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[Sheena-Tiger]

The procedures I remember is in those cases... sponsors have extra queues which are allowed in first and once those lines are gone normal attendees are allowed.
That is not really "early access" in the sense of "you get in an hour early" like with the Dealers Den.

I was never part of the Queue Management though, so my information might be old and thus I would be happy if one of the Queue-Managers of our team would correct me in that case.

[Santa fox]

I was never part of the Queue Management though, so my information might be old and thus I would be happy if one of the Queue-Managers of our team would correct me in that case.

In that case, nevermind; Though, I could have sworn the pocket schedule had a additional 30 minute prior to any event start for seating, which usually seemed to fit in more or less with SS/S lines. Was just a bit confused :p i'll be sure to keep it in mind for next year, though.

[James The Dog]

Aside from some internal things the only thing that really pissed me of by the end of the Con was the Awoo-Thing... I know a person who started several (saw him) but can't tell if it was him all the time.

Though it's not just the fault of the people who start it, it's as much the fault of the people who go along with it. If nobody went along with it then people would stop trying to start it pretty quickly.

[Suicune]

Oh, right, the awoo thing... Yeah, clearly made my ears explode a few times...
I don't need that, especially not in rooms with great echo...

[ANTIcarrot]

The artshow closing seemed very crowded during closing this year. In fact I was camping next to my bid, when on the other side of the board I could have sworn I heard something being knocked off the table...

Whether I did or not that is an issue that may need to be addressed. By adding so many bid slots to the bid sheets the auction has effectively been moved into the art show, where many people are as enthusiastic about bidding, but where there isn't an auctioneer and stage between the bidders and the very valuable pieces of art in front of them. Or to the left or right of them. Or behind them...

I fear if this continues something very bad might happen.


Thinking of the space issue...

Would it be possible to use the upstairs gallery? It seems tailor made for the adult section, and as I don't think it's being used for anything.

There is a section of the room put aside for photo shooting. Is it possible that this could be moved anywhere else? Just to free up more room?

[Snow-wolf]

Only thing I have complaints about are the hotel and staff, and perhaps the conbook, as far as I am aware it didn't show Supersponsor Early access times? As well as trying to find places, but that quickly got solved. So nothing really from me, except congratulating on the con going as smooth as it, at least seemed to, did.

Which early access times were you missing?
The Dealers Den is the only event which does have early access (this has been in the Conbook, in the timetable). (There was no early access for Art Show this year, simply because it's not really needed) ^^

Fairly sure security opened up to Mainstage for us Supersponsor/Sponsors early on the Opening/End/PPS show, as well as the dancing event(?) As I recall several people with Green lanyards being turned away, while the rest of us got in without problem. Only to have it opened up for the rest after about 5 - 15 minutes. Perhaps I got it wrong, though? Dealers den was of course marked, which I got into line for; I have no complaints
about that.

Infact, it isn't so much a complaint as much as a remark, as I was left wondering a bit once I got into line for the first mainstage event, and saw the above happen.

Ahhh i see! To be honest I didnt even know this was the case for main stage events as well. I will talk to security and stage team and see if it is possible to include those times or at least have a remark about the apparently existing sponsor/super sponsor queue Or maybe I did know at some point and simply forgot about it? n.n

Definitely a good heads up! Thanks a lot!

[karpour]

I'll write what I can think of now, might add more later:

Opening Ceremony
Absolutely ROCKED!

Artist Alley
The new location was great, very visible and lots of light!

Artist lounge
Was great as always and super popular, thank you for opening it so early and keeping it open all the way until Sunday night! It was very packed this year, so of course more space would be great, but I understand that's hard. The location of the artist lounge is great though and is a very important place for many artists at EF.

