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Another Furry Con 2025 Wrap-up!
a week ago
Hello citizens of Bedrock! This wolf has returned from the Stone Age, taking a trip far back in time (and all the way across the country) for Another Furry Con 2025! This con was certainly an adventure, and this wolf was able to create the very first circle (citation needed.) The con took place during September 19th-21st, 2025 in Ontario, California. This area is quite out of my element, being hot, dry, open, and not exactly walkable, but the beauty of the area is absolutely breathtaking! As for the con itself, this was a rather important one for me, with several first-time happenings, surprises, and connections, all in the span of one weekend! I certainly felt the California love while I was there, and I’d love to share that with you, too, as I recall my trip to Another Furry Con 2025!
Thursday was the lengthiest day of my trip, and it was almost entirely dedicated to travel. I arrived at the airport around 3AM and had a flight down to Baltimore Washington International before connecting to the flight to Ontario International. Thankfully, I wasn’t solo during the longest portion of the trip, as my pal (and roommate for the con)
afurryjinx were on the same flight together! Though the flight over was rather uneventful, it was nice being able to talk to someone I know and plan ahead while we took the trek over. The good news about crossing three time zones is that we, technically, made really good time, getting there around mid-day. Though upon arriving at the hotel, our room wasn't ready just yet. We left our bags at the hotel and decided to have an early dinner while we waited. While looking for place to eat, this is where I came to a stark realization about Ontario: there are several things within driving distance of the hotel, but very few things within walking distance. Most restaurants in the area were at least a mile walk away, and could only be reached by travelling along the freeway. There were a number of restaurants in the immediate area around the hotel of course, but the majority of these were fast-food chains. We took an Uber to and from an area at the nearby mall for a sit-down dinner at a BJ’s, then headed back to the hotel to check into our room. In a way, this reminded me of the food situation at MFF, where the majority of the non-fast-food places to eat were at least several blocks away from the hotel, but here you weren't able to walk there at all. Not that you would want to, most of these would be an hour away at least!
By the time we were settled into our room at the Doubletree, after getting some snacks for the room, we decided to get ready for registration. AFC does their pre-registration a little bit differently from other conventions. Since the convention itself takes place at the Ontario Convention Center, which was not open to us yet, pre-registration had to occur at the main hotel, that being the Doubletree. We lined up at a good time for pre-registration, and were one of the first ones to get our badges! Beyond pre-registration, there was one more day zero event of the con for Thursday: a pool party in the Doubletree courtyard! I got dressed for the pool and headed down to the party, where I met up with one of the few folks from New England who I knew would be there ahead of time,
KittyBean! We chatted for only the briefest of times before I received word that folks from my fursuit family had just arrived as well! I went to the reg line to meet 
Moregenta, and we made plans to go to get Ramen with my fursuit artists, Zenith and Orion, as well as their friends Sami and Morgenta’s friends! I changed out of my pool attire before we headed out down the road together to (Insert Location Here). We had a good meal and chat together, then decided to get dessert at L'Moon, where I got to try Thai Tea soft serve for the first time! This wolf loves his boba, but this was a vastly different experience from what I could get back home, and it was sweet as could be! Our group all chatted for awhile together, then went our separate ways for the evening to get ready for the first day of the convention tomorrow!
