Theme: Welcome to Tortuga
Location: Estrel Hotel
TODO add videos
After two years of COVID break, Eurofurence finally took place again in Berlin!
In the past we often arrived on Monday at the Estrel to have more time for setup and to get settled in a bit. This year, due to time constraints and a massive price hike for Estrel rooms, we decided to go on Tuesday. Since we needed to be there early we had a flight booked at 8:30 in the morning. Schiphol has been in total chaos the previous months, so we decided to play it safe and already go to the airport with an Uber at 5:10. Of course we didn't get much sleep and it turned out that while the airport was busy, security had no waiting line whatsoever. We spent the next 2 hours just sitting around, trying not to fall asleep. Our flight was on time and we arrived at 10:00 at Berlin Brandenburg Airport, which was finally open for business after about 20 years of construction and scandals.
We took the S-Bahn and a Bus and arrived at the Estrel at around 11:00. At the entrance we met Sniffer, who was waiting for the charity people from the Cheetah Preservation Foundation to arrive. Luckily the hotel gave us a room key already so we could already go up and unpack. Back in the lobby we met Katara and Ashanti and I withdrew some cash, since the ATM in the lobby is usually already completely emptied out at the beginning of the con. Since we were starving, we went to Edeka to get some fruits, drinks and snacks. I planned to get some currywurst at the excellent "By Curry" stand, but sadly it wasn't open yet, so we went to McDonalds to get some lunch and watch adorable sparrows! Since we only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before, we decided to take a nap on the room. I slept for an hour, Henrieke a little longer.
I went downstairs at 14:45, since charity booth setup would start at 15:00 and met Chiros, Dice, Kzarren and Kiguren. Since there was no line, I also went to registration and got my con badge and con book from Sithy. After that it was time to set up the booth. Sadly I had a big headache, but luckily ZenAku, Itchigo, Loxy and the other charity team members were already hard at work, setting up the aluminium frame for the booth.
It took a while to find all the materials in the pile of charity stuff in ConOps, and we had to once again build a new roof because the old one was missing. Luckily enough wood was there to build a new one! I checked at the reception if the packages from Chillhop had arrived yet, but no luck. Chillhop, where I work, was nice enough to donate a whole lot of merch to charity and also let me print 1000 Chillhop stickers to give out to people. Thabo also dropped by and I chatted a bit with Halite. We also met Frazzle who was going to sit in the Dealers Den again this year, nice to meet him again after such a long time! We tried getting some staff buffet dinner tickets, but sadly something went wrong and there weren't enough. We chatted a bit with Atkelar there and after that walked around in the lobby a bit. We checked out the future Artist Alley, which was in the same location as the Dealers Den was in last year. The Dealers Den moved to a much larger space, which was very much needed.
At the Art Show setup next door we chatted with MrWho and Cairyn. Henrieke went on about Donald Duck Comics and suggested Dav as GoH. We left at around 18:00. We went back to the staff buffet to pick up some of the free-for-all salads and wraps. Nightfox was there, setting up the slushie machine, so we also said hi to him.
Back on our room we ate our small dinner and watched some EF prime. I had some painkiller and Red Bull combo to keep me going for the rest of the night and steamed to help with my allergy. Shortly before 20:00 we went to the Artist Lounge but ran into people we know every few meters! We talked with Kuma and Garrodor, Duco also showed up. Then we met Birko, and when we almost made it to the Artist Lounge we met Trax and Julica, a girl who he was dating and who has never been at a furry con! We chatted for quite a while about convention themes, Paco's cute art and other things.
We hung out there for a while and went to bed not too long after since we were completely exhausted from today.
We got up at 9:00 and had breakfast together, but didn't manage to find any friends to sit with. As usual, Estrel breakfast was a real treat! I had a mountain of eggs and bacon and lots of fruit and hot chocolate. After breakfast I went to pick up a new room key for Henrieke, since hers randomly stopped working and asked if the Chillhop packages had arrived yet, sadly no luck with the latter.
