the Estrel shows. So I wonder, if we would have kept the charity booth up in the lobby, maybe we would have caught their attention as well. And their money, of course. ;D
But from what I've heard, we did get a lot of money on the last day anyways.
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had an awesome time during the con and most stuff worked well and smooth, have only been at eurofurence twice but this time feelt mutch better due to the bigger space and the bigger fursuit lounch place. Loved the lacershow on the dancefloor and the waterboys walking around asking if everything was ok while suiting :)
But some stuff that caught my mind during the con was...
Roomkeeping, do they realy need to try and come in to clean like 4-5times during the morning and do they realy need to have first one girl checking the minibar then one that comes later to do the cleaning?
smooking, is there any possibility to make a smoking square or something a bit away from the entre to the hotell and maybe have a no smoking area closest to the entre? Many times during suiting it´s nice to go outside to get some fresh air but it´s impossible during ef becorse people (alot of them) standing 1meter away from the doors smoking. Many times I even felt the smoke while walking close to the doors inside the hotel :/
dealers den, why can you not have your own plasticbag with you into the dealer den? security sad it´s becorse stealing but 2min efter I went inside I got a plastic bag after I made my first buy so why could I not have my own from the beginning?
So no biggies but that was what come to my mind, keep up the good work and se you al next year :)
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efter I went inside I got a plastic bag after I made my first buy so why could I not have my own from the beginning?
WWHHHAAATTT???? you walk in the dealers den with a plastic bag??? shame on you^^ you need to bring away everytime you got a plastic bag, the plastig bag to the storage place XD
yeah i was wondering, too why we need to gave the bags and such thing away...i mean when you are at the dealers den and buy something and want then look fast if your bid at the auction is still in the race, you need to give the bag away, run back to the artist show, then again to the dealers den... luckly i put the bag behind the sigh at the artist show so i don´t need to give it away. would i everytime i run from dealers den to the artshow, give away my bag, i would have at the end of the day 10 bags...^^
yeah sorry for my bad englisch
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I had almost only positive experiences with hotel staff, and only one I feel like mentioning. At the Biergarden BBQ the food was really good, and the price was good, but the service... The two cooks who stood there were not welcoming. The sign made it look like you could choose one meat item, but it was apprently two. But now free choice, and if you asked for something wrong, or tried to take something wrong you got yelled at. Sometimes they would also just give you something and the get mad at you if it wasn't what you wanted.
Oh god yes! they advertized it as a buffé but when you get there you only get to choose from TWO items that were listed in the buffet menu. So your choices were steak, chicken breast, sausage and/or halloumi. You had to choose two of these and if you did not understand this, the chef behind the grill severely yelled at you (while the big writing on the glass window of the pavillion said buffet)
* Alternative hardstyle/hardcore dance: keep it! it was really nice to bounce back and forth between the dances and styles, did that till the early morning =)
Thx for the great time!
You are very welcome! Hopefully we can arrange that for next year and hopefully we can get a room that is easier to find to and NOT hidden behind the open stage like this year. Secondly, the stairs leading down to that room were badly lit and the ramp was not lit at all, people DID actually injure them selves due to this fact. Great help from all the staff and people who helped get the room ready for dancing, even though that should have been done in the pause between events in that room even if the closing ceremony was in between slots.
In short:
-better visibility of the room
-better visibility of stairs and rapms is a MUST!!!
-dedicated staff for setup in said room
Thanks again to everyone who made it possible, especially Taiku who brought their DJ equipment.
The mixes were recorded so that you can listen to them again, will edit with the link to Taiku's mix if/when he uploads it!
www.mixcloud.com/tigrisdj
smoking, is there any possibility to make a smoking square or something a bit away from the entrance to the hotel and maybe have a no smoking area closest to the entrance? Many times during suiting it´s nice to go outside to get some fresh air but it´s impossible during EF because people (a lot of them) standing 1 meter away from the doors smoking. Many times I even felt the smoke while walking close to the doors inside the hotel :/
YES! this is a huge issue for me as a transgender person whose medication can cause blood clotting from second hand smoking. I could feel the smoke scent while sitting at the bar table nearest the plants along the normal trafficated path in the lobby and that should not be able to occur! There really has to be some other way than to have all smoking occur right outside the hotel entrance, please look in to this.
