Morphicon October Newsletter

Morphicon October Newsletter
May 6-8, 2005 / Columbus, OH
http://www.morphicon.org/

Our website has just been updated for the 2005 year! This newsletter covers the following topics of interest:

-- Registration and Hotel Deadlines
-- Dealer's Table Rates Available
-- 2005 T-Shirt Contest Announced
-- Charity: AAF Needs Your Furry Donations
-- Our Infamous Variety Show...Needs You!

(read more, below...)

*****Registration and Hotel Deadlines

Our hotel this year is the fabulous Radisson Hotel Columbus-Worthington, whose website gives a good idea of the scope of their amenities. We have more than double the space we did last year, and the hotel quality is first rate. Our room block is for $89/night, but the room rate is only guaranteed through April 22, 2005 so you'll want to reserve your room early. You may call the Radisson directly at 614-436-0700, fax them at 614-436-5318, or make reservations through their central office at 1-800-333-3333. You must ask for the Morphicon room rate (room block MO-005) to get the discounted price. More information is available on the Morphicon hotel webpage.

If you're looking for room or rideshare, be sure to join our online forum. The list doesn't have much traffic, but it's a great place to keep up-to-date on announcements about the convention and to find other people who are headed to Columbus for the event.

Registration for Morphicon 2005 is available online at the registration webpage. You may register via our interactive form, or by mail. Online and mail-in registration both end much earlier this time (March 1, 2005), so register early to secure the lower rate!

Morphicon has sought to keep the convention as affordable as possible while still bringing you the highest quality of services! This year it's only $29 for a full registration, provided you register by March 1st. Sponsor and patron benefits have gone up considerably as well--see our goodies page for more detail on what we're offering those special people who are willing to donate a little something extra to the convention.

*****

Dealer's Table Rates Available

Last year, our tiny artists and dealers room was pretty crowded. There's a lot more space this year, and we're expecting that the convention will grow. So we're again offering low rates for our dealer's tables as an incentive to dealers to come peddle their "were's". Our convention is in a more favorable time slot this year so it won't conflict with other national fantasy and furry conventions, and we're centrally located to a number of large metropolitan areas--both of which make it easy for dealers to attend the convention. A dealer's licence is only $40, which includes the cost of registration. You can find out more about the process at our dealers/artists page or contact our dealers staff directly.

If you're interested in the artists alley, you can visit the dealers page above for more information, or contact our artists staff directly.

*****

2005 T-Shirt Contest Announced

Once again we're offering a special award to the winner of our t-shirt contest. This year, it will be a full-fledged Patron membership to Morphicon 2005! All you have to do is submit a high-resolution line-art image to publications. The deadline is January 31, 2005, so don't delay!

Submissions should be related to the theme, "Growing Pains"--and there's a lot of room for interpretation! Please limit submissions to all-audiences appropriate content.

Babs was last year's winner of the t-shirt contest, but this year she's on our staff--so you have a good chance at winning! Even if you don't win, we'll put your submission into our conbook, so either way you'll get to see your work in print.

We're also interested in seeing original prose, poetry, and other artwork around the "Growing Pains" theme, just for our conbook. If your work doesn't fit the t-shirt contest (because it's not artwork, or wouldn't look good on a shirt, or it's grayscale rather than line art) then you can submit it directly to publications staff for possible inclusion in the conbook.

*****

Charity: AAF Needs Your Furry Donations

Once again, we have chosen to partner with the Animal Adoption Foundation as our charity recipient for 2005.

Established in 1977, The Animal Adoption Foundation is a Southwestern Ohio-area non-profit no-kill shelter for dogs and cats that have been abused or abandoned. AAF provides a safe and humane environment for dogs and cats that are waiting to be adopted. AAF's caring volunteers and generous, loving donors enable them to provide a safe and happy haven for our special friends. The shelter currently houses approximately 60 cats and dogs.

Please consider donating to our charity auction! Morphicon is a small convention, but we are continuing the tradition of having an open charity art show where participants may bid for wonderful pieces of furry art and memorabilia. We urge interested furries to help make a difference in the lives of local Ohio dogs and cats by donating to our charity auction.

Please email our charity officer if you have something you wish to donate to the auction. Every little bit helps!

*****

Our Infamous Variety Show...Needs You!

Performance is the soul of our fandom, and as such we sponsor not only a judged masquerade but also a humorous variety show, among other performance-related events. We're very interested in getting together additional acts and performances that showcase puppetry, fursuiting, dance, music, comedy, audience participation, and other performance arts.

Our mature variety show is a bit outlandish and lots of fun, with mixed fursuit and puppetry acts ranging from a "PG" to a tasteful "R" category. We're looking for performers with a sense of humor who want to be part of this pre-scripted show, as well as individuals with script ideas who are willing to help contribute to the design. The theme this year is "Growing Pains", and no doubt our writers will come up with some terrible takes on it. We need you to help out in the production or performance of out show! Send email to variety show staff for more information, or if you have any questions about the production.

We're still pulling together information on the masquerade so we'll have more on that in a later announcement. If you're interested in being a part of one of the very few judged furry masquerades, you may contact masquerade staff for more information.

Likewise, we have many other events planned, including our famous hospitality suite, our video room, many spirituality panels, and (finally) a gaming track. For general information you may visit our events page or else email programming staff directly. See the website for links to individual areas of programming and a schedule of events we're already putting together.

*****

For questions, concerns, and more up-to-date info:
Morphicon Discussion Group

See you at the con!

Trickster