I went to the charity booth and set up the Raspberry Pi video player I bought, which played an endless loop of CPF videos for the duration of the con. Loxy and Sniffer were also there, setting things up. Purple stopped by and showed off his massive Fuji medium format camera. I also met Cody and Keenora, finally seeing them at a con again! Henrieke went to help Atkelar with some last-minute tasks in the photoshoot. I met Hiero and Jipho and we chatted about the Wildspotworks photoshoot. I told them that I would very much like to perform as Luno's kangaroo again! Shorty was zipping by, on the way to the hardware store to pick supplies for con setup, I managed to quickly say hi though! I tried again to fetch my packages, but nobody was in the package room, so I went to Henrieke and Atkelar at the photoshoot. Henrieke was drawing an overlay for the photo booth to fit the theme of the convention. On the way back to the package room I met Neop in his gryphon suit! The first time I ever met him irl!
At the package room I finally got at least one of the two packages, the one with 1000 Chillhop stickers I designed to give out to people at the con. In the lobby I said hi to Kamuniak and Q-Dk and chatted a bit with BBF. In the Artist Lounge, I talked a bit with the barq devs who had a table set up there. I also met Maily. Henrieke wasn't at the photoshoot anymore, so I went to meet her in the lobby. Both of us went to the staff buffet to get some fridge snacks. After that I headed to my room and ran into Jules on the way. I took a short break to get rid of my headache with a good old Red Bull and Ibuprofen mix. sometime around 15:00 I headed down again and sat together with Neop and Henrieke. I was finally able to do an art trade with Neop!
We sat there until around 16:00. I went outside to chat a bit with Purple, who sat together with some friends at the beer garden, a nice little outdoor area at the waterfront. After that, I went to see the opening ceremony with Henrieke and Chiros. It was fantastic and incorporated fully animated CG scenes made by EosFoxx and many others! After that I met up with Mikapoofs, who brought some Windows CE books for me that Hiro picked up for me in Singapore. I cleaned up the charity table a bit after and prepared it for the imminent opening, which was delayed a bit, just like the opening ceremony. Once that was done, I had some small dinner with Henrieke on our room. After that we heard that there still was some food at the staff buffet that would need to get eaten or would otherwise get trashed, so we headed there. I chatted a bit with Hurga, then looked if I could find Shorty at the photoshoot. No luck with that, so we went to the Art Show to chat with Cairyn, who showed us the Perry Rhodan exhibition. There was even a book with a published Perry Rhodan fan-story that Cairyn wrote long ago! Henrieke stayed a bit longer and I sat down in the Artist Lounge. Duco dropped by and we chatted a bit while the first dance of the day was happening at the Club Stage next door. The music was not exactly my taste to put it mildly.
I drew a sketch of Chillhop Raccoon for the auction package and to my big surprise Spaghet found me! I had no idea he was at the con and it was really nice to meet him in real life! I chatted a bit with Taibu, Kazzador and Cyrilius. Henrieke also dropped by and drew another Chillhop Raccoon sketch, also for the charity auction. Chiros also came by. We hung out mostly in the Artist Lounge after and finally went to bed at 1:30
We got up at 9:00 and had breakfast at around 9:30 at the Belgian table with Kiguren, Dice, Kzarren and others. We then hurried to the Artist Alley and got a great spot there. Lots of people came by and both Henrieke and I got to draw lots of sketch commissions. Henrieke's patch sales went really well and some people even bought my old Space Shuttle patch. Greenfox also dropped by, it was the first time I met him in real life. We sat next to Francine and also chatted with her a bit. Miles and Procyon also showed up, and we watched the incredibly long line to the Dealers Den slowly progress. I had to take a few breaks due to more allergy headache, but overall it was really fun to sit in the Artist Alley.
I sat there until 18:00, then I checked out the Art Show with Chiros. Sadly it wasn't possible to enter the Dealers Den today as the long line persisted until closing. I made some plans for the pub quiz which I saw on the schedule and recruited Procyon and Chiros for our team. We packed our goods and I quickly laminated my badge that I just finished using the laminator of a nice artist who sat in the Artist Alley as well. I met Trax, then wandered around with my Polaroid camera, looking for subjects. I found Miles outside and took a Polaroid of him. Sadly I found out that the CT scanner at Schiphol Airport severely degraded my Polaroid 600 film, so the photos were grainy and faded.
