Theme: furovision
Location: Clarion Hotel Malmö Live
Here it is, my NFC 2020 con report! Before NFC, Tabbie stayed for a few days at our place in Amsterdam since he and Henrieke went to a Caravan Palace concert a few days earlier!
This day was a bit stressful since I still had to work from home. Tabbie was still staying at our place in Amsterdam since last weekend. I frantically packed everything in about 30 minutes and we headed to the airport in the afternoon with plenty of time to spare before the flight. Henrieke came straight from work, and we met Renée near the gate. We had a short on-time flight and a quick bite at the Burger King at Copenhagen airport, then we took the 25-minute train ride across the sea to Malmö where Chiros and Ekorren already waited for us on the train platform. We unpacked our things on the room for a bit while chatting with Eko and Tabbie, listening to Orbital - Halcyon and on and on, which we both had in our heads since we watched Hackers (1994) a few days earlier, what a great movie! Downstairs, we ran into Shorty who sadly didn't have a great time because of set-up troubles. We also met Paco, Trax and Yamavu!
It was so nice seeing Paco again, just a year earlier we met for the first time at NFC 2019! Yamavu showed us some photos of the museum outing where he got some photos of Eddie and Trax. We met Mag and Yotie, who were playing Uno at the time, and spent most of the evening feeling really tired since the days before the con were fairly exhausting.
Henrieke and me had breakfast at the nice breakfast buffet with Tabbie, Yamavu, Paco and Renée.
After that, we went to check out the convention space in the fancy new hotel! Sadly I still had to get work done today, so I spent most of the time sitting at a table in the lobby next to Henrieke, who worked a bit on her Brer Rabbit comic. Skippy dropped by and stayed around for a while, which made working at a con much nicer! He also brought some Raspberry Pi accessories and Almond M&Ms from the US for me, which was really nice! I had some fruits from the breakfast buffet for lunch, then Yotie and Mag dropped by and we created some slides for Powerpoint Karaoke together, which Yotie was organizing again. I continued to work for a while after that, and then did one more presentation together with Mag. At 17:30, Henrieke, I and Ekorren met up with Joakim and Hedvig, two great artists from Göteborg we never met in person before.
We had a very long dinner at the Taqueria inside the hotel and chatted a lot about art, furry conventions, The Three Caballeros and Bamse, a swedish comic of which Joakim is the editor of. Since I got an annoying allergy headache, I left a bit earlier and got a snack, a Red Bull and a painkiller, my usual allergy remedy. Luckily that helped. I ran into Yamavu and Renée, who were doing an art trade in the lobby. At 20:00, the arcade opened. The arcade is one of my all time favorite events at NFC, there are so many fun games to play there! I met Lynn and checked out the arcade together with her! This year they had DDR and Sound Voltex, a really fun Rhythm game we saw at Round1 a month earlier, but didn't dare to play. Since playing was free at NFC, I finally got to try is and it was really fun!
Henrieke, I, Tabbie and Caffrey hung out a bit on Tabbie's room at night.
I made some more Powerpoint Karaoke slides while the others talked about Sylvester. I went to the lobby again and played some Uno with Yamavu, Mag and Yotie. Then we went to the arcade, where I got to try Sonic R, a game I remember as being very hyped in the 90s. Absolutely unplayable, the controls were super spongy. I also got to play some Bomberman, which I mostly like because of the Louies, which are cute kangaroo-like characters. I also got to play some Sound Voltex! Outside the arcade, Dibs was setting up a VR game where you walk on a plank, looking down from a high floor of a skyscraper. It didn't work too well for me, but it was pretty immersive for some other people I shall not name. After that experience I sat down with Skippy, Paco and Yamavu outside the arcade to chat and draw a bit.
I made a Furovision-themed drawing for Skippy and stayed until about 2:00. Henrieke and Mag were still hanging out on Tabbie's and Caffrey's room, watching 3 Caballeros. She joined us shortly before we went upstairs again. Before that, I made sure to play some Bubble Bobble on the arcade cabinet outside of the arcade though!
Went to bed at 3.
We got up at 10 and had breakfast with Tabbie, Yamavu, Claspo, Yotie and Henrieke. I did some last work on the Powerpoint Karaoke slides. Henrieke wasn't feeling too well so she went up to the room again for a bit after breakfast. I sat together with Yotie, Ekorren and Chiros to chat a bit, then I played some Bubble Bobble with Ekorren. Chiros took over after about 20 levels and we went all the way to level 100, but got the bad ending of course. It's very hard to get the good ending in Bubble Bobble. We went to the arcade a bit, while outside the arcade the Smash Bros tournament was going on. Outside the arcade was a flipchart, so of course I had to draw a Spyro on there.
I went to look how Henrieke was doing and had some lunch with her on the room at abour 14:15. After that we went to the Party Boat for the international snack exchange, which was about 5 minutes from the hotel. NFC rented this boat for the whole duration of the convention, mostly for parties at night.
The snack exchange was nice as always, and I got to taste all kinds of cheeses, Israeli crisps, Chinese fish crisps, Dutch cookies and a lot more! We hung out on the boat for a while and then headed back, stocking up on snacks at 7-11 on the way. Back at the hotel, I helped Yotie with setting up Powerpoint karaoke at the main stage. The event was a lot of fun, my favorite was Brainfreeze who presented my "Nestlé 1999 winter teambuilding event" slides! The main stage was packed, and we easily had 10x the attendance of last year. I think I can safely say that there will be Powerpoint Karaoke next year. After that, I hung out with Mag, Yotie and Procy on Yotie's room.
We ordered some Pizzas and watched Russian slapping competition videos. I went down soon after and met Chiros, sporting a fresh bat kigu, in the elevator. We went to the arcade to play some Bomberman.
Yotie and Mag also joined, and of course Yotie played some Steel Batallion. I played some DDR with Yotie, then got a much needed drink at the bar. I headed back to my room but left my key in the arcade, luckily by the time I went back down, a guy from ConOps already notified me that they found it and that I could pick it up at ConOps. I ran into Tabbie, and we decided to go suiting together! Baseball and Tabbie met up at his room and headed down to the lobby to have some fun. They visited Henrieke and enjoyed some good Flacko artwork in the Artist Lounge. Mag took some photos and Tabbie and Baseball went to the "Bounce Culture" dance, featuring bouncy music and a bouncy castle. They had lots of fun on the castle (or rather dragon-type thing), though the lack of air made it hard to get out of sometimes. Skippy joined the fun, and later Henrieke, Paco, Ekorren and Chiros joined as well. Flacko and Eddie were spotted on the dance floor too! Everyone danced stupidly to the bouncy music and took some dumb photos on the bouncy castle!
At about 1:30 the music switched to something like psychidelic trance, which Baseball and the others didn't really enjoy, so we left. Baseball, Eddie, Tabbie, Henrieke, Chiros, Yotie and Caffrey hung around for a while longer outside the dance floor, and after Baseball was done for the night we hung out some more with Paco, Mag and Yotie on our room and finally went to bed at 3:00.
We got up at 10 and had brekfast with Yamavu, Paco, Skippy and Renée Kéké. We stayed way longer than the breakfast buffet was open. Luckily the hotel staff was very patient with us. After that Henrieke and me checked out the Dealers Den for the first time.
We met KékéFlipnote near the entrance. Henrieke chatted with him while I browsed the very busy Dealers tables. I used techniques from the "How to get free art" Powerpoint Karaoke slides to get some free art from Mag, it worked! I also checked out the tables of Nwar and Mlice, both fantastic artists.
After that I went to the room and sent Baseball to the group photo outside. Henrieke was helping out Shorty by performing as the Sachsenfurs mascot. We were lucky that the weather was fairly nice today since so far it had mostly been raining. The photo took a while to take, then the parade started. Baseball, Eddie and Tabbie took a shortcut since the parade involved walking on a gravel path with puddles, and soon everyone was in front of the hotel. Today was also the "Öppet hus" (open house) event where anyone interested could just walk in and check out the con. Lots of parents with kids came and had a great time playing with fursuiters. Baseball stayed around a bit since many of his friends were out, but eventually it got a bit too crowded, so he went back to the room. Henrieke was there too, and we had some snacks. While Henrieke rested a bit on the room, I packed my Polaroid camera and went downstairs to get some photos of critters using film I still had left over from last month in the United States. After taking some, I went to the arcade and played some more DDR.
I sat together with Chiros in the hotel bar for a bit and met Noire, of course I had to take a polaroid of her as well.
Later I met up with Ekorren, Renée, Chiros, Henrieke and Yamavu in the Artist Lounge and we drew high-quality comics.
Henrieke, Chiros and Yamavu went to Caffrey's panel about drwing cartoons at 17:30, I stayed behind and chatted for a while with Kéké, who joined us earlier. I also did a nice art trade with him. Yotie and Mag dropped by, and at around 18:00 Mag and I also joined Caffrey's panel, which was very well attended.
