Before Get Out The Float, we were The Pool Party. Before The Pool Party, there was a small group of friends who used to get a hotel room and take pooltoys to the pool.
Darkk was there from the very beginning. “We’re sorry Darkk, but you’re older than[arbitrary furry number] so therefore we must retire you.”
Thank you for more than eight years of service in The Pool Party / Get Out The Float and for your help and friendship even before we officially organized. For a Darkk dragon, you really brought a lot of light into the world by burning the candle at both ends. 😛
Stuck between a rock and a hard place? Get stuck between a soft and squishy place instead!
The GOTF24 Registration Form is now open for adult registrations. Please see our Registration page for more information.
Next steps for us are to finish preparing youth registration and open up Dealer’s Registration. This year we will have 9 Dealer Tables and 4 Artist Alley tables and registration will be open for about four weeks and the dealers will be chosen from the pool of applicants.
Our charity is Sunset Empire Parks and Recreation Foundation (SEPRF) where we contribute to aquatic activity scholarships such that those who can’t afford full price only have to pay 50% of their fees for swimming lessons, aquatic aerobics or other uses of the aquatic center.
We look forward to seeing you in Seaside, OR in February!
Your request for “Bounce House” music is approved.
We’d like to welcome Rayne Raccoon and Strawberry Protato! Strawberry spun everyone up at FWA and Rayne worked the music at a major Pride festival in Oregon.
Times / dates of when they perform is TBD, but we look forward to seeing them soon!
What will be our next plush? But what about current plush? When will be our next event?
Thank you to everyone who helped make “GOTF 0” or “Our Last Experimental Event” a success. Almost right after that event, the holiday season was upon us, and time flies when you’re having a gas.
First up; we are presently taking suggestions for our next plush run. If you’d like to participate, clicky to take part in our short survey. Voting will commence in early February on our announcement channel Telegram.
Second, we have some plush left and we should conduct an inventory before we re-open orders. If we sell out of Finneus and the blue and purple sea dragons, Baphnedia will have an office with about twice as much space – until the next plush order comes in.
Third, Get Out The Float 1 is scheduled for early February, 2024 in Seaside, OR. We will announce more specific dates once we have a few more details locked in. Squeaking of, we’ll be adding a new category of posts here “GOTF1” for easier searching.
Photo by Baphijmm, Evergreen Aviation Museum, circa 2016.
First and foremost, our Terms of Service (TOS) are written for an event that is not a furry convention and also not a fursuit charity event. Get Out The Float (GOTF) exists in a space between the two; with the expectations of both, at times. By and large, the number of furries who raise money for charity through interaction with the public is dwindling in comparison to the size the fandom is growing.
TL;DR: Our Terms of Service do not differentiate between fursuting in public vs fursuiting in spaces we are responsible for (such as within the convention center). We will re-tool our TOS after our 2022 event, as there are many variables at play, and the needs and scope of the event are evolving. On our schedule, we will tag events [PUBLIC FURSUITING] if we need you to adhere to the dress code in the TOS. If an event is not tagged as public fursuiting, then we are not strict regarding the fursuit portion of the dress code. If you need to remove your fursuit head because you are overheating – this is a safety issue and is a sign that you need help right away; do not hesitate to de-head in public. A handler will give you water and walk you to the nearest headless lounge.
Malicious coverage of the furry fandom is something many of us have had to deal with on some level or another – for a long time, no less. This post is not written to reminisce about history; rather to give you a deep dive both into our thought process, and why we take the approach that we do, without going into anecdotes or stories into venues that we no longer create events at, such as the one featured above in Baphijmm’s photo.
Non-Verbal Communication
The public seems to be much more scared, defensive and angry about things that they don’t understand than they used to be. This is in part to the ease at which we can reach wide audiences today and the vulnerability to polarity that exists in both mass & social media that is evident. The act of choosing what we wear (even with regular clothing) communicates to others what communities we are in &/or what beliefs we hold.
In fursuit, we are absolute showstoppers. The public understands cute, fuzzy animals raising money for charity when we’re out for fursuit walkies. Without that additional context, those who do not trust us begin by starting at the worst-case scenario; and things generally do not get better from there.
We stretch the aforementioned public’s understanding by allowing partial suits – so long as no skin is showing. When the suspension of disbelief that what they see is a person instead of a fursona; their reaction is often irrational and extreme.
The public doesn’t understand why a fursuiter might take their head off, or why we (generally) wear balaclavas under our fursuit heads, or the multitude of reasons that we might not be in character every single moment we are in suit.
