It's easy to see why Toronto is often cast in movies as New York or 'generic big North American city'. ^__^

Here is my long-overdue summary of my wonderful weekend at Furnal Equinox in Toronto! Day by day, I'll be posting my experiences to accompany a photo taken on each day.

As evidenced by the photo here, I woke up fairly early today. Strange, considering the late night I had on Saturday, but such are the joys of jet lag. ^^ The advantage of this early start was that the line for Tim Horton's was fairly short, meaning I was able to get away with my breakfast wrap and tea in record time.

When the Den opened, I ventured down much as I did yesterday, and got in another delivery of caffeine and sustenance for our Guests of Honour. I then wondered the Den and con space for a while, in anticipation of a friend arriving. After learning that they wouldn't be able to make it, I watched over AvianInvasion's table for a while with Nexus, where we chatted about various things and advised passers-by to come back later in the afternoon. While the Den broke for lunch, I didn't - for tonight is Sunday, and followers of these posts will know what Sunday at Furnal Equinox means for me and a few others. ^^

Instead, I spent the afternoon much like the day before - playing free photographer to fursuiters I happened upon, milling around the Den, and picking up commissions I had gotten over the previous two days. I was also introduced to SilverDragon, who will be one of our Guests of Honour for Furnal Equinox 2025 (at which I am almost certain to be staffing, as well!). I spent much of the last hour of Dealers' Den opening hours saying goodbye to people, despite having just said hello to them a couple of days before. Dangit, these cons go by so quickly! ^^

Before long, it was time for the Closing Ceremony, and a final appearance from this year's Guests of Honour and the introduction to next year's. With the great ballroom on the lower floor of the convention centre emptying out, I hung around chatting to attendees for a bit, before heading to one of the smaller rooms - the Directors had very kindly ordered pizza, and so I stopped by to help myself to a couple of slices, purely to get my stomach working before the main event. I was delighted when a couple of other staffers brought in boxes of leftover swag, and invited those present to help themselves (which I did - those blankets were lovely, and I always like to get buttons for next year's event).

But now, dear reader, comes the highlight of the day. About 20 of us gathered in the lobby that evening, headed by  catmonkshiro, and headed for the metro to partake in an annual tradition: the Sunday night Mandarin dinner! For those unfamiliar, Mandarin is a chain of buffet restaurants mostly located in Ontario. The name suggests it serves Chinese cuisine, and while that is a big part of it, they have plenty of other pickings as well - Japanese, Italian, British, American, Canadian. All of it is very good, and rare is the time I've come out of one of those restaurants without my tummy hurting from exertion. It's always a wonderful way to wrap up the con, especially given the great company, and I'm so grateful to Shiro for organising it year on year. ^^

By the time we got back to the hotel, I hadn't the stomach (ha!) to do much else, and so I headed up to my room. this time, I actually waited for the elevator, rather than drag myself up 8 flights of stairs. That's where the night should have ended... until I got a text from Nexus. Soon after that, I headed down to the hotel bar, and hung out for a while with him, AvianInvasion, and a number of senior staff from the con. We hung out there for a good while, drinking and chatting and reflecting on a great weekend. I headed up to bed at around 1am, and was out like a light.

Hope you enjoy!