Our first hint, unrecognized, about the real theme for Anthrohio this weekend came with the first panel we went to, Basic Photography With Furries. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger and I expected a panel of camera people showing off their cameras and talking about what they've learned and making jokes about Leica. (Trust me, that sentence would kill in r/analogphotography.) Not so, which made it a bit less bad that bunnyhugger was down one camera to show off. It was more one guy talking about his cameras and some basic composition tips in a way that was a bit rambling and disorganized. I suppressed my natural know-it-all impulse to jump up and start talking, especially since I don't actually know much about photography. Like, my whole training is reading a children's project book that explained how to do that thing where you set leaves on photo-sensitive paper and let it make silhouettes that you develop at home.
What made it distinctive is that the panel was packed. Not quite capacity, but still, a big crowd, which must have been gratifying. (I'm still smarting over the time at Motor City when not a single person attended my Raccoons and Procyonids SIG.) And that was the big thing of this con: lots of people. Enough that there was a crowd at every panel we attended, and often a standing-room-only crowd. It would tax the seating available in many rooms; it certainly overloaded the air conditioning. Around Saturday they swiped a couple huge fans from the fursuit Headless Lounge, blowing lots of air fast down the hall rather than trust to the interrupted natural air currents.
bunnyhugger had to leave a few minutes early, and there was some confusion about whether I was coming with her or just taking her cameras and stuff back to our room. She had to put on a fursuit, quickly, and she chose the BunnyHugger suit as the one she could put on with less support from me.
As in 2022 and 2023, Anthrohio would not have a fursuit parade this year. In 2022 that was to avoid the concentration of people that would make spreading Covid-19 more likely. In 2023 it was a bit of that but also to avoid the growing con's overtaxing the air circulation in the hallways. This year they never said why there wasn't a parade. I surmise it's from the crowd. There were over 1900 people at the con this year, which is up about 700 from last year. And remember that through about 2015, Anthrohio-then-called-Morphicon's total attendance was something like 350 people. So there was the equivalent of two past year's cons added to the crowd that was too much this year.
To make up for that (again, I suppose) they organized a photo shoot outdoors, in the parking lot reserved for the car show, more on which to come. They opened it officially to anyone who wanted to appear, but it was almost all people with fursuits gathering; those of us without took pictures of our own. To my surprise and mild horror they started taking pictures very fast, within five minutes of the appointed hour. I had assumed it would run ten or more minutes late as the parade always does. bunnyhugger barely made it in time to be in the photos, and it'll probably be difficult to find her whenever they do publish them. But she made it, and she had a little time to wander around in suit in the pleasant afternoon weather.
Last year, of course, we contracted Covid-19, most likely at Anthrohio. It's impossible to say just where but our suspicion has been the Saturday afternoon plushies panel, the most overcrowded room we were ever in. This year the plushies panel was a Friday evening event, and we had hopes of getting to that. We walked down the stairs from our room right into ... a line against the edge of the hallway. The line spilled out past the end of the hallway and toward the doors and to the common space leading to main events. It was all people waiting for the plushies panel room to open up. We did not yet at that time know just how much more populated the con was this year than last, but we did know: we ain't stepping in that room.
So far we have not shown any symptoms and are content with missing the panel if it contributed to that good news.
Time for more Cedar Point pictures! Again from the bonus weekend or Happy Friar Weekend, whatever you want to call it:
Getting ready for my ride on Wilderness Run! I had asked JTK's child if there were a seat to aim for and he explained they just assigned you a seat. I suppose it's a pretty similar ride whether near the front or, as we were, almost in back.
And there's what the start of a ride looks like!
From Wilderness Run you can see Pipe Scream, which a decade on Cedar Point is still trying halfheartedly to claim is a roller coaster even though nobody's really buying it and we can't point to a clear reason why except no. It's a mutant Disk'O, not a roller coaster.
Monster here has been around for a half-century. It got a fresh paint job a couple years ago and still looks nice with the slightly goofy monster cars.
Top Thrill Dragster's top hat, partway through the process of becoming Top Thrill 2's top hat.
And here's Wild Mouse's arch, which you don't have to pass through to get onto the ride, but is nice to see. The grey mouse doesn't correspond to any of the cars, which match to six named mice plus the cheese car.
Trivia: The Baha'i religious calendar has 19 months to the year. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.
Currently Reading: DC Comics Cover Art: 350 of the Greatest Covers in DC's History, Nick Jones. They credit him as writer (there's a lot of docent text) and I don't know if Jones also edited or made a significant number of the selections or what.