Friday was the first official day of the convention, and we started it off with a bang! Jinx and I had some breakfast before getting into fursuit for the first time this weekend, and walked to the con center for the first panel of the weekend, Furry Improv! This is a panel I’ve done at just about every single New England furry con I have been to, and I love being able to participate and have a lot of fun, while making a little bit of a fool of myself in the process! We played a lot of improv games that I’m familiar with back home, such as ‘World’s Worst,’ ‘Room Party,’ and ‘Press Conference,’ but with one unique bonus game! In this panel, the host does a ‘Magic Minute,’ where he has two fursuiters come up to the front of the stage to be charity bucket brigadiers, and collect money from the audience to go towards the charity of the year, Pomona Valley Pride! There were two catches, however: You had to collect the money under one or two random challenges, and the audience could throw anything into the bucket, not just money! The suiter with the most money raised would be the winner! The host let the audience decide how many challenges we had to do, and of course, the audience opted for the maximum amount of challenges to make us suffer, but at least it was for a good cause! I was selected to play, and my challenges were to sing everything I said, and to remain completely still in a random pose, which was, of course, a little bit of a damper on the whole ‘collecting’ aspect. The host also wanted me to sing songs from Frozen, because, well, that is exactly what I was. Unfortunately for me, I have never seen Frozen so I had to ad-lib the entire thing! Thankfully, the audience took pity on me and my singing ‘skills’ and I was able to win with $100 raised! My prize? All the junk in the bucket that wasn't money. This included such great prizes as: expired gift cards, partially opened candy, stickers, and the best item, a membership card to a local bowling alley that was explicitly for bowling shoes. I can't think of a better way to sum up a furry improv panel than this random assortment of items! Plus, since the con didn't have an open charity bucket brigade, at least I was able to do something like it while I was there!
After the improv panel, Jinx and I walked back to the hotel to get out of suit and to go find dinner! We decided to head to the sacred ground of California that was In-N-Out to have some burgers for an early dinner. It didn't blow my socks off, but I think the reason people rave about it is the atmosphere and the simple menu, but don't quote a New England resident on that! We walked from the In-N-Out right back to the con center for a panel called ‘A Look Inside- Introspective’. When reading the description of the panel, I didn't quite know what to expect. I thought it was a panel for discussing heavy personal topics, and while there was some of that, it was actually a fairly light-hearted panel, and was treated mostly like a game! The host would draw from a deck of questions that range from superficial to deep personal questions, and a specific person from the audience would answer, followed up by some folks in the whole audience! I was pleasantly surprised about this panel, and I really enjoyed it!
Following this panel, I took a trip to the Dealer’s Den to say hello to Zenith, Orion, and Sami, as well as to grab goodies for scrapbooking! I only spent around half an hour in the dealers den, but that was enough to walk through the entire den and stop to browse! I then went back to the hotel to get into suit again for an important event: Monster’s DJ set in the outdoor pavilion at the con center! Monster is a Starcane fursuit family member, and was Zenith and Orion’s first commissioner as a team! He has been in the adopted family longer than most of us, and I was excited to see him in person for the first time! He always comes off as a person with no shortage of party energy, and that definitely showed in his DJ set! Zen, Orion, and my family member Waffle all showed up to his set to dance around, take photos together, and vibe! I did get quite winded towards the end, mostly due to the humid weather and my ice best having melted at that point, but for a wolf like me who doesn't generally do dances or raves, Monster knew how to get this canine grooving! I met Monster very briefly after his set, though I was exhausted at that point, so I had to saunter back to the hotel to take my fursuit off. Jinx was back at the hotel at that point, so we spent a few hours together in the hotel room before I made one last walk back to the con center to see what was going on in the evening. I walked around (in a partial) just to see what else was in the con center, and attended a late night, lo-fi pool toy party in one of the panel rooms for awhile! This room had a nice chill vibe for the evening and was absolutely full of giant pool toys, balloons, and other fun beach toys! After hanging out in the party room, which was great for coming down from a sensory overload, I went back to the hotel room to retire for the night, and to get ready for an early day tomorrow!
Shout-out to Bob and Tom’s Gently Used Crematorium!
