I was glad to meet those of you I met, and sad that I didn’t meet more of you.
~Foxy
Yeah, it was cool to meet everyone and hang, I just wish I’d been able to bilocate so as to do more of the things and meet more of the people I wanted.
I just realized I never even got a chance to say hi to you at RF. You sat in the bad flash fiction panel with Ocean, Jess, and I, iirc?
Fred: I think you’ve done about as much as anyone to advance the cause of furry writing and literature, and continue to do so despite being largely limited to an online presence. I don’t think writers would have as much visibility if it wasn’t for your contributions.
Agreed. I mean, yeah, I know what it’s like to hate missing out (the way I felt during last year’s RF, and probably all of them in the future), but cons aren’t everything.
I’ll talk more about RF when my brain’s not fried from going back to work + fighting off con crud (actually plane crud, most likely), but I do want to say it was great meeting everybody, and I’m enjoying that odd little moment of disconnect/reconnect as I look at people’s icons now and remember what they looked and sounded like in person. 
I wish cons were more conductive to intimate introspective conversations than they are, but maybe someday I can meet up with some of you when I’m not a GoH or a dealer and have more time to just hang out instead of running from one thing to another the whole con.
Finally getting some time to sit back and reflect on all I met, new names and old. Bahu has a lot more focus than I do to list out all the names and special props. Me, I’ll simply repeat what I’ve been saying: You guys are awesome, and made this RF the best one I’ve ever attended thus far.
Though there were those who couldn’t attend, you were there in spirit and spoken fondly of. Thanks for helping to shape the writing community into something worth being proud of. Considering how big the writing side of things are for RF, I can honestly say it wouldn’t be the same without you.
Special wow to PT for making the job of her liason the easiest job at the convention, and for being such a wonderful person. Thank you.
I was in the audience at one point or another, yes.
I don’t get to out-of-state big cons very often, my last being FC in 2010, and I kind of forgot how much of a combination of exhilaration and fatigue that a con can be. I enjoyed meeting so many of the Guild members. Thank you, Munchkin, for your poem that you recited in the Open Mike session. I was hoping I would hear some spoken word poetry during the con. Sorry I can’t recall the young man’s name who recited his poem in the same session. I thought he did a good job. It was good to chat with Phil Geusz and he graciously signed my copy of Five Fortunes. I was glad to meet JM Horse and I wished we could have talked more. My bad. I’ll be at our local furcon, FurryUnlocked, in Salt Lake City, at the end of October.
I wanted to go to the open mic, but it conflicted with… something or other; I don’t remember now. There were quite a few panels like that, either in the writing track or other ones. The perils of a bigger con with so much going on at once.
I only wish we could’ve had more time! Pleasure meeting you!
For any that haven’t seen: https://www.rainfurrest.org/2016/index.php/2015/10/05/a-letter-to-our-attendees/
I knew there were a lot of issues, but this is miserable. Why do people have to act like this?
I’ve already sent off a letter with my own suggestions for what RF can do to curb this a bit in the future. Now that I know this is such an issue, I’ll definitely call things out when I see them.
Rainfurrest 2016 will not be at the Hilton.
Fingers crossed that they have/find something for 2016.
sigh At this point, I’m not angry so much as sad, and sorry the staff have to deal with finding a new venue when it sounded like there wasn’t much else in the area that was suitable (or larger) to begin with. I can’t imagine the kind of headache that must be. 
Hope there’s a silver lining and they can find something bigger and better after all.
As some of you are aware, I roomed with Rechan and Dwale Thursday to Sunday. Rechan (who had reserved the room) departed Sunday, and Dwale and I had planned to stay in the room Sunday night, but when I asked about extending, I was told there was no vacancy. At the time I took them at their word, and was kicking myself that Dwale and I hadn’t communicated better and reserved the room sooner. Now, however, I have a sneaking suspicion that it had nothing to do with room availability, but rather that the front desk was under management direction to decline any extensions by RainFurrest attendees to get as many of them out as quickly as possible.
Alright folks, word is that the staff is DEADSET on there being RF 2016, so much so that an attendee pass was raffled off for last weekend’s Furlife bowling event. News beyond that is really tight-lipped, so the best advice I can offer is what I was told: Keep your eyes on the site and ignore the rumors.
On a personal note, I want to really prove to whatever venue we find for next year that, despite the few who tried to make us look so bad, we’re a good group and do what we can to keep these things from happening. The staff had worked hard to stay on top of all this, but there are only so many eyes and ears.
Attendees can make a huge difference. Don’t be nervous about being an extra set of eyes and ears. If you’re not certain and/or don’t feel comfortable addressing the problem directly, please alert someone on staff. We would rather have accidental false alarms than miss out on the chance to stop something that could be preventable.
Snitches Get Scritches <3
I know this is a joking comment but it did actually bring up something I had in mind. I’d definitely like to see RF encourage people to stop or report bad things that are being done at their opening ceremonies. Making people know they won’t be outcasts for snitching would probably help alleviate some attendee’s hesitations.