Anthrocon '99 - Join the Furry Revolution

June 30th through July 5th, 1999

Well, Anthrocon '99 happened, in spite of my biggest fears.  The only real fire works that Fourth of July weekend were from down the road at the display in one of the King of Prussia parks.  That's right, King of Prussia.  Anthrocon dropped the Albany from its name when it left Albany, NY for greener pastures in the Philidelphia area of Pennsylvania.  New hotel, better location, and more restraunts and stores within walking distance than you could shake a stick at.

In spite of the heat outside (100+ some days, with 50% humidity), and the fritzy air conditioners inside, things went off pretty well.

Wednesday

I got into Philly on Wednesday, June 30th, two days before the con was scheduled to start.  I hung around in the airport waiting for the shuttle that would take me to the Valley Forge Hilton since my sweetie and friends wouldn't be in town yet.  Like maniacs, they'd decided to drive.  On top of that, Murphy's Law kicked in and they didn't leave until Tuesday night.  The 30-hour drive took them 28 hours and didn't get them into their hotel rooms until 5:30 A.M. Thursday morning.

Wednesday was pretty uneventful.  I ran into Kage (who'd just come back from picking up Philcon's art panels) and told him that Points would be late... very late.   Then I ran into DRS, his daughter, and KFM.  We, along with BronzeBear, had dinner down in the hotel restraunt.  We decided to eat out in Alexander's to avoid the frightening kareoke that was happening over in Maxwell's.  One Philly CheeseSteak sandwich and bowl of French onion soup later, I was more than ready to crash for the night.

Thursday

My Thursday started earlier than I wanted it to.  Points came in at 5:30 in the morning.  Thankfully, I fell asleep again not long after he came in.  When I got up later, Boo and Jeigh and I drove over to the huge mall not too far from the hotel to have lunch.  I insisted on Ruby's because I had a craving for one of their blackforest milkshakes.  I used to go to the Ruby's in Palos Verdes quite often in high school and I hadn't had one of their blackforest shakes in way too long.

I was just a little bit on-edge, Thursday.  Okay, maybe a lot on edge.

When we got back to the hotel after lunch, Boo, Jeigh, Points and I began hauling everything down to the lobby to get things set up for registration.  Since we were going with an online system, there were problems.  We didn't have enough time to get everything set up, we didn't have enough time to test everything, and there were people standing in line.  Antsy people, impatient people.  And, while Boo kept the lines organized and wragnled the furries, Kage lept to the rescue and story-told them into passivity while Points worked his magic and got us up and running.

I hadn't been scheduled to run registration all evening, but I ended up doing so.   Dermott, Jeigh, Key and I ran everything behind the table while Points handled strangeness and Shannon helped with paperwork.  We got a slew of people registered and handled another slew of people (including sponsors and super-sponsors), staff and dealers who had already pre-registered.

The lobby was full from the start and didn't seem to empty out, even after the lines were empty and we started shutting registration down.  The biggest difference after registration was closed was that the crowds weren't congregated in front of the tables, but rather around the couches and tables that lined the windows.

Once everything was cleaned and cleared and back up in the room, I hung my art up in the art show because the chances of me having time on Friday to do it were pretty slim.   Then Points, Shades_McKatt, Traxxe, Boo, Taisia, Key and I drove over to Denny's for a very late dinner.  The ruben sandwich was edible, sort of, and the service was crappy, so we didn't get back to the hotel until nearly 1 A.M.  *yawn*

Friday

The alarm went off way too early Friday morning.  We had to be down stairs with computer and terminals and printers set up for Registration by 9 A.M.  Because Traxxe and Shades were there, I got to run around and deal with anything that came up that Points and Kage couldn't handle.

I can't say that I remember much of Friday.  Everything was a bit of a blur. I worked registration, I ran up and down between 220 (the con suite and the internet room) and Registration, the Dealer's Room and Artist Alley grabbing sodas for everyone, and handling whatever came up.  I managed to peek quickly through the Dealer's Room while it was getting set up.  I chatted with Lisa Jennings and put a hold on the silver Bat Goddess pendant she had (I needed to find a bank machine and get some cash!).

Points and Jeigh ran off to pick up the lighting equipment for the dances and the Masquerade so Triggur ended up stuck behind the registration desk (unfair to hosses!) while I ran around.

I ducked out from Registration to check out the Writer's Critique Panel part 1.   I'm not sure that things went initially as planned, but it was fun to sit through, even if I wound up racing out of the room to answer my cellphone and the radio a couple of times.

Points promised us lunch, but because he got lost twice, it didn't get to the hotel until dinner time.  Whoo, there were hungry, cranky folks back behind the registration table.

I made it to the On The Rack panel, too... I had to, it was my story "In Her Eyes" that the panelists were going to critique.  I was nervous, whoo boy was I nervous.  The biggest thought running through my head was, "What in the world was I smoking when I agreed to this?  When I gleefully agreed to this?"

It went well.  It went really well.  And I was pretty glad.  I've got some work to do on it, but that'll wait until I get home from vacation.

Sometime after 8 P.M., I managed to get into the Art Show during the artist's reception (which seemed to be nearly over, anyway) to check out the art.  There were a few Heather Bruton pieces that I would've liked to bid on, but they quickly went out of my price range.  And the beautiful watercolor and gouche piece that Caribou did was calling to me, but it too was out of my price range.

Saturday

Saturday was more of Friday.  To bed too late Friday night, up too early Saturday to get Registration set up.  I can't imagine how Points managed on even less sleep than I got, except that he always seems to be able to do that.

I caught part of the Masquerade rehearsal, I had dinner at Kobe with the Guests of Honor and s'more of the staffers, and I played security over in the Adult Dealer's room while the Live Modeling panel happened over in the Hamilton room.

I was bad on Saturday, too.  I bought a Griffon.  There was a dealer in the Dealer's Room called A MidSummer Knight's Dream.  They make griffon and dragon and caitshe and unicorn puppets.  They're called woodbabies.  And there was this black griffon that just begged me to take it home with me.  So I did.

Sunday

Nearly over.  I know it's nearly over.  When we tore down registration last night, we pulled everything.  All of the cables, everything.  Sunday wasn't going to be a computerized day.  We'd take one-day registrations and pre-registrations for next year and shut down as early as we could.

We had a staff dinner at Maxwell's.  I had a Philly CheeseSteak sandwich again.   Nothing else really struck my fancy.

We managed to get to bed a little bit early Sunday night, too, after we started packing everything up in our room and hauling everything that needed to be, over to ConOps.

Monday

Yeah, the con's over, but we still had things to clean up.  The AC Board had an executive meeting and debrief for breakfast.  Once that was over, Boo and I hauled everything in our room down to the lobby while Points and Kage tried to return the lighting from the dances.

Finally, Points got back, we packed up the car, and left the hotel.