Saturday was the busiest day of the convention, and it started early! Jinx and I got up early to have some breakfast at a Denny’s nearby (something I hadn't done in years, believe it or not,) then dashed back to the hotel to get into fursuit. The reason being that the very first event of the day was the con fursuit photo and parade! We got into line for the photo, and waited intensely for it to be taken. At the time of writing, the (not full-res) photo of the fursuiters had been posted, and it looks like you can just see the tops of Jinx and I’s heads, with our ears sticking out. I was even standing on my tip-toes! Oh well! The parade itself actually took place entirely inside the con center! This was a bit different from the past few conventions I’d gone to, where at least a portion of the parade was outside! Considering this was the hottest day of the weekend, and that the con center wasn't really near any residential areas for non-con attendees to watch, I’d say that was actually for the best! Plus, I didn't need my ice vest at all! I walked and waved up and down the parade route before coming to a stop in the headless lounge, where I got meet Tommy again and one of his West Coast friends, Rico! Jinx also met one of his Heads & Tails fursuit family members as well! After the parade, I walked around for awhile, debating whether or not I wanted to get out of my fursuit, but decided to keep Ringgar on while Jinx and I attended a panel about an hour later for protecting your Online Privacy, hosted by DEFCON Furs! They gave us some good tip about password strength and using physical means as a means of login protection, as well as considering what exactly we want to protect and how much we need! After the panel, Jinx and I went back to the hotel room to have some dinner in our room together. We hung out for awhile longer until the evening, when I returned to the con center, first as a human to say hello to my pal Breakfast!, then as a circular wolf to attend a Starcane Arts fursuit family photoshoot! As always, this is one of the highlights, and favorite parts of the con for me, whenever we can swing it! The best part about this shoot is that I got to meet so many of my friends and family members whom I had only known from online at this point, considering most of them are on the complete opposite side of the country to me! We also had a new family member, Nutmeg, who had just bought one of the partials Starcane made at the con join us as well! We had a great time chatting and goofing off together before heading out own ways for the evening. Some of us had made plans to head to an outdoor lights exhibit, the Imaginarium, after the photoshoot, but those plans had to be cancelled. I hope to be able to go there the next time I visit California! Instead, I walked around in fursuit for a little while longer, then attended a panel mirroring the Price is Right, but with cursed and strange items (which was hilarious!) After that, Jinx headed back to the room to chase some of those elusive Z’s for the night, but not before peering at my favorite planet, Saturn, through a telescope that This person had set up just outside the con center!
The 21st of September, 2025, will certainly be one to remember for me! This day of the con was especially important for me, as I was about to do something totally new to me: Host a panel for the first time! Jinx and I got some breakfast at a nearby diner chain called Spires before getting ready for my panel, which was at Noon that Sunday. The topic of my panel was about something I’ve grown to love doing for the past couple years: scrapbooking and smashbooking for furry cons! In addition to doing these journals, I had been putting together scrapbook and smashbook pages, as well as shadow boxes, to hold all of the stickers, lanyards, pins, flyers, and other con loot I’ve collected at furry cons! Partially because I am sentimental, but also because I think it is a nice thing to remember who I met and what I did at a convention, both inside the con and in the area the con is in! The point of my panel was to show others how fun (and easy!) making a page of your own can be! I was nervous, excited, anxious, thrilled, and had a whole bunch of butterflies in my stomach on the walk over to the con center. Despite the low attendance of the panel, being a grand total of seven people, I did get a big thumbs up from the handful that attended! While having more attendees would have been nice, the time the panel was at was something that I couldn't help, and ultimately, I did what I had hoped to do: ‘Beta Test' this panel and get feedback for when I host this at cons back home in the near future, and share one of my hobbies and passions with everyone, while being (hopefully) entertaining for everyone who attended! I understand that the concept of scrapbooking can sound pretty boring on the surface, so my goal is to make sure people actually enjoy talking about and watching me yap about paper and glue dots!
