I think the thing people forget is that if a hotel or event center is going to still have the general public to deal with, then it generally needs to be kept on the tamer side of things. Like I know for when RMFC was still a thing before DenFur I met some people who went to a BDSM convention called Thunder in the Mountains and the company who ran it basically had to rent out the entire hotel it was being held at. So the hotel wouldn't have any guests from the general public and it was strictly adults only, and I want to say 21+ specifically.

So it could be done, but you'd have to have some very strict caveats to attendance and for renting out the convention space. There is just a lot of logistics that any current furry convention would have to jump through, not to mention that the general subject matter furry deals with is much broader, so it would be very limiting on who might attend and events would have to be altered.

I know DenFur at least had some very adult panels, but there were limitations on what could and could not be done, and generally once you were in the room, you were not allowed to leave, and if you had to leave, you were not allowed back in. But anything in the public was like, you can wear X type of gear but you cannot be doing Y with it, because there were areas which could still be seen by the general public. But also Denfur, like I think most fur cons, is open to attendance by minors though accompanied by their parents.


TL;DR; People need to understand the logistical hurtles that doing a more adult vamped convention space.

FWA has always been a "party con", and there's always been a vendor space for adult content, so in some capacity the convention has been catering to a more mature crowd for many many years. What's different now is that there's a showcase for it-an actual festival with presentations, fetish wear, adult entertainment and demonstrations. For a lot of my friends, especially older furs who suffered through the stigma of the 90's, that's too far a pivot to be acceptable.
The hotel absolutely doesn't need us. They host DragonCon. The City of Atlanta doesn't need us. I don't like the idea that the door is open for a small group of individuals to kill the con but everyone seems to think otherwise, despite the fact that it has happened now at least twice.

FWA has actually been booking out the whole hotel for years now, and we've expanded into other neighboring hotels. The Moonlight Festival takes place on the entire ground floor of the main hotel and the area is cordoned off with blackout curtains. The first year they ran it they didn't do a good enough job with keeping the fetish gear in the event and some folks were caught grinding in the lobby. This year it was a lot better run with hireling staff guarding the exits and signage up that better explained the rules and what was expected. I understand that no con is ever going to be perfect but it's really really worrisome to me because we've all heard about what happened to Rainfurrest and Oklacon....FWA absolutely no longer has the amount of staff necessary to keep everyone in line, and I think it's only a matter of time before someone does something that spirals out of control. The risk is there.

Like, I said, I think having sections or panels for adult stuff would be the way to go, unless you make the entire con adult themed and adults only like the other con I mentioned, but the lack of appropriate con staff is going to be a problem. I feel that would be the only valid way of doing it, is make it strictly adults only and basically only for that. It would means a lot less other con goers might go. Like your dealers who are almost exclusively SFW might not go, but I feel like that might also make it too niche and no longer profitable enough to maintain it.

I remember hearing about Rainfurrest and why the con team shut it down, and I blame that less on poor staffing and more on the con goers just not being considerate. It was one of those things where of the incidents I did hear about in more detail, I was appalled that people would behave so... poorly. And I wouldn't consider myself 'old' in terms of being a furry. (I turn 31 in June...not sure if that is old or not).

But yeah, I could very well see that by trying to cater to both side of the crowd might push the boundaries and increase the potential for problems, unless it was one of those very strict "you get caught, you get to leave and you not be allowed back" like ever. Make the punishment so severe for violating one of those rules, that people will hopefully not want to even risk it. Like having a sort of tiered, here are the rules, and then here are the RULES that if violated, you will be barred from ever returning.

I recall the struggle 5 or so years ago to offset the damage caused by Hollywood regarding what being a furry is. Hollywood was portraying furries as people wearing animal costumes to have sex, and I still get asked to this day, "do you have sex while wearing your costume?" I feel by conventions "embracing" the adult fetish content, they're reinforcing this misnomer.
I have no issues with the LBGTQ community, and I have many close friends who identify as LBGTQ. However, I do feel the acceptance of the furry community has allowed that community to take over, to the extent that the fetish side of the LBGTQ community is taking over and destroying the reputation that the furry community has struggle so hard to fight for. I seriously feel like a minority as a straight male, and sometimes even shunned by other furries because I'm not gay.

So in my opinion, if you have a furry con, then it should be embracing the concept of furry only. Not pup play, not bondage, not pony play, and keeping it family friendly.
If you want to have an adult content convention, then it should be a separate convention, hence why I've been calling FWA "Fetish Weekend Atlanta". Leave the Furry out of it.

