A warm welcome to you to my (admittedly rather late) summary series of Confuzzled 2023! I'll be posting over this long weekend about my experiences at Britain's largest furry convention, held between the 26th and 30th of May. My visit to this con was, similar to this series, quite overdue, but after a kind offer of a room by  Huskyteer and sure in the knowledge that furry friends from the UK and overseas would be attending, I decided to finally go for it.

As far as some of my previous journeys to conventions go, this one was fairly straightforward. Port Talbot to Cardiff, Cardiff to Birmingham New Street, and one stop from Birmingham New Street to Birmingham Airport. This journey I undertook after quickly boxing up some brownies and Welsh cakes that I'd baked the night before. One must make a good impression at new conventions, I feel! Having arrived at Birmingham Airport station, I admittedly got a little bit lost in the NEC (National Exhibition Centre), before finding my way through the massive structure and to the lake you see in this picture. Despite online searches, I can't be certain if this lake is entirely artificial, but given the development of the area, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it was. Regardless, the buildings situated around it include the convention hotel (the Hilton), my hotel (the Crowne Plaza), and a rather large shopping/eating centre (which you can see on the right of screen).

I made it to the Crowne Plaza good hour before check-in time, so I left them with my baked goods, while I trudged with my backpack around the lake to the Hilton to register for the con. For some reason, I decided to go around the northern end of the lake rather than follow the path along the southern end, though taking this route did guide me past a large and quite picturesque regatta of swans and their cygnets, from which I kept a wide berth. Arriving at the front of the hotel immediately assured me that I was in the right place, with fursuiters abound even before the con had opened, and several food trucks set up in the plaza opposite the hotel entrance promised that I'd be well-fed for the weekend. The line for registration was long but moved quickly, and I made polite conversation with the staffer who rather speedily checked me in. With my badge, lanyard, and swag, I hung around the hotel for a bit before heading back to the Crowne.

On my way back - this time along the path - I happened upon a group of attendees heading in the same direction as me. One of them wore a furry badge, which in the moderate breeze became detached form the lanyard, and bounced merrily towards the lake. Not really having much time to react, I all but dove on it to stop it from entering a watery grave. Despite tearing the plastic bag that carried my swag, it felt good to be helpful! Even more so where, having reattached the badge to the lanyard, the wind blew it off again and I again dove on it to stop it from blowing into the lake. Whether or not it had been captivated by a siren, I couldn't say, but needless to say it was a good way to make friends at my first Confuzzled. ^__^

Husky arrived shortly before 4pm, and after unpacking and chatting in the room for a bit over a cup of tea, we headed back over to the Hilton to get her registered, and to try and drop off some items for the charity auction. After meeting some of her longtime friends from the convention and local furry circles in London, we headed over to the mall to get a bite to eat before the opening ceremony. It being a Friday, we decided that T.G.I Friday's would be an appropriate choice. It seemed that many other people had the exact same idea we had, as unfortunately the service was pretty slow. It also seemed far too great a coincidence that every time one of us got up to use the facilities, a waiter would come over to collect orders/deliver food, but there we go. In the end, we were left with very little time to get to the opening ceremony, and so we hurried over.

Learning that both the room hosting the opening ceremony and the overflow were packed to capacity, we shrugged and made our way to the hotel bar near the lobby, where we met up with more of Husky's friends, and discussed that night's Confuzzled pub quiz. This is apparently a tradition among this friend group, and one that I was only too happy to join with! Taking our second round of drinks into the room, Team Fire Safety Hazard held its own against successive waves of questions - indeed, we were in the lead at the end of the first half! However, questions about the lives and habits of wolves quickly threw us off, but out of about 15 teams we still came a respectable 3rd, which I think we can all be very proud of (particularly when considering they had me on their team... ;-p). With a long day of travel behind each of us, Husky and I returned to the Crowne, and very shortly thereafter turned out the lights.

Hope you enjoy!