Talk:BritFur (convention)

FurCon UK

Should BritFur include link to FurCon UK ? --EarthFurst 20:29, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I can't see any reason to have an entry for FurCon UK at all --SlyCat 07:23, 22 May 2006 (BST)

Agreed. I'm putting a Merge template on it for now. ----DuncanDaHusky^(talk) 11:58, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I started paying attention to Britfur in June 2003 (I did things like read their Britfurcon yahoogroup). As far as I can tell (1) the BritFur/FurCon_UK organizing that started in 2003 was a genuine effort to hold furry conventions but (2) the Tippus_Tailus_BritFur was a prank/dickery/insert-term-here. --EarthFurst 18:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

There's been many attempts on making a furry convention in the UK from many different groups. One prior effort which got reasonably far was headed by Ruin and Anticarrott where they had set up a bank account, etc. But again, that fell through and never came into fruition with many furs losing their contributions into this bank account. I think the money is still locked away in the bank account as it required multiple signatures to access and Ruin went to Japan as part of her degree. The specific "BritFur" effort however was the one by Tippus Tailus, who maintains the misleading site which I've already fully covered with the BritFur article. The FurCon UK entry is identical to that of the BritFur article and so isn't necessary unless it details another UK fur con effort, such as the ones that actually did happen in the '90s (to an extent) as mentioned by Unci in Talk:FurCon UK and also the Therians events which were essientially mini-cons. --SlyCat 06:51, 23 May 2006 (BST)

I've been trying to muster the stamina and brainpower to sift through all the data I have so I can put together a post on why I'm convinced the BritFur/FurCon_UK effort is/was seperate from the Tippus_Tailus' "BritFur". It's getting close to midnight so I hope to sift and compose such a post in the near future. (I'm assuming such a post would make a difference on what a merged BritFur would look like). --EarthFurst 06:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm busy looking for a new home (current roomie punches holes in walls), but I finally made time to research the BritFurs. I spent a couple of hours assembling facts, only to find the best fact near the end of my search. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Britfurcon/message/200 says: "Please read this post carefully. It aims to clarify a number of points and answer a few questions about the status of FurCon UK. (..) I'm Antharro, I'm the keeper of the furcon.co.uk and britfurcon.co.uk domains. (..) Foxydragon is the director of FurCon UK. (..) Foxydragon conveived the idea of FurCon (previously BritFurCon) (..) last year. (..) I must make this next point absolutely clear: FURCON AND BRITFURCON ARE IN NO WAY RELATED TO BRITFUR2005. We have no affiliation to them, we are not part of their organization. The similarity ends with the name. We can be found at: furcon.co.uk (/) britfurcon.co.uk (/) Any other conventions, no matter how similar the name, are TOTALLY UNRELATED TO US. (..) -Antharro (..) --EarthFurst 19:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

hoax?

I've looked at Tippus Tailus's website (tailus.com). The site says things such as "Tailus Industries is the world leading furry conglomerate with a virtual turnover of US$5 billion per year and a virtual staff of 50,000. Tailus Industries is diversified with divisions including (..), Tailus Industries Aerospace, (..) Tailus Industries Mechas, (..), Tailus Industries Nanotech, (..)". Therefore I believe that Tippus is a prankster and the post-2004 BritFur is one such prank. --EarthFurst 20:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe this was the "con" that asked Uncle Kage to be Guest of Honor and had to back out sometime later because of "financial reasons". I consider stunts like that to be less "pranks" and more "being a dick". But that's just me. --Giza 22:57, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, and Tippus_Tailus_BritFur probably contributed to the failure of FurCon UK. (ie. some fursons might have decided not to attend FurCon UK (or postpone registration) because they thought Tailus_Tippus_BritFur was real. --EarthFurst 18:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd have to agree that this convention seems like a hoax due to the lack of information on it's wesite and many other factors. However, it seems that some more research is neccessary before we put this convention in the hoaxes category. It is unlikely but plausible that all the problems they had were real. Before we declair this to be a hoax publically we should contact the hotel where britfur has scheduled for 2006 and try to contact Tippus Talius as well as checking into other possible avenues of research. As for [1], it seems to be more of a joke site that anything else-the real information seems to be at [2] in this case we should assume good faith and do more research in order to prevent hurting a possibly valid convention and person -- not to mention avoiding a lot of drama. -- DeVandalizer 19:26, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