As a side note, both BLFC and TFF have an adult content festival during the late evening "adult hours", and in the case of TFF, the rules were strictly enforced and fetish gear is strongly discouraged outside that event during the rest of the convention. I wasn't at BLFC, so I cannot comment on how their event was handled.

I know right? They told me to get out and meet people, so I thought going to conventions would be a good way to meet those who were into the same kind of stuff. Being totally straight and not having found anyone I'm compatible with, I now find myself going because it's too late for me and I simply don't know what else to do.

And I want to make it clear that it's not just LBGTQ. Any fantasy fandom, regardless as to what it actually rallies around, is going to have avenues for exploring sexuality because fantasy is the only safe way to do that that many of us are ever afforded. However, since LBGTQ+ identity is by definition a sexual identity, there is a lot more pressure for it...especially since a lot of these individuals are still trying to figure out where they stand and how they identify. So when you have such a population start to dominate a fantasy based fandom like furry, it's going to amplify whatever adult themes were already there.

And...that's ok? Like, there are smart ways to do it.

It's not them I'm worried about so much as people on the other kind of spectrum taking the wrong cues from them and engaging in behavior that is publicly abhorrent.

On the contrary, barring a shift in societal attitude toward adult content and LGBT, I don't think fur cons being increasingly publicly NSFW will do anything to stop them from happening. I also think the organizers of these cons strongly feel that way, considering that literally none of them worth mentioning have tried to maintain a SFW atmosphere.

When furry was trying to get off the ground, its people were very weird. Not necessarily adult oriented weird, but often so. You could say this hasn't changed at all; but I'd say a furcon, any furcon, was a much tamer place to be in the past than it is today.

In spite of this, mainstream media coverage often started as "freaky furries have sex parties". Societal attitudes toward LGBT was extremely negative until post-2010, as well. Even as late as 2009 being gay would get you fired at many jobs, I think.

So you had efforts to get the nerdy, socially unaware furries to not give the media anything to work with in that regard. Don't even say the word "sex", deflect the question, steer it in a positive direction; I became a furry in 2011 and I watched YouTube videos of those Anthrocon Kage panels from 2009 et cetera. Almost everyone coming into it at the time did, and the entire subject gave me a healthy critical and distrusting view of all media in general.

Somewhere in 2015 onward, the media started parroting this "furries are misunderstood and it's not all about sex" line that furries themselves had been parroting for close to a decade. Look up any mainstream coverage today of any non-eventful furcon, that's what it will probably say somewhere in the text or even the headline.

At the same time, furry started being increasingly about sex - or to be pedantic, increasingly open about it. The court case that legalized gay marriage in the US, Obergefell v. Hodges, went through at this time and there was a large shift toward media generally being supportive of LGBT causes, previously being either the usual conservative line or a neutral, "that kinda sucks for them" line.

I definitely remember in 2011 that mildly suggestive fursuit photos (i.e. leaning over) being removed made a big stink on FurAffinity and a bunch of people parodied it, but furry was still very "don't make us look bad" on that subject at the time.

So, you have increasingly sexual furry cons and the media at the same time saying "it's not all about sex", in sharp contrast to the inverse happening a decade or two prior. I find this very bizzare, and (probably due to the lack of discussion forums idk) am baffled that no one seems to have noticed it.

My overall point? Rainfurrest was on the tail end of this mainstream acceptance of LGBT happening. Pride parades hadn't yet been made so exhibitionist themselves, and beyond that, I think the hotel was equally pissed at the water damage to their server room from some flooding caused by... I don't remember the details. Which is part of the related subject of hooliganism in general.

Other than all that, there's a lot more furries at these events than in 2015 when RF closed down. RF 2015 had 2,704 attendees, and FWA's attendance went up by more than that number between last year and this year. It's a lot more mainstream; the glasses-wearing bearded computer nerd can't really be found at a furry con today.

If the worst possible thing happened, at worst FWA would need to find a new venue and probably greatly limit its attendance. But the momentum is too strong to stop it, there are many furry cons in general. People parrot that "hotels love fur con attendees for being well behaved", but I think that is outdated information. FWA, and any other fur con that had mainstream controversy, will keep on going no matter what.

The sexual part may piss off convention center space, but they clearly consented to it as FWA made it official; in news media, it goes under the category of "LGBT" and is therefore untouchable, aside from conservative news media that doesn't wield the same political power it used to.

I don't wish it to be this way, but I think the SFW part of the fandom will cease to exist in the next decade or two. That's the way it's going.

>Disney and Hollywood supposedly to this day will not knowingly hire anyone who is openly a fur

Joaquin Baldwin uses his IRL picture on social media, but otherwise is openly furry or at least openly and frequently interacts with furry and comments on it.

tl;dr Nothing makes logical sense, don't worry about it.