Confurence 12. I decided I might as well write up my impressions of it. Overall, I wasn't too disappointed at the con. It could've been better, but it was enjoyable. Specifics first, then more general observations.
Highlights of goings-on:
The hotel. The Hilton wasn't bad for an airport hotel. The rooms were nice, and quiet too ( at least on 5th floor West tower where I was ). The food at the hotel restaurant was overpriced, but not as badly as I'd expected and it was good food for the money. I have to thank Doodles for the packet he did on places to eat around. There's nothing within walking distance but a large number of places within about 20 minutes drive. If you have wheels or can hitch rides with other furs who do, you're in pretty good shape for consumables. And saving grace for those without vehicles, many of the places apparently do delivery if you can get menus from them in the first place. Maybe someone can make up a packet of these for the next Confurence? I'd definitely pay a couple bucks to have that. The layout also wasn't bad. You had West Tower ( rooms and the main art show room ), covered walkway to East Tower ( more rooms, Hospitality suite, Internet and video rooms and such ), and a 20-foot open arcade over to the convention center building with the dealer's den and major function areas. Even rain isn't too much of a problem, and the doors on the East Tower are automatic so coming back you don't have to stop to open the door. All in all the hotel could be better but isn't unbearably bad. Parking at $7.50/day did add up a bit.
The Internet room. Nice one this year, with Tigerden setting up about 18 Unix terminals and 4 graphical boxes for Web browsing. With all the standard Unix utilities available it made it trivial for me to keep up on my e-mail and such. They had a nice satellite link too that only went down once the whole time I was there.
Hospitality suite. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but it was large and had a well-stocked snacks table and drinks tub. Well done.
Concession. There was another well-stocked concession stand in the convention center lobby, near the dealer's den. Overpriced as expected, but they had a good selection ( hamburgers and hot dogs and mini-pizzas along with the cold sandwiches and chips and soda ). Soda was $2/can, hamburgers were like $4, but it was decent quality and they didn't run out. I'd say it was worlds above the CF11 hotel, and a hair better than the arrangements at FC.
Art show. There were a lot of empty panels at the show, and a suprising number of pieces only attracted 1 or 2 bids, if any. Only about a dozen, certainly no more than 15, pieces went to auction Saturday evening, and fewer than two dozen went to auction at the main auction Sunday. This probably was due to low attendance. Pick-up, though, was horribly slow. It started about a half-hour late it seemed, and took forever to get everyone through. I was there at 3, and it took until nearly 5 for me to get in and pick up the two pieces I'd got ( neither of which went to auction, BTW ). Part was just starting late, and part was that a) you had to go and get your pieces off the panels after they let you in, and b) they only had 1 cashier handling credit cards and 1 handling cash and checks so they were only processing people 1 or 2 at a time. Guys, you need more cashiers than that, badly. At least 3 or 4, so people don't have to spend 2 hours standing in line. And since the art show was closed from noon until the start of pick-up, would it be doable to have the pieces that sold but didn't go to auction pulled and sorted into stacks for each bidder so they don't have to waste time running around getting those pieces? I don't know if that'd make as much of a difference as more cashiers, but it might help.
The Cabaret. Very nice show. Spark does a very accurate impersonation of Mr. Bean, 2 sketches on this theme. The opening act was done to 'Puttin' on the Ritz', 2 others were sword-dances. ShiroTora was one of the MCs, and did a good job ( including being tempted off-stage many times with chocolate, drinks, sex and other things during his second story ). They had a 'no cameras' policy in place for the Cabaret. The announcement of this was heavy-handed, but I suspect it had to be that way to register with the people who caused the policy to be needed in the first place. And I agree with the policy, not everyone wants photographs of themselves at the Cabaret put up on Web sites and generally spread across the Internet.
The dealer's room. There weren't as many dealers there, only 75 tables or thereabouts, but I saw a lot of good stuff for sale. The problem was that it wasn't selling well. The dealers who said they were doing good were the ones who usually do a land-office business, and the ones who usually only do good were barely covering expenses if that. The den was in the largest of the rooms in the convention center, and the staff put the space to good use. The aisles were nice and wide, the space behind the tables was wide ( which the dealers no doubt appreciated ) and they'd left openings mid-way along each of the rows to make getting in and out easier. The only ones who may have been cramped were the dealers along the walls, who looked to have less space behind their tables than those out in the islands.
Airbrush makeup. After the start of con, with panels and such on this already scheduled, the hotel decided to tell Darrel that aerosols like paint and airbrushes would set off the hotel's fire-alarm system. No airbrushing or anything in any indoor area of the hotel, period full stop. This caused some gaps in the programming. I think this was caused by the same sort of thing that caused the tent situation last year. My advice, Darrel: give the hotel a list of what'll be happening, based not just on your schedule but also on the kinds of things that you know will happen at cons like airbrush make-up and the like, and make the hotel indicate which ones can't happen and sign off on the rest as acceptable. Get everything in writing. Don't assume that because they haven't said no that it'll be OK, assume that if they haven't said yes in writing with a signature that there'll be a glitch with it. You can do it without being narsty about it, and if you do it far enough in advance you can have some time to negotiate on things the hotel has a problem with ( eg. airbrush work restricted to certain areas, instead of being banned altogether ). It may not keep stuff from being not doable, but at least it'll be known as not doable well before the start of the con instead of being a suprise announcement after the con's started.
General observations:
My guess on attendance: no more than 750, probably in the 650-700 range.
The whole con felt... sparse. The dealer's room wasn't crowded at all. The fursuit presentation had lots of free seats, and there were only 3 presentations. The Cabaret was only about half full, they had tickets unsold apparently. I didn't see the huge crowds as at FC. I didn't see notices for room parties ( 1 for LosCon and 1 for the Yiffnet IRC party was it ). The regular dance and fursuit dance appeared to be sparsely populated too. The best way I can summarize it was that it felt like there was more room for a con than there was con to go in it. The programming tracks felt similarly thinish. If you liked a relaxed con where you had a lot of chances to socialize, you'd feel right at home here. If you like energy and activity, you'd probably be disappointed.
It was also running perennially late. I've mentioned the art show pick-up. Registration was about 20 minutes late opening on Saturday. The Cabaret was a half-hour late starting. The fursuit presentations were late starting. I'm not sure if this was problems with the hotel, inexperience on the part of the staff or actual problems with co-ordination and not allowing enough time on the schedule to get things ready. Whatever it was, this needs to be addressed for next con I think. It wasn't fatal, but it was annoying.