Theme: Fractures in Time
Location: Estrel Hotel
Wow, 25 Eurofurences already, and by now I have been to more than half of them. Time sure passes, and it's interesting to see how things change over time. What doesn't change, however, is the friendly atmosphere of this convention! This year's theme was "Fractures in time", which I didn't really know what to do with before the con, but it turned out pretty fun, with people revisiting themes from previous EFs!
Yotie already arrived a day earlier and around 9:00 Henrieke, Yotie and I left from Veldhoven towards Berlin. The weather was great, there was almost no traffic, and we had some unhealthy but cheap lunch at McDonalds. We arrived at the hotel at 16:00 after getting a bag of snacks and drinks at Edeka, the local supermarket. Since we were staff, we went on Monday already. Like every year, more and more other people also want to be there as early as possible, so the lobby was already very busy and people even suited 2 days before the con officially started. We all checked in, Henrieke and me got a room in wing 2, Yotie got a suite in wing 4. We hauled our luggage to the room and I immediately went to the steam sauna with Yotie. The Estrel happens to have a very nice Spa area which usually is not busy at all on a Monday. The perfect opportunity to relax a bit before the busy con starts.
After that we hung out a bit on Yotie's room. It was about 30°C there since apparently central heating was on full blast and the pipes from it ran through the wall and floor of the suite. We went to the reception to complain, but it turned out the hotel didn't care to turn down central heating in the middle of summer, so the only way to have a habitable room was to turn the air conditioning on full blast, countering the heating, while the air outside was room temperature. In the lobby I said hi to Sambers, Dibs and Chiros. I went back to my room and unpacked a bit with Henrieke, then we went back to Yotie's and watched Yamavu play some Accounting+ on Yotie's Oculus Quest. Henrieke, Yotie and me went to get our staff badges. Staff registration being open on Monday was a big help since on Tuesday there is no time to stand in a huge line when we have to do setup work. I said hi to Hai and Tay there, then had some very tasty FroYo in the hotel lobby with Yotie and Henrieke. Since most of the charity stuff had arrived by now, I went to ConOps to unpack things and make sure that everything was there. We unpacked the money spinner that Henrieke's mom graciously donated to our team and some lottery prizes we ordered.
The rest of the evening we spent on Yotie's room, playing VR games and having some pasta for dinner.
Went to bed at 1:30.
We had breakfast at 10:00. Not just any breakfast, but the amazing Estrel breakfast. To be honest, it's one of the things I always really look forward to. So much tasty stuff to choose from, fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh croissants, cheeses, a Nutella dispenser, all kinds of yoghurt, hot chocolate, etc. I make sure to never miss out on it since it comes with the room!
After breakfast we unpacked and prepared stuff in ConOps, then we had some lunch on Yotie's room and watched EF Prime.
At 15:00 the charity team met up in the Estrel Passage to set up the booth. We got new aluminium rods since the old ones mysteriously disappeared, but luckily we knew well in advance. Sadly our electric screwdriver chargers also disappeared, but we managed to set up the booth regardless and were done by 17:15. I had a well-deserved snack at the staff buffet with Henrieke, Chiros, Yotie and Yamavu when we were done. The staff buffet now had a token system, I didn't get any but luckily the snacks in the fridge were still free to take for any staff. Outside, I chatted a bit with Kiguren and JakeR, then I checked out the set-up of the massive main stage with Henrieke. We also peeked into the art show, which was still being set up as well and talked with Cairyn (the guardian of the art show) a bit.
Since the FroYo stand was still there, we got a small mountain of FroYo with Yamavu and I tried my best to help out Brian Reynolds, who had just arrived at Berlin Schönefeld airport, with travel issues. He arrived but his luggage didn't, and getting to the hotel also proved to be no easy task. We hung out a bit in Yotie's room until we got a message from Tiit, head of this year's charity, the Lutreola Foundation, saying that he'd arrive soon. Henrieke, Sniffer and I went to pick him up from the S-Bahn station nearby. We tried our best to further explain what a furry convention is all about and helped him with check-in. He quickly vanished on his room since he still wanted to finish the slides for his talk about minks. Yotie was waiting on the room for us and tried the new fursuit he got from Lance on, it was the wolf from the Dutch theme park Efteling. We called him Douche Wolf, since at one point there was an Efteling branded Shampoo bottle for sale saying "Bad & Douche" (Dutch for Bath & Shower) with his picture on it. Douche Wolf roamed the lobby a bit and I tried taking some Polaroids with my trusty SX-70, but sadly the film was already too expired. Luckily I had 2 new packs on my room for later.
