Midwest Furfest 2019: Report

🍏Wednesday----
Not much of a day, that morning I worked an hour in the morning for no real reason aside from wakign up. I packed my luggage, did a few things and started a 5 hour drive with a local to the con.
Arrived like 7-8 pm, poked folks on telegram and then met up with Wilgeon as he and a group were going to supper. After some fun chatting with dragon folks and then hung out with dragon folks at the Red-bar. Had a fancy hamburger, not quite sure but the talk was fun. My side of the dinner table talked about dungeons and dragons stories while the other side was dominated by tales of floor cake.

🍎Thursday----
The morning was fun. Had breakfast of potatoes french toast and yogurt at the Embassy Suites. The day was quite an event as it was my first time at dealer’s den doing. I was sharing a dealer’s table with a friend -Sage- so we set up during the morning after getting badges and things. In the Convention Floor, we set up our tables and made sure to be professionally prepared. I had to draw up a price page while I was there because I didn’t have any way of folks to know how much things were. I finally finished around 6 PM.

🍍Friday----
First day of actual selling. I did a lot of this during the weekend and it was a lot of work. These three days were fairly disorienting and I’m not quite sure what happened what days, so I may have had a particular dinner one day, but think it was another.
Next time, I will definitely take a break after doing dealer’s den. As I was definitely super tired after the day. Alittle time to recharge before getting back into the action would be perfect. Also, I totally woke up by 6:oo AM each day despite not needing to.

🍐Saturday----
Still more selling. Still more feeling drained afterwards. But at least before selling I went with Sage to a breakfast place and had fun chatting times with Hypnosis Folks. It was pretty fun. I left early from the dealer’s den to get to a digital art panel talk Q&A thingy-ma-bob. So there’s that at least. While there, a friend Zephra had sent me over one of these cinnamon roll things. Who knew such emotion could be drawn from a pastry, it was delicious.
Afterwards I was quite hungry, wanted dinner, so I went and got the buffet. I was dissapointed by the foods they served. To make it better, I saw another guy eating alone and decided to do my best Vigilante Badger act and ask “Care if I join you for your dinner?” It worked out and we shared awkward conversation. He stopped by my Dealer’s table and said hello. Though terrible me can’t remember his name alas.

🍇Sunday----
I went to the sketchbook swap from 7-9:oo. Drew up some doodles in folks’ books. I also got a few sketches in my book. Though as I guessed prior, 3 pages of drawings were not relevant to the fat fox theme that I had inside. 2 of which I can probably edit myself to be relevant, but one required to be cut out for rudeness. A shame really, but I can’t expect everyone to be respectable artists. That said, I got some really cool drawings to outweigh the not so good ones. I am definitely sending those artists thanks on the twitters.
Went and had dinner with folks on a telegram group, it was a hassle wrangling them up but we managed to go to the buffet. I ordered the shrimp and wasn’t as disappointing in it as the buffet, the skewers of sugar cane was an interesting idea.
Afterwards, there wasn’t really much to be done. I found my roomies, who were all playing board games in the game room. I walked around after a while and found a group of artist folks I knew and chatted with them. Being the last day I was awake til 1 or two. And then kerflops.

🍓Monday----
Not much to say about this day. Packed up stuff and was out the hotel by 11. Chilled around the hotel and worked on a DnD character idea. Went and got an 8 inch pizza at the Crowne Plaza place, finishing up at 2:00. Went back to the Hyatt to chill before leaving at 3. From there it was a super cold and windy drive back to Iowa.

🧾 Ideas and things for next year?---
I really want to build up a really cool convention table with a fun way to portray my works and sell them. The idea I got was to create a fantasy merchant stall, and really lean into the swords and magic side of things.

I’d like an outfit that fits the merchant persona I have. As for wares, A book of major and minor illusions being a portfolio for illustrations. Jars and potions to seque’s into some of the more lavish commissions types like sculptural or ceramic works.
After that, merchandise seem to be the way to go. I was seated right next to one of the best shoulder dragon sellers in the business. T-shirts are a pain as there are so many, and you need many multiple sizes to accommodate. Then there’s desk-mats and mouse pads, but my art isn’t too great to put orders in for that. So I say, we’ll ponder the possibilities and see what happens.