tl;dr: It was a fantastic time and I loved it (though not without a little minor feedback) but I should’ve tried to actually get in touch with more peeps, but c’est la vie.
After THE EVENT and missing last year’s WE’RE BACK IN BIRMINGHAM (well, were back in Birmingham, I’m in Greater Manchester again now). God I’ve missed this con and while I got little sleep (‘cus my body every night was just “???????SLEEP????????”) I genuinely somehow had the social energy to actually stick around people and aaaaaa
Day 0? -1? – Thursday, 25th of May
Tbh very little happened today and I’m not much of a shutterbug. Spent most the day on trains, which were fine once we got past Crewe???? That took me by surprise. We checked in, then took in our view…
…delicious. I’m also *fairly* sure that I was also overlooking the Main Stage or *very close* to the main stage. (That will be relevant tomorrow). Other than that it was mostly a chill day.
Even registration was chill! I said it a lot but CFz23’s registration was the quickest I got through. I remember some years spending hours in the queue, even though I do early arrival, and don’t get me wrong I was still in the queue for 40ish minutes but the team were shifting the queue with such speed that I was legitimately impressed. This isn’t to say I viewed CFz’s previous years as incompetent, they’re not, but it was absolutely way more well coordinated this time. (Though it was sad to find out that there was someone who still took issue to staff on that given an update about not accepting verbal abuse. Boo at that person).
Then just a curry and drinks with pals! Got chance to catch some faces I’ve not seen like Toshi, who I needed to see anyway to give them their badge but honestly it was lovely chatting to and catching up with them again! As well as catching Beeps so I could give them Olive’s badge, they’re a lovely beans.
Day 1 – Friday, 26th of May
Something amazing happened on Friday. Yeah the con started whatever, THIS is the amazing thing.
If anyone doesn’t know, my track record for getting to breakfast at CFz is usually only limited to the last day, and even then it’s not a guarantee. Sadly I was still sleepy anyway and went back to sleep afterwards. Oops! Though it did mean I spotted a banner to stick stickers on popped up and I have some unsold stock from 2019 (which I then gave Shiro)
I then sat myself down, intending not to move all day so I could give out 9 more badges, but that’s okay ‘cus the only events for the first day of the con is literally the opening ceremony and dances. Both of which I don’t go to (opening because it’s neigh on impossible to get in to the stage, dances because I don’t really enjoy being in that kind of environment haha), so I get to basically just sit down, chill and consume all the blue.
I don’t have a problem when blue slush is within range of me for 4 days, you have a problem >_> <_<
But I did get to see these fuzzy pals wandering around at least, and Brok goofing around a little.
Eventually though I managed to get all my badges handed out and as I went to bed, I saw a miracle of nature. Vore???????? Feeding???????? Who truly knows
Anyway that’s all fun… do you remember how I ominously mentioned overlooking Main Stage on Thursday? You might now work out why I said that was relevant. Audio in this is tuned up a little to make it audioable over video, but absolutely could hear it through everything vibrating. Though I’ve got less reason to complain than people closer to the main stage, if they go to bed at “normal” times (i.e. before con day ends at 2AM lol). “Thankfully” for me, this wasn’t an issue 🙂
Day 2 – Saturday, 27th of May
It wasn’t an issue because I just didn’t sleep 🙂 : ) : ‘ ) I think I got about 4 to 6 hours, if I’m being generous and all of it interrupted. I think what’s hilarious is that I wasn’t kept awake by the dances (‘cus I actually did drift off when it was on then woke up after it stopped :B), wasn’t kept awake by doors slamming in the corridor, or room parties. I just kept waking up for no reason :D!!!!