I went back inside and chatted with KalaallitAmaroq and recruited him for our pub quiz team. I met Trax and asked him about going to the steam sauna, we made some plans for that, then went to check out the beer garden and met Luno, Hiero, Jipho and others there. We chatted a bit, then I headed back inside. On the way I met Procy, and some Germans approached us who were looking to have some small-talk since it was their first con. Then I went to the sauna area to meet Trax. We chilled in the otherwise empty steam sauna a bit and talked about all kinds of things that have been going on since we last met. I then rushed to the Club Stage, which I mistakenly thought was in the ECC, but it was actually next to the Artist Alley, they just used a different entrance than earlier. I quickly ran to get some chili outside at the Beer garden, then back to the pub quiz. It was me, Henrieke, Procyon, KalaallitAmaroq, Chiros and KBK. We did very badly, getting every question we were unsure about wrong. There was even a question about whether Spyro or Crash was released first which I managed to get wrong too.
After the pub quiz I ran into Shay, then I went to the room to suit up at 23:15. Baseball went to the dance, but the music wasn't really his cup of fruit juice. He met Gao there though who took some nice pics!
After that Baseball went to the Artist Lounge and sat together with PurpleDug a bit. He also met Shay, Garrodor and Kuma who were sitting together there.
Baseball wanted to contribute a bit to charity, so he picked up a charity donation can from the security office and made a round in the lobby. People were generous with their change. Sadly the Beer Garden was already being serviced by Mstr. Since there were no people left to get money from, Baseball returned the donation can and went back to the dance for a bit with Chiros. Stripe was DJing now and the music was more his taste. Baseball and Chiros danced a bit and Chiros took some pics. When taking a break in the fursuit lounge, I chatted a bit with Chiros and Neroj. Baseball then went back to the room.
I unsuited and went back to the lobby at 1:30 and sat together with Henrieke and Procyon. Henrieke was making new signs for the charity poll station, like "Sparkedog or realistic fur", "Pokemon or Digimon", "Small critters or big boys". Since it was already late, we went to bed at 2:20.
We got up at 9:30 and had breakfast with Chiros, Kiguren and Dice. Then I went to the reception and asked them to notify me once the second package from Chillhop finally arrived. Henrieke and I went to the Dutchfurs photoshoot outside the hotel. We sat and chatted a bit with Chiros and Miles. Miles also introduced us to a fellow fur from Amsterdam, Joolz! It's nice to meet more people from around Amsterdam!
Shortly after 11:00 I finally got the message that the package had arrived. Of course it wasn't as easy as going to the reception and picking it up. The guy at the reception had no clue and was unwilling to help, so after a while I gave up on that and reached out to Tani, who reached out to Nightfox, who reached out to his hotel contact, who told the person at the wares terminal to deliver the package to the chrity booth.
We were in the staff buffet in the meanwhile, originally to look for Nightfox, but since we were already there we had some pizza. Once the package was there we quickly split it into Art show and Charity booth parts. My boss was nice enough to send a bunch of Chillhop vinyls, cassettes, CDs, plushies, pins, socks and other things.
We arranged the whole Chillhop package in the Art show, then I dropped by Luno's "Fursuit Repair Cafe" panel and had the chance to chat with Hai about PPS things before I was called away again. I went back to the Art Show and also quickly drew a little Baseball as decoration for a pirate ship model they were auctioning off.
After that Henrieke and I finally got to go to the Dealers Den. It was still really busy, but the new room was a much needed improvement. There were way more dealers and more space to move around, as well as proper air conditioning. We dropped by at the tables of Grion, Rotarr, Kebi, Pan, Gnuila, Nightfox and we got some delicious honey from RifFuchs. After that I went to the Barq developers meetup. Henrieke joined a bit later as well. They did an interesting presentation about the growth and tech stack behind barq, and I even won a t-shirt at the quiz. Chiros also came by all the way at the end and I got to chat a bit with Ramp, one of the developers of Barq. I did a quick round in the art show, then I hurried to put in some contact lenses and went to Luno's room. He offered me to wear his awesome kangaroo suit for the Wildspotworks photoshoot, an offer I couldn't refuse. We both quickly suited up and went to the Rotunde, took some photos there and took some more on the second floor bridge in the lobby.
