Morton Fox's journal

Only two weeks after FA United, I went on a trip again, this time to Virginia Beach for FursonaCon. With only 424 attendees, this is the smallest con I attended this year. However, they have friendly and enthusiastic vibes all around. In addition, there were a number of panels and workshops with audience participation, so you're not just listening to someone talk. I quite enjoyed those.

The fursuit games (called Gladiator Games to fit this year's Ancient Rome theme) at this convention are unique in that they are spread out over three days with each game being its own event. The downside was each game was an elimination round so once you're out, you can't play the remaining games. I would prefer if everyone got to play every game, the way it was done the previous year. I played the scavenger hunt round but was eliminated in the trivia-bowling round, more because of bad bowling than the trivia. However, the prize from the first round was what I picked up in the scavenger hunt, which was a poster from FursonaCon 2017. Pretty nifty piece of history, and it's nice that the con found a way to reuse those.

The Hatoful panel was a lot of fun. It was Thursday evening, so I went to that right after arriving at the hotel, checking in, and picking up my badge. Hatoful Boyfriend is an interactive visual novel with some choices along the way that affect the direction of the story. There were lots of characters in the dialog. The panelists took the main characters but everyone in the audience could jump in and voice the secondary characters. I did three voices, two of them snooty characters but I really got into it. Even after the panel, I caught myself casually doing one of those voices when I went out shopping later that night.

The STEM Furs Meet and Greet had some really good discussion too. I've worked in software development for a long time so I had plenty to share and everyone else had a lot of special expertise too, so the hour really flew by. Another fun event was "If I fits, I sits", where fursuiters could play around with large boxes and squeakers, like a bunch of cats. The Jackbox Party Night was hilarious too. Imagine a room full of people joking around and tapping choices on their smartphones. We played Murder Trivia and Quiplash. Then there was the Nerd Congress panel, where we debated and voted on a number of make-believe laws for the fandom. And last but not least, I also went to the drawing workshop that was run by one of the guests of honor. I haven't done any art in years but it's good to know I still have some base level of skill.

To summarize, FursonaCon was a small con but with more interesting things going on than one would expect for this size of con. There were a lot of energy and a good vibe going the whole weekend. I would definitely return the next year.

I bought an early bird membership to FursonaCon in May last year because it's a first-year con within driving distance and I wanted to give it a try. Also, at the time, they were planning to hold it during my birthday weekend and I thought it'd be nice to go on a trip then. Then last September, they made an annoucement that they would be merging with Ring of Fire Con. Unfortunately, that meant the con dates had to be changed to mid-March, which would therefore not fall on my birthday. Oh well.

Truth be told though, I thought it would be a disaster. Would ROFCon, which is a mix of sci-fi, fantasy, anime and gaming, mesh well with a furry con? I needn't have worried. Once I got to the Hampton Roads Convention Center, I saw that they had it well in hand. FursonaCon had its own Dealers' Den and Headless Lounge, while the two cons shared a ballroom, gaming rooms, video rooms, panel rooms, and an art show. The big advantage seemed to be that two cons pooling resources can afford to book a hotel and convention center (well, half a convention center. We shared space with a gun show.) instead of just a hotel, so there's a lot of room for everyone. Plenty of room to grow, in fact, since the rooms and halls were not filled to capacity that whole weekend. Plus, the convention center had a lot of wide-open areas for costuming and photography. What about the people though? Generally, the sci-fi/anime folks seemed very accepting of furries. I walked around con space in fursuit, raccoon by day and husky by night (not planned, that's just how it worked out), and got many requests for hugs and photos.

The hotel bears mentioning too. Every room in the Hampton Embassy Suites is a suite. So in addition to the usual bedroom and bathroom, I had a living room with sofa, chairs, and another desk! The living room was a good staging area for laying out my gear and getting into fursuit. Also, the hotel provided a complimentary breakfast buffet, saving me a lot of time since I didn't have to venture out for breakfast. If that wasn't enough, they also had an evening reception every day, with drinks and light snacks. (finger food like chips, trail mix, and assorted veggies)

Geocaching wasn't as great in the Hampton Roads area, so I mostly got those on the Delmarva Peninsula, on the way to and on the way back from the con. There were a lot of Munzee though, around the convention center and at many stops along the way. Enough special Munzees to get me over 3000 points, 3 levels, and 2 badges.

( The caches... )