As an aside: The code of conduct includes this, more as a suggestion than an outright requirement and I don’t know how people deal with only 6 hours of sleep, less than 7.5/8 ruins me :’D
Well after just deciding to sleep in until 11 I finally get up and get up, showered and wander down where I finally get chance to grab a photo with the Mysterious Mirror Fox That Might Be From Or At Least Based On The Masked Singer Show (title pending, was confirmed it was gaz_a later, after my phone notifs exploded for a while, this edit was cool though), still such a rad suit though! aaaaaaaaaa
Other than that Saturday was actually a really sedate day for me, there was very little planned for the day so DATE TIME (I guess?) and me and the darling enby whomst I love very much went out to Vietnamese Street Kitchen in Resorts World and god this food was so good. Had a big bowl with curry and chilli & lemongrass chicken which very much wasn’t lying about the chilli, and my 2nd and last alcoholic drink at the con with a Japanese Slipper (what the green reference is)
And then back in the bar and chilling, nothing to complain about to say the least before I finally crashed to bed.
Day 3 – Sunday, 28th of May
Again, less than 6 hours sleep ‘cus I struggled + I actually had a reason to be up early! So I actually got breakfast again, see:
I admit I don’t like most “normal” breakfast foods so I just eat hashbrowns as if they’re all I can eat. Then on the way to a panel, I saw a very polite pal and a duck!
The Lucario plush was moved around the con so there was never a non-zero chance of a surprise pal. Then off to the Rubberfurs panel (hosted by Seadragom and Meesh (who I don’t have deets for aaa)), started off with a presentation, which to the hosts credit they did say isn’t going to be anything new for people who have been into rubber for a while, but it was nice to give something for people trying to enter the space. Second half was a social and I caught up with a couple peeps I’d not seen yet.
After that I grabbed food before dashing off to the dealers den, but I did see a pandaroo first
I think this year was the most I actually looked around the Dealer’s Den, on account on going late in to day 2. Like most commission slots are gone by then so oops no art, but it’s chill and you get to actually properly look at peep’s stalls without feeling like you’re being pushed as fast along as possible. So I grabbed some stuff
And then off to DANGER MAZE³: INTO THE DANGERVERSE which was a lot of chaotic fun tbh, Orona you did a great job <3
Then it was off to the SonicFurs meet where I had no idea what to expect but it was a super chill time, especially when we cheered when SASRT crashed, ‘cus that is a pretty uniquely Sonic camaraderie haha. Got to sit with artists drawing Sonic too, including Morg, Flux, Vidi and a few others, including a brief but surprise chance to catch Aporia whomst I’ve probably known about as long as I’ve been “DarkOverord” online (18.5 years at time of writing). I do also love that whatever the place, a meetup of Sonic fans will always end up with at least a quarter of peeps there singing along to a random playlist of Sonic themes.
I didn’t get much drawing done, but I did what I’ll affectionately call Skrunkly Doodles, ‘cus honestly I wanted to call them “shit” etc. but I liked them and you can tell who the characters were???? They were very skrunkly though.
After this was Crim and I dashing over to Agent November with Ell and Shiro to do the Mind Heist escape room along with some Leeds peeps and random extras! Some people were much much much faster than me at this but that’s okay, it was fun! I can’t give much information of course >:3c
And then the rest of the night was chilling and chatting, busy day, I was tired. Caught some fluffs though.
Day 4 – Monday, 29th of May
I seem to have a pattern, one day breakfast, one day not. Repeat… So anyway I didn’t have breakfast again.
Sunday was the busy day, Monday was the 2nd busiest, which is to say very little was going on, so I spent a lot of the day doing nothing and chilling in the bar, but I did catch this rad pal, Nova (All Ears)
Ell and I traded up some of what I call “Mons in Rare Balls” (I need to update that sheet yet), which was a chill time with Ell <3
And then I was off to the Swirly Social, AKA “you like hypnosis?”! Thanks again to Benji for hosting this, it was a blast and was great chatting to peeps too like Allison, Aki, and a brief Haps (who I tried to as least awkwardly gush about their art to without being fucking creepy, I think I succeeded in that????) and other names I’m forgetting. Here’s some photos from the event, including the crazy tier list that happened.
