okay ill get the negatives done first, and end on positives C:
The Hotel
The hard floor made it very painful after any amount of time to walk, whereas the previous hotel had lots of carpet, so myself and a few others constantly had aching feet (not that theres really anything we can do about that but i thought it might be worth a mention)
CHILDREN
Unfortunately the hotel wasn't exclusive to the con, so there were kids running amuck, and two certain boys jumping at suiters and ended up damaging suits, as their parents just dumped the kids in the lobby and walked off leaving them unsupervised, (and lead to security staff having to watch over them, a very big thank you to Rwylin!!)
Hotel Food and Pricing
The hotel food was VERY pricey (11£ for a sandwich, £12 for fish and chips etc at the bar) luckily we could use the breakfast room for cheap..er food, otherwise go to the NEC / bring your own food, within our small friendship group at the start we managed to sink 60£ on one meal with one drink (one pint of coke being £4.50)
Staff
We had a few that were pretty rude to us without any reasoning for it, some very snappy tones etc (There were some very nice staff as well) but i guess it was a half and half for the ones we met
Fursuit photo event (night club)
The line was pretty damn long which you expect, but no matter what day it was pretty much the same, and unfortunately when i was in line there wasn't any fans present (the first day), so i overheated and ducked out of that one
Fursuit photo event/ walk
There was a pretty long wait unfortunately to get things organized (by that time we were overheating) and there was only one small fan in the corner, the walk it's self was ok, the route was better than the original (which involved avoiding geese poop), and the final group photo after the walk took quite a long time to get sorted, but to be fair due to the weather it was indoors so you can't space out and get a nice wide shot like last year, but once again fans were definitely needed in there, myself and a few others overheating from the walk and then standing in the room for ten or so minutes had to run to the fursuit lounge before the photo before it was taken
Charity Art Auction
The auction it's self was brilliant! some lovely artwork, and poor pinky's voice after auctioning each table off!,
But my biggest problem was that some artists put 0% to charity when it is a charity auction, I strongly believe there should be a minimum of 15% (or in that area) for charity.
Raves
Well these were very much hit and miss , there were some decent raves (especially the heavy metal one i went to), but there was some really bad djing/ mixing at times, poorly crossfaded and awful song ordering >< the bpm changes were FAR too harsh literally stopping the dance floor as people were confused as to what beat to dance to, and the big blue dance turned out to be pretty much a whole CD of black lace (at one point it was literally three black lace songs back to back, no where near as good as last year I'm afraid, about 15 of us just walked out to do something else.
On a side suggestion, I was wondering for next year if some sort of floor lighting would be possible, even if it would be luminescant strips from the door to the dance floor, due to the low light combined with fursuit vision I tripped a few times (mostly over chairs) but perhaps that would work well ^^?
Positives[/u] C:
Who's line was it anyway?
This panel was my favorite by far this year C: absolute blast improv group exercises, there were some slow parts, but they just added to the hilarity of the event , can't wait to go next year!
The Dealers Den
One of the things i always queue up for early, and love returning to throughout the con, though i don't always buy much i love to have a good nosey!, this year it was lovely the den, lots of interesting things for sale, and the dealers are getting better at what they choose to sell! C:
Breakfast
I really liked the breakfast food at this hotel (specially compared to the last hotel) a wider selection and very tastey! plenty of room to chat with friends too ^^
The Security Team
I have to say the security team was absolutely on the ball this year, brilliant staff, all of them are very helpful and insightful with any issues and questions I had, Dhary was very fast to ask for assistance to take us to the train station for my partners exams and both members of security that took us waited for me to come back after seeing her off, thank you very much!
on the final night (late leave) someone tripped and broke their nose on the stairs, and thanks to the security staff's presence (even right up to the last minute!) Myself and Cursico were able to find a member of the team quickly to inform first aid personnel, You all worked really really hard this year!
The Crew
The crew this year were incredible also! I was helped on numerous occasions whilst in suit being offered drinks and assisted with my suit/ costume, The crew also did such an amazing job setting up and preparing the whole convention, really well done folks!
Overall, I'd say I enjoyed this convention, but as its a new hotel, there's plenty of room for improvement! C:
