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My BLFC 2019 adventure by pandapaco

4th year I attend this convention, and it was weird that were many people this year who asked me if this was my first year in Reno, if I was liking my first BLFC, or that they were glad to finally see me at BLFC for first time.

First year I attended BLFC was on 2016, I remember that year, it was one of my most favorite cons ever, meeting too many online friends for first time, making many new friends than nowadays they are still very special for me, meeting those artists in person I admire. Too many good memories from that first year, reason I’ve been repeating this convention year by year. It always brings unforgettable moments.

This year was not the exception.

Arrival

I took a direct flight from Guadalajara to Reno, many attendees are jealous of that because there are not many direct flights to Reno from other parts of USA. And they get even more jealous when they know that I spent $35 usd for that flight, and that was its regular price, taxes included. I still don’t know why that flight exists and why is that cheap.

I arrived on Wednesday, not because I wanted to arrive so early to start the convention before anyone, it is because that’s the only day that flight flies. So, in the end it was not that cheap, counting I had to pay an extra hotel night.

It was funny that when I arrived and I was taking down all my luggage from the shuttle bus, the first one I saw was Soggymaster with a t-shirt of the Paco Panda Fan Club, and he was with many of his friends, it was like if my FanClub were waiting to receive me from the airport. Of course it was a coincidence, but it was too funny for me.

That first day of no-convention-yet, it was already full with furries and fursuiters, not surprised, I’ve seen how much this event has increased so fast, and this usually happens at big cons. But this first day was the only day I didn’t suit up. I spent time with tkcoyote tkcoyote, met my friend birty birty for first time, and he was whom I roomed with (despite he never showed up on the room during all the con, I only saw him sleeping in the morning, no idea what time he was arriving), and hanged out with Lightfox, an awesome person I had met at NordicFuzzCon.

Thursday of mini-golf and opening ceremonies.

On the second day I played mini-golf once again, it was the first time that I played there and the field was not full with people, we were the only group on the place, so we didn’t have to wait that the group upfront finish their turn, or we didn’t have another group behind us waiting we finish. It was very pleasant, and I won!! (Also for first time). It was with KoidelCoyote KoidelCoyote and Axel Tiger.

I attended the opening ceremonies just because we didn’t have anything else to do, usually I don’t go there. I did it in fursuit, and I found Taebyn Pup there, in front of the stage, before the event started, dancing, I followed him, and suddenly all the audience were following us waving their arms at the rhythm of the music. It was cool.

That evening, a guy I met for supporting me on Patreon who turned in a friend (as many of my Patreoners) invited me to have dinner with many of his friends, who most of them were fans of my work. That always makes me nervous and I usually act awkward, I’m still not very used to feel admired, I feel like I’m just like anyone else, I’m not that special. But that evening was very nice, talking with many of his friends and food was delicious.

Best Friday

Another great moment was attending the Kona coffee’s hut, a room party in the morning with really good coffee, I found more known people there than I expected, and it was funny that many people I knew, were going to that morning room party even in other days, I only could go on Friday morning. Of course they had to kicked us out at 11am, because they wanted to get housekeeping service, but it was good because at that time there were already things to do out the convention.

It's gonna be hard to tell everyone I saw and met during the con, so I’m very sorry if I don’t mention everyone. I thought that coffee party was enough for breakfast, but I was invited to have lunch just after, it was with Rodney Bear (a friend and an artist I admire so much), kazank kazank and their friend Standish. We went to Johnny Rockets, restaurant that I always hallucinate after BLFC, I like it and I always look forward to going there when I’m in Reno, but in the end everyone wants to go there, hehe.

Croc O’Dile FanClub

If you saw me wandering around with a certain gator at the convention, and me, wearing a t-shirt of Croc O’Dile FanClub, here’s the background story:
Croc Croc O’Dile is one of my best friends in the fandom. Once I was chatting with him, he told me he thought it was so cool to have a shirt of your character but that having “fan club” on it was too self-promotional, and I told him that if it were a fan club t-shirt of him, definitely I would wear it.
So I decided to make a FanClub t-shirt with his face and invite him to fursuit with him at the con. BTW, it was the very first time I fursuited with him at a convention, and it was a blast. Many people wanted a picture with us, some of them were asking about the t-shirt, and it was very funny how Croc was denying to be him who was in the shirt, and me, trying to show off everyone “hey, I’m his #1 fan!”, and him, covering my shirt with his paws.
One of the greatest highlights of the convention.