After that we roamed around the lobby a bit and went to the room at 19:20. I took a quick shower in my room and met up with Henrieke at the staff buffet.
I picked up some currywurst from the Biergarten. It was alright, not as good as the one at the Edeka parking lot sadly. Kalaallit sat with us and we chatted a bit. We found out that the snack exchange had been moved to the next day, bummer. at 20:30 we sat in the Artist Lounge for a bit, then it was time for Baseball to check out the inflatables panel. Chiros joined as well. Baseball met BlooRoo there and looked for the Sea Dragon, sadly it was nowhere to be found this time, too bad!
Baseball dropped by Henrieke in the Artist Lounge, then he went to the dance with Chiros, but it didn't start yet because the concert was delayed and did not end yet. Baseball went back to the Artist Alley and drew a little sketch for Thabo. A while later, Baseball and Miles went to see if the dance had started by now. It did! They played great cheesy music, like Vengaboys and Mr. Blue Sky, one of Henrieke's favorite songs, too bad she was at the other end of the hotel. During a break in the big fursuit lounge next to the dance floor I met Luno and chatted a bit, then Baseball went back to the dance. They played Ukraine's winning Eurovision song, nice!
After dancing for a while, Baseball went back to the Artist Lounge and drew random sketches for Henrieke and other people with his giant pencil. Then Baseball dropped by the dance for a little bit longer, then back to meet Henrieke again, who was sitting together with Sen Grisane and a guy who has never been to a furcon before. Henrieke explained to him what conventions were all about. Baseball went back to the room to get some rest and I took a shower and went back to the Artist Alley at 1:30. Thabo came by for a short bit. He had been planning to art-jam with us but still had staff duties and was too tired at this point. We sat together a bit, then Henrieke and I still checked out the dance for a few minutes. They played disco music, and we also met Lay0wn, whom we hadn't seen in ages! Because we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer, we went to our room soon after and went to bed at 2:30.
We got up at 9:00 and had breakfast with Atkelar and Shorty. Henrieke was still on the room, I rushed to snatch an Artist Alley table right after eating. It turned out that that wasn't really needed as there was plenty of space. I sat there for a while until Henrieke joined and we sat there once again, selling sketches, stickers and patches. Miles dropped by, and so this Spaghet and Trax at one point.
I went to the room and got Baseball at 13:00. Baseball sat there for a while, drawing sketches for Trax, Steel and a few others. After a while I got out of suit, brought some snacks to Henrieke. Then I met Trax at the Spa area at 14:30. We discovered that the Spa wouldn't open until 14:30, so we hung out on my room for a bit, then went back. We stayed there for about an hour, chatting about Japan, convention organization and all kinds of things. After that I went back to the Artist Alley.
I chatted with Jazzy a bit and did more commissions. Henrieke checked out the Dealers Den again and I watched the table in the meanwhile. Soon after we packed our things. Frazzle dropped by and set up shop in the Artist Alley just as we left.
We went to the room and started watching the PawPet show. Loxy, a friend of his and Procyon joined. Later Miles, Jazzy, Trax and Julica joined as well. During a break I picked up some currywurst from staff buffet that would've been trashed otherwise. After the PawPet show was over, we played a bit of Split the Room and Drawful.
Then people left. Baseball was ready for the dance and went to the snack exchange with Henrieke and Miles. Sadly the snack exchange was over by now. Henrieke took some photos of Baseball at the dance, and Baseball danced with Miles for a bit. On the way to the fursuit lounge, Baseball delivered some hugs to Tani and Nightfox. Henrieke, Miles and I stayed in the fursuit lounge for a while, chatting about cons and how cool it is to have instant nerdy friends in the fandom. I also ran into Raddic, a friend from Vienna! Miles went to bed and Baseball went back to the dance floor.
It was non-stop bangers by BBF! After a while Baseball was exhausted and went back to the room. I had a quick shower and was upset hearing the entire Scooter discography being played at the dance, which was running on our TV via EF Prime. I was tempted to run back to the dance floor on the other side of the hotel, but I was too tired. We finally went to bed at 3:20.
