furtech | Antheria Fizzle...

martes and I got there about noon and spent about an hour before we got our badges. There were only 15 people in front of us! I heard someone who'd registered yesterday say that they were averaging about 7 minutes per new reg...not a great start. Reg, generally was fubar.

We went out to see the beach party: nada. And unfortunately, there was no programming on Saturday because of the beach party that no one went to. So no Stan Sakai. Hung around to talk to Thornwolf in the dealers room for a while (which is always nice, but this time was the highlight of the entire convention! Thanks, Thorny!).

Most of the events were moved to the private lagoon today/tonight, but I wasn't sure I'd could make it back. Also: I wonder at the wisdom of having the big night of the con on Sunday. Don't most people head out before then? There was no excuse for not having a schedule on the website: this made it very hard for people to make plans (to see Stan, I needed to be there either Friday or Sunday, not Saturday-- which is the normal "big" day). Their website was poorly updated and most information was disseminated via Fur Affinity (which I don't follow). I didn't see a single flyer on this at any recent con...what's up with that? Still, they were sensitive to this: one of the concoms saw our disappointment at the not-beach-party and offered to refund our membership or extend them to Sunday when most of the events had been moved to. Their heart is in the right place: it's the organization that needs work.

The concom had so many neat plans: a beach party, techno-dances at a private Lagoon, an immersive world-- but such poor execution. And virtually no publicity. They had great ideas, but you'd never have known it from their public face.

I think they are trying to create a live-action version of "Second Life": a kind of immersive event filled with neat worlds and dancing and other 2nd Life stuff, but they need to adapt this to the real-world needs and logistics of ordinary con-goers. For instance: on 2L, it's no big deal to flit from one place to another in a costume...but RL? Few people in hot costumes will leap at the chance to walk several blocks to a public beach to do stuff, especially if the weather isn't nice (it was hot and humid) and where their costumes will get filled with sand (fursuit olympics+Beach=mess!)

Hopefully they can grow into the con they envisioned. It might have been better to have started as a large party, like Fur Fright did. At least bring in some experienced convention runners (like a Glen Wooten).

I should add that it looks like Sunday (today) is going to be the Big Day: most of the events have been moved to the private lagoon (big techno-dance tonight, fursuit games, etc.), but Calicougar has family obligations so I'm going to hang around up here and get some work done and give the dogs the run they didn't get yesterday.