Henbane and I survived the con! \o/ He actually held up extremely well, even though I got bonked directly in the face with a box during the fursuit games! Thank you to everyone who complimented him or took a picture, I hope some good ones will emerge in the coming week! I did not take a single photo myself lmao. Too busy being a fox and trying not to die.

On that note, I have SO much more respect for fursuiters now that I've worn Henbane for more than a couple minutes at a time. Even though I'm totally accustomed to 100+ degree weather and he aint even a full suit I had no idea it was going to be that strenuous! A huge thank you to the AFC staff for providing a well-stocked headless lounge and plenty of free cold water. Oddly, I found that it wasn't the legs (which I wore all day) or even keeping the head on... the hottest thing for me were the arm sleeves. Wasn't expecting that at all! I still have to look into getting some underarmor for suiting in the future so hopefully that will help. All in all I probably spent two hours completely in-suit, one for the photo/parade and one for the games.

The biggest highlight of the day was running into someone I didn't expect to see. Gogglebeast and I went to the same high school, but we didn't get to hang out because she was graduating as I was starting and so we mostly just knew each other though mutual friends and the internet. She moved to CO after that and I hadn't realized she was back in AZ but it turns out she lives about five minutes away from the con lmao- it was a pleasant surprise! There will be meetups and art jams in the future, yes. (Did you click that gallery link yet? You should.)

The fursuit dance competition was also very cool! I didn't get to see who won, but everybody was super entertaining. I managed to catch Beastcub's public suiting panel; the biggest lesson to take away from that one seems to be "avoid drunks". Yikes :'D Unfortunately I didn't get to see all that I would have liked, not only because I was there for a single day, but because a lot of the panels were scheduled to happen at the same time. Wish I could have seen more of them and it seemed there were some odd schedule choices overall... I mean I don't know anything about running a con but I would have put more of a buffer between Beastcub's quadsuit panel (y'know, the GoH talking about the thing she's famous for) and the rush to get into the fursuit group photo, if it was me.
I will also say that although I had fun participating in the fursuit games, the room was a little cramped and I would have liked to see some more variety beyond what was mostly "mad dash for a thing".

All in all it was a good day! I wish I could've stayed the entire weekend, I only experienced a fraction of what AFC had to offer, but I definitely felt more like I was participating as opposed to IBFC where I was mostly lurking. I can't wait to see the final attandance numbers and the group photo (which I can only hope I'm visible in!) and some shots or video from the parade.

So what's next? Well, there's a furbowl apparently coming up in Mesa on the 22nd...