Eurofurence - Searching for 2003 Con Site
Sven Tegethoff
Searching for a new location for Eurofurence 9 in 2003
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The location for this year's Eurofurence will be the youth hostel
Oberbernhards, Germany. However EF is growing faster and faster, into a
size at which we'll need to plan further ahead than we did before. That
means that NOW is the time to start searching for a new location for next
Year's Eurofurence that is able to accomodate our growth, not after this
year's convention. We have to prepare ourselves for a task which is going
to get harder and harder each year.
We hereby invite everyone who cares to go searching for good locations, and
submit them to the EF core team. Ideally, we want to announce next year's
location at this year's convention in August. That means, there's roughly 6
months of time. We'd like to set the submission deadline at the end of
June.
Another problem we have to think abouyt: Eurofurence has mostly been held
in Germany so far, with two exceptions: EF2 and EF4. Criticism are getting
louder that Eurofurence is more and more turning into a German convention,
instead of a European convention.
We, the current core team, are very limited in our investigation
capabilities. We have little chance of finding any good location outside of
Germany, since we all have a very limited range. Very few ousiders have so
far expressed any interested in going location-hunting themselves ... and
thus, we keep ending up at German locations. Therefore encourage foreign
contributions! If you know about good locations outside of Germany, please
do not hesitate to tell us!
Of course, we're not limiting submissions to places outside of Germany this
year. A good location and a good convention still come first, concerns of
nationality and political correctness come second. However, it would be
nice to be more international.
Site Requirements
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* Pricing
We can't have any big increases in the price between Eurofurences,
definately not more than 20%. We must be able to estimate how many people
will come ... if we increase the price too much, noone would be able to say
how that would influence the number of guests. Possibly going to a
different country is too big a factor already.
This is extremely important: Plan for too few, and you cause much
frustration. Plan for too many, and you'll go bankrupt, which is even more
catastrophic.
So, no matter what site we choose, the overall costs per person should not
be higher than those of EF8 plus 10-15%. Definately not more than 20%. It
would have to be an EXTREMELY attractive location to make people accept an
increase like that.
* Environment
Ideally, the site should be a youth-hostel like environment, which allows
us to provide affordable accomodation and convention events at the same
place.Holiday camps with bungalows are fine, too.
Hotels are not entirely out of the questions, but they're normally WAY to
expensive when keeping the maximum of 15%-20% cost increase in mind.
* Food
Also included in the costs is the food. Preparing food by ourselves is not
an option. There must be a way to have catering included, or at least a
very cheap cantina/restaurant directly at or near the facility where people
may serve themselves.
The thursday-evening BBQ has somehow become a tradition, so while it's not
a killer criteria, it would be nice to have the opportunity to have a BBQ
as the starting event.
* Capacity / Beds / Function Space
EF8 will have more than 300 guests. The location for EF9 should have room
for 350 or more furries. This is going to be really tough! Locations of
this size are rare. Especially sites which have the necessary function
space. Just because a location has 350 beds doesn't mean its good for us.
It also needs the rooms for all the events, SIGs, Artshow, Videoshow and
one large hall that can hold at least 90% of the guests at once.
Many furrie bring valuable stuff ... so rooms should be lockable, or there
must be some other means to securely store one's belongings.
* Availability
The location must be available in late summer. This is the period with the
nicest weaether, and general holiday time. Many people combine EF with
their usual summer holidays. It's impossible to match the universities' and
schools' summer break in all countries ... it's futile to even try :) The
date should be within late June, July or August.
The con goes from Thursday evening till Sunday. People arrive on Thursday
and leave on Sunday. Sunday MUST be the last day of the con. People who
can't get the necessary days of will rather want to miss the first day of
the con, than the last. And getting friday off is easier than monday.
Starting earlier than Thursday is also not an option ... unless we have a
miraculously cheap location. With the usual prices, prolonging the
convention by one day would increase the costs by 1/3. That's is way beyond
what people will be willing to pay.
Typically, youth hostels demand that everyone has packed and is ready to
leave by Sunday noon. It would be great if the location allows for
breakdown in the evening of sunday instead. so there's still some time for
programming on sunday ... so far, we've not encountered any location who
allowed that. They always wanted us to be gone in the afternoon, if
possible.
* Surroundings
The location should, if possible, not lie within a big city or a
residential area with possibly overly sensitive neighbours. It's not a
definite "MUST", but where 400 people party, there's noise, and not all of
the furries like to expose themselves in front of curious mundanes ... if
the location is a little further away from civilization, it's easier to
stay among ourselves and keep unwanted mundanes out.
* Reachability
If there's no direct train or bus connection to your location, there must
at least be a train station within the next 50km. If the train station is
not in walking range, there must be the possibility to arrange a shuttle
service. There needs to be enough parking space for everyone. At least 1/3
of the guests will arrive by car.
* Accessibility
At least a few rooms should be wheelchair-friendly.
* Management
Eurofurence 5 nearly turned into a huge disaster because of very
incompetent site management. If you visit a location, have a close look at
the management, or at least at the staff working at the place. Do they seem
well organized? Did they call back when you asked them to? Did they answer
your phone calls and faxes promptly? Did they remember your appointment
when you come visiting the site? Are they friendly and supportive? Will
they be tolerant towards furries? Are they overly regligious and/or
conservative? Furries are harmless, non- violent people, but when it comes
to scantily clad furry fans wearing just their body painting and a loin
cloth, and having an art show showing furry art, some people may freak out.
Try to find out, how much they care about what we do. If they don't even
ask, that's usually a good thing :) If their first question to you is "Will
everything be decent and morally acceptable?", then be polite, tell them
you've seen everything you need to know, and leave it be. If you have the
slightest feeling they aren't tolerant towards furries, think twice before
submitting the site.
* Consite Relations Officer
If you submit a site suggestion, then you must appoint someone as the
contact person for the site, which I'll call "Consite Relations Officer"
for the lack of a better idea :) The CRO acts as the person who relays all
issues between the con site management and the EF organisation team. This
is especially important if the con site management people and the EF
organisation team speak different languages. Preferably, the person who
suggests the site should also be the CRO. EXPECT THIS TO BE LOTS OF REALLY
HARD WORK. A con site suggestion without a CRO who takes his job seriously
is essentially worthless.
* How to submit your suggestion
You're not on your own. If you want to go hunting for a good con site, it's
a good idea to contact us as early as possible. It never hurts to ask us
before spending lots of time investigating in places that we, using our
experience, might have identified as unsuitable at the first glance. Also,
at special locations, special questions may arise.
The more information you gather, the better. Maps of the surroundings.
Train timetables. You should provide photos or even video material from the
site, scans of brochures, and make a non-binding pre-reservation that is
valid until the final decision about the con site has been made. We
DEFINATELY need a sample contract, and if it's not in german or english, we
need someone who does a faithful translation into either german or english
so we can READ it. It's necessary to understand a contract before signing
it :)
Submission Deadline is August 1st, 2002.
* Site Presentation / Voting Process
If your newfound location meets all the criteria to be a suitable place to
run EF9, all information must be gathered into a text. This collection of
information about the location, together with the photos you've made will
be printed out by us, and a little "exhibition" consisting of bulletin
boards with all the various con site descriptions and photos will be made.
We hope there *will* be more than one suggestion :)
This "exhibition" will be displayed publically at EF8 this year. There will
be also a special event at EF8, where all con sites will be presented by
the persons who suggested them. (If you can't attend EF8, you can pick a
representative, of course. Not being able to come to EF8 should not be a
reason for not being able to come up with a good con site for EF9 :)). At
the end of the convention, a poll will be made among the guests, and the
suggestion getting the most votes will be the new location for Eurofurence.
* Any Questions?
If you want to take part, if you need any more information, if there's
anything that seems unclear to you, please let us know.
Send mail to : che...@tigress.com
yours,
Cheetah