We got up at 9:30 and had breakfast with Chiros and Kiguren. We stayed at the table until 11:00, discussing important topics such as Samson en Geert, bats, lemurs and kangaroos. My morning was made a bit worse by a spoiled piece of grapefruit that tasted like alcohol and vomit, but after flushing my mouth out with mouthwash for a long time I was back in business.
I went to the Charity Booth to see how things were going and chatted a but with Sniffer.
Sadly I once again had a big headache today, so I went to the room to steam. I was back at 12:10 for booth teardown. We disassembled everything, properly labeled things and packed everything up. I already started preparing the tables for the open table event, where everyone can offer art or products for charity. On the room I remembered that our suitcase was broken. I ordered replacement wheels but did not have a screwdriver to exchange them. Henrieke found one at ConOps, so we started removing the old wheels. As it turned out, the bearings of the old wheel weren't removable, so we needed to somehow patch the old busted wheel together as we couldn't use the new wheels without bearings. Luckily Luno came to the rescue with his high-tech hot glue gun. After that we went to the lobby. Open table had already started early and Henrieke got into Tyler. Tyler then went to the lobby and started making some great-looking doodles for charity.
Among many others, Trax and Jazzy also got a commission from him. After drawing for a while, I took some photos of Tyler outside.
I met Miles and Joolz at the hotel entrance again. Back on our room, Henrieke showered and I took Baseball down to the lobby. Baseball sat at the open table, doing sketches and many people came by to get one. Luno and Hiero also showed up, and Hiero was happy to get a drawing by Baseball!
Baseball took a short break to check out the dance for a little bit. Kana was DJing at the time and Baseball arrived just in time for an absolute banger track! After dancing for a bit, Baseball went back to draw more sketches for charity. Then he went to the staff buffet to look for Henrieke. On the way he got pulled into the medic office for a quick photo shoot. I ruined the magic for a bit in the staff buffet, but once again we couldn't let the food go to waste. I had some weird goulash and some tasty profiterole together with Henrieke. After that Baseball roamed around a bit and headed towards the room. He met RonnieNoodles near the reception and took a photo with him to send to Croc. Baseball also met Vrot, then both Henrieke and Baseball went to the room at 22:30. I took a shower and did a Covid test, then went downstairs again.
I chatted a bit with Atkelar and sat at the open table for a while with Henrieke and Chiros. I drew a little birthday sketch for Procyon, who was sitting with us. Chiros went to bed and Procy went to the bar. We finally wrapped up the open table. and I delivered all the donation cans to the security office. The charity polling station was absolutely nuts today, the toilet paper poll brought in a huge amount of money. Since we were the only charity staff left, Henrieke and I took the polling station to the staff buffet and started counting the money inside. We chatted a bit with EosFoxx. Atkelar was sitting on another table, watching a video he edited earlier today of Baseball doing sketches. After delivering the money to the security office, we did a short round in the hotel, said good-bye to Dibs, and went to bed at 2:20
We got up at 9:00, packed a but, grabbed some breakfast together with Sniffer and Itchigo, said bye to Spaghet, then continued to pack frantically.
We finished packing at 11:30 and went to the lobby. Since we had quite a bit of time until our flight, we said bye to Cody, Keenora, Jules, EosFoxx and Pan.
Then we headed towards Berlin Brandenburg Airport. Everything went smoothly, despite our busted suitcase wheel.
The airport was less bad then expected and we went through security really quickly. At the gate I got pretty hungry, so I picked up a sandwich and ran into Procyon! Turns out he also would take a later easyJet flight to Amsterdam as he didn't have a direct connection.
He sat together with us for a while, and we had a nice time chatting. Eventually we boarded out plane and had a nice trip home.
What a party! I was a bit hesistant about going, especially since so many of our friends didn't go this year. But in hindsight, I regret nothing. Despite masks causing me a lot of headache, I had an absolute blast at EF, you could really feel at the con how much people had been looking forward to having Eurofurence happen again. Suiting was great, the dances were a blast, I drew lots of stuff and I'm determined to come to Berlin again next year!
Thanks to all the other staff members for putting so much work into making this con fantastic!
