The Convention: Rainfurrest
The Place: Seattle SeaTac Marriott.

This is my third Rainfurrest. First, here are the numbers. We had around 905 attendees up from 599 in 2008 and 157 to 159 in the fursuit parade up from 89.

Friday morning was a blur. I woke up on time; Soon the morning became a flurry of sending orders, receiving my check and cashing it, and getting a tank of gas. I did not leave Portland until 11:30. By this time, it clear I was going to miss opening ceremony. Got to the hotel around 2:50pm just in time to jump into Gesture Drawing workshop and. The next panel on clothing I skipped out when the panelist could not get equipment; this was the second year in a row a panel was delayed due to no equipment.
Latter, I checked in to the hotel and moved into my room. I also picked up a bag for the plushie costume contest. Originally, I was going to use a Dear Daniel plush but I decided to use because the minimum height was ten inches. The plushie masquerade works like this. On Friday, each contestant picks up a mystery bag. The contestant can only use the items in the bag and must create a costume by the Variety Show on Saturday night. I got Blue cloth and lace plus a few buttons. Latter I had dinner at Claim Jumpers (over price Applebee’s). I sat through a Ranting 2 performance. Not that I liked all his jokes, but I had to experience him once and participated in the art jam.

Saturday I went to a few panels and spent a good deal of time working on my creation. Like Kumoricon, the anime convention, I took my big Hello Kitty everywhere I went and had fursuiters and other attendees pose with her for pictures. I even got a picture Uncle Kage holding my big kitty. Feeling something was missing, I commissioned an artist to make big Hello Kitty a con badge.  Now Big Hello Kitty is a member of the furry fandom. One advantage of entering the plushie masquerade is I got a front row seat for the Varity Show. The judging of the contest happens before the show.  I went with Sanrio marketing failure: Middle Eastern Hello Kitty and won the contest; my prize is a free membership for Rainfurrest 2010. This was kind of a shock and upset, going against some good costumers. 

On Sunday the only panels I went to the watercolors and meet the board of directors. I took the afternoon noon off and went down to South Center Mall to check out the new Sanrio store and note another store mentioned on another site was closed. 

The Good:

The zombie game, each participant was given ether a survivor, zombie or medic card. The rules are if a zombie player “zombie walked” up to anther survivor and touched him or her, that person became a zombie and exchanged a survivor card for a zombie card. Only medics can cure zombies turning back to a survivor.

When I was zombie so was my Hello Kitty, triggering the Hello Kitty Massacre.  One medic seeing me, immediately   turned me back, and to others my kitty became a deterrent to change be back into a zombie; less they conjure up the Hello Kitty Massacre. Still other players fell for her charm “Oh, what a pretty big Hello Kitty (touch zombized)” 

The bad:

Except for some art panels that did not start in time. 

The ugly: 

Nothing band except for some hearsay of a guy dressed only in a towel, if true, guys this is a public Hotel not a bath house.  

Oh yes Thanks to Ranting 2 I will never get thee cheese babies out of my head. 😉 

On Sunday, I was driving to IHOP breakfast, down at the bottom of the hill I stopped at the light, noting the Holliday Inn to my right. We came a long way from  the cramped lobby, small room, of the 370 attended Rainfurrest 2007 (Zero) We came a long way and looks like we on your way to become a major convention. See you all in 2010. 

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