Con Report Furlandia 2014

The Convention: Furlandia

The Place: Sheraton Hotel Portland Airport

The dates: May 23-25, 2014

Furlandia is a furry convention in Portland Oregon. This is the second year running.

At first I was very apprehensive about going this year. There were two ghost that was in my mind. First there was Furlandia 2013, with a hotel in the middle of nowhere, the MTV fiasco, and the fursuit death march. The second was Sheraton Hotel Portland Airport that held the defunct MEW (Manga and Exotic Worlds) convention, Mewcon’s bad relations with the hotel helped lead to its demise.

Friday: I was late to the convention having to buy food for lunch for Friday and Sunday. I missed the opening ceremony. Panel options were light due to programming dropping the ball. I did the My Little Pony Panel and spent the rest of the day just hung around the convention, had dinner and went home around 10:40pm.
Saturday: I had breakfast at the hotel. I just hung around until 11:00 for the Rose City furs panels. The Fursuit Parade way better organized than last year. For most of the time I call this the Rose City Furs day. I just pretty much hung around with the group except for the media and Furs panel. In the audience were the directors of a group trying to do a music video with furries. We used the panel to tell them of our concerns of the poor coverage by the media. The fursuit parade with without a hitch and the dace completion was enough to keep me amused. I had dinner with my fellow Rose City Furs. By the late evening things were winding down so I called it a day.
Sunday: I headed back to the con hotel, and had lunch. Nothing much for panels offered so I just hung around. In the afternoon a few fellow furry ham had a impromptu ham radio / radio furs meet; interesting places where one can meet fellow hams. I attended the scritch and hiss session. Unlike Furlandia 2013, the con started to close up around 6:00pm so I called it a con and went home and cooked dinner.
The Good:
A lot of improvement; the hotel is 300% better, they went above and beyond to help us out. The fursut parade was better organized. The hotel did a great job handling the boil water alert.
The Bad:
Minor, but no late night art jam
The Ugly:
I felt Furlandia staff really dropped the ball; they should have put up the site for hotel and registration last year. The number would be higher if they did. Program I was scarce, one problem was I was not contacted until two week before the convention not enough to do a good panel.

Special ugly to Famous Dave’s BBQ. While other restaurant offered free bottle water they used the crisis to up sell.
As I stated in the beginning there were two ghost that were in my mind, Furlandia TV and the Hotel during MEW con. Furlandia has successfully exercised both and look forward to Furlandia 2015, Lord willing.
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