One other thing I do want to bring up is that I, like many artists, kind of suffer from viewing my own art more negatively than I should and while it’s been nice the entire con people complimenting my badges (either my own or other’s that commissioned them off me) and how they look (even Haps aaaa). During the event I had a few people come up to me and compliment my work beyond my badges, knowing what I’ve posted online and I oh my god was that SUCH a confidence booster. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Then for the rest of the night, it was catching up with peeps, including finally catching Renby for the first time the entire con, and sitting and enjoying Bungle and Blue’s company for a chunk of the night before they had other things to do. They’re lovely beans and I’m glad I got chance to! Here’s some creatures I saw:
INCLUDING MY TOTALLY NOT CRUSH EPSILON AAAAAAAAAAAA
And then, fighting off sleep I went to bed knowing I needed to be up early to check out tomorrow…
…
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So anyway I literally couldn’t sleep no matter how much I tried so here’s a photo at 5:42AM of me updating Pokémon HOME over hotel WiFi while no-one was awake, and because I haven’t got to sleep yet therefore it’s still Monday
Day 5 – Tuesday, 30th of May
So today was just heading home, of which we did late so it was mostly me and Crim sat in the bar drinking soft drinks. Briefly catching peeps before they go and watching the closing ceremony via the live stream (we’re going underwater! Flood the Hilton!). Then just off on trains, and more trains, and then unpacking and then bed.
Overall it was a great con, ignoring The Teen Jerks, and I genuinely feel that Confuzzled 2023 was perhaps the best Confuzzled I’ve attended to date. Which has some pretty fierce competition with 2010 where I literally got together with Crim and I’ve been with them since (loves <3).
I do have a few bits of feedback, which when the feedback form is released I will add in to but put simply:
- KEEP THE EXTERNAL FOOD TRUCKS OH MY GOD DON’T LET THEM NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. I cannot overstate this, prior years the internal food trucks were… passable. This time they were genuinely something I went to multiple times!?
And I would’ve gone more except the burritos ran out 🙁 🙁 🙁
- A legitimate shout out to the comms team, alerts from the telegram group/twitter/etc. were timely and delivered what information was needed.
There’s only so much you could do about The Chav Menace but it was clear and concise when it was needed. It’s something I’m sure the comms team, welfare team and directors always expect could happen, and hope not to, but you stepped up to the task when it was needed.
- There was multiple events that overlapped interest circles and that kind of meant a vying for “which do I prioritise?”, for example:
I know there’s only so much you can do in these matters, but it would be nice for maybe a chance for before the schedule is confirmed, that event organisers could see the final list before publication and indicate what would have overlaps.
There’ll always be clashes, obviously, but it might help out. OTOH this is an event run by volunteers and they only have so much time in the world, it’s easy for me as an outsider to go “MAN why didn’t you do this!?”. I suppose an alternative is that during event submission that it’s required that you state what events would share crossover elements while still being distinct separate (E.g. TF is often depicted in Hypnosis art – or – some monster tropes involve transformation like werewolves, but that doesn’t mean they are the same topic).
- The lack of an actual dedicated Artists Alley as in previous years was kind of standout. I understand that the con has grown massively but the dedicated space helped out massively as generally it lets artists chat while working together.
Now an argument is that artists could’ve used the quiet room (hosted in Boardroom), however my counter to that is as above, while it always was a quieter space, it wasn’t quiet.
However I appreciate with space constraints from the con getting larger, and the hotel technically getting smaller in terms of con space, that rooms are harder to dedicate to a single thing like that. So after have a chat with Damian and Crim, we kind of agreed with more on the idea of a “Hobby” room. Merge Board Games and Artists Alley together maybe and put them in a larger room? That and also check how full the RPG games where ‘cus every time I walked past them they seemed to be… big empty rooms with like four tables???????? At least they looked that way when I passed them while they were on.
- Actually detail what the Quiet Room is for. Like I get it conceptually but, I didn’t feel like I was ever thinking of a situation where I’d feel I could go there???
And I think that’s it???????? I can’t think of other bits of feedback that would work out. Great work to the CFz Staff and Crew, y’all did great <3