By the way, if you are interested in one of the shirts, you can purchase them now at Artwork Tee:
https://artworktee.com/shop/croc-odile-fan-club/
All profits will go to charities: Half to the Trevor Project (https://twitter.com/TrevorProject ) and the other half of the profits will go to UnidosUS (https://twitter.com/WeAreUnidosUS).

Fursuits, Dances and Videogames.

Fursuit Festival was okay, many fursuiters around, many pictures, but I was missing Mausie, remember that time, a year ago, when the fursuit festival was starting, and Mausie found me, that’s one of the moments I won’t definitely forget in my life. This year we had no Mausie at BLFC :’C
But it was great to spend time with Yaps Yaps Fox, an awesome friend from Australia, who I had met for first time during my first BLFC. And he’s also a great Mausie’s fan, he understands me very well with that.

To conclude that amazing Friday, was dancing with no stop on the night dance, with Audiodile, which is the Croc’s DJ set, and of course, I was wearing, once again, proudly, my Croc O’Dile FanClub shirt. Probably it has been the longest time I’ve danced in fursuit with no stop, it was more than an hour, my body could feel it a day after, I was feeling so weak and tired. Despite I was dancing for a while during that evening, I stopped for first time at BLFC to the Arcade room, just to check it, and I found Xusho Wolf, I played a shooter game on the first Xbox with him and Orion the badger, I have no idea which game it was but I have lots of fun, on that silent game where no matter if we were so quiet while we were playing. I love Xusho, he’s so happy and very energetic.

The Artists Alley Queue

Many people were against how BLFC this time wanted to improve the long queues that people needs to do to enter to the Dealers Den, that they had to pick up a ticket to enter. But this only applied on Friday, I was feeling lucky that my only day being on the Bazaar (that is how BLFC calls to the artists alley) was on Saturday, so people didn’t have to pick a ticket to enter on the day I had my table.

But when I was arriving to the room to set up my table, I could see a long line of people waiting to enter out of the room. When they opened the doors, it was like if they had opened the doors of a Black Friday, and suddenly I saw the place was completely full of people from a moment to another, I really thought it was very packed, but suddenly I realized all that people were around my table, were waiting for their turn to ME o__o so they organized themselves to be lining up. It took me around two hours to finish with the very last person who was waiting on the queue, it was crazy.
Also there were many personalities who stopped by my table, like Sherbert, Tucker, Panda named Panda, Biogodz, renegadekangaroo renegadekangaroo, Kyell Gold, and of course Croc O’Dile, it was the very first time on my history of conventions that he visits me at my table!! I had to take a picture of that moment.

And talking about Panda named Panda, who maybe is not a big personality for many, but for me it is, because he’s my favorite panda and an awesome friend. He was telling me that while he’s in fursuit, he’s being confused by me. People was thinking that happy panda (because he’s really happy and fun in fursuit) was me. Oh no, haha, and I remember when I was just attending my first furry conventions, there were people who were asking me if I was Panda named Panda.

Fursuiting All Day

Since Saturday I barely could be in fursuit, I made a balance and used my fursuit almost all the day during Sunday, the last day of the convention. Starting with the Fursuit Games, which were fun, and then I went to the dealers den to play with all the props for fursuits, where I was playing with Rezumaru, BrainFreeze Pup, Rocky, acco acco and Flurrabell.

During Closing ceremonies, I went in fursuit once again. I arrived too early, so I was one of the first persons who were accommodated, but I was in fursuit, I didn’t want to be sit down and waiting until the event started, so once again, I was fooling around the place, dancing in a corner in front of the stage. Suddenly, many fursuiters were dancing around with the music of the place, I layed on the stage and most of the fursuiters started doing the same, and when I saw around, we were like a crown of a concert, with only fursuits, making a wall around the stage. I could feel that some people who were sit down in the first lines were kind of upset, because they had arrived so early to be in the front, but instead they were seeing many fursuit butts. That was my fault. Sorry.
And while we were waiting for the ceremony to start, and we were there stand up next to the stage, behind me were Flurrabell, an owl, I asked what does an owl say and he was making that owl sound Hoo Hoo Hooo, I imitated him, so I was making those Hoo Hoo sounds, some people around us thought we were howling, and they follow our sound with some Awoos, and some seconds later, all the big room, almost full, was howling, a very noisy and long howl. Again, it was my fault, sorry, I started, unintentionally, a howl. Good I was not fined.

Oh, someone I also love is Andy, the mascot of Anthro NorthWest, it was very funny how he went up to the stage while they were collecting money for the charity, and he threw lots of coins in change that he had in two treasure chests into the Alkali’s hat. A very funny moment.