After my panel, I brought my setup back to the hotel room and got into suit to go meet Yukon, AKA YukonBarksALot! He is a friend of one of our Starcane family members, Burumun, and was photography staff for the con this year! However, before I met with Yukon, I was surprised by someone I haven’t heard from in a long time: a canine named Clover! Clover is someone who I had met in a larger /r/furry chat when I first joined Telegram after jumping the Skype ship. It had been years since I had spoken to him, and I never expected to meet him in person! I was absolutely shocked to see him, let alone the fact that he remembered me, but he absolutely made my day with one heck of a surprise! He handed me a sketch he drew of a reindeer Ringgar during the holiday season one year, and I audibly gasped at seeing it IRL! It seems that Sundays at furry cons have been full of surprises for me lately, and I hope that keeps up (with good surprises, preferably :P!)
Before the con, Yukon and I had agreed to have some photos of the circle wolf be taken, and we were able to do so on the stairs of the con center, closest to the outdoor pavilion! The weather was a bit cloudier today, meaning the lighting was a like a natural soft-white diffuser, and in the end, Yukon took some absolutely tremendous photos of the circle wolf that we were both happy with! (Thank you again!!) Just after our photo session, we walked to closing ceremonies for the con, where we got to see everybody’s favorite announcements: The amount of money raised for Pomona Valley Pride, the attendance numbers, and the announcement of next year’s theme! AFC had a grand total of 5642 attendees, up almost 2100 attendees from last year, and the theme for the following year would be a Arcade Fighter theme (They said a really long name here, I forget what this was off the top of my head :P). Not only that, but the convention going forward would operate under a new name: Anthro SoCal! Here’s hoping they do a 2000’s tech based theme in the future so that the con acronym could be ASCII! What I find particularly remarkable about this convention, is that this was only the second year of the con’s existence, and it has already broken into one of the top 10 most attended furry cons of all time! That’s California at work! After the closing ceremonies, I walked around in suit for the briefest of times before going back to the hotel together with Jinx to take off our fursuits and to plan on dinner. We went to a nearby cantina called Mariscos together, along with Moregenta, and had some nice Mexican and seafood dinners together! The three of us agreed to meet back up at the con center to cap off the last day of the con, and I donned Ringgar one last time to dance at the dead dog dances for some time, then go to the Karaoke with Tommy! The dance was great, and I got to say my goodbyes to some of the folks I had met at the con before ending the con with a group sing of that Earth Wind and Fire classic that everyone remembers on this day of the year! After that, the con center had closed, and I went back to the hotel room for a good night’s wolf rest.
Another Furry Con was certainly not just another Furry Con for me. Truth be told, it felt like a throwback to some of the very first cons I ever attended, which I suppose is appropriate considering how back-in-time the theme of the con was! I was in a brand new place, with very, very few people I knew in attendance. I felt a little lost at times, not sure what to do or who to see. However, through the whole weekend, I felt a strong urge to be very sociable, just as strong as I did when I attended my first couple of furry cons after COVID! I don't know if the folks I met at the con will remember me, especially considering going to the West Coast isn't something I 've never done before until now, and I am OK with that! What is important to me is that I connected with several folks in person for the first time, that I had only previously known online, met my adopted family from the West Coast, brought some East Coast love with me to share, and to make people laugh and smile. Best of all, I did all of this in my most favorite way: by being a goofy circular animal! From an attendee’s perspective, there are a few things I would do differently knowing what I know now: I’d plan ahead a way to get around outside of the immediate area of the hotel and con center, and take some extra time to go visit the areas around the con, like Joshua Tree National Park or Palm Springs! I can say with certainty that I’ve enjoyed my brief time in Ontario, and I would absolutely love to come back for another Anthro SoCal!
P.S, my next convention will be Furpocalypse 2025! This wolf hopes to see you there, in the Midnight Dimension!
