Video: Rainfurrest 2012 fursuit parade
Posted by Patch Packrat on Tue 2 Oct 2012 - 03:29 — Edited by GreenReaper as of Sat 25 Jan 2014 - 22:40
Keep your eye out for the 2012 Golden Hairball award winner for "Best Dressed" at 6:56.
Video by Poxy Wolf.
About the author
Patch Packrat — read stories — contact (login required)Fursuiter and unconditional linty hugger
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[comment removed on request]
Do the other cons have videos of their fursuit parades? I am in favor of showing more fursuit parades on Flayrah.
Fred Patten
Due to the proliferation of devices able to capture video, and the increase in attendance, at every convention multiple people are unofficially recording the fursuit parade and uploading it to YouTube, where it is immediately searchable.
In this sense, they are not really "news". Even posting the best for each con, we would have several each month.
[comment removed on request]
I guess that what I mean is that I am in favor of more convention reports that are comprehensive documentations of all of that con's highlights, including a brief summary of its fursuit parade, instead of just one or two events like the fursuit parade.
Fred Patten
[comment removed on request]
^ there's a reason to post it, to get your excellent comment about con reports :)
It is interesting that cons ban outside journalists, but you sense a gap for con reports.
To improve it, how about providing a pre-made con report style form, with general points to cover, and ask people to use it plus investigate specific things (like, catch an interview with the GoH)?
I nominate you to gather a couple of links to what you think are GOOD con reports for comparison, write down the points you think a good report should cover, gather them into some kind of style form (or whatever you want to call it), and submit it here with a request to try it out. I guarantee it will be used.
See my CaliFur VIII report for the best that I could do. An ideal convention report should cover the following:
1. Full name of the convention, location including name of hotel, dates.
2. List of Guests of Honor.
3. At least the main program items each day. Names of moderators or speakers.
4. Fursuit highlights. Brief clip of fursuit parade. 5 or 6 most notable fursuits. If any fursuit prizes given, name them.
5. Dealers room highlights. How many dealers. If any books, art folios, etc. premiered at the con, name them.
6. If any official charity, what it is and how much raised for it.
7. Name of Chairman, other major con committee.
8. Art Show. Many artists do not want their art photographed, but how many pieces entered, total amount sold, price of highest piece and artist.
9. Official attendance.
10. Any local newspaper or TV news coverage.
11. Any other highlights, such as Anthrocon's friendly nearby restaurants.
Fred Patten
[comment removed on request]
Please gather these comments into a headline article for future reference.
I don't think separating "MY experience" from "THE experience" is important, as long as it's written well.
Furry fandom is art appreciation, with visual art, writing, performance, dance and more mushed together under one big vague label.
Compare the challenge of writing a good furry con report, to the challenge of writing about a large music festival. (Keeping in mind the well known saying, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture".)
Music journalism has done very well at that. A lot of the best does it by being very personal and subjective. It helped make rock and roll what it is.
Furry can do that, because it's not a canned product from Disney or Hollywood, and it's not Comic Con.
The problem with that idea is, in order to make a more objective, "all-encompassing" con report, you need to the input of several sources to adequately cover one convention; one person couldn't pull off writing the whole thing.
For example, if my primary interest is in fursuiting, I may go into detail about the fursuit parade or fursuit games, but I may completely ignore things like art panels, even though they are a major segment of a furry convention. It would also mean attening events I may have no motivation in being at, like a G.O.H. panel I'm not interested in, and therefore, I may give a lackadaisical review of it as a result. And that wouldn't be fair to the people who would have an interest in the G.O.H.
I don't mind at all if a congoer gives a personal, narrow-scoped report of their own experience at a con, as long as it's WRITTEN WELL. Sometimes, a person's own report reveals interesting things about the con that an otherwise comprehensive report would miss.
Again the important thing, to me at least, is how well it's written.
That's what interviews and quotes are for, and planning for multiple angle coverage :)
[comment removed on request]
No need for a team, if there's a couple of individuals who are aware that they're working parallel with each other.
Taking quotes, notes and photos on your own works great, for delivering perspective in a personal piece.
The best histories of the World Science Fiction Conventions have been composites of several individually detailed con reports. Nobody sees everything, but "the historian" needs several fans' detailed reports, including personal reports, to get all of the highlights. Con committee members can be interviewed to get the details of attendance totals, how much was raised for a charity, how many dealers there were, any awards given, etc. If fans writing a serious history can coordinate before a con, they can decide who covers what.
Fred Patten
Actually, I'm going to kind of interject here and say this, taken generally, this is the entire point of journalistic archives; on a day to day basis, a news reporter or even news team does not really know if what they are writing (or broadcasting or filming or whatever) will be important tomorrow; that's tomorrow's job.
Yes, occasionally, an event like 9/11 happens, and you know that's going to be important 10 years down the line, but most days its just a small group of people desperately trying to fill up the "newshole" (that's really the technical term, as inelegant as it sounds) with whatever they can get their hands on.
After the journalists are done its the historians job to figure out what all that gooey filling in the newshole (it's getting more inelegant, isn't it?) actually means; in that way, archives of small, local papers are just as important as the big ones, because they give historians so much material to work with.
Getting back on topic, a con report with a narrow view is still infinitely better than no con report at all. Though, of course, a con report with a goal is even better, and a conscious attempt at comprehensiveness is best of all. But complete comprehensiveness is never actually possible; at a certain point, the only way to capture every aspect of an event is if everyone in attendance is a part of the team to cover the event, and then it isn't even really an event anymore, is it? It's kind of one of those "a speckled axe is best, after all" things.
So, in con reports as well as reporting in general, we can't really tell what will actually be important until time has passed; but we can never really tell what was important if we don't try.
Uh, was that pretentious enough? Too pretentious? I can tone it down a bit ...
This is why I started doing furry news in the first place; I knew all too well that you can't write an encyclopedia if you don't have good primary and secondary sources to work with. Our coverage of current events in the fandom could be improved, but five years ago we were in an even worse place. (It would be a lot better if I didn't have that pesky nine-to-five job — not that I'm complaining . . .)
[comment removed on request]
I did extensive con reports for MFF 2005 and 2006, and Wikinews pieces for Further Confusion 2007 and Anthrocon 2007. Later that year I was accepted to MFF as an "official" journalist . . . unfortunately, I never quite finished my piece.
There were a few reasons: I twisted my ankle badly on Saturday which impacted my ability to get around for the rest of the con, and a month afterwards; I had prioritized taking photographs over interviews or textual recording of events, which meant I had to scramble to get some details; and I found myself swamped at work, with no time to finish the piece.
I intended to turn the photos into a montage/slideshow (the ones at the top of the set were the selected ones, with comments), but ultimately it became "not news". Perhaps that's for the best, though, considering some of the stuff I saw on Sunday night. ;-)
What people here are staying is right; our conventions have grown so large that they require a small team of reporters to do them justice. It would be perfect as a staff role, except for the huge conflict of interest you run into (imagine reporting on a drug overdose). Further Confusion has tried it anyway with the Furly Edition, to varying degrees of success.
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