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I did forget to mention this:
On Sunday, there were a lot of new guests coming in or visiting the Estrel shows. So I wonder, if we would have kept the charity booth up in the lobby, maybe we would have caught their attention as well. And their money, of course. ;D
But from what I've heard, we did get a lot of money on the last day anyways.
Personally I'd love to have the charity booth up on Sunday, but we have to make sure that everything is ready to be put into storage, so by noon we have to have everything packed. Also, asking people who visit a show to donate might not be the best idea! During the con we got some donations from people who were not affiliated with the fandom because they could actually see what the charity was for and came to us, but on the last day there is no real context, and we wouldn't want to bother people.
Anyway, we're absolutely going to discuss options for providing some sort of charity programming on Sunday. Some of you might've seen the tables where the charity booth was on Sunday, where you could get sketches by artists, sign a charity shirt and see card tricks for small donations! Since people liked it a lot, we'll definitely try to offer charity activities on Sunday again! :)
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First of all, EF21 was a total BLAST! An epic experience, being together with awesome people, sharing awesome moments.
The event highlight was definately the Bandthro Concert, no superlatives can describe how awesome it was! Also the "Rhubarb & Cosmik Show" and the Charity Concert were very entertaining. Where can I sign a petition to bring Rhubarb and Cosmik to EF22 again?
The 80s dance was THE party highlight for me this year! A BIG thanx to everybody who made this possible! I liked the variety of music styles from synthpop to hardrock.
For me this evening was not so much back to the 80s, it was more like back to EF12-15, where the dances gave me intense feelings of being together with a big family.
Same thing with the fursuit friendly dance - again very enjoyable music and a big room full of cute critters. I loved it!
In addition to those events I had a variety of nice emotional moments together with some really friendly people.
From what I noticed, the security did an incredible job this year, acting very professional.
Overall I had a really great time at EF, had a blast Djing at the Fursuit Friendly dance ( 22h30 to 00h00 was me :) ) and finaly able to bring some lasers ! :D Hope you enjoyed all.
I really enjoyed your set, it was like another 80s dance and the lasers were really eye-popping, thank you so much for it!
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Time for my feedback! :)
I'll start with the biggest improvement from last year:
Artist lounge
Last year it was tiny, split in 2 rooms on different ends of the hotel and stuffy.
This year.. WOW! The amount of artists there was amazing, there was always something going on and it was the best place for socializing. The light was great, and I think considering how packed it was, maybe next year there can be a few more tables?
The light situation with the PPS was unfortunate, but I didn't mind that because otherwise the artist lounge was amazing :D
Breakfast Buffet
Clearly one of the highlights every day! Super tasty as usual!
What could improve is maybe putting some more boxes with forks and knives around so people can get that stuff themselves, also I would be perfectly fine with carrying my plates to a point to lessen the workload of the waiters and make the table free for the next people!
Main stage
Absolutely great design, spacious and what a load of lasers!
80s Dance
I liked it! The only improvement tips I could offer is using some more lights as at times it was very very dark on the dancefloor, making it really hard to see anything in suit. And play more actual 80s stuff rather than modern remixes (especially next year!)
Fursuit Lounge
Well, what can I say.. it was amazing as usual and great to see that everyone really made good use of it! The second small lounge was a great addition as well!
Closing ceremonies
I loved that Rosi could be kind-of there after all :)
Everyone who donated to charity!
You guys are awesome, it was great to see how many people were willing to help out Wildtierhilfe Fiel :D
ConOps
I think without conops EF would just burst into flames, thanks guys for always helping out everyone!
Lobby decoration
The banners looked great! Things like these always make the whole ambiance a bit nicer. Just like the disco ball back in the Maritim. :)
Big Blue Dance
This was hands down my favorite Big Blue Dance ever! :D I pretty much loved every single track and the whole awesome mood on the dance floor!
Fursuit Photoshoot
Everything went super smooth, looking forward to see the photos :D
Conbook
Pretty!
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I find personally the Eurofurence, better than the last year. However, this is due only, because I have now a Suit.
I find to compare the last and these Eurofurence, substantially worse.
I find the subject of the Eurofurence 21 Personally better, but what was made from it.
Last year there was police cars and a lot to the subject Crime Scene Berlin.
This year there was some cardboard cutout , it was a canvas this.
The Pawpet show of the last year would well have fitted to this year.
