My First Furry Convention

Sometimes, you just have to jump.

So I finally went to my very first Furry Convention this weekend, and whoa, what a ride that turned out to be!

Convention tickets opened up a few months ago for WAFF (Western Australian Fur Frenzy) 2022, titled Deities of Future Past. Most of my friends confirmed they were going and bought tickets. I was more hesitant – this would be my first time at a Furry Convention, the first time attending any sort of convention that wasn’t held in an exhibition hall (being held at a hotel instead), and the first time I’d be going to a local convention for all three days! Sheesh.

But with most of my friends going, I decided to just go for it and see how it was, and what it was all about. So, once I got home from work that day, I jumped on the site and booked a ticket. There were only about 30 left by that stage.

The months went by and I swear this year itself has jumped forward unexpectedly on multiple occasions, and I’ll be honest here as several times I wasn’t sure I should go at all, and then all of a sudden it’s two weekends away, then one… And before I knew it I was on my holidays from work with an alarm set to pick up one of my friends to take them to the hotel.

From here, I’ve decided to separate this blog into three little sections outlining each day… Starting with the day before the con!

Day 0 – Stupid Television

I couldn’t resist, sorry.

I picked up my good friend Casper (and another friend who wanted to join us for the day) and drove them to the hotel. Now whilst that may not sound all THAT exciting, we couldn’t check in right away. So we walked around for a bit instead. We went to Target and both of us ended up buying a cute little Baymax plush toy.

We got to the hotel without any issues, and as it turns out they had booked incorrectly, so Casper even got a nice upgraded room!

We headed to the room which was very nicely prepared. And about an hour after getting settled, we decided to tackle the hurdle. The biggest hurdle of the entire convention.

The stupid television.

What I mean by this, is all we wanted to do was plug Casper’s Nintendo Switch into the television. Amazingly, this was way more difficult then it should ever have been in the first place! The TV was fixed into the wall and could not be pulled out. On top of this there was a painting behind the TV on the righthand side, actively blocking off all ports entirely. Apparently many hotels do this to prevent streaming inappropriate things to the TV (or perhaps even infect them with malware), but if I am honest, it’s an act I wholly disagree with. If I want to play my Nintendo Switch then I should be allowed to. It’s only a simple connection and doesn’t affect the TV. Most people won’t want to cause damage to the TV in any way, after all the hotel would come on them like a ton of bricks and charge an arm and a leg for it to be replaced.

With many struggles, using phones as lights, and not being able to see anything because we couldn’t move it, I eventually noticed a small black disc that had been attached to the TV. Casper told me this was the Chromecast. I assumed if I simply followed that along I might reach a HDMI input and be able to remove the cable, as despite the TV displaying three HDMI inputs, it seemed only one was working correctly, with the other two being disabled somehow despite being selectable.

After some more inappropriate feeling up of the rear end of the television, I followed a cable from the Chromecast and simply tried to pull it out. With sheer luck, I looked at the cable I had managed to remove.

The HDMI cable.

Now it was just a matter of plugging the Nintendo Switch in!

…Which was easier said then done. I eventually gave up and we almost called it a lost cause, but Casper stepped up and after another bout of fiddling the cable was FINALLY connected. Casper’s Switch was up and running!

Now, before anyone gets angry for possibly going against hotel protocol here, I think it’s worthwhile mentioning that when I went to a room party on Day 2, it turns out the painting in that room was nowhere even NEAR the television, which may I also add had additional HDMI ports that were not in use or modded to not send signals through in any way, and the TV was even on a proper wall mount and could be moved out from the wall to make it really easy to insert the HDMI cable in the first place! So it was just an unlucky set-back but we figured it out, thankfully.

Day 1 – ‘My First Fur Con’

Con registration officially started at 9 am on Friday morning, but I slept in just a tad so I got there shortly before 10 instead. That was OK, because by then there was practically no line at all, and so I just walked up and registered. I got a little paper bag with some books advertising things in the con itself (and other upcoming Furcons across the world), a postcard, some hand sanitiser and a lanyard. With my PAX 2019 lanyard deciding to adequately break at that precise point in time (thaaaaaaanks), I latched my con badge and ID card to it (special thanks to my amazing friend Casper for making my badge!) and headed off to the first panel of the day – ‘My First Fur Con’.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the panel went over multiple safety rules and such, a welcome of sorts, and explained both heat stroke and heat exhaustion for those wearing full suits, and the visibility of them (it’s very limiting!). We learnt the international signs that a fursuiter is in distress and what to do, as well as a brief look at the schedule for other panels and lastly a brief look at the local area.

After the panel, and feeling a tad nervous without my friends, I messaged them and soon met them as they dragged me (in a friendly, non-physical way) into the Dealer’s Den. For those who don’t know, the Dealer’s Den is a place were people go to sell stuff. Usually this is some depiction of art, in the form of pins, stickers, prints, posters, lanyards, keychains, and more, including Fursuit spray (I think Casper might bap me if I don’t tell you that FURSUIT CARE IS IMPORTANT PLEASE WASH YOUR SUITS). I picked up a pin and keychain of Guilmon (I couldn’t resist) and a print of Spyro. We didn’t stay there for too long (at least it didn’t FEEL too long anyway) before we went for lunch.