Big Blue Dance
Best set in years! So much bouncy hands up made it perfect for Baseball to have a fun night there

Charity
Thanks to everyone who donated for charity, collected and helped out the team. Stay tuned for a total amount

Bouncy Castles
BEST
THING
EVER
Definitely the most flips I ever did at any con
Thanks for putting those there, it really added loads of extra fun

Daily EF
Thanks for making the great newspaper again, always fun to collect, by now I have quite some together and they make great memorabilia

Breakfast
Heavenly, though I think this year they were a little more overloaded with us than last year.
I remember last year it was open until 11:00, while this year apparently officially only until 10:30. Would it be possible to have it open until 11:00 again next year? That's 30 minutes of valuable extra-sleep

Staff buffet
A real life-safer after working way too long without a break. Thanks for taking care of staff

Fursuit parade
I was surprised by how fast the parade went considering the massive amount of suiters! It was fun, only thing that was a bit of a traffic jam was where the parade made a u-turn at the bouncy castles, since everyone entered and exited through the same door.

Security
I of course can't say what happened behind the scenes, but obviously Security did a great job at everything. It's one of the toughest jobs at EF and I hope everyone appreciates how much work the team puts into the con!

ConOps
Thanks again for bringing order into the chaos

Decoration
Looked great! I liked the giant Walkman, sadly didn't manage to get it to play music!

All in all I have to say everything went seemingly more smoothly than last year and the bar has once again been raised!

[James The Dog]

if the bouncy castles aren't back next year I'll be very upset!

[Torajin]

It was great again this year, we had a lot of fun.

The plus side:

I liked that the metal pillars and huge cameras everywhere are gone on the main stage.
It really feels like we have the huge room for us and we can dance (aka move strangely) without being hindered.

The layout for the chairs for enter the arena is also a huge improvement compared to last year.

I think this year, the group photoshot registration was set so that there's a slot for everyone, I think?

Huge and improved fursuit support, there was a lot of people distributing water to fursuiters, that was helpful.

Knowing that security has access to the hotel cameras and records is reassuring. And that was fun to see how easy it is to get sensitive information from smartphones screens before the PPS.

No major delays, did you use a system like, if we have time, we do 'that', if we are late, we cut it?

I found the hotel staff even nicer than before.

And the group photos... the idea about the lines to see everyone... thank you!


The minus side:

only minor details not worth mentioning (Was I lucky enough to avoid most of the awooh thing I read about everywhere?)


TLDR:

We had a lot of fun, I noticed you listened to us and improved everything.

Once again, THANKS A LOT to dedicating yourselves so that we can have a maximum of fun.
Best week of the year for me.

[River Goldeye]

Overall, I'm very pleased with the con, had a great time and time seemed to go by way too fast because of all the fun. I'm going to write down the few things I can think of at the moment, might add more later.

The hotel staff was overall very kind and helpful, the cleaning department seemed to not always know what they were doing (at one point we had them come back several times during the day asking if our room needed cleaning, they didn't swap dirty wineglasses for clean etc), but nothing more than minor issues with the hotel. The breakfast could probably be open until 11 each day. It would be helpful with half an hour extra sleep time. Speaking of breakfast, it was delicious, as usual.

I am very happy that con security has access to CCTV, and in case anything happens, can go back and find out who did it. The short response times also made me feel extra safe. It also felt very good to have the fursuit lounge covered as well. I did miss having a checkpoint outside it, but I understand the problem of having it staffed. And there were no incidents that I know of from non-suiters. The watercarriers were very appreciated. I do carry my own water pouch 50% of the time when I do fursuiting, but for the times when I didn't wear it, those watercarriers really helped a lot!

I'm not sure, but I, and my mate as well, felt like most spaces were warmer this year compared to last. At the fursuit friendly dance, the dancefloor seemed way hotter than last year. Same with the dead dog. Adding more fans during dances might be a good idea? To us, the fursuit friendly dance was just *barely* less desertlike hot than a normal dancefloor. Also the lobby was just way too hot and humid some of the days, opening windows or something to get some airflow would have been a good idea.

On a side note, having smokers just outside basically every exit was very annoying when fursuiting. Sometimes we needed to catch some fresh air as soon as possible but couldn't go outside to do that. I feel nauseous from cigarette smoke, and the limited airflow in a fursuit head really makes that worse. Apart from possibly having the suit stinking of smoke, I feel sick from it. Maybe at least have a few exits where smoking is strictly prohibited?

I was overall very happy with the stage events, they were not too delayed this year and was really fun. I especially loved the Pawpetshow and the Gameshow, but really all the events I went to were great. I also love the big screens at the sides of the stage, since I ended up behind some very tall people a few times, and just couldn't see the stage itself that well...