This year there was "None " Pawpet show, there was no Orchesta for the Fursuit parade.
Everything anyhow less.
Translated by abacho.de
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Da die meiste EF-Personnel Deutsch sind, vielleicht ist es besser wenn du das auf deutsch schreibst :) Ich kann diese automatische Übersetzung zum Beispiel nicht verstehen.
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Da die meiste EF-Personnel Deutsch sind, vielleicht ist es besser wenn du das auf deutsch schreibst :) Ich kann diese automatische Übersetzung zum Beispiel nicht verstehen.
Well yes, it is a bit hard to understand, though the bottom line would be, Shane liked all around this years EF better, but only thanks to him now being able to suit on the convention.
Otherwise he has some points he did not like and felt the EF was worse than last years:
- the topic was not well picked
--> no good decoration
--> the PPS from last year would have fitted perfectly (I can totally agree with that one)
- there was no orchestra walking in front of the Fursuit-Parade
- there had been no PPS (which is wrong in a way, there was one after all, just not from the usual suspects)
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The only "scheduled event" I visited was the Charity concert. It had some delay, but the concert itself was great, just as I expected.
Apart from that I had my fun socializing and "doing stuff".
Big plus: the room service took it very easy this time. *thumbs up*
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Doing some desktop cleanup before Year-End I excavated (https://xkcd.com/1360/) my thoughts on EF21, which I apparently forgot to add to this thread.
Eurofurence 21 was my 14. EF, starting with EF 8. What a long way we have come! As every year, I'm very impressed by what a bunch of crazy, creative, determined individuals of the best Fandom I know are capable of pulling of.
Since I'm staff, my focus was partly on different things than other attendees. On top of that I find that I've got many memories of PPS-preparations which spring easily to mind when thinking about EF, but are now more than a year old. Funny thing, those human brains :)
Let's begin with the stage. It was BOMBASTIC! Such a great, splendid, huge, colorful, rich stage. Lots of space, lots of lights, lots of eye-candy - like the DMX-Controlled fursuit fan. And Lasers! We had fucking Lasers, for the first time we actually dared bringing some and they rocked (8x 3 Watt, 1x 12W). A great THANKS to everyone who made this stage possible!
I also enjoyed the huuge projection screen. Did you know it was more widescreen than intended? The back projection partly hit the rails of the top level, casting some shadows, so the lower fifth had to be covered. But seeing the very nice EF21 logo very big there, pumping and dancing to the music, felt great. I really hope we can have such a distinctive logo back.
My personal highlight was a live video conference (using Skype) to the charity at the closing ceremony. That's something I'm grown up with on big TV events, not "private parties". I had the chance to watch from beside the A/V-Technician and thus could see their deeply moved faces while they were 'on hold' during the first part of the closing. Oh, I also saw a printer spitting out some heaps of paper labelled "Closing Ceremony Script" back in Conops shortly before it was scheduled to start - "EF just in time productions", as usual :)
During teardown I noticed that someone had replaced the "Escape route plan" on the wall (which is mandatory for such buildings) with a special one just for our EF stage. Cool.
And that was just the MAIN stage - we had two more stages, and on Saturday night all three of them were used and quite crowded.
Next to that was the Fursuit lounge. Big and chilling, the team provided a good place for retreat and change there. Plenty of everything - well, could there EVER be enough paw dryers?
One thing to look out for: the huge fans collect quite some dirt. Touching them, especially the backside, would get you black stains, so be careful there. We noticed one night and a few guys from our security even tried to clean it, though I suspect next day that could be dirty again. So watch out - not too close fan-hugging.
Additionally I saw our security several times walking around with water bags, making sure our fursuiters stayed well hydrated, and not only during the dances & parade. That was a very nice touch, thanks for that!
Only downside was the long hallway betwee stage, artshow, fursuit lounge (called "ECC B"), used as queueing area. Compared to the rest, it was dimly lit, quite boring. Fortunately I never had to actually wait there.
I really enjoy the furry convention atmosphere - "flooding a hotel with fluff". And, well, technology. Though I also enjoy the small touches. Like the TV which was set up next to the registration area, showing the (updated) timetable. That was a nice thing. And it got repurposed appropriately on the last day, showing a live view from the dances. And someone wrote in the "next upcoming event" scroller: "EF 22 starts in 1 year". I really like such humor.