Time for noms. No, I did not eat RAM, sorry.
Base by @FelisRandomis. Recoloured by @CasperClawell.

We mostly chilled in the lobby area or a hotel room for the afternoon. I wasn’t too interested in the afternoon’s panels and chose not to attend. So I spent the time catching up with everybody instead. After more noms for dinner, we attended the Opening Ceremony, before going back to the room to simply hang out until I took some of my friends home again. (As the con is quite local, we opted not to bother with a room, and after tonight we decided to stay at a friend’s house instead).

Day 2 – All About Suits (But Not the Walk)

So the second day, we got there early or on time (with the con officially reopened at 10 am). I skipped out on the first panel of the day, loitering around the lobby and my friend’s room a bit. At 11:30, my friends and I headed up to the second panel of the day, ‘Fursuit Games’.

There were about 30 suiters, full and partial (but mostly full suits) crammed into a rather small room that made it difficult to see the action. After being divided into two groups (which obscured viewing from the sidelines due to the amount of players, so the spectators all had to shift towards the south end of the room near the door), the first game involved flipping over pieces of cardboard to reveal your team’s icon. A red circle for one team, and a green triangle for the other. If you flip over a tile of your team’s colour, you get a point. If not, the piece went back on the tile. And if you flipped over a black X tile, you were out of the game. The red circles won.

After a break, the second game was Charades. Instead of guessing film or book titles or the like, we were just guessing general things, such as falling, taking a drink, baking something, driving a car, etcetera. This one featured audience participation – if the audience guessed what the suiter was doing, that team got a point. And not to toot my own horn, but I ABSOLUTELY CRUSHED IT.

I’m so good at this game I dislike playing. Base by @FelisRandomis. Recoloured by @CasperClawell.

I was quick, especially early on, and guessed a lot of them quickly and correctly. As the game went on though, I slowly lost my skills to others who got there much faster. This time, the green triangles won.

The third game was assembling a picture on the back of the cardboard pieces from earlier. There were two pictures, one for each team, and you had to put the picture together. Eventually, the red circles managed to suddenly pull ahead, and the green triangles (who I thought actually had this) just lost out – making the red circles the winners of the 2022 WAFF Fursuit Games!

Lunchtime. Time for more noms.

After lunch, we stayed in the main lobby for a bit, until the Fursuit Making Competition. This is a fun little romp where several teams try to make the best fursuit in an allotted time with limited materials. To spice things up, there are little cards that are chosen by teams and played, to stop other teams from doing things for a set period of time or distract them. I wasn’t sure about participating, and to make matters worse, my group was too large. To prevent being split to a different table (as I would have been uncomfortable), I respectfully bowed out, only to immediately be let back in to my friend’s table once again to even numbers after a couple of others joined.

Suffice to say, I have zero idea about making fursuits at all, I’ve never held a needle and thread in my life, I’ve never used a sewing machine, I can’t glue anything without covering everything in glue, and I can’t cut straight with a pair of scissors if my life depended on it. But I did have something I could do. We had to create lore for our fursuit, matching the theme of the WAFF convention overall (mentioned above) – they had to be a god.

Well, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s writing a lot of total nonsense. And so, nonsense it was – I was designated to come up with the lore. I got stuck a little, particularly with names. But I wrote it. All of it. To the best of my ability in the less-then-two-hours we had. By the time we got started I think we may have had an hour and a half, we got paused TWICE for five minutes (which felt a little unfair as there were only two pause cards in the whole game, so we were given an extra minute and a half at the end – I guess the other teams were scared of us!), we could only use one hand for five minutes (I was unaffected as I was writing traditionally with pen and paper) and we had to show off the suits, so I’d say it was more like an hour total, but darn it did I write. I wrote until I got stuck, had an idea, then blasted into it again. I wrote almost an entire page, back and front, of lore for our god, Scarlet. In Casper’s own words “You don’t need to go that hard”. Oops!

Did I mention we had to read the lore out? No? Well, we had to. So I embarrassed myself and read it. All of it. Pretty sure I made the panel run overtime by doing that. The team that went next even said “Well how are we going to compete with that?” which was incredibly funny. Sadly, we didn’t win (placing third overall) but we won a cute little ice cream pin, which was quickly handed over to me for the ‘amazing’ lore I wrote. Our team and the winning team decided to donate our suits, with the lore, to the Charity Auction at the end of the con (more on that later). But a friend took a photo of both sides of the paper, so I will ask them for it and type it out for you in another blog post in it’s entirety and original state either this week or next. (Edit: the lore is now available here, but you’ve been warned!) I warn you, it’s quite out there and not what I usually write in my fictions or this blog, so you best prepare yourself. I’ll link it here when it’s done.

