2012 Feedback

[Feera Fox]

Wow you guys have really excelled yourselves this year, the food was great the venue was bigger and better than before, the events were excellent, well done each and every one of you. this year is for me by far the best confuzzled ever.

[Skie]

Let's see if I remember all of my points.

Dance competition set up was a complete fail. The dancers pretty much performed to the judges only. 90% of the crowd only saw mostly the dancers' backs. It would be pretty easy to solve that by placing the judges in the crowd's front row. I'm sure other solution are available too. What made this even more silly is that you had at least 5 official cameras recording it, yet on the projectors you showed input from the cameras that also filmed the dancers' back. That was a really WTF, and ruined that event for me (and many others).

Dance event fail: So you got those dancing panels for the dance competition. Cool. But why weren't they on the dance floor too? Was it a logistic issue? Carpet is really not a good dancing surface.
I like the intimate room we had for the dances, but can't say I'm surprised when I think the dances at CFz 2008 were more crowded than this.

I didn't sponsor Confuzzled. In general, I think that early dealer den's access is unfair and stupid, and being an idealistic silly wolf, I can't support such a thing. I'm not going to argue this  here (I wanted to do that at EF forums, but EF staff simply placed their arguments and locked the topic like very mature people. Too bad since I would easily counter argument all of their silly reasoning), but it does lead me to positive feedback on the fact that we have the Standard + option. I think it's a great option to have.

Like the venue! The spread out corridors are great for a furry convention. Much less elevator mess for everyone. Rooms were great too. The included breakfast is awesome! I've been to many 4 star hotels at the UK and that has too be the best breakfast I was served. Surrounding area is great. Hope the con will manage to stay at Hinkley for a few more times.

There is one thing that was funny regarding the venue. I think the drinks/food prices were very reasonable for a 4 star hotels, but the dishes really lacked consistency. Me and two others ordered the same dish and each of us got something else. I.e., one got a big plate with it, one got a small plate with it, and one got the small plate + fries. Was weird.

The pawpet show was probably the best pawpet show I've seen since the epic Dreamcatchers. Very light, funny and entertaining, while not suffering from long intermissions. Keep it up. I hope that unlike EF, this will be on video/dvd one day.

Long auction is long. Can't say I have any ideas about that, but there's a feature that could be useful. Placing a list with the order of the items are going to be auditioned could be useful. In this case if someone is interested only in auctioned piece #107, he doesn't have to sit thought 100 auctions, and can just visit every now and then and check where the auction is. Having the number on the projector with the piece's information would work well for this.

[geo]

gota say man it was my first con and my first time volunteering  CODE WOLF man you made the con for could not ask for a nicer guy apart from the beer being on me  security con was bad ass all you nice people and security staff made my con

P.S and a bravo to all the staff man

[djem]

First time for me at Cfz, and all I can say is I really enjoy it !

The hotel was nice, large and never gave the filling there was 700 people in here, lot's of small space you could hang out at with friends.
Breakfast was nice, but the rest of the food offer was on the limit sadly.

The event's themself where nice, just the art auction was way to long.

Has Dj, I would like to add that on the dancefloor the light show was sweet while the audio was, the total opposite, if you could something over that for next year ...

And, overall, I'll be back next year !      

[Balto]

Was a good con, was fun to be there and I will defently look to come back again. my main critique is the shooting of the Fursuit Group photo after the walk. you guys should really do that outside next year

[Fionacat]

It would be super awesome to let surronding business know that confuzzled is coming to town, the poor peebs up at the harvester had no idea what had hit them!

Some stuff for 2013?

Bowling/Laser tag outing - it's about 15/20 minute down the motorway but could be awesome.

Fursuit floor - Book those with fursuit into the air conditioned rooms first, helps with keeping suits clean and non-stinky.

Party Suite - MAAAAAAAN those suites were pretty awesome, top marks there.

Ponies - Will have to fix that there is a pony panel next year.

ConOps - You lost the phone charger?!  Dudes, not cool, it wasn't an emergancy but it did really stress me out getting that voice mail.

That's all I can think of, super convention all in all, really very much looking forward to 2013.

[aurora]

This was the first-time at a con for me and also the first time I have been in a fursuit, it was lots of fun but got a little extremely hot at times. Other's always seemed pleased to see me in suit, and I enjoyed posing with and having my picture taken with so many people & fursuiters.  

There was a good variety of competitively priced food and the hotel staff were always helpful and friendly. The layout of the hotel was great with plenty of open spaces and areas where I could sit down and relax.

Some criticisms that I have are that there should have been drinking water, cups and straws provided outside and at certain locations for us fursuiters so we didn't have to trudge all the way back to the fursuit lounges for rehydration.