We went back to the room and had some Dutch Sausage and mashed potatos for dinner. Brian also joined us, and we chatted about Epcot and the many differences between the U.S. and Europe. Brian never has been in Europe before, so there were many weird things to notice!
A very jetlagged Brian left to get some rest and Henrieke played some more Beat Saber. I went down to welcome Mag when he arrived at 22:30. The Summer Boat also arrived around the same time. We hung out a bit more with Mag and Yotie on their room and listened to some Chillhop. Mag also encountered Douche Wolf before he went to the lobby. BBF of course didn't mind meeting Douche Wolf. I ran into Krauti in the lobby, we chatted a bit about EAST (a con I absolutely want to go again next year) and he showed me the EAST lanyards Henrieke and me made the art for.
The Raspberry Pi at the charity booth was acting up, so I quickly fixed that, turns out the USB stick was toast. We went to bed at 1:00.
We had breakfast at 9:00 with Sniffer, Brian, Chiros, Yotie and Mag. We also ran into Tiit who was having breakfast with the other 2 members of Lutreola Foundation who already arrived on Monday.
We tried getting an Artist Alley spot today, sadly the Rotunde was full, but in the downstairs area we managed to snatch a table. I didn't have much to sell, but Henrieke and Mag did. I helped Henrieke get her banana box of stuff to the table, then I went back to the room to take a painkiller, steam and drink a Red Bull. As a rule of thumb, dust mite allergy usually tries to ruin one day of the con for me. I guess better Wednesday than any of the other ones. At 12:00 we went up to the Presidential Suite for the pre-con charity meeting. There wasn't too much to discuss as we have a pretty good routine by now. On the way back to the Artist Alley we saw that the Lutreola Foundation people already set up their stuff.
At the Artist Alley, we sold a bunch of things and I filled out my furry survey, which I got from the FurScience stand in the passage.
I sold some more stuff for Henrieke, then decided to get Baseball down to the lobby. He offered some of his pencil sketch commissions at the Artist Alley and drew a whopping 6 more or less good sketches for people. Geekfox and Chiros dropped by the table. While roaming around, Baseball ran into Luri, an old friend from Vienna who moved back to Germany years ago, it's been a while! He also met his friends NewEinstein, Maily and Aphinion in the lobby. At around 16:30, Baseball went back to the room and I went to the Artist Alley to help Henrieke pack up.
When we were on our room, the Belgian crew showed up and we planned to go to the opening ceremony together. When they saw the endless waiting line and concluded that we would not get seats anyway, we split up again. I sat on the floor with Henrieke and Chiros and we watched it together, and I'm happy we did, because WOW, what a spectacle! There was lots of video content for the opening ceremony, Henrieke also contributed some drawings, and then.. LASERS, SO MANY LASERS. A whole Lasershow with at least 24 RGB lasers and some massive beats, that was great!
The video for the charity was also well received, and how could it not have been, considering the cute baby mink footage!
The FurScience team also introduced themselves, they were a team of researchers from Canada and the first to conduct a large scale study of many aspects of the fandom. Now we can get our assumptions backed up or refuted by science!
Back in the lobby, I met Goddy, who was at EF again for the first time in many years, sign up for the charity video game tournament, then grabbed a quick bite at the staff buffet with Henrieke. I helped out some more at the charity booth and after a while Henrieke went to the art show to help hang up pictures.
I went to Yotie's room in the meanwhile, and after Mag had some food at the Italian restaurant, Yotie, Mag, Goddy and I went to the steam sauna at 20:30. After that Henrieke, I, Yotie and Chiros had some ramen and we watched some dumb YouTube videos together. I went to my room to pop another painkiller since allergy was still being dumb, ran into Kenai on the way. In the Artist Lounge I ran into Ethan, always a pleasure to meet him! I was happy to hear that he's doing really well in both academia and life in general! Henrieke, Mag and Yamavu joined me in the Artist Lounge and we hung around. Luxen just came out of ConOps and we snatched a Daily Eurofurence issue fresh off the press. Dibs also came by and I chatted a bit about plans to do a furry trampoline park party, let's see there that goes! We went to bed at 1:30 after Goddy picked up his backpack he dumped earlier, since he stayed at an overflow hotel.
We had breakfast with Ethan, Trax and Yamavu.