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 AFC 2025 Photo Album!Thursday, September 18thThursday was the lengthiest day of my trip, and it was almost entirely dedicated to travel. I arrived at the airport around 3AM and had a flight down to Baltimore Washington International before connecting to the flight to Ontario International. Thankfully, I wasn’t solo during the longest portion of the trip, as my pal (and roommate for the con)
afurryjinx were on the same flight together! Though the flight over was rather uneventful, it was nice being able to talk to someone I know and plan ahead while we took the trek over. The good news about crossing three time zones is that we, technically, made really good time, getting there around mid-day. Though upon arriving at the hotel, our room wasn't ready just yet. We left our bags at the hotel and decided to have an early dinner while we waited. While looking for place to eat, this is where I came to a stark realization about Ontario: there are several things within driving distance of the hotel, but very few things within walking distance. Most restaurants in the area were at least a mile walk away, and could only be reached by travelling along the freeway. There were a number of restaurants in the immediate area around the hotel of course, but the majority of these were fast-food chains. We took an Uber to and from an area at the nearby mall for a sit-down dinner at a BJ’s, then headed back to the hotel to check into our room. In a way, this reminded me of the food situation at MFF, where the majority of the non-fast-food places to eat were at least several blocks away from the hotel, but here you weren't able to walk there at all. Not that you would want to, most of these would be an hour away at least! By the time we were settled into our room at the Doubletree, after getting some snacks for the room, we decided to get ready for registration. AFC does their pre-registration a little bit differently from other conventions. Since the convention itself takes place at the Ontario Convention Center, which was not open to us yet, pre-registration had to occur at the main hotel, that being the Doubletree. We lined up at a good time for pre-registration, and were one of the first ones to get our badges! Beyond pre-registration, there was one more day zero event of the con for Thursday: a pool party in the Doubletree courtyard! I got dressed for the pool and headed down to the party, where I met up with one of the few folks from New England who I knew would be there ahead of time,
KittyBean! We chatted for only the briefest of times before I received word that folks from my fursuit family had just arrived as well! I went to the reg line to meet 
Moregenta, and we made plans to go to get Ramen with my fursuit artists, Zenith and Orion, as well as their friends Sami and Morgenta’s friends! I changed out of my pool attire before we headed out down the road together to (Insert Location Here). We had a good meal and chat together, then decided to get dessert at L'Moon, where I got to try Thai Tea soft serve for the first time! This wolf loves his boba, but this was a vastly different experience from what I could get back home, and it was sweet as could be! Our group all chatted for awhile together, then went our separate ways for the evening to get ready for the first day of the convention tomorrow! Friday, the 19thFriday was the first official day of the convention, and we started it off with a bang! Jinx and I had some breakfast before getting into fursuit for the first time this weekend, and walked to the con center for the first panel of the weekend, Furry Improv! This is a panel I’ve done at just about every single New England furry con I have been to, and I love being able to participate and have a lot of fun, while making a little bit of a fool of myself in the process! We played a lot of improv games that I’m familiar with back home, such as ‘World’s Worst,’ ‘Room Party,’ and ‘Press Conference,’ but with one unique bonus game! In this panel, the host does a ‘Magic Minute,’ where he has two fursuiters come up to the front of the stage to be charity bucket brigadiers, and collect money from the audience to go towards the charity of the year, Pomona Valley Pride! There were two catches, however: You had to collect the money under one or two random challenges, and the audience could throw anything into the bucket, not just money! The suiter with the most money raised would be the winner! The host let the audience decide how many challenges we had to do, and of course, the audience opted for the maximum amount of challenges to make us suffer, but at least it was for a good cause! I was selected to play, and my challenges were to sing everything I said, and to remain completely still in a random pose, which was, of course, a little bit of a damper on the whole ‘collecting’ aspect. The host also wanted me to sing songs from Frozen, because, well, that is exactly what I was. Unfortunately for me, I have never seen Frozen so I had to ad-lib the entire thing! Thankfully, the audience took pity on me and my singing ‘skills’ and I was able to win with $100 raised! My prize? All the junk in the bucket that wasn't money. This included such great prizes as: expired gift cards, partially opened candy, stickers, and the best item, a membership card to a local bowling alley that was explicitly for bowling shoes. I can't think of a better way to sum up a furry improv panel than this random assortment of items! Plus, since the con didn't have an open charity bucket brigade, at least I was able to do something like it while I was there!