The hotel cleaning staff cleaned my room, and changed towels and bedding on a daily basis which I thought was unnecessary, and probably inconvenient for them as my fursuit and other items were all about my room. I don't know what the norm is for their usual business guests but I left my room in a presentable condition almost exactly as I found it.

Standing in the queues for the barbecue and PawPet show was tiresome but one of those things I suppose.  

Some future suggestions:

A daily timetable of events posted in prominent locations so we don't have to refer to the conbook, and signage of rooms such as was the case with the fursuit photoshoot room.

On the first morning, help and advice for first-time fursuiters, do's and dont's, hints and tips.

That's about if for now, I look forward to returning in 2013.

[Lost Cause]

Actually Aurora, There was a little sign in the bathroom (at least my room's bathroom) that if you stuck your towels on the rack they would not be change but if you left them anywhere else they would be.
considering I had between two and three showers a day, the daily change of towels was good for me...

The food was great, the panels were fun, the staff were nice, the other guests were wonderful, the fursuits were fluffy (and sometimes damp) and the gentle breeze was most welcome!

I was interested to see what the Twitter incident was that the staff were instructed not to engage in any dialogue on over the radio XD

It was a great weekend all over and I hope to see you all again next year!

Ohhh, and was it just me or were the upper floors built to be saunas or something?
as you climbed up the stairs the temperature seemed to climb with you.

[James The Dog]

Long auction is long.

Maybe requiring items to need more bids before going to auction could be helpful. Maybe 6 or 7 rather than 4.

[Lazerus101]

Overall a fantastic con.

Minor Gripes:

• I totally agree with the concerns about the Fursuit Dance contest, sitting fourth row back I was mostly unable to see anything and the camera that was being projected onto the screens was similarly badly positioned.
  
• Projections in general. I noticed in many events that projection equipment was frequently cutting out. For those of us in the back this was the only way to see many of the events in the stage room and rather ruined the experience.
• Queueing. While delays are sometimes inevitable the corridors to the side of the stage got unbearably warm. This could have been solved with a single large fan to maintain air flow.
• With regards to the art auction. I am sure this has been mentioned by others. But it was disheartening to see that in a charity auction, many of the items had a 0% donation. While I no issue with these items. I feel that it wasn't the staffs job to sell peoples items with nothing going to the charity.

Regardless of all that, both CF staff and the Hotel did amazing work to make everything run smoothly and I know some of the minor hiccups are already in hand so that they wont happen next year, I will say this was the best CF yet. I had a fabulous weekend I won't ever forget and I am already excited about next year.

[James The Dog]

I definately found the 0% thing a bit off myself, and even some of the others seemed to have cheekily low percentages, especially when some of them were getting 3 and 4 figure bids. I know it's down to the artist how much they want to give, but still... I didn't see as much of the auction as I liked, as we missed the beginning because we were doing osmething else (which was annoying because I found out a piece I wanted to get was the very first thing auctioned!) and the person I was with got fed up with how long it was dragging on and insisted we left (which I didn't really want to do, but didn't have much choice).

[Shay]

Quick reply to everyone that experienced the Dance contest in a less than desirable way.
We as organisers of the event, noticed too that the arrangement of seating and placement of judges was less than desirable and have already made sure that next year this issue will be resolved. It was too late to change it this year seeing the show was already underway.

In 2013 I am sure everyone will have a much better view on the dancers and you won't see just their backs. The evolution of a dance contest
Thanks for the feedback,

Shay

[Kraken]

Dance competition set up was a complete fail. The dancers pretty much performed to the judges only. 90% of the crowd only saw mostly the dancers' backs. It would be pretty easy to solve that by placing the judges in the crowd's front row. I'm sure other solution are available too. What made this even more silly is that you had at least 5 official cameras recording it, yet on the projectors you showed input from the cameras that also filmed the dancers' back. That was a really WTF, and ruined that event for me (and many others).

As far as I was aware, the camera at the back (on the sound deck) was the only 'official' one which was being used, at least 3/4 cameras were BBF cameras and then there was my camera (my camera being one which was facing the audience on a tripod) and another one operated by someone else.

The problems with the screen was a pain and I'll agree that having the dances judge facing was a bad move as then all the audience would get is a view of dancing furry backside.

I agree with judges should be in a primer spot in the audience and thusly everyone gets a mostly equal view.

[Skie]

Long auction is long.

Maybe requiring items to need more bids before going to auction could be helpful. Maybe 6 or 7 rather than 4.

I hear from people who work at EF auction that it might not help much. If two people want an item they can easily fill all the bid slots up if each of them use minor increments

Quick reply to everyone that...

Good to know
Thanks!.

[James The Dog]

I hear from people who work at EF auction that it might not help much. If two people want an item they can easily fill all the bid slots up if each of them use minor increments

I guess they can put a minimum limit on how much the next bid is over the previous one.