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Well, I'd say by now that I've gotten fully back into the swing of things in terms of my involvement in furrydom. Having attended five conventions in the last two years, become a reasonably well-known fur in the community (and thankfully not a well-hated one), collected quite a bit of artwork, made numerous friends, and even started up my own fur-related project - a fursuit. It was, then, a great pleasure to go to AnthroCon 2001 and meet lots of new faces.
Overall, I'd say this was a great Con. It's hard to rank it in terms of how much fun I had or how many people I met, but it was definitely not a bad time. It was reportedly the largest furry convention ever, with attendance exceeding 1,400 people. The hotel was decent, though not all that memorable - among other things, the now-infamous elevators were a really big pain in the butt.
But more on that later - here's how the Con experience broke down day by day:
Thursday
I was part of a group of five people - Kiefer Roo, Diadexxus, Smash Graywolf, Crosscheck and Teddy Tiger - slated to head out to Philadelphia on the same flight. The five of us all got together at Dia's apartment and spent the night there, though I doubt any of us got more than an hour of sleep. Waking up again at around 5am, we spent a while taking showers and having a makeshift breakfast, then got on a well-timed "Super Shuttle" to head to the San Francisco Airport. We ended up not having enough space for everyone's "Action Packers", so Smash took a bunch of stuff with him in his *enormous* pickup truck (turns out we could have all gone to the airport like that). We made good time to the airport and had a smooth check-in process, got some coffee and juice, and then headed to the gate.
Our flight left SFO around 8:30am - right on time with a minimum of delays and hassles. We got to sit in the over-wing emergency row seats, and we watched the movie "Spy Kids" on our trip to Houston - fun but rather bizarre movie, that. It was a smooth and relatively uneventful flight, and when we landed in Houston, we quickly went to our gate to grab our connecting flight.
A tip to those who haven't already experienced this: The two major airports to avoid if you have to make connections in your flights are Houston and Chicago. I've been to both, and in both cases you'll run into major crowds and inevitable delays. Houston also suffered from areas where the air conditioning wasn't working very well - the area around our gate was hot and muggy, just like outside. But once we got on the plane (which was about half an hour late), we felt better... er, well, better than in the airport perhaps, but then we had to sit on the tarmac for about an hour due to air traffic controller delays. All in all, we were about two hours late getting off the ground. I'm sure not many of us enjoyed being stuck in the airplane that long...
Finally, we were on our way and the flight was again pretty smooth - a few bumps here and there, but it was a good flight. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get a little sleep on the plane, and ended up playing games on my Visor, listening to music and doing a lot of thinking to bide my time. Once in Philadelphia, we had no trouble getting our bags, and a Tropiano shuttle wasn't long in picking us up to take us to the hotel.
What a long day... but at last we were at the hotel at around 11:30pm EST! I quickly met two of the four people I was supposed to share my room with that night - Boogi and Firehopper - and I got checked in and had everyone bring their stuff up to the room. Boogi's roommate, Jamie, showed up around 2am. I hung out with some people for a while, though I was so totally zonked that I didn't recognize Toraneko when she said hi to me at the elevators. I made up for that later. =)
Friday
I got up around 10:30 after getting a call from SK-1, a well-known tiger who'd signed up to room with me at the Con. I got in and took a shower, then headed downstairs to go through the pre-reg line. On my way there, though, I found and greeted Chris "Foxx" Yost - the author of the amazing Sabrina Online, the Story and Tabitha. He and I had planned to meet up and discuss some new story ideas - I approached him some time ago asking if he'd like to collaborate on the "Clarence and Cindy" spinoff of SOLtS. We agreed to meet again later, so I continued on to the lower level, where the registration tables awaited.
Ohhhhhh boy, was I in for a long wait. A printer failure slowed everything down, and by the time I got there, the separate lines for pre-reg, sponsor-reg and at-the-door-reg all extended as far back as the elevators! (The lower lobby was a large, long room with elevators at one end and the reg tables clear at the other end, so you can get an idea of just how massive the crowd was.) I found the end of the pre-reg line and said hi to a few people there, then just stood and waited... and waited... at one point I asked someone to hold my spot and went back to my room to get my CD player, then returned to the line - it had moved all of about 10 feet. At one point, Teddy came to join me in the line, so at least I had some company - though there certainly was no shortage of people to chat with.