After the improv panel, Jinx and I walked back to the hotel to get out of suit and to go find dinner! We decided to head to the sacred ground of California that was In-N-Out to have some burgers for an early dinner. It didn't blow my socks off, but I think the reason people rave about it is the atmosphere and the simple menu, but don't quote a New England resident on that! We walked from the In-N-Out right back to the con center for a panel called ‘A Look Inside- Introspective’. When reading the description of the panel, I didn't quite know what to expect. I thought it was a panel for discussing heavy personal topics, and while there was some of that, it was actually a fairly light-hearted panel, and was treated mostly like a game! The host would draw from a deck of questions that range from superficial to deep personal questions, and a specific person from the audience would answer, followed up by some folks in the whole audience! I was pleasantly surprised about this panel, and I really enjoyed it!
Following this panel, I took a trip to the Dealer’s Den to say hello to Zenith, Orion, and Sami, as well as to grab goodies for scrapbooking! I only spent around half an hour in the dealers den, but that was enough to walk through the entire den and stop to browse! I then went back to the hotel to get into suit again for an important event: Monster’s DJ set in the outdoor pavilion at the con center! Monster is a Starcane fursuit family member, and was Zenith and Orion’s first commissioner as a team! He has been in the adopted family longer than most of us, and I was excited to see him in person for the first time! He always comes off as a person with no shortage of party energy, and that definitely showed in his DJ set! Zen, Orion, and my family member Waffle all showed up to his set to dance around, take photos together, and vibe! I did get quite winded towards the end, mostly due to the humid weather and my ice best having melted at that point, but for a wolf like me who doesn't generally do dances or raves, Monster knew how to get this canine grooving! I met Monster very briefly after his set, though I was exhausted at that point, so I had to saunter back to the hotel to take my fursuit off. Jinx was back at the hotel at that point, so we spent a few hours together in the hotel room before I made one last walk back to the con center to see what was going on in the evening. I walked around (in a partial) just to see what else was in the con center, and attended a late night, lo-fi pool toy party in one of the panel rooms for awhile! This room had a nice chill vibe for the evening and was absolutely full of giant pool toys, balloons, and other fun beach toys! After hanging out in the party room, which was great for coming down from a sensory overload, I went back to the hotel room to retire for the night, and to get ready for an early day tomorrow!
Shout-out to Bob and Tom’s Gently Used Crematorium!
Saturday, the 20thSaturday was the busiest day of the convention, and it started early! Jinx and I got up early to have some breakfast at a Denny’s nearby (something I hadn't done in years, believe it or not,) then dashed back to the hotel to get into fursuit. The reason being that the very first event of the day was the con fursuit photo and parade! We got into line for the photo, and waited intensely for it to be taken. At the time of writing, the (not full-res) photo of the fursuiters had been posted, and it looks like you can just see the tops of Jinx and I’s heads, with our ears sticking out. I was even standing on my tip-toes! Oh well! The parade itself actually took place entirely inside the con center! This was a bit different from the past few conventions I’d gone to, where at least a portion of the parade was outside! Considering this was the hottest day of the weekend, and that the con center wasn't really near any residential areas for non-con attendees to watch, I’d say that was actually for the best! Plus, I didn't need my ice vest at all! I walked and waved up and down the parade route before coming to a stop in the headless lounge, where I got meet Tommy again and one of his West Coast friends, Rico! Jinx also met one of his Heads & Tails fursuit family members as well! After the parade, I walked around for awhile, debating whether or not I wanted to get out of my fursuit, but decided to keep Ringgar on while Jinx and I attended a panel about an hour later for protecting your Online Privacy, hosted by DEFCON Furs! They gave us some good tip about password strength and using physical means as a means of login protection, as well as considering what exactly we want to protect and how much we need! After the panel, Jinx and I went back to the hotel room to have some dinner in our room together. We hung out for awhile longer until the evening, when I returned to the con center, first as a human to say hello to my pal Breakfast!, then as a circular wolf to attend a Starcane Arts fursuit family photoshoot! As always, this is one of the highlights, and favorite parts of the con for me, whenever we can swing it! The best part about this shoot is that I got to meet so many of my friends and family members whom I had only known from online at this point, considering most of them are on the complete opposite side of the country to me! We also had a new family member, Nutmeg, who had just bought one of the partials Starcane made at the con join us as well! We had a great time chatting and goofing off together before heading out own ways for the evening. Some of us had made plans to head to an outdoor lights exhibit, the Imaginarium, after the photoshoot, but those plans had to be cancelled. I hope to be able to go there the next time I visit California! Instead, I walked around in fursuit for a little while longer, then attended a panel mirroring the Price is Right, but with cursed and strange items (which was hilarious!) After that, Jinx headed back to the room to chase some of those elusive Z’s for the night, but not before peering at my favorite planet, Saturn, through a telescope that This person had set up just outside the con center!
