The 100th Leeds Meet
This weekend we celebrated our 100th Leeds meet with our largest attendance ever, which touched on 100. When we calcualted this, going all the way back to the very first meet in 2001, I was a little concerned that the 100th fell in January but in the end I think it was to our advantage as it was pretty much the main event in the UK furry scene this month. This saw a large number of furs come to Leeds from as far afield as Liverpool, Birmingham and Nottingham, meaning we had quite a large group in the bar for most of the afternoon.
As well as nearly reaching 100 attendees, we also beat our fursuit record with 34 fursuiters enjoying the walk along the Headrow and down Briggate. Although the weather was a little damp during the morning, it did brighten up, allowing me to have the opportunity of my first fursuit walk in Leeds for something like nine months. It was good to experience the fursuit walk from the other side of things - as a participant rather than organiser - and it did enable me to pass some useful feedback onto the team. We had a lot of fun on the walk, particularly dancing to the rhythmic beats of the lady playing a variety of pots and buckets, and it was great to meet loads of people, including the elderly Dutch couple who were intrigued as to what was going on.
As part of the festivities, we had a bespoke cake made by Tonks's aunt. Light blue in colour, it contained the Leedsfurs crest along with a number of sugar paste animal sculptures which just looked adorable. We cut the cake at 1:45pm after I made a rather rambling and impromptu speech about our local community. It's hard to think that these meets have been going for nearly seventeen years, and we have been organising them for nearly eleven, but that's how long it has been. In addition to this, the bar laid on an exclusive cocktail and shot menu for us. We had asked them whether we could have one special cocktail, but in the end they provided six along with special offers on Jaegerbombs and shots. We had given them the risque menu names from our Baa Bar days but they wisely decided to skip all of those and choose their own.
Sadly, due to EF registration opening at 7pm, we had to head off at around 5:45pm, but most people had left by then anyway. We took a taxi back with Stray, who ended up staying over. The EF registration was as protracted as usual, but at least it involved less waiting than the Laden farce of last year. There has been a lot of kvetching about Eurofurence from the usual suspects over the last 48 hours which has been quite irritating, and I accept their PR team have hardly helped matters, but I do think a lot of the criticism has been somewhat overblown. The numbering system was odd though, but at least we managed to get a room booked so we will be going. Indeed, we have already booked our flights too so we're already set. It promises to be a great week.
As well as nearly reaching 100 attendees, we also beat our fursuit record with 34 fursuiters enjoying the walk along the Headrow and down Briggate. Although the weather was a little damp during the morning, it did brighten up, allowing me to have the opportunity of my first fursuit walk in Leeds for something like nine months. It was good to experience the fursuit walk from the other side of things - as a participant rather than organiser - and it did enable me to pass some useful feedback onto the team. We had a lot of fun on the walk, particularly dancing to the rhythmic beats of the lady playing a variety of pots and buckets, and it was great to meet loads of people, including the elderly Dutch couple who were intrigued as to what was going on.
As part of the festivities, we had a bespoke cake made by Tonks's aunt. Light blue in colour, it contained the Leedsfurs crest along with a number of sugar paste animal sculptures which just looked adorable. We cut the cake at 1:45pm after I made a rather rambling and impromptu speech about our local community. It's hard to think that these meets have been going for nearly seventeen years, and we have been organising them for nearly eleven, but that's how long it has been. In addition to this, the bar laid on an exclusive cocktail and shot menu for us. We had asked them whether we could have one special cocktail, but in the end they provided six along with special offers on Jaegerbombs and shots. We had given them the risque menu names from our Baa Bar days but they wisely decided to skip all of those and choose their own.
Sadly, due to EF registration opening at 7pm, we had to head off at around 5:45pm, but most people had left by then anyway. We took a taxi back with Stray, who ended up staying over. The EF registration was as protracted as usual, but at least it involved less waiting than the Laden farce of last year. There has been a lot of kvetching about Eurofurence from the usual suspects over the last 48 hours which has been quite irritating, and I accept their PR team have hardly helped matters, but I do think a lot of the criticism has been somewhat overblown. The numbering system was odd though, but at least we managed to get a room booked so we will be going. Indeed, we have already booked our flights too so we're already set. It promises to be a great week.