Theme: Cyberpunk
Location: Ringberg Hotel
It's time again for EAST! This year the timing was a bit strange, as EAST was moved to September to not clash with Eurofurence, but then Eurofurence moved to September as well, making both cons happen in the span of 2 weeks.
Yotie and Mag arrived the night before. Henrieke was still working today. She brought some fries and fried food from the snackbar, and we left around 8. We made a stop in Veldhoven to pick up some things from there, Henrieke's mom was being super nice and gave us snacks and drinks for the ride. We continued soon after and arrived at our roadside hotel after midnight and flopped on our beds.
We all got up at 9 and had breakfast at McDonald's across the street.
The ride was fine, we stopped to charge 2 times and arrived at the Ringberg Hotel ar 15:45. Outside the hotel we met BigBlueFox right away.
We checked in and unpacked, and soon after Kazzador brought me the Baseball suit parts that he was nice enough to bring be from Vienna. Yotie, Kazzador and I went to REWE after to stock up on food, snacks and drinks for the con. After we went back Yotie went for another round of REWE with Mag.
I went to the lobby to look around and saw Yotie and Mag were back, so I went to their room. We decided to go to the pool. Henrieke stayed on the room. The atmosphere in the pool was great, there was music and you could add your own tracks via a Telegram bot. People had fun with an enormous beach ball! Yotie sent Cbat to the speaker, which was the current meme song in our friend group for some reason.
I went back to our suite, and found that a hallway party had formed, blasting music right at our door. Luckily Krauti came to the rescure and herded people to another floor. I suited for 20 minutes.
Baseball met Hiero and checked out the dance and karaoke. Back on the room I took a shower, then Mag and Yotie joined us. Shorty also came and we played Trivia Murder Party and Split the Room, then we went to bed at 2:00.
We got up at 10:00 and had breakfast with Mag and Yotie. We also met Aphinion, Cody and Keenora at the breakfast buffet.
In addition to the legendary butter dispenser, they now had an automatic pancake machine! What will these German engineers think of next? At 11:00, an emergency GSM broadcast went off, which prompted every German to say "Alarm.. Alarm", in reference to an infamous German meme. We spent some time in the downstairs foyer and I arranged some Artist Alley tables for Henrieke and me. I also ran into MrPlymouth and his 70s portable camera. Henrieke and I checked out the speed drawing panel. It had already started, but looked pretty fun! We also met a cute bat there!
We prepared our things for the artist alley and went there at 13:30. After making sure security was fine with everything, we put our tables in place and set up stuff. There was a huge line to get into the Dealers Den. Sadly not too many sales for Henrieke.
I took 4 commissions, 2 of which I managed to finish today. Luno, Hiero and Jipho dropped by. Also Avalon and a friend of his from Belgium. And Shorty! We did not get to see the Dealers Den from the inside because the line never got short enough before closing.
Henrieke and I stayed at our tables until 19:00, then we packed up, went to the room and had some cup noodles. I suited up and Baseball went to the inflatables panel, which was the biggest inflatables panel I've ever seen at any convention! Baseball met MrPlymouth and Aphinion there! Baseball went back to the room to ask Henrieke to take some photos, and after hanging out on the room, Yotie and Henrieke joined Baseball to the panel and took some photos. There was a nice Latias inflatable there too!
Back on the room we made some dumb photos, and BBF dropped by as well and we chatted a while about Efteling wolf and plans for a furry bounce party.
Later, Baseball went down again to check out the dance. He met BBF again there, and ran into Hiero outside. Both Hiero and Baseball checked out the dance downstairs, in the bar that used to have the bowling alley. The bowling alley is now gone, and the whole bar area is huge now! After hanging out there for a bit, Baseball went up again, I unsuited and said good night to Yotie and Mag, who were just leaving. We went to bed at 1:30.
We got up at 9:00 and had breakfast with Ace and Noodles! There was a lot of catching up to do, as we didn't hang out in a long time, it was nice to chat with them! We chatted about life, work, mascotting and Woezel en Pip.
Yotie also joined a bit later. Today there was no more line at the Dealers Den, so we had a chance to check it out.
Then we set up our Artist Alley tables again. I finished the outstanding commissions for MrPlymouth and LeviFox.
Henrieke made some sales while dodging Nerf bullets from the daily Nerf battle. I checked out the game room, which was really cool and featured old concoles, a pinball machine, Song Mavicas you could borrow and some old computers with printers and scanners to have fun with. I checked out one of the Mavicas and took some photos!
At 16:30, I went to Luno's room, since he offered me to be a kangaroo again. An offer I could not refuse! At 17:00, I (as Luno) went with down with Hai and Luno (wearing his painted dog) to the WildSpotWorks photoshoot. It was fairly warm, but everything went well! All 3 of Luno's kangaroo suits were there, with Yotie weating Hiero's and Shorty wearing his own.
I went back to the room at 17:45 and went back to Henrieke's table after. There was a pub quiz going on, organized by JohnyBCoon. It looked really fun, hopefully we can join next time! I helped Henrieke and Mag pack their things and we put the stuff on our room, then we had some currywurst with fries in the lobby. After that we went to play "Here to Slay" in a quiet corner of the hotel.
After our game we all went to the pool, sadly it was really loud there, and Henrieke didn't really enjoy it. We went to our room soon after, Henrieke needed a while to rest. Yotie and Mag came over and we watched Krauti DJ a bit on the EAST TV channel. Later Mlice, Rakipu and Valdrec arrived. Also Luno and Hai. We played some Split the Room, Quiplash and Blather Round. They all left after, and I quickly jumped into Baseball. Baseball gave a quick hug to Luno and Hai, then went to BBF's dance!
The music at BBF's dance was great and bouncy! Also it turned out that it was his birthday, so the while dance floor got together and sang happy birthday to him. Baseball partied hard until the end of the dance, when BBF played Where U Iz by Fatboy Slim just for Baseball!
After being all partied out, Baseball met Shorty on the way to the room. I took a quick shower and went to bed at 2:30.
I woke up at 8:00 with a big headache. Henrieke and Mag went downstairs already to set up their tables, I had some ibuprofen and cereal and went back to bed. At 11:30 I went downstairs, relieved of my headache, and had some breakfast by myself. I went to Henrieke's table after. Today, Mag set up his table in the artist alley as well, as his spot in the Dealers Den was very hard to see and reach. I made a quick birthday drawing for BBF, which he picked up soon after.
At 13:30 I suited up for the fursuit parade. The parade was very nice, weather was perfect and everything was extremely well organized! They even had huge battery-powered fans on carts for the suiters. At the end of the parade a group photo was taken.
Baseball met Yotie and Henrieke took some photos. Jipho, Luno and Hiero were also there. I got out of suit soon after and packed the things for the pool. Henrieke and Mag were packing up their tables, and I met with Yotie at 15:20 and inflated my Sea Dragon. Henrieke and Mag arrived at 16:20 and we had some fun in the pool! Henrieke took a bunch of photos, and a bit later 2 other Sea Dragons also appeared!
We left the pool at around 18:00 and hung out on the room a but, then we had some dinner in the lobby. Food this time was really nice and reasonably priced. After dinner we went to the game room. I played some Mario Kart Wii with Henrieke and we made some scans on an ancient scanner.
Then we rested a bit, and played some Jacknox with Mag, Yotie, Lemurr and Gooster until about 22:30.
I went to the lobby to see what was going on and took the chance to already pay the room. Back on the room we already packed most of our things and I brought 3 bags to Yotie's car, since elevators on Sunday morning are usually packed, and even worse, one was out of service for most of the con already.
I did a last round of the lobby, BBF was DJing outside and partying hard. I said good night to Yotie, Mlice and the other French, then went to bed at 2:10
We packed a bit in the morning and I had breakfast with Mag and Henrieke.
We did a Pokémon Go raid, then I went to the room to get Yotie's car key. Elevators were hopeless at this point. At breakfast I said bye to Kazzador, Luno, Hiero and Jipho. We packed the car and took off at around 13:00. Sadly once again we didn't manage to go to Tierpark Suhl, hopefully next time. The ride home was fine, we had some of the leftover cup noodles.
Later we had some McDonald's for dinner and arrived in Amsterdam after dark.
We all slept in, then went to Upstairs Pannekoeken at 14:00 with Mag, Henrieke and Yotie. Has some tasty pancakes.
After that we went to check the plushie store, they sold Henrieke's Bommel golden book there. We took the metro back, I stayed behind and met up with Kenai who was at the International Broadcasting Conference across the street. Flint, Icky and Ekorren also showed up. Sadly Henrieke wasn't feeling great so she mostly stayed in bed. The rest of us hung out. We watched some Casiopea on Laserdisc and then played a round of Star Trek: The Next Generation: The VCR board game: A Klingon Challenge. It was fun and with 2 minutes to spare, Yotie defeated Captain Kavok.
After that we ordered some Pizza and watched some The Mind's Eye on Laserdisc and Rocko's Modern Life episodes. Everyone except Yotie and Mag left, and we spent the evening watching King of the Hill episodes.
What a great con! Organization was fantastic, weather was fantastic, atmosphere was great, and location-wise it doesn't get much better than the Ringberg! Can't wait for next time! Extra thanks go to Kazzador who brought Baseball to the con! Wouldn't have been nearly as fun without the bat!
Thanks to all the hard working staff for organizing this con!
