Central Plains FurCon 2014 con report
I haven't written a con report in a while, but I wanted to do one for Central Plains FurCon cuz more people need to know about this con.
CPFC is in Wichita, KS so it's only a 5.5 hour drive from Dallas. Nice thing about that is I only need to take one day off work.
The GOH this year was Laura Garabedian. She's a friend and an artist we've worked with so it was nice to see her being honoured.
Thursday:
I got to work early then hit the road. We'd packed the car the night before so I left direct from the train station. The drive was good. Uneventful and with no major slowdowns. I started the audiobook of John Scalzi's new book, Lock In, on the way. It's a 10 hour audio so I finished it on the way back, good book btw.
I arrived around 10:30pm and pretty much got myself settled in and went right to bed.
Friday:
Got up and met Rahata for breakfast. We enjoyed the free breakfast buffet. This is part of how amazing this hotel is. A full hot breakfast buffet is completely free. They also do free dinner from 5:30 to 7pm along with three free drinks.
After breakfast Rahata helped me out big time since my back wasn't doing so well. We got my stock from the car and got all set up in the dealers room.
I had two tables and the were stuffed with different titles. It's a small con, but we do alright there for it being about 90 people each year. It means we have to pack a small quantity of a large range of titles though, so displaying them all on two tables is a challenge.
The highlight of Friday was when the charity showed up. They had an area of their own in the dealers room and they brought various animals.
OMG they brought a honey badger!
There's an animal I never thought I'd see in person. I even got to pet her! Their fur is really rough, even the underbelly, but the pads of their feet are super soft. Apparently they sense a lot with their feet.
They're not native to this continent, but the charity has a family of them including a breeding pair. This is for conservation as they are very endangered.
This one's name was Bonnie. Her brother wasn't there, but his name is Clyde. :-P Perfect for honey badgers.
I thought it was pretty cool that Laura and Vantid said down with their sketchbooks to do some live animal sketching. I think Laura took a few hundred reference pictures.
Rest of the day I worked my table. I closed about an hour early because it was pretty quiet and then I took a nap which turned out a lot longer than I expected. I got up around 9 and went to have a late dinner with Rahata at Avi, the hotel restaurant.
I had the pork chops. Definitely recommended. Just amazing. Avi is one of the big reasons I love this hotel.
I'd put my Kindle in my pocket so after dinner I relaxed in the hotel lobby for a couple of hours to read.
The lobby is huge and would be well suited for lobbycon. This con really needs to grow to take advantage of the space they're in. The lobby is big and sprawling, full of little clusters of chairs and ottomans. Perfect for a relaxing read or to chat with friends.
Saturday:
Typical for most cons I go to, I ate breakfast and worked the table.
Highlights of Saturday include the charity bringing back their adorale armadillo and hedgehog who were there last year and also another newcomer, a binturang. Which is smething I hadn't seen before, but they're super fluffy and have long, floof tails.
I also did a publisher Q&A on Saturday. It was sparsely attended, but given the size of the con I expected that. Much thanks to those who did show up and help keep the conversation going. Warrndog in particular was a good discussion started. He's the writing track lead at Oklacon and someone I'd like to chat to more about writing.
Dinner on Saturday was lamb if I recall correctly.
Sunday:
This was a short day. The charity auction started at 2pm and closing ceremonies was around 4pm. Since it was slow and with those two events I didn't expect it to get busier, I closed up shop at 2. The official close time of the den was 5pm, but I wanted to be on the road so I wouldn't be home too late. I had to work on Monday.
Kyo was my roommate for the weekend and he helped me out immensely with packing up the table and getting all the stock back into the car.
I fueled up, hit the road and finished my book.
Summary:
As with last year, CPFC was a very relaxed weekend in an awesome hotel.
My main criticism of CPFC is the same as last year: marketing!
CPFC is basically in the middle of the country. It's 5 to 10 hours from a wide range of possible attendees by car, not to mention all the Kansas locals. It has the potential to grow a lot, but the problem is very few people know about it.
I wrote this so I could talk about my weekend and hopefully let some folks know about this great little con who didn't know before.
They also need a lot of help. They have a very small staff who are all doing multiple jobs. So if you're looking to staff or volunteer at a con, consider helping out this one. It's a young, small con with great potential.
Here's some places to contact them:
Twitter: @cpfurcon
FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/centralplainsfurcon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CPFurCon
CPFC is in Wichita, KS so it's only a 5.5 hour drive from Dallas. Nice thing about that is I only need to take one day off work.
The GOH this year was Laura Garabedian. She's a friend and an artist we've worked with so it was nice to see her being honoured.
Thursday:
I got to work early then hit the road. We'd packed the car the night before so I left direct from the train station. The drive was good. Uneventful and with no major slowdowns. I started the audiobook of John Scalzi's new book, Lock In, on the way. It's a 10 hour audio so I finished it on the way back, good book btw.
I arrived around 10:30pm and pretty much got myself settled in and went right to bed.
Friday:
Got up and met Rahata for breakfast. We enjoyed the free breakfast buffet. This is part of how amazing this hotel is. A full hot breakfast buffet is completely free. They also do free dinner from 5:30 to 7pm along with three free drinks.
After breakfast Rahata helped me out big time since my back wasn't doing so well. We got my stock from the car and got all set up in the dealers room.
I had two tables and the were stuffed with different titles. It's a small con, but we do alright there for it being about 90 people each year. It means we have to pack a small quantity of a large range of titles though, so displaying them all on two tables is a challenge.
The highlight of Friday was when the charity showed up. They had an area of their own in the dealers room and they brought various animals.
OMG they brought a honey badger!
There's an animal I never thought I'd see in person. I even got to pet her! Their fur is really rough, even the underbelly, but the pads of their feet are super soft. Apparently they sense a lot with their feet.
They're not native to this continent, but the charity has a family of them including a breeding pair. This is for conservation as they are very endangered.
This one's name was Bonnie. Her brother wasn't there, but his name is Clyde. :-P Perfect for honey badgers.
I thought it was pretty cool that Laura and Vantid said down with their sketchbooks to do some live animal sketching. I think Laura took a few hundred reference pictures.
Rest of the day I worked my table. I closed about an hour early because it was pretty quiet and then I took a nap which turned out a lot longer than I expected. I got up around 9 and went to have a late dinner with Rahata at Avi, the hotel restaurant.
I had the pork chops. Definitely recommended. Just amazing. Avi is one of the big reasons I love this hotel.
I'd put my Kindle in my pocket so after dinner I relaxed in the hotel lobby for a couple of hours to read.
The lobby is huge and would be well suited for lobbycon. This con really needs to grow to take advantage of the space they're in. The lobby is big and sprawling, full of little clusters of chairs and ottomans. Perfect for a relaxing read or to chat with friends.
Saturday:
Typical for most cons I go to, I ate breakfast and worked the table.
Highlights of Saturday include the charity bringing back their adorale armadillo and hedgehog who were there last year and also another newcomer, a binturang. Which is smething I hadn't seen before, but they're super fluffy and have long, floof tails.
I also did a publisher Q&A on Saturday. It was sparsely attended, but given the size of the con I expected that. Much thanks to those who did show up and help keep the conversation going. Warrndog in particular was a good discussion started. He's the writing track lead at Oklacon and someone I'd like to chat to more about writing.
Dinner on Saturday was lamb if I recall correctly.
Sunday:
This was a short day. The charity auction started at 2pm and closing ceremonies was around 4pm. Since it was slow and with those two events I didn't expect it to get busier, I closed up shop at 2. The official close time of the den was 5pm, but I wanted to be on the road so I wouldn't be home too late. I had to work on Monday.
Kyo was my roommate for the weekend and he helped me out immensely with packing up the table and getting all the stock back into the car.
I fueled up, hit the road and finished my book.
Summary:
As with last year, CPFC was a very relaxed weekend in an awesome hotel.
My main criticism of CPFC is the same as last year: marketing!
CPFC is basically in the middle of the country. It's 5 to 10 hours from a wide range of possible attendees by car, not to mention all the Kansas locals. It has the potential to grow a lot, but the problem is very few people know about it.
I wrote this so I could talk about my weekend and hopefully let some folks know about this great little con who didn't know before.
They also need a lot of help. They have a very small staff who are all doing multiple jobs. So if you're looking to staff or volunteer at a con, consider helping out this one. It's a young, small con with great potential.
Here's some places to contact them:
Twitter: @cpfurcon
FA: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/centralplainsfurcon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CPFurCon
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