I drew some random cartoons there, then we went to have tacos at the hotel buffet with the Chiros, Dice, Vinnie, Honey, Renée, Kiguren, Yamavu, Procy, Tabbie, Geekfox and Paco.
Paco and I did a fun drawing collab where he sketched a drawing and I inked it. We went to the Artist Lounge after the tacos and did the reverse thing, with Paco inking my sketch.
I played some Uno with Mag, Yotie and Ekorren and we went to take some dumb photos in the hotel. I also got to do a trade with the amazing Flacko! I went to the room and told Baseball about the dance, so he went there, but sadly the music wasn't to his taste at the time, so he didn't stay out too long. I met up with Chiros, Mag, Tabbie and Yotie on the dance floor and we had lots of fun on the bouncy castle, which - due to a lot of air loss - collapsed easily with enough people on it. After spending quite some time there, we went back to the Artist Lounge and I drew stuff together with Henrieke, Renée, Paco, Mag and Yamavu.
Henrieke was showing off ancient art from her DeviantArt, and I drew some fanart of the cute Bomberman roo as well as some giftart for Mag.
We went to bed at 3:15.
We dragged ourselves out of bed at 10 after the wild party last night and had breakfast with Yamavu, Ekorren, Chiros, Renée and Ethan. Skippy joined at 10:59, maxing out on sleep while still making it to the tasty buffet. I finally managed to get a waffle at the waffle station, which was hard enough since each waffle takes 4 minutes to make and there was always a line so far. After that, I visited Paco's table in the Artist Alley with Henrieke. Kéké also dropped by.
We somehow talked about Vargen, the cutest character of the swedish Bamse comic, and I had to introduce Paco to him of course. I wandered though the Dealers Den and suddenly got a message about something going wrong with the stream at my company. (I work at Chillhop Music and we run the famous lofi hip hop stream with the raccoon on the bed) The next 1.5 hours I spent fixing things on the stream, which wasn't too fun since the hotel wifi blocked VPN and SSH, and my other colleague who wrote the code I had to dig through didn't have a laptop with him. Eventually I moved from my room to the Artist Alley, wrapped up my Chillhop work and did some sketching together with Ekorren, Renée, Yamavu, Procy and Levi, who had arrived at the con not too long ago. I went to the Dealers Den again with Henrieke to say hi to Gatorguts, who I didn't see yet this con. I hung up a quick sketch on a styrofoam pillar in the lobby, supporting the sarcastic "flat earth furries" meetup that took place before the fursuit parade. I went to the arcade with Henrieke, sadly most machines were occupied, so we drew some videogame characters on the flipchart outside.
Henrieke sat down in the lobby to work on her Brer Rabbit comic a bit and I went up to get Baseball. Baseball made sure to drop by Tabbie's room, then he went to the lobby and ran into his friend Brainfreeze! Baseball did some flipchart sketching at the arcade, and then somehow ended up at a balloon party.
He also ran into a girl who took some pictures since she really liked bats and told Baseball about how NFC was her first con and how much of a good time she had! Not surprising, since NFC is an amazing con! Baseball drew some more and hung out with Paco, then he went back to the room at about 19:00. Renée, Procy, Mag, the Belgians and some other people went to Max, and Renée was nice enough to bring some burgers back for Henrieke and me. We had our burgers on the room with Ekorren, Yotie and Renée, then Baseball went to the lobby again and roamed around a bit. He also tried out Sound Voltex and helped some people out who struggled with Bubble Bobble. Then he met up with Paco, Yotie, Eddie and Tabbie, and Henrieke took some pictures near the huge squiggly ceiling lamp in the lobby.
All the critters then went to check out the inflatables panel, sadly no sea dragon was in sight, apart from Speckles, the smaller orange one. After that they all hung around in the lobby, and Baseball drew some fine art for Renée in the Artist Lounge. I went downstairs again soon and sat in the Artist Lounge for a while, chatting with PointedFox while Henrieke did a trade with Ciderbun.
I drew a sketch for PointedFox and he drew me a nice sketch in return as well! Kéké also joined and showed some of his old animations. I also did a trade with Chiros, and we all said bye to Renée, who had to go to bed since her flight was early tomorrow. I checked out the dance for a little bit, but the music wasn't my taste.
Yotie, Procy, Paco, Mag, Chiros, Skippy, Henrieke and I went to the bar area downstairs and played some "A fake artist goes to New York" until we went to bed at 3:00.
We got up at 10:30 and had breakfast with Ethan, Procy, Yamavu, Skippy and Paco.