Sunday, the 21stThe 21st of September, 2025, will certainly be one to remember for me! This day of the con was especially important for me, as I was about to do something totally new to me: Host a panel for the first time! Jinx and I got some breakfast at a nearby diner chain called Spires before getting ready for my panel, which was at Noon that Sunday. The topic of my panel was about something I’ve grown to love doing for the past couple years: scrapbooking and smashbooking for furry cons! In addition to doing these journals, I had been putting together scrapbook and smashbook pages, as well as shadow boxes, to hold all of the stickers, lanyards, pins, flyers, and other con loot I’ve collected at furry cons! Partially because I am sentimental, but also because I think it is a nice thing to remember who I met and what I did at a convention, both inside the con and in the area the con is in! The point of my panel was to show others how fun (and easy!) making a page of your own can be! I was nervous, excited, anxious, thrilled, and had a whole bunch of butterflies in my stomach on the walk over to the con center. Despite the low attendance of the panel, being a grand total of seven people, I did get a big thumbs up from the handful that attended! While having more attendees would have been nice, the time the panel was at was something that I couldn't help, and ultimately, I did what I had hoped to do: ‘Beta Test' this panel and get feedback for when I host this at cons back home in the near future, and share one of my hobbies and passions with everyone, while being (hopefully) entertaining for everyone who attended! I understand that the concept of scrapbooking can sound pretty boring on the surface, so my goal is to make sure people actually enjoy talking about and watching me yap about paper and glue dots!
After my panel, I brought my setup back to the hotel room and got into suit to go meet Yukon, AKA YukonBarksALot! He is a friend of one of our Starcane family members, Burumun, and was photography staff for the con this year! However, before I met with Yukon, I was surprised by someone I haven’t heard from in a long time: a canine named Clover! Clover is someone who I had met in a larger /r/furry chat when I first joined Telegram after jumping the Skype ship. It had been years since I had spoken to him, and I never expected to meet him in person! I was absolutely shocked to see him, let alone the fact that he remembered me, but he absolutely made my day with one heck of a surprise! He handed me a sketch he drew of a reindeer Ringgar during the holiday season one year, and I audibly gasped at seeing it IRL! It seems that Sundays at furry cons have been full of surprises for me lately, and I hope that keeps up (with good surprises, preferably :P!)
Before the con, Yukon and I had agreed to have some photos of the circle wolf be taken, and we were able to do so on the stairs of the con center, closest to the outdoor pavilion! The weather was a bit cloudier today, meaning the lighting was a like a natural soft-white diffuser, and in the end, Yukon took some absolutely tremendous photos of the circle wolf that we were both happy with! (Thank you again!!) Just after our photo session, we walked to closing ceremonies for the con, where we got to see everybody’s favorite announcements: The amount of money raised for Pomona Valley Pride, the attendance numbers, and the announcement of next year’s theