Howdy once again my fluffy friends! As I am writing this journal, I am on the way home from my very first Midwest FurFest. Getting to experience the biggest furry con of all time (so far!) Was something that is hard to describe, because it is better experienced in person. There was activity through both the hotel and convention center 24/7, like one big, 4 day, nonstop party, and much partying was certainly had! On top of all the fun, this convention was a sentimental one for me as well. I had the opportunity to not only meet and interact with folks I have never met before, but also meet several people I have known, both briefly and for a long duration, for the first time in person! So many in fact, I’d need to use all my paw beans to count them all! So, with all this said, let's dive into what I did at MFF 2023 from Nov. 29th to Dec 4th!

Before we get started though, due to the sheer amount of people I met for the first time here, I will try to update this journal with links to their relevant socials as I find them! Furthermore, since it is still so early after the con, all I have in terms of photos at the current moment are the handful of photos I have taken personally, and are linked below!. I am on the lookout for photos of me or photos with me in them though, so:

If you have or see any photos of me or with me in them on any social media site or Furtrack, please send me a message and let me know! Thank you!

Ringgar's MFF 2023 Photo Reel!

Wednesday was my flight travel day, and all things considered, was relatively uneventful. Crossing time zones is always an odd feeling, so it made what was an hour flight feel like 20 minutes afterwards! I arrived early in the evening to Rosemont, so much of the time spent today was getting things in line at our hotel. One of my roommates (and the first to arrive) was a truly special one though: my friend  EvilJackCarver! AKA Andreas Spitzer! They are a person I have known for almost as long as I have been a furry, and is someone I connected with very early into my fandom journey! This was my first time meeting him in person, and our meet did tug on my heart strings a bit, as this meeting has been a long time coming for the both of us. After we settled into our room at the main hotel, the Hyatt O'Hare, we decided to walk about and grab dinner at Bub’s BBQ in the entertainment district. It wasn't half bad for the price, sans the ‘texas toast', which wasn't toasted at all and may as well have been a slice of Wonderbread :P. Since Andreas had been to MFF several times before, on the way back to the hotel, we dipped into the convention center, where he showed me where everything typically takes place. This was also my first time walking through the infamous skybridge that connects the Hyatt and Hilton to the con center. From what I understood about it from hearing about it from others, I was under the impression that it was a short, high traffic, and uncomfortable experience. The latter two descriptions turned out to be accurate, but the first was not. The walk from the Hyatt to the con center via the skybridge was sizable, and the temperature fluctuated from chilly to hot to humid, depending on what leg of the skybridge you were in. Now I understand why the skybridge is so frequently mentioned and joked about. However, considering the alternative would be walking in 20°F weather in the rain, it's both a blessing and a curse to have. Despite it being only Wednesday, fursuiters were out and about in the lobby, along with all the con staff getting things prepped for the unofficial start tomorrow! Later on that evening I got to meet some more folks I’ve known but never met in person until now: K-Stan, Emile the Goat, and Chewy, all from /r/furry and the associated Telegram chat! The four of us chatted for a while about our plans for the convention, where we have been and what we have been up to, then wrapped up Wednesday watching Ace Ventura on the TV and retiring shortly afterwards.


On Thursday morning the two of us went out to grab breakfast before coming back to the hotel, where we decided to do an impromptu photoshoot of Ringgar in the lobby! We shared a handful of ideas for poses I could do, and just had a great time with me goofing around and being the silly circle wolf I love to be! During this photoshoot I also had the opportunity to take photos with the quadsuit colloquially named ‘Spookyjack.' It was quite the odd meeting, but I was able to have some photos taken with it in suit! After interacting a bit with the newest hotel arrivals in fursuit, we headed back up to the room, where Andreas met up with his friend Inkblitz! Inkblitz would be hosting a panel on Friday I would attend, but more on this later! Shortly afterwards, our other roommates for the con, Page and Soul, both friends of Andreas, came by to get settled into the hotel. The four of us would head on over to the Fashion Outlet to find an early dinner, where I also met my long-time friend who had recently arrived,  afurryjinx! We sat and had lunch (and later boba) together before heading back to our respective hotels. Jinx and I met up once again at the convention center to get in line early for registration, as we both thought it would be a good idea to do so at the largest furry con ever. While waiting in line for registration to open, I was carousing the social gauntlet on my phone, when to my surprise, I found three of the folks I was hoping to meet, standing 5 feet away from us in line! I shouted out to my suit sibling, Sneafra, and their friends Gerbo and Mezcal, AKA Kaiden! The three of them were just as high energy as I had come to know them for, and all of us were excited and surprised to see each other so close in passing! Needless to say, I was thrilled to meet them ^^! As the reg line moved onward, I also got to see an older /r/furry & Telegram chat member, Riley Winters! He was holding up a sign that was plastered with stickers, and was collecting more in line. The reg line moved surprisingly quickly from this point on, only taking about an hour and a half in total from start to finish. Granted, since I did enter the line early, I’m certain this doesn’t ring true for everyone that night. Once we finished Linecon 2023 (part. 4 for this year for me), Jinx came by our hotel room with his fursuit, where Andreas did another impromptu photoshoot with the two of us! Jinx and I walked down around the lobby to interact with the folks who were still arriving alongside other fursuiters, and we ran into Sneaf and Gerbo in suit! After some quick and silly candid camera, we desuited and I walked back down to the lobby to meet even more people I’ve known for some time: DeltaAkhlut, Grape Collie, and IonRoux! The three of them are also frequent members of the /r/furry Telegram chat! I also ran into another one of my fursuit siblings, JBurg, AKA Mango, who I found partialing in the lobby by random chance! I had no idea they were there, and was super excited to see one more fursuit family member there to hang out with! After meeting up and being given stickers from each of them, Delta, Ion, Grape and I headed to a room party with K-Stan and her roommates, where I also got to meet Rumble! We hung out listening to music and chatting for a while, and after a while, I retired for the night with my three roommates.

Friday was the busiest day of the convention for me, as several panels I wanted to go to were all happening back-to-back from one another. Unfortunately this means I had to be choosy about which panels I wanted to attend, but I understand you can't catch them all :P. The day started out with breakfast at the mall food court again, followed by a trip to watch opening ceremonies, and my first panel of the day: Health in Fursuiting, which was the panel hosted by Inkblitz! There I learned some valuable tips about how to keep yourself healthy before, during, and after fursuiting, like the best means of hydration, active stretching, listening to your body, etc. If they decide to attend and do this panel again next year, I’d recommend it to you all to watch! Shortly after this panel concluded, I walked back to the Hyatt to attend something I did back at Furpoc a month ago: a Beyblade Tournament! Truth be told though, another panel I wanted to attend cut into the middle of this one, so I just attended to play with my own beyblades for fun! I did stick around long enough to support my friend Sneafra though, who did participate and ended up placing 5th in the tournament overall! The other panel I attended in the middle of the tourney was a panel for MegaMan Battle Network PvP basics. This is a game series I adored as a kid with my old game boy, and it was nice to finally learn a bit about playing versus against others with the new Legacy Collection! I now had a bit of a break in between panels, so while I watched some of the Floor Wars (from outside the stage as the room was full), I talked with my friend Jinx and we decided to meet up with his boyfriend, Cotton, for some dinner at the Bill Murray Caddyshack restaurant in Cotton’s hotel. I won't lie: this restaurant creeped me out a little with Bill Murray’s face plastered all over the walls. At least the food was decent. After dinner I ran back to the hotel room to try to get into suit for the Fursuit Games, and while I made my way over there, I found I was just a little too late to participate. Fortunately, this year there were two sets of Fursuit Games, one on Friday and one on Sunday! I resolved to catch the Sunday Fursuit games and, as I was already in fursuit, decided to spend the rest of the evening going around, meeting new people, interacting with other fursuiters, and just having a good time!