We were pretty close to the front of the line, and I was facing mostly-backwards chatting with Teddy, when the guy in front of me started to turn and lean against me - as though he wanted to exit the line. But when I scooted out of his way, he completely fell over, collapsed on the ground, twitching and spasming violently - the poor guy was having a seizure! We had people calling for medics and security, and Dr. Conway (aka Uncle Kage, the chairman of the Con) happened to be walking by at the time. He quickly jumped in and took over, staying by the guy's side while he came around - apparently he suffered a gran mal epileptic seizure and heat-stroke at the same time, because he was delirious and could not remember his name or where he was when he woke up. They eventually carted him off to the nearest hospital, and I understand that he came back and attended the rest of the Con later that evening.
With the crisis over, everyone gave a big cheer for Kage, and I quickly got my badge and materials and headed into the Dealer's Room. Once there, I almost immediately broke my own low-money rule by asking Christina "Smudge" Hanson to draw in my sketchbook - like most artists, she doesn't do sketches for free. But she did a *nice* picture of Holly Anders, one of my favorite characters. You can see the full image by clicking on the thumbnail at left.
Since Max Blackrabbit got his order stack filled up immediately when the Dealer's Room opened, I asked Shannon Stuart to draw my badge art this Con. She happily accepted what turned out to be a considerable challenge for her - the badge art you see here. She'd only drawn one kangaroo before, so she didn't have much of a reference on what their ears looked like. It was fun working with her on that and the hair - I think the result turned out nice! And she didn't want me to pay her for it, either - that hit me as rather amazing.
Also while I was walking around the Dealer's Room, I found another artist who was drawing some really great stuff. I can't remember her name now, but I asked her to draw in my book and paid her $5 for it, and she came up with this very nice sketch of Kiefer. This picture makes him appear more like he might if he spent a great deal of time in the Outback. If I remember the artist's name, I'll post it here for due credit.
The rest of the day was spent wandering around, admiring artwork, chatting with people, making new friends, and was even highlighted by a good hour-or-so chat with Chris Foxx about Clarence and Cindy. We discussed character concepts and some storyline ideas, and came up with some plans for how to proceed. This promises to be an interesting project. Later on, I met up with some friends from last year's Con and played some card games, eventually ending up in my room shortly before sunrise.
Saturday
Today, I bought a copy of Fornax: You Don't Believe, a story by Matt J. McCullar. This story is worth every penny of the $12 I paid for it - it features some art by a number of artists (not the least of whom is Shannon Stuart), and it tells a compelling tale of a family of musicians that goes through a crisis. I really like this story, and one of the pictures had me in tears - I believe it to be the best drawing I've ever seen her do.
While I was at the table where Fornax was being sold, I discovered that Smudge (who did the Holly picture above) had been taken to the hospital and diagnosed with gallstones - this was not good news! The guy she had been with at the Con was pretty distraught (I don't blame him!), and we all tried to support him as best we could. Smudge was later sent home to the Bay Area and was supposed to have surgery immediately when she got here - I hope she turned out all right!
I had fun attending an event called "Whose Sketch Is It Anyway?" - this was put on by a local friend of mine known as Higgins. He and his mascot, Seurat, hosted a hilarious hour featuring Guest of Honor Bill Holbrook (famous for Kevin and Kell) and several other artists. Like its namesake, it was a game where everything's made up and the points don't matter. We got to watch the artists come up with all sorts of audience-provided art ideas using a variety of drawing utensils (magic markers, glue and glitter, crayons and finger paints!), and some of the results were drop-dead funny. Higgins had a good imagination for the format of the game. I hope this thing will become a regular event at future Cons.
I decided to break another rule and bid on a BEAUTIFUL work of art by Vicky Wyman, one of the oldest names in furry fandom. She had a picture titled "Kitty In Blue" - her medium was rolling marker and watercolor, which she said was a total experiment on her part. I really liked it, so I bid on it, mentally kicking myself for committing money I wasn't sure I had.
I got to hang out a bit more with Chris Foxx and James Bruner (author of ZZ Studios and one really nice guy), then attended a few events, a sig on macropods (kangaroos), part of the Fursuit Masquerade, and the Mature Art Auction (where they auctioned off the 'naughty' stuff that you don't want your kids seeing). It's fun to go to these auctions to watch people start battling over a particularly good piece. By this time, meeting new people was fun as well, since I had started referring to myself as "Kiefer, the kangaroo that everybody knows they don't know!" - this got a few chuckles and confused looks from various people.
Finally, I got together with a group of people and played some more card games and chatted until the early hours of the morning again. At around 3am, Sheve, Taral and I ended up going over to a local Circle K to get some snack-stuff, and when we got back, we found out we'd been kicked out of the room we were playing in! By this time, though, I was starting to really feel the effects of my schedule - I was only going to get about 3 hours of sleep before getting up the next day. So I headed to my room and tried to get some sleep.
