Ohio Morphicon 2004 Post-con Report

Morphicon has concluded, and the convention was a success beyond our wildest dreams!

Given the unfortunate proximity to other conventions, we anticipated only about 80 attendees. When registration closed on Sunday, 120 furries had registered for the convention, 113 of them paid registrations! 115 furries in all attended the convention, 108 of them paid.

Those who registered but were unable to attend con will be sent convention materials through postal mail (including sponsor goodies for sponsors), so they can still have something from us.

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I would like to extend my personal thanks to both of our Guests of Honor for this year, Eric Schwartz and Mark Merlino. Many of our attendees mentioned in my presence that they came to our convention specifically to see Eric or Mark, which tells us we made an excellent choice. Eric and Mark provided quality artwork and interesting panel discussions at the convention, which allowed us to diversify the services we provided to attendees. Eric is an incredibly talented artist and animator, and Mark was an excellent fit with our "In the beginning..." theme, as a founding father of furry fandom itself. We're very grateful for their contributions.

I'd also like to thank our staff and volunteers for all their selfless work and sacrifices which made the convention possible. We're proud of the work we've done, and it wouldn't have been possible without a team effort. Thanks guys!

Morphicon staff feel pleased that we were able to offer a diverse body of programming which touched on a number of furry interests sometimes not fully explored in the traditional convention atmosphere. I personally feel that content which caters to the real-life interests of furries (such as lifestyles, spirituality, and self-expression) is an important part of our social culture, and worthy of exploring and expressing in our conventions. The responses we've had so far suggest to me that our convention was indeed able to reach out to a diverse and inclusive body of furry interests without becoming objectionable, and we hope to continue this trend into the years which follow. Special thanks go out to each of our panelists which allowed us to explore these issues in depth, and especially to Mark King who ran our spirituality track and contributed a number of panels himself.

Morphicon was also pleased to have a number of panels and performances directly related to puppetry and costuming, including our furry variety show, a special work-in-progress puppet version of Little Shop of Horrors, and an official judged Masquerade with awards. This year, Angel Bear "took the plunge" into performance (in his words) and won in Novice class, Mrianti won in Journeyman class, and Babs Bunny (as Bunny Bloom, an Eric Schwartz character) won both in Master class and Best of Show. Congratulations to all of our performers--the judging was very difficult! If you're a fursuiter interested in being in a judged masquerade, you might consider coming to Morphicon next year.

We're still checking financially, but estimates suggest we came very close to breaking even--which is much better than we expected, given the expense of the Columbus area and the low rates we offered our fans. In particular, we spared no expense with hospitality and food events--because how can you enjoy a convention if you're hungry, anyway? We will do our best in future years to maintain a high quality of content and still pass on the savings to our fans.

Although we're still a small convention, we produced a few small events this year to benefit a local charity (the Animal Adoption Foundation). Due to Ohio law regarding auctions we were unable to have a "real" moneyed voice auction this first year, but our three smaller events (the pet store, the silent charity auction, and the raffle) each brought in more than one hundred dollars for a net total of $351. Thanks to those who participated for helping us to save and better the lives of dogs and cats in Southwestern Ohio! Special thanks to those who donated artwork and items for the auction and raffle, and also to the selfless fursuiters who volunteered a dance in the pet store. We know how hot it can be in those things, especially with several fursuiting events scheduled consecutively.

Thanks as well to all of our attendees for coming to the convention and making it happen! Next year's convention date is still up in the air, but we should have it set within a week or two. We'll try to conflict less with popular conventions and events this time, though our date may change upwards in the calendar to (potentially) as early as late March.

Many picture albums will be up within a week, and there will be links to them on the front page of the official Morphicon website when they are.

See you next year!

Trickster