Henrieke showed us clips from the other Eurovision show where people would dress up in strange costumes and had to do tasks, similar to Takeshi's castle. I chatted about convention themes with Ethan a bit and stressed that there really should have been a 90s theme at a furry convention by now. We stuck around until 11:50, then I ran into Mausie and Iris and had to take some photos and make a drawing for them on a whiteboard. We also ran into Pico, the adorable red dragon!
I went to wait in line for the closing ceremonies at 13:00 with Ekorren, Chiros and Henrieke. It was nice, and we liked that NFC always supports animators by having a full animation announcing the next year's theme!
We were out by 14:00 and went back to the Artist Lounge with Yamavu and Ekorren. Felinar came by too and gave Henrieke a cute drawing, he also did a trade with me!
Henrieke stayed in the Artist Lounge, and I went to the food court across the street to pick up a sandwich and a Swedish chocolate ball for lunch.
On the way back I met Dracky and asked her for a trade, which we promptly did in the Artist Lounge. I've been meaning to check out the yard sale too, but the line was insanely long, and the only thing I was interested in was a giant pencil, which would have been sold out quickly anyway, so I skipped that.
Seeing some cute dragons at the con made me want to make a new dragon OC, so I sketched a bit and came up with one having all the features I like about dragons. Baseball and Henrieke signed up for a "Doodles for Charity" slot at 17:00, so I went to get Baseball, and he and Henrieke sat downstairs, making drawings for 100 SEK a piece.
Baseball did about 10 drawings and got to sit next to PointedFox. After an hour Paco came to take over, and make even cuter sketches for anyone willing to donate to the cat shelter. Gatorguts also sat at the table after 18:00, making sketches. Baseball also got a cute drawing from Henrieke! After being done, Baseball went back to the room and I met up in te lobby with Henrieke, Mag, Tabbie and Ekorren. I took some photos of Paco, who was now drawing for charity. Skippy, Procy and Chiros joined as well and we all had Lasagna at the buffet in the hotel.
Henrieke and I sketched a bit more there and we had a nice time, the restaurant was pretty quiet as well, which was nice after such a busy day! We went to Yotie's room and played some Uno and watched the legendary "Pot of greed" YouTube video again, then we headed to our room to play some Jackbox.
It was me, Henrieke, Chiros, Paco, Procyon, Mag, Yotie, Yamavu and Tabbie on the room. We played some Drawful, produced some great works of art, then some Faking it. Around midnight Geekfox also joined. We played some more Quiplash with prompts written by Mag and Jym in a drunk state. Henrieke and I scribbled a bit.
Around 2:30 we went down to the lobby to hang out a bit more since none of us wanted the convention to end. I did another trade with Paco and had a nice time chatting with Tabbie and Mag in a very deserted lobby. When we barely could stay awake anymore, we went to bed at 4:30.
We got up at 10:30 and quickly went down to the breakfast buffet after learning that the hotel was kind enough to extend it to 11:00, usually it's only open until 9:00 on non-convention days. We had a nice meal together with Mag and Yotie. Chiros and Ekorren also joined for a bit, but we had to go up and pack soon.
While waiting for Henrieke, I took the chance to play a few levels of Bubble Bobble with Chiros, and I took the chance to thank the person who sets up the amazing arcade every year. We also ran into Trax, exchanged some hugs and kind words and then started packing. It was mostly Henrieke doing the work, as I had to get some work done for my job. After being done and being lucky enough to catch an elevator, we hung out with Paco, Ekorren (who left soon after), Procyon, Shorty, Yamavu, Tabbie and Mag.
We left the hotel after 14:00 after saying good-bye to Shorty, Yotie and Paco and Yamavu, Procy, Tabbie, Mag and I went on our very short 25-minute train ride to Copenhagen airport. Since we had a lot of time, Tabbie, Yamavu, Henrieke and I had a nice meal at a café. I made a little drawing of our characters there.
Yamavu left a bit earlier since he had an earlier flight to catch, and we stayed with Tabbie for a few minutes longer. Sadly he wasn't able to check in his luggage yet, so we couldn't hang out before security. We checked out the nice Copenhagen airport a bit after security, browsing the Lego shop and getting a caramel latte and a big chocolate ball. We had quite some delay, but spent the time at the gate drawing some cartoons.
By the time we were in the plane Yotie was also through security, and we had some time to spare, so we tried communicating via morse code from the plane, which more or less worked. Sadly for the automatic morse translator app there was too much surrounding noise.
We had a really bumpy flight, and thanks to lack of sleep it made me very nauseous, but we landed safely, as did all of our other friends!
End
