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Eurofurence 29 — "Space Expedition"
Sep 3 — 6, 2025
CCH — Congress Center Hamburg

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Author Topic: Feedback 2015  (Read 86030 times)

Subius

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #90 on: 28.08.2015, 08:51:53 »

  • 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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Carenath

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #91 on: 28.08.2015, 09:31:44 »

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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Die Gedanken sind frei. Ausnahme regelt ein Bundesgesetz

Schorse

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #92 on: 28.08.2015, 11:55:04 »

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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SweaWolf

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #93 on: 28.08.2015, 18:09:46 »

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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rajak

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #94 on: 28.08.2015, 19:10:35 »

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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Amy Ninetails

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #95 on: 28.08.2015, 21:02:36 »

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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karpour

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #96 on: 28.08.2015, 21:27:41 »

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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CleanerWolf

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #97 on: 28.08.2015, 22:10:42 »

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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karpour

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #98 on: 31.08.2015, 20:17:13 »

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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Shane

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #99 on: 05.09.2015, 14:15:08 »

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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Ralesk

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #100 on: 05.09.2015, 18:08:58 »

...

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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Sheena-Tiger

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #101 on: 05.09.2015, 19:57:16 »

...

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)

nobs

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #102 on: 06.09.2015, 20:39:23 »

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*
« Last Edit: 18.01.2017, 13:04:56 by nobs »
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Zefiro

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Re: Feedback 2015
« Reply #103 on: 07.01.2016, 02:28:06 »

Doing some desktop cleanup before Year-End I excavated 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 :)
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