Sunday
All good things must eventually come to an end, as they say. Today, I attended the last half hour of the Art Show and rebid on the Wyman art - someone outbid me, but nobody challenged my second bid for $35 - I ended up buying the piece for far less than what I thought it was really worth. I also sent Eric Schwartz's "Stick Vixen's Strip Club" (a followup to one of the funniest jokes that came out of last year's AnthroCon) to auction by placing the last paper bid on it. I did that more because I wanted to see what it would sell for there rather than because I wanted to buy the piece, though I was ready to pay for it if it turned out I won.
At the end of the art show, I had about an hour to spend wandering around and contemplating food - didn't actually get anything because I got involved in chatting with yet more people. I then headed to the Main Art Auction, where about 30 pieces of art were to be sold to the highest bidder. Dark Natasha totally dominated the whole show, with 11 pieces being interspersed among the rest. "Stick Vixen's Strip Club" ended up selling for $80 (with no challenging bids from me), and I *almost* won another beautiful piece by Megan Giles, entitled "Golden Fennec", before I was outbid.
The highlights of the auction experience itself were a couple of bidding wars between some of the more stubborn bidders, and the total embarrassment Uncle Kage and a couple of runners were putting Shannon through when one of her pieces was being shown around. (She sold her "Gathering of Angels" for $240!) I was surprised that more art didn't go to auction, though - the vast majority of the stuff on display sold with only a few bids. I think people were
When the auction was over, I headed back into the Dealer's Room to look around for the last time before it closed, and to pick up my art. The art pickup process was quite smooth, and Karl "Jethric" Maurer (who sold me the Fornax magazine and who happens to be my mom's boyfriend) graciously offered to bring the piece home in his baggage - which is much sturdier than mine. I also bought one of Shannon's prints of a couple of winged creatures, whose wings were neatly arranged in a circular pattern resembling the Ying-Yang symbol. (Another of her unintentional brilliances - it's too bad I can't post that pic.)
Then came the Closing Ceremonies, where Uncle Kage was "honored" by a song and dance composed for him during an earlier event, and the staff gave out statistics about the Con and took suggestions for improvements. AnthroCon 2001 had a total attendance of 1,457 paid members, which I believe broke the record for largest furry con in the United States (beating out ConFurence). The Charity Auction brought in more than $7,000 for an organization known as "Reins of Life" - a group that uses animals to help lift the spirits of children who're in the hospital. And some inventive person on one of the upper floors posted a sign that was presented at the Closing Ceremonies, reading "Welcome to StairCon, Furries in Flights of Stairs", to honor the mostly-not-working elevators in the main lobby. (AnthroCon's theme this year was "Furries in Flight", so it was a fitting parody.)
With the ceremonies over, I headed out to dinner with a group of people - we headed over to the TGI Friday's next door to the hotel - and had a good time chatting with a couple of people from Canada about politics and science. When I got back to the hotel, I spent the rest of the now-rainy evening trying to get to sleep. Being unable to do so, I wrote some stuff, thought, wrote some more, read the Fornax story, thought, wrote some more, etc... XoaGray and GotCyril eventually showed up and went to sleep, but I stayed up and contented myself with the quiet room.
Monday
The buzzer went off around 6:30am, and I quickly got everything together and woke up my roommates. We all headed out about 7:00, and I checked out after being unpleasantly surprised by Philadelphia's whopping 14% sales tax (7% for state, 7% for local). I got some decent continental breakfast at the hotel restaurant along with Smash, and we got on a Tropiano shuttle to the airport at around 7:45.
We almost got bumped to a later flight because the one we were slated to leave Philadelphia on was overbooked. Thankfully, we didn't have to do that - all five of us (Smash, Teddy, Crosscheck, Diadexxus and I) managed to board and take off on-time. The flight was a little bumpy, but otherwise uneventful, and I managed to get just a tiny bit of sleep on the plane. In Texas, we were delayed by only about half an hour or so, and we flew out on a less-than-half-full MD-80 that took about 3 and a half hours to get us home. Since Crosscheck ended up on a different flight (along with all of our baggage - good thing we were all going to the same place!), he took care of getting our baggage for us and was there waiting at SFO when we got there. Then all we had to wait for was Smash to go get his truck, and we all headed back home after dropping by our favorite Chicken shop for dinner.
All in all, I'd say the Con was a great success - it was a lot of fun, and it wouldn't be a Con for me unless I came home with at least one great picture. To everyone I met there: I enjoyed it very much, and I hope to see you all again next year!