I didn't have as many panel plans for Saturday as I did on Friday, but that doesn't mean it was any less busy! I grabbed breakfast in the hotel in order to stay close by so I could suit up in time for an early morning panel named “If I fits, I sits!” If any of you have seen a cat with a box, you know where this is going. All it was is a big room full of cardboard boxes for fursuiters to play around with, sit in, build with, and knock down! There was a sort of reverse-Jenga like game going on at one end of the room, while I and another couple of suiters decided to essentially make one of the arches of London Bridge out of boxes! And, just like the song goes, eventually it all fell down :P. After the panel ended I walked back up to the room to give Ringgar’s suit some TLC to prepare for one of the biggest, most important highlights of the weekend: the Starcane Arts fursuit family photoshoot! The time quickly flew by and I suited up once again to head down and meet all of the family members who were there: Sneafra, Axel, Hannu, Dandy, Firra, and Rocket! Gerbo was also there as our photographer for the shoot! Getting to know my adopted family, talking with them, acting silly with them, and taking photos together was very heartwarming and dear to me. I know my family couldn't tell in suit, but I did wind up welling up a bit (with tears of joy) while meeting all of them. They are a great group of people whom I never would have been able to meet otherwise, and getting to see all of them, for the first time in person, was a little overwhelming for me, but in the best of ways possible. During our little meet, I also got to meet even more people I know from /r/furry who passed by: Laminar Fox,  Fenimore, and Mosh Fox! In addition, Fenimore told me that Mack (Otherwise known as Frankie), another older /r/furry member, was in the dealer's den helping to vend! I stopped by to surprise him and his friend, and we chatted for a while as well! After my visit with him, I walked down to see the Flow arts meetup, as I was hoping to learn how to hula -hoop in fursuit. Unfortunately the event host was a little last-minute prepared, and didn't have any to practice with, so instead I talked with some of the attendees there for a while, then walked back to the hotel after a 3 hour suiting marathon. There was another panel I wanted to attend soon too, but after being tired out from all of the suiting I just did, I felt getting dinner was a more appropriate thing to do at the time. I headed out to find some dinner at the Ashburn Tavern, which is one of the surrounding hotel’s restaurants. While eating, I found myself surrounded by attendees of the other, smaller brand convention that was occuring at the same time in the con center. I heard them speak about furries in passing, with one older lady remarking that ‘those costumes scare me!’, which gave me a good chuckle. I stopped back at the room to unwind a little bit and rest my legs from all the walking I had done that day, then headed out one more time to see a panel hosted by Doc Wildlife which was formerly known as ‘Drunken Zoology.’ It was a very silly panel featuring them and their ‘class’ of friends, palling around while being heckled by the audience! Chaos ensues, exit stage left! My last activity of the night was one more suiting trip to try to head to the rave, but the ballroom was overflowing with attendees, so instead I spent the time in suit visiting the arcade and meeting other folks in the lobby! By the end of this, midnight had come, and so I had to return to my room for the night, lest I become a pumpkin :P.

Sunday was the last hurrah for the con, and in the morning I was already feeling the melancholy. I had already seen so, so many people for the first time, gotten to know them a little bit better, and had three very busy days of convention fun. How was I going to top all of this? With a trip to the Fursuit Games! Both Jinx and I went down to the con center at noon to participate, and we made it in time to join the purple team! Upon arriving I also ran into quite the coincidence; my purple team teammate from Furpocalypse, Geo AKA Alter Ego was also there! The three of us decided to join the purple team as an homage to the games I participated in just a month ago! The games played were very similar to that of the team building games you would play back in middle school or high school: Things like backwards sprinting, catching balls with your head (Thanks for bearing the cone of catching, Geo!), three-legged races, getting a hula-hoop across an entire chain of fursuiters, and more! The audience even got to participate as well! And, in the end, our team was victorious! The Sunday champions, Team Hot Cocoa! A big thanks to all my teammates who helped to make that victory possible! After working up a sweat, Jinx and I headed back to the Hyatt, where we made a quick detour to the Furality portal room to visit another Starcane Family Member who was watching us from VR! After saying hello, Jinx and I de-suited and decided to grab some dinner rather than watch the dance comp this year. We went out for some deep dish pizza, made it back in time to watch the tail end of closing ceremonies, and hung out in the room to wind down. After waiting for a little while, I suited up in Ringgar one more time for the night, went dancing my tail off at the Dead Dog, then walked around the lobby to take more photos, say my goodbyes to the folks I met, and retired for the night to get ready for my trip home today.

Snowdrift Summary!


Midwest Fur Fest 2023 is going to be a con I’ll never forget. It was a con of many, many firsts for me, most of those being seeing people I’ve known for years for the first time in person, and also being my first time at this con and in Rosemont at all! Not only that, but this con now stands as the single largest furry con of all time, with 15,547 attendees, up ~2000 from last year, and more impressively, raised $185,758 for charity! It's things like these that make me so proud to be a furry. While the PCD is definitely here in force as I’m already missing everyone I met there, I know for certain that this con will be one I’ll always remember fondly. And who knows? Maybe I’ll be there again next year! In the meantime, some parting housekeeping things for you all right now:

My current plans for conventions next year, 2024, are Anthro New England (Saturday), Furcationland, Anthrocon, and Furpocalypse, with FCL and AC being firsts for me! I plan on going to one more con beyond these as well, but I am currently unsure which as of yet. If you have any suggestions, I'm open to hear them!

Thank you to everyone who made my first MFF, and 2023, a very special one for me! Staff, attendees, friends, family, you have my love, and my warmest thanks. Here’s to even more circular mischief and fun in 2024!!