Right after we had our slot at the charity team photo shoot. Since we were next to the art show, we checked that out for a bit and then went to ConOps to work on some charity stuff. Since the Raspberry Pi charity video player needed fixing, I asked a random guy I saw running Linux to copy the videos from the fried USB stick to the SD card, which I couldn't do on my Windows laptop. I connected the video player to the TV at the charity booth again and it proceeded to play cute mink videos without issues.
Due to the success at NFC, Yotie and Aphinion organized a PowerPoint Karaoke panel again. The premise is that you have to present slides you've never seen before, but pretend to know what you're talking about. I went to Yotie's room to create some more slides so we would have enough. Yotie still had a shift at the photoshoot, so I worked on the slides with Mag for a while. We carted a can of Coke to Yotie using his handy foldable cart, then I went to staff buffet with Henrieke while Mag registered for the con.
Mag felt like suiting, and conventiently Baseball felt like going to the lobby, so I ended up spotting Baseball for a bit while he flapped around everyone's face. I took some Polaroids and we checked out the fursuit lounge which this year featured a fan so powerful it almost enabled Baseball to fly. I also met Kaomoro in the lounge and took some more Polaroids of Baseball.
On the way back to the room I met Henrieke who wanted to introduce someone she loosely knew from Twitter because of their shared interest in WW2-era cartoons. Turns out it was Lockheed, and Henrieke didn't know he was in fact a really good cartoon artist! I didn't expect to meet him at EF since he's from the USA, but it turns out he was living in Italy right now. I went outside a bit and took some suit photos and then back to the room with Baseball at 15:20. Mag and I went to Yotie's room to prepare more stuff for PowerPoint karaoke. Yotie already went to the Club Stage where the event was held, we joined soon after and helped with setup and fooled around a bit. Henrieke sadly couldn't join because Tiit's panel unfortunately was at the same time, but luckily I was able to record the whole panel. There were about 80 attendees, Goddy joined too and Danza held an interesting talk.
After the event I tried finding Henrieke and ended up chatting with Trax and Emejn a bit. We went to the room and had some pasta for dinner. Brian, Yotie, Mag, Flint, Shez and Lockheed joined too. Yotie, Mag, Flint, Shez and me decided to go to the steam sauna, and just as we left, Trax came up, so he joined too. We had a nice snowball fight in the sauna. After steaming for a while I chilled for a bit with Trax in the spa area, talking about job, life, his plans for moving to Berlin and how we should totally hang out more. After that I joined Trax on his room and found a sleeping Ethan, very unusual since I only ever encounter him when he's bouncing around full of energy!
I went to my room and decided that Baseball should check out the fursuit friendly dance, so he did just that. After bouncing a bit there, Baseball paid Mag and Yotie a visit, then he roamed around in the Artist Lounge a bit where Henrieke showed Felinar and Anuko the photos from our Madagascar trip. Baseball went back to the room and I hung out in the Artist Lounge with Yamavu, Mag, Chiros and others.
I annoyed Mag enough to do a trade with me. Lockheed joined a bit later and was drawing with me, Henrieke and Yamavu until about 2:00. He also explained the origin of the word skunkworks to us, I never even thought about that! We went to bed at 3:00.
We got a rude awakening by what we thought was construction in the room next to us at 8:00. I gave the hotel operator a call, but they were just being condescending and did nothing about it. I went to breakfast at 9:30 and found out at the reception that 2 floors below us they were renovating. The sound of the jackhammers travelled up into our room, making it impossible to sleep. I went back to bed after a small breakfast because I felt sick and had a huge headache. Henrieke went to breakfast later and was nice enough to bring me a croissant and some hot chocolate. We also got news from Iris, the Lemur researcher from last year, about progress made with the money we collected at last Eurofurence.
We went to Yotie's room and met up with Lockheed and Mag. Henrieke suited up as Douche Wolf and we all went to Yotie, who worked at the photoshoot at that time. I took some more photos outside the hotel where some food trucks were standing, the weather was perfect! We went back to Yotie's room again and Henrieke went to take a shower. I went to the Dealers Den to return Mag's roomkey. Brian had a table there, so I chatted a bit with him, things were going pretty well for him. I also dropped by Atimos' and Wolfy's table. After a while I had to get out because the Dealers Den was just so busy and there was not much oxygen in the room. Outside I chatted a bit with Luxen and told him about the Lemur charity updates. He told me he would put an article about it in the next Daily Eurofurence.