The decoration was mixed. It was not really that much this year, unfortunately (change of responsibilities and thus lack of experience and time, I'd guess), but what was there looked great.
It mainly was a nice 'Eurofurance' banner series and a great and big piece in the hallway, which doubled as photo background (good idea!).
Also the conops office had some nice decorations on a side-table.
Also the conbook was splendid! It looked gorgeous, and I especially liked the little pictograms depicting the rules (like CFz did before already). Though, to be honest, I didn't find ANY time on-site to actually READ the conbook. Luckily I got access to the proof-reading version beforehand, so I had some idea what was in it.
From what I gathered, our press team did a great job, too. Very professional. We don't need any evangelists for luring new people in the fandom (Disney will do that for us), but we do need to leave a good impression so that the hotels and locals continue to have us in a good view. Our press team is a vital part in this strategy.
I enjoyed the camp fire (even though I wasn't allowed to put some colors into it, awwww), the nice design of the badge and the roomcard (even though quite some got confused that a "key" was printed on it, but you had to insert the card the other way round), the detailed travel information by doco (long-range) and Sirana (Berlin-internal) in the forums, the "Zaster Laster" (mobile money ATM) in front of the hotel, and our security. They are more visible now, with their new clothing and especially the scooters (damn, that's one thing to be jaelous :), but were always nice and visibly present. Big applause for our tireless security volunteers!
Quite some hotel employees had badges or even little 'furry ears'. I was especially happy when I was told this was done entirely voluntarily - which I'd believe, given that they were quite unique. A mandatory "make the client happy" policy would probably look like everyone wearing the exact same china knockoff ears, which wasn't the case. It really makes me happy when we can spread our fun also to those service employees catering to us.
Ah, there had been some parts which could be improved, surely. The elevator situation is not optimal, I'd totally love to use the stair cases especially on the lower floors, but that was forbidden unfortunately. Then additional trashcans had been put up, next to the elevators. But they were labelled "ReFood", which is a company specialising in food left-overs. I was quite hesitant to use them, as I wasn't sure which kind of waste would be acceptable there (hopefully they could just add a printed A4 label to it next year?).
Also I had the impression that the air conditioning was a bit extreme. After quite some hot days, the wheather got much colder the week of EF, but still the cooling was on. Especially in the ECC (the part behind the Rotunda, where the stages, artshow, lounge were) I was constantly on the edge of freezing. Even worse for the poor people on the FoH, sitting directly underneath the cold air outlet. This made our experience a bit uncomfortable and contributed to our Con Crud :(
I am also somewhat unhappy with those smokers. I don't really mind that they are smoking somewhere (where I'm not), but leaving/entering the hotel through the main doors forced us to go through quite a crowd of smokers. I felt somewhat uncomfortable doing this in fursuit, knowing how much secondary smoke clings even to normal clothing which can be washed more easily.
And I don't really understood why housekeeping appeared to keep changing our towels even though we clearly did not put them on the ground, despite their little flyers asking us to re-use them. However I never had any other issues with them, they left us alone if we were still sleeping long after a night of partying, and I never got the impression that they touched anything else than the beds and towels.
But everything combined, great EF again. My personal experience:
Breakfast was very good, but for me it was quite tough to be awake at those times. I did manage more often than last year, tough :)
Several times I'd have wished for an indoor-localisation-app, for meeting people who were, like me, roaming around and hard to actually meet.
I managed to attend one panel, the Self-Motivation one by Eosfoxx, which was very good.
On Friday I got a migraine attack, which ruined most of the day for me :( (thanks to Greex for some medication), after some hours of sleeping I managed to watch the Swiss Pawpetshow. As expected, simpler than our EF PPS and they also had the benefit of doing it in our native tongue (German). But nice show, I did enjoy it.
The BigBlueDance had soooo muuuuch energyyy... I planned on going to a room party (which I actually really, really wanted to), but quickly cancelled that. I just had way too much fun dancing.
The Deaddog Dance was not really my taste - just like the DDD at CFz, where we also fleed the room (might have been the same DJ?). But later that night the music changed and it got really bouncy again. A very nice closing.
Thanks to everyone - staffers, panelist, volunteers, fursuiters and who else contributes some part of this magic - for making such a great convention!
And since these notes have been sitting on my desk for so long, I can already say: looking forward to EF 22 :)