After the closing, I was thinking on putting down my fursuit, since I had used almost all the day, but I found Mokie Mutt, who wondered who exactly are my group of friends that I usually hang out at cons with, because he always sees me alone. And, he made me ponder about it, I had never been with a specific group of people, if I hang out with someone, is for short times, I have too many friends that I want to be spending time with, but I’ve never liked to be all the time with a specific someone, I always think that we can have many different plans, and sometimes we drag our friends to activities they didn’t want to do or places they didn’t want to go, and I’ve always been kind of independent with that, if I want to go to a certain activity or a certain event or a certain place during a convention, I don’t like to depend if the other person is liking to do the same, I just do it. I told Mokie that I don’t have a specific group of friends, and I don’t know if he felt sorry for me, but he wanted me to join his group. I had no idea where we were going, but we were going out the hotel, to the parking lot, my friend Kazan found me and he also joined us, and he was asking me where we were going, and I just told him I had no idea, I think Mokie had no idea either, he was just following his friends. But it was incredibly cold outside, I could feel cold even if I was in suit, so I couldn’t imagine how cold it was to the people who was out of suit. And, I love Mokie, I like him so much, but that’s kind the reasons I usually don’t follow groups of people and be attached to them, sometimes I have no idea what we are doing while I would love to be spending my time somewhere else at the convention. So I told him I was going back to the hotel. And I did.

While I was coming back to the hotel, I found Skye and her friends, who were recording a video clip, I thought I had ruined their shot because I crossed their path while they were recording it, but instead, they invited me to record with them. It was fun. We ended up in the pool party, which was my very first time on the pool area of the Grand Sierra, even if I had been 4 times before at BLFC, and I discovered it was too much fun, there I met Truce Wolf, in front of the DJ of the pool, and I danced with him and with Kazan for around an hour. It was very relaxing, especially because it was so cold outside, that I didn’t get tired being in fursuit.

Last activities of the convention before the evening was officially finished, was watching the adult fursuit games (which the first game was the only fun to watch), and dancing even more and more, until I got very tired, realized that I had been in fursuit for more than 13 hours (of course I took some breaks, especially the longest break for lunch). But then, when I was back to my room, and started packing to be ready in the morning, I could tell myself it was a really good convention.

If you want to check my folder of picture of BLFC:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m9c9cgdxc0r2dm3/AAAOhLtCDYb_1p_dRVObXxMua?dl=0

Lake Tahoe

Some friends and I planned going to Lake Tahoe after BLFC, I booked a cabin for two nights. It was a really good decision.
We were Birty, Koidel, Mega Otter, Cross, Ettevy and I. We realized we were too many for only one car, considering almost everyone was carrying with fursuit luggage. So our plan B was that three of us would take a bus to Lake Tahoe, and the guys with the car would pick us up.
The bus from Reno to Lake Taho were supposed to depart from the Reno’s airport, according the webpage, so we took the shuttle bus back to the airport, but the problem is that we never found where exactly was the departure of those buses, and while we were trying to find it, Koidel checked, as a joke, how much it would be to take an Uber instead. And we were surprised that taking an Uber was cheaper than 3 bus tickets. So what started as a joke, we made it real, and we ordered an Uber, and we arrived even before than the guys who were by their own car.

Lake Tahoe was very cold, and we went unprepared for that weather, all of us were wearing just hoodies, no scarfs, hats nor gloves, and even the first morning it was snowing. But that didn’t stop the fun times, we drove to the mountains, stopping in some beautiful stops to take pictures in fursuit, and we reached a point where there was nothing but snow, we stopped the car and started playing in fursuit with snow, what a relaxing and fun time.

Back to the cabin, it had an outdoors warm pool, we made the crazy experience of going out to swim, while outside was -2C (28F) and suddenly it started to snow, so we were just relaxing outside, wearing nothing but swim suit, while it was snowing. Oh, right now while I write this I’m missing so much that moment.

If you want to check out our fursuit pictures we took during Lake Tahoe:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3fss9l3xq84vr92/AADLI0-TdmqvUxhiT1jQ_7YYa?dl=0

And that was my adventure of BLFC, it was really great.
I’m sorry if I saw you, spent time with you and didn’t mention you, you know this panda loves you anyway, there were many people and I hanged out with too many also. But don’t hesitate to say hi and even hug me when you see me around at other event or convention.

Next adventure will be to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I’ll be attending Fur-Eh. I have never been there before, so it will be something completely new for me. Rise your paw if I’ll see you there.

panda hugs to everyone Thank you very much for reading my silly adventures. I’m very surprised how many people tell me that always read my journals, I feel so honored.

My BLFC 2019 adventure

pandapaco

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