Since I was pretty beat today thanks to lack of sleep, I went back to the room. I ran into Ace on the hallway, who performed Willie Wasbeer, a mascot Henrieke and I built for GaiaZoo, a Zoo in the south of the Netherlands. The reason Willie was present at Eurofurence was because GaiaZoo supported our charity this year. It was great to get an opportunity to perform as Willie, so rather than getting some rest I jumped into suit right away! And it was super fun! People really loved Willie! There were also some outside people in the hotel, and they loved interacting with Willie. Willie also dropped by the charity booth and said hi to Hanneke, who also came to Eurofurence from GaiaZoo to help with the charity booth. Henrieke was also there and took some photos.
After a while I was pretty much done with suiting and went to the room to get a nice shower. I went down to the lobby and had a quick sandwich for lunch. I sat together a bit with Henrieke, Goddy, Lisa, Wolfy and Yamavu. Still hungry, I wanted to grab some currywurst, but refrained from getting one at the food trucks since Goddy told me they weren't too great. I got some with Mag and Lockheed at the hotel bar, and those were pretty good! I also drew a quick picture for Lockheed there. I still didn't really have any energy, so after chatting with Lockheed about fursuits for a while, I really needed some rest and slept for an hour on my room. After that I went back to Yotie's room and met with Henrieke and Chiros. We had some hot dogs. We watched some shorts, weird videos, some Tim & Eric and Gus Johnson. Henrieke introduced Lockheed to Shawn Keller's old and new videos and we ended up watching a lot of those. Since tonight was the Classics Dance with only 70s, 80s and 90s music playing I absolutely did not want Baseball to miss it. I went to the room, and sent Baseball (in 80s aerobics attire) and Chiros off to the dance. Henrieke stayed behind on the room for now.
The dance was absolutely amazing! Baseball had a lot of fun and also danced a bit with Katara. When they played Cotton Eye Joe Baseball decided that the music was too good for Henrieke to miss out on it. Luckily she was easy to find at the international snack exchange next door. Baseball dragged her on the floor, and Henrieke, Baseball and Chiros enjoyed fine music like Haddaway, Vengaboys, Scooter and other cheesy stuff. After over 2 hours of dancing, Baseball was all out of energy and went back to the room. I went back to the dance floor with Chiros, who went with Baseball because he forgot his roomkey on my room, and sadly missed out on Mr. Vain, but there was still lots of great music. We hung out in one corner of the dance floor with Katara, Ashanti and Chiros and when it was Silverfoxwolf's turn at the DJ booth, we immediately requested our song, which of course if Moskau by Dschingis Khan! He played it for us and we had fun acting along with it.
We danced a while longer with Katara and leaving was really hard because every next song was the best one. Eventually we ran out of energy though and went out. We chatted a little bit with Snowi and Kenai at the main stage entrance and went to bed at 2:30.
We got up and 10 and this night I slept well since there was no construction going on that day. I had breakfast with Henrieke. Lockheed joined too. Mag already secured an Artist Alley table in the meanwhile. We sat at the breakfast area for a while with Lockheed and he told us about his pretty interesting life and planes. Chiros joined a bit later and told us that he had recruited Kiguren for the charity team, yay! We sat there until 12:00, then dropped by Mag's table and went on to see the charity auction with Lockheed and Chiros.
We saw a few items getting successfully sold by Uncle Kage. I went to the Dealers Den with Henrieke and Lockheed and met Cenobear there.
He made a really cool 80s outfit for his polar bear suit which he promised to show me later. Julia Beutling was there again in the Dealers Den and Henrieke and me decided to commission her as her work is really inspiring. I left my sketchbook with her. I also got some tasty honey from RifFuchs.
Lockheed went to get into suit and I went outside and sat with Mag at his Artist Alley table a bit. Henrieke also joined, and since Mag made some space on his table, I helped her to get the stuff for selling. Lockheed skunk was there by now and I went outside to took some photos of him. Inside we also met Cenobear so I took some more photos. While Henrieke was sitting in the Artist Alley, I chatted a bit with Hawthorn, then I showed the gigantic fursuit lounge to Lockheed skunk. I took some more photos of Lockheed and Cenobear, sat with Henrieke for a bit and then met up with Kenai who was interested in being a bat.
Someone had brought a DeLorean to the Estrel which for a few times during the con was open for taking photos. So I went there and took some photos of both Baseball and Lockheed skunk. I spotted Baseball a bit, then went back to Henrieke in the Artist Alley while Baseball was roaming around until he had enough.
After that I went back, chatted a bit with Mag and picked up our commission from Julia Beutling. The closing ceremony was already going on at that point, but sadly I just missed the charity part. I helped with cleanup of the charity booth a bit and chatted with Atkelar and Sniffer about the charity polling station which Atkelar had built before the con. It was a big success and brought up a whole lot of money.
After dumping some stuff on my room, Henrieke and I went up to Yotie's room. We tried ordering some pizza from the hotel restaurant via phone, but that didn't work, so I went down and did it personally. After 10 minutes we had a stack of Pizzas for me, Henrieke, Yotie, Chiros and Goddy which we ate while watching PawPet Show. Mag and Lockheed joined too and we ended up chatting about travelling and the furry fandom while the others were watching.
We watched some classic cartoons later, like "The great piggy bank robbery", "The dover boys of Pimento University", "Little Johnny Jet", Super Mario reanimated, Spider Man Reanimated and some Shawn Keller stuff. We went down to the Artist Lounge later where Henrieke, I, Yamavu and Lockheed sat together and drew. I drew something for Lockheed and also for Geekfox, who surprised me with a nice digital drawing earlier today! At 3:00, we went to check out BBF's dance, but didn't stay long due to lack of energy.
Lockheed went to bed already and the Artist Lounge was also pretty empty, so we decided to call it a night as well and went to bed at 3:45.
We had breakfast at 10:00 with Yamavu and Goddy. After that it was time to tear down the charity booth. Since our electric screwdrivers were unusable, we had to borrow one regular one from ConOps and it was up to Chiros to do most of the unscrewing. We were pretty fast otherwise. We slapped lots of stickers on our aluminium rods to make sure they wouldn't get lost yet another time. Since it rained outside while the sun was shining, the lobby was very steamy today, unlike the other days where weather was pretty much perfect for a con.
We sorted and packed charity stuff in ConOps and prepared things for the Sunday open table, a charity event at the place where the booth stood before, where anyone can sit and offer drawings, music or anything else for charity. I met up with Trax at around noon to go to the steam sauna, sadly they would not open until 15:00. We went to my room instead and ended up chatting a bit about all kinds of stuff until it was time for Trax to leave. Henrieke came up and we brought Kiki to the booth since the lemur with the 21 meter tail wanted to take some photos with her. She also received a nice lemur plushie as a present from Lockheed, who was at the Zoo in Berlin earlier. I took a Polaroid with@ Kiki outside and had some lunch at staff buffet with Yotie and Henrieke after. Mag also dropped by and Henrieke gave him some cute ballpoint sketches she made earlier.
The open table went well, with all spots taken by generous artists and dealers. There was also a small jam session forming. Just like every year, Baseball went down to offer some of his pencil sketches for charity. By that time there was a whole band playing in the passage. Baseball drew sketches for lots of people and took a break to listen to a very skilled harp player. After some more charity sketches, Baseball drew a mink for Tiit, then went to the room again after annoying Mag, who had dinner at the Estrel Stube.
We checked out staff buffet, and despite it being late, there were still lots of burgers around which would have gone to waste otherwise. Henrieke and I assembled some very tasty burgers. Krauti joined us too and we talked about the dance visuals, which are mostly done by him. This year, Eny & Yoyki was of course all the rage. Cubitus did a great job managing the open table the whole afternoon and evening, and at 22:30 it was time to pack up. The charity polling station had the best result yet with "Toilet paper over" beating "Toilet paper under" by a huge margin. I hung around a bit in the lobby after finishing up charity business for this convention. I went to Yotie's room with Mag while Henrieke counted the charity polling station money. Henrieke and Mag joined later and we played some Quiplash.
Lockheed and Chiros joined, and later Cenobear as well, and we played some more Faking It. We played until about 2:00 to give Mag some time to sleep since he would have to get up 6:00 to catch his flight back home.
We said bye to Mag, then Henrieke, Chiros and me quickly checked out the Dead Dog Party before going to bed at 3:00.
We got up at 9:00, had a quick breakast with Atkelar and Yamavu, then went back to our room to pack. Luckily we had Yotie's foldable cart which made things a lot easier. We said bye to our neighbors Noodles and Ace and managed to catch an empty elevator, making us doubt whether we weren't still asleep and dreaming. We put our stuff in the car, then helped Yotie pack.
I said bye to O'Wolf who I met in the garage, delivered one of Mag's coasters to Yamavu because he lost one earlier and helped Yotie pack some more. After packing everything in the car, which was much easier this time, we quickly said bye to Ethan in the lobby, then left for an unevenful drive with lots of fast driving on German highways lwhile istening to DnB and 3 stops at McDonalds, what a trip!
We arrived in Veldhoven at around 22:00, watched an episode of Space Dandy and flopped onto our beds.