EF Prime seemed to work fairly well this year, although we did have quite a few times when it was lagging, at least in Wing 1. Also the WiFi seemed to be a lot more stable this time. I had a few minor issues with it but it was nothing compared to last year, when it was pretty much unusable.

[Cairyn]

The artshow closing seemed very crowded during closing this year.

It unfortunately is. But we will have to live with it; unless we get a significantly larger room to double the aisle width, or switch to a bid-by-smartphone scheme, or move the Closing into a different room (no proximity to the exhibits during bidding - but then, wouldn't it ALL be THE auction?).

To my knowledge nothing was damaged during the closing (at least two items fell down during the total of the show due to bad pegs on the item itself). For the more delicate statues, extra security had been detailed. For the future, we plan to add an extra row of tables to keep people getting too close to them.

By adding so many bid slots to the bid sheets the auction has effectively been moved into the art show

As to my observation, many people put even low bids down at the closing (like, fourth or fifth bid). These items wouldn't have made it to the Auction either way. So, the "closing auction" has been going on for several years already. The additional bid fields have excluded only about 6% of the items from going to Auction (as compared with the previous 10-bid-position bidsheet; counting items having 10-14 bids) so while it makes a big difference for the Auction, it's only a small difference for the Closing.

The mechanisms of "bidding" unfortunately create the high attendance at closing. Only way out would be to virtualize the closing and use the main stage.

Would it be possible to use the upstairs gallery? It seems tailor made for the adult section, and as I don't think it's being used for anything.

The gallery is used for light control, security lookout, and as storage for the packaging material. (You can't see that from the floor.)

There is a section of the room put aside for photo shooting. Is it possible that this could be moved anywhere else? Just to free up more room?

We are considering slight room reassignments, it is difficult though since the photoshoot needs a high ceiling (just as the Dealers' Den needs daylight, and the Fursuit Lounge needs A/C).

[Suicune]

Now that it's mentioned:
At least the smoker corner at the main entrance is a problem. Not only because you get that disgusting smell into your face/suit when going outside.
It's also a problem when you have a room in wing one campfire side. The housekeeping opens the windows by standard if it isn't hot outside or if you don't tell them not to do so. Even if there is a roof over the entrance, the smell still makes its way into the rooms! At least it was noticeable in storey 2.

[James The Dog]

There's no way to get to the beergarden without having to walk through it either, as they crowd at the top of the stairs leading down to the road. And speaking of the beergarden, possibly make a few tables there non-smoking as well? Again so us suiters have somewhere to sit in the garden without getting our heads full of smoke, or can eat without the smoke drifting from a neighbouring table. Maybe it's partly cultural differences as smoking is clearly much more accepted and tolerated over there than it is in the UK.

[Schorse]

Also: Nobody likes that friggin pillar named "Scheiß Säule" in Strassbourgh ಠ_ಠ

 

I really like how the hotel staff adapts to us, it feels like they're eager to be part of the con and not just doing their job. It seems like everything went pretty smooth this year, I didn't hear about issues from security like in the past years. You also could see a lot of hotel security in the lobby all the time. As already have been said, it was very warm in the hotel. At least, the A/C in my room worked very good. Breakfast was awesome as usual, already looking forward for next year.

A big thumbs up for improving to be on time with the events!

I also want to give thanks to Con-ops for letting me borrow their iron saw, that really helped a lot. *group hugs*

To sum it up:
BEST WEEK OF THE YEAR!!!!

[Runo]

Oh, since Schorse mentioned the A/C:

Suiters beware!

I didn't really think about it and laid my suit head on the panel with the A/C "exhaust" when we arrived at the hotel (space to put stuff out of the way is always in short supply). When I picked it up a few days later to suit (didn't manage to do so before, too much PPS prep), the lower part of the head was damp, even slightly wet in one part. Ewwww! Probably just condensation, but still, letting it sit there damp was probably not the brightest idea… not that I had known/thought of it beforehand. Needless to say, I disinfected the hell out of it.

Long story short: Don't put anything on there or even near it (paws hanging above it felt the slightest bit damp as well) that shouldn't get wet! I guess putting something to drink or so there to keep it cool is no problem, of course.