We’re Not Professional Performers
We’re also not paid performers. This is an area where the norms of furry conventions apply less and the norms of charity fursuiting apply more. Wearing a “complete” suit (whether fullsuit or partial), gives the public context that you are a big fuzzy animal. If you de-head, having someone not in suit bring you water and start escorting you to a headless lounge gives the public context that you are overheating and getting help.
When fursuiting, it is likened to wearing a soft sofa of extra material and the temperature you experience can easily be 20°F or more in excess of what the current air temperature is. We wear balaclavas under our fursuit heads because they help wick sweat away and help us keep cool. Other strategies for keeping cool include battery-operated cooling fans in our fursuit heads and cooling vests that use re-usable ice packs in addition to staying hydrated.
To this end, this is why headless lounges exist; even at furry cons. Fursuiters need a place to cool down and be away from the rest of the event without having to attempt to trek all the way back to their room.
Ruining the Magic
The magic we bring when in fursuit is worth preserving and not casually tossing away. By the same token, that magic is not worth our lives or our health (or the associated medical expenses from an ambulance to the E.R.). We are less formal in our requirements for public fursuitng than charity fursuiting groups but more formal than almost every furry convention.
The fursuiting section of our TOS is especially important when fursuiting publicly. This helps maximize public participation and acceptance of our group specifically and of furries, generally. When not fursuiting in public, we do not need to be as strict. Our TOS will be re-tooled after our 2022 event to better reflect this. In the meantime, we have an event to continue preparing for and this subject may very well be a most compelling subject for a panel. Oh drat! Panels! We umm… still need to make a panel submission form!
Bringing it Home
In discussing this topic, everyone is usually right about how they are affected by dress codes, fursuiting / full suiting, gatekeeping and many many other arguments surrounding this issue. It is possible for everyone to be right about a subject and encounter massive disagreement.
Our direction on this issue is to pursue what helps the event continue for the long term; this is based on our experience of negative public interactions and venues we lost because of who we are. In the years ahead our community faces the challenge of addressing Furry Panic in public discourse and in the body politic.
We are an LGBT-centric community that presently has the ability to fursuit in public. It is not something that we take for granted; and our emphasis on public interaction with our events is done in the hopes that public acceptance of furries is something we won’t have to think about, someday as well as introducing more furs to charity fursuiting and some of what it entails.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading and understanding.
WHO: Get Out The Float WHAT: Fursuit Games & Bouncy Castles WHERE: Seaside, Oregon, USA WHEN: 27-30 Oct 2022 WHY: To raise a little money for charity & have fun. WHOLF: We honestly don’t know. Is that bad?
We’re no longer all boxed up! Or at least as boxed up as we used to be. Honestly, we are still tangled in packing tape so be warned that it might take us some time to unwind.
This update to everything by Baphnedia on 11/13/2021
(Art by Disgusting Bird)
Sea Dragon Plush: The sea dragon prototypes are nowhere to be seen, and all the rest of the sea dragon plush are still being examined by US Customs, up in Washington State. We don’t know when the customs examination will be complete or what the results will be. We are taking this one step at a time, and we want to thank everyone who has helped us navigate the waters as far as we have.
Future Events: We are holding events once again, and have two in the works.
Get Out The Float in Seaside May 5th – 8th, 2022 in Seaside, OR:
$45 registration (reg form is nearing completion)
Room Block announcement (currently open to staff only)
Shuttle service from hotel to convention center
Keep your ears perked for more information
Level 2 Furball Arcade at Level Up Pinball Museum
Saturday Nov 27th 2021 in Hillsboro, OR from 4:30-9:30 PM
$20 admission (normal price at Level Up)
Most arcade games & pinball machines are free-to-play
Fursuit-friendly, changing space in our small event space
Bring-your-own food & drink, no alcohol allowed
Looking for Volunteers: So many of us are burned out from events in the outside world – this has an outsized effect on those who volunteer their time and energy to help make the furry community what it is today. If you would like to sacrifice your time and energy to us, no, i mean, give us all your time and energy, no, i mean, we’re holding you at funpoint until you give us your time and energy, wait, no… hmm. As you can see, asking for volunteers isn’t really one of our strengths. If you would like to join our team, please contact @Baphnedia privately via Twitter or Telegram.
Our event scheduled from May 20-23, 2021 in Seaside Oregon is cancelled.
As the health emergency continues, it is not safe for us to hold events for a while yet. When it is safe for us to hold events, we will do so. We miss hosting events, and we miss you. We are hopeful that by October, many of us will be vaccinated and it will be safe to hold events again. Squeaking of…
Our next scheduled event is Oct 1st – Oct 3rd in McMinnville, OR. Hotel info and the registration form will be posted during the summer of 2021, once we believe we can move ahead with this event.
