My trip to Atlanta is a success, which I'm very glad given the anxieties of my layoff last year and spending the months leading up to this con working toward it while getting over my new job nerves, not to mention everything else going on with the world. Suffice to say, I refused to get scared out of my hard-earned trip and remain isolated in my nothing of a town. The flight to Atlanta thankfully went very smoothly, despite the weather apps trolling me about potential thunderstorms for that time when it ended up being very nice after all.

The con is mostly what I expected, though the addition of the Hyatt and being where most of the panels are makes for a bit of a walk and threw me off a bit. I end up missing the dragon meet-up because I wanted to see the Team Fastest Furs marathon when they kick off with Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon around the same time in the game room, which is on the other side. One thing I can say about the Hyatt is that their restaurant has much cheaper and just as good brunch (to be fair though, the omelettes in the Hilton are huge for what I was paying).

The Game Room is also just as how I remembered it, though with less Crazy Taxi this time. I did become sort of a Soul Calibur raid boss there, to paraphrase one guy I played against (complimentary), whether it's 1, 2, or 6. Astaroth spin good. Glad there's still always something to play there despite the increase in people this year.

Which brings me to the elephant in the room: The virtual queues. That had the energy of a rushed and unfinished system, and according to a staff member my roommate talked to, that's kind of on the mark. It was announced a few days before the con because the fire marshals told them to implement such a thing the week before when the increase in attendees turned out to be much bigger than expected. This caught pretty much everyone off-guard, which lines up with some folks getting told conflicting info by staff members.

I came up with a strat around this for the Vendors Hall and Artist Alley after seeing the lines stretch all the way to another hotel: Book a time at opening hour. Didn't get much, but I did get my copy of Tony Hawk's Underground signed by Ben Diskin, the voice of of Eric Sparrow (also, he was Haida). As for the Moonlight Festival: Forget it, the lines were an even bigger mess. I only planned to go initially to meet a few mutuals, but that wasn't happening. Fortunately, we met eventually... And that's when I popped my cherry. It's nothing like how it goes in furry art of course, but at least they still enjoyed it.

I got to meet my mutuals again such as   jamejarrs and   froburr , and met a few more folks. That and the game room + the speedrun marathon were my top priorities. Hopefully, they get the convention center next year, which I heard should be right near the hotels anyway. If the Game Room ends up having a virtual queue too somehow, I'm out, but I do plan on registering for next year and see what happens.

The flights back were much less of a disaster compared to last year. One half-hour+ delay on the grounded plane because of extra baggage and strollers, but that was it, thankfully.

Now for AC 2025 next! There should be less pressure on the next trip now that I have one under my belt this year.