So… I’m new here. I’ve never been to CFT before, or any convention like it.
I enjoy volunteering, so I should probably show up as early as possible.
I’ll be driving 8+ hours to get to CFT, so figuring out when exactly to get here is important.
P.S. I’ll be bringing my truck with a camper, so I should have room to bring a few helpful things…
Thoughts?
Hi there Robbie! Welcome to CFT 
Officially we usually open registration on the first day, August 4th for folks to start rolling in. Showing up earlier that day is fine too, at which point we usually suggest you setup your camp and hang out till we can get you signed in with registration when it opens.
If you do like helping out and showing up earlier however, we are always looking for extra hands to help out with setup the day before, August 3rd. We haven’t started recruiting volunteers for that yet, since its still quite a ways out still however. We usually start organizing all that somewhere close to late June or early July, as well as our other volunteer positions throughout the event.
As for things to bring, I suggest our about page a good reference - http://campfiretails.org/about/
Apart from that list, bring something you think you can connect with your fellow campers with along. Be it a guitar, a good drink, stories, or board games, we are a pretty self motivated group event wise.
If you have a fursuit and plan to bring it, I recommend checking out this thread for some pointers for suiting outside the normal hotel setting - Fursuiting at CFT
Otherwise, if you have any other questions, comments, or concerns just throw us another reply here or tweet at @campfiretails and we will get back to you soon!
I’ve actually posted the volunteer thread as a result of this thread, so let’s say volunteer season starts today!
RobbieThe1st, please let me know if you’d like to give some of your time to help out, and thank you for making this thread! As far as what to bring, that’s up to you based on what you’d like to do at your camp. If you’re looking for specifics, let one of us know and we’d be glad to talk further with you.
Thanks, guys.
Yes, I’ll probably help with setup and teardown, at least… I have little idea what I’m getting into, so getting there ahead of time and getting a chance to learn how things go seems like a good idea. I’ve had great fun at other conventions doing this.
One question - On the voulenteer topic, it says that setup voulenteers must be there between noon and 2PM Wednesday. Isn’t that kind of a tight window? What’s the deal with noon - will the gates be locked if I show up at 11:30AM for instance?
The good news is I’ll have plenty of time to plan things out in more detail; I just wanted to figure out how much time to take off for this event way ahead of time. It’s currently looking like I’ll take off Tuesday(2nd) through Tuesday(9th), which should give me some buffer for when things go haywire, and/or time to make detours on the way.
No, that’s just the preferred window, is all. Staffers get there earlier in the morning (not much earlier than noon, though) and things tend to be in full swing by 2pm. It’s not a hard and fast rule, per se, as there’ll always be something else to do no matter what time you arrive, it’s just more reliable to expect people within that window.