With that done it was time for dinner, after which was the Pub Quiz. My team joined in and we got some neat little mini-burgers and sausage rolls (each table had some) to eat whilst we answered all kinds of questions, from ancient civilisations (considering the con name this was on-point) to general knowledge. Our team did incredibly well, placing second overall, only about four points behind first. I barely contributed, but my one proud moment was “What was the name of the Virtual Furry Convention held during June this year” which I answered ‘Furality’, which was accepted (it was Furality Aqua specifically).

I thought about going to the final panel “Let’s Talk About VR”, but none of my other friends were going, so I went to a friend’s quiet room party instead, and played some Jackbox. Then went to another friend’s place to stay for the night.

Day 3 – The Fursuit Walk

We kicked things off with the final con day with a Fursuit Walk briefing which outlined the route, followed by going on the walk itself. The walk was supposed to be on Saturday, but it was changed due to potential bad weather (it did rain in the morning, but it was only a drizzle really, and it was fine afterwards, so they could have swapped it to the afternoon, but this would have been the hottest time of the day, so it was a good thing it was cancelled. Besides, Sunday was a nicer day, which was lucky).

The Fursuit Walk took place between 11 am and 1 pm, and it was a lot of fun seeing all the suiters. I went more as a ‘Handler’, which I learnt about at the ‘My First Fur Con’ panel (you are the suiters eyes and ears, and carrier of water bottles). I simply kept an eye out for my friends who were suiting.

We returned to the hotel and had a small break before going to lunch, a free sausage sizzle. Surprisingly, not many people seemed too interested, or they simply went earlier. After lunch, it was back to the lobby again for a bit.

The next panel most of my friends wanted to attend was the ‘Cat Toy Workshop’, taking place much later in the afternoon. As I said before, I’m no good at crafting things, so I left them there and instead went to the Headless Lounge/Game Room. A friend mentioned on the previous day that they play Magic the Gathering, and kindly offered a deck to play with. So I had a solid round of Magic (playing Elf Tribal is fun, I can see why my non-furry friend likes it so much – I would have won if I hadn’t been so defensive!) and played a bit of Smash Ultimate before going back to the hotel room for a very brief period. We then went out for dinner.

After dinner was the Closing Ceremony and Charity Auction, which was supposed to be livestreamed to Twitch (but wasn’t for some reason). We intended on staying in the hotel room to watch it from there, but with Twitch not working and a friend not returning we decided to head down anyway and were just in time to catch item number 5. We didn’t have to wait long and thankfully didn’t miss our Worm Lord Scarlet going for auction, and they went for even more then the actual winners, with a bid of $75.00! On top of that, the auctioneer even admitted to READING THE LORE. And then went one step further to PROVE they had by directly referring to what I had written without needing to look at it SEVERAL TIMES. I was hoping we would be called on to stand up as the previous (and winning) team had been asked to stand up if they were present, but sadly this wasn’t the case. Anyway, items came and went, including a FURDU Sponsor ticket for next year (I wanted to bid but it started at $300 and quickly hit $500, and only went higher).

The closing ceremony was mostly thank yous and a teaser for next year’s WAFF, a theme that apparently has been floating around for years called “Under the Big Top” – yes, it’s circus themed. After this, we went back into the hotel room.

I think more then one of my friends was planning on checking out the rave/dance party that night, but only one friend decided to go. The rest of us stayed in the hotel room. We decided to have our own little ‘rave’ by loading up the livestream (which was working this time!) of everyone… Muting the stream, and playing music that simply didn’t fit at all but was incredibly silly to look at with everyone dancing around! We had a lot of fun with that.

Playing inappropriate music whilst watching people dance might become a pastime. Base by @FelisRandomis. Recoloured by @CasperClawell.

I took my friends home that night, and finally slumped into bed, exhausted.

And with that, the Furry Convention known as WAFF 2022 came to a close. I would return Monday morning to the hotel to help get a friend home, and call it an end to my very first Furry Convention.

I want to take a brief moment here to thank the WAFF staff and the hotel staff for making this convention a load of fun and an enjoyable stay (but please have some consistency with the TVs, either make it available for everyone to plug things in or make it near impossible). I do have some more to say about the convention and my view on conventions as a whole, but I think this blog has gone on for rather long already; if I write much more I’ll start rambling nonsense.

Like I did for Scarlet’s lore.

Don’t worry Casper. I promise not to do that again.

Instead, I promise to go even harder.

By the way, I thought I’d try something a little new, and use my new Telegram stickers created by the awesome FelisRandomis (go check out all the bases of stickers they have on their Etsy store!) and recoloured by my amazing friend CasperClawell. I got this idea from Soatok Dreamseeker, who runs an amazing blog called Dhole Moments, which ranges from the Furry Fandom to Cyber Security and everything in-between. They often use their sticker packs in their blog posts, and I find it quite endearing, so I figured I’d give it a go. If Soatok reaches out and tells me to not do it then I won’t hesitate to take them down. In the meantime, I hope you like it, and I’ll do it more in the future (as long as Soatok is OK with that). They did mention the world needs more furry bloggers quite some time ago, which did inspire me to create this blog as a whole… I just wish I wrote more often.