What hotel? http://www.britfur.co.uk/2006/venue/index.html states the following:

BritFur2005 was to be hosted in Jurys Doyle Hotel in central Manchester, UK. It has easy access to tram, train and airport. The hotel con rate was £79 per person for three nights. Money was payable directly to the hotel.

Not only if their no mention of a hotel for the 2006 convention, but the link for the hotel does not work. (DNS fails)

Searching on Google for "Britfur 2005" did not turn up any con reports, and searching for "britfur 2006" returned zero matches. In short, there is no evidence that this con ever happened, despite claims on the website. I'd say that qualifies to either listed as a hoax. Douglas Muth 20:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The link for the hotel is bad for me as well -- however a quick google search does indicate that there is a Jury's Doyle Hotel in manchester (http://manchesterhotels.jurysdoyle.com/) and while there are no con reports I feel that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in this respect. I'll support leaving this as a hoax for now but I think we should try to look into it a bit more. -- DeVandalizer 21:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

How about if we put this into a "suspected hoaxes" category maybe? Douglas Muth 23:23, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that a "suspected hoaxes" category would be an excellent compromise. I wish I'd suggested it earlier. :) -- DeVandalizer 23:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Works for me! I just changed the article accordingly. Douglas Muth 01:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to add my two bits, Hoax or not, it shows massive unprofessionalism, especially on the guest of honour page http://web.archive.org/web/20050208181733/http://www.britfur.co.uk/2005/deal/index.html . Basically accusing the guest of honour they wanted, of not going because wanted more money elsewere. Nekosune 08/06/2011 (yes I am aware late)

Quick history of BritFur

Hi, I'm Lamar and some of you may know me... Yes, BritFur was originally an attempt to put together a real convention, but it fell apart pretty quickly due to some major issues. Things started out in 2002, with the creation of the UK_FUR_CON mailing list on Yahoo. While the group is archived, I unsubscribed a long time ago and access to those archives is subscriber only. And I haven't the faintest idea if the e-mail address for the moderator for that group will even function, so the interesting content there is probably inaccessible.

Unfortunately, a majority of the discussion tended to focus around the things people would like to have at a convention, rather than the actual functional parts of organising and funding a convention. Sometime in 2003, Anti-Carrot appointed himself chairman of the convention, and started "organising". However, this organising did not involve things like forming a PLC to limit liability or contact other UK conventions to get their budgets to use as examples and estimates. (Despite my offering to do so myself!)

Additionally, a decision was then made to host the convention at Peckforton Castle, which had 48 rooms, and at the time very limited conference space. I tried to make the point that even if we packed everyone two to a room, and most of the rooms were one bed doubles, we still couldn't get enough people there to have a sustainable fandom convention at only 96 attendees. (For comparison, CFZ started with 136) This was also a quite pricey location. In today's prices, assuming maximum occupancy, a minimum figure for weekend event hire would have meant a cost per head of £200, not including accommodation or catering or any other costs the convention had. On the mailing list budget 'estimates' were being made that had no connection to reality.

Instead, bulk of conversation on the mailing list was about what kind of events they should have, and what kind of music to play at the disco. There were very few people on the mailing list who had experience with being staff at conventions, or had much knowledge of conventions that occur in the UK. At one point, the Convention was to be scheduled in a way that would conflict with the 2005 Glasgow Worldcon.

I was later informed that, unannounced on the mailing list, Anticarrot began direct fund raising at London Fur meets. I've no idea what happened to those funds. This was around the point I gave up attempting to prod organisation into something saner, and gave up on the UK having a furry con. -- Lamar 2001:470:1F09:1183:6575:3AD7:2AD1:60E4 10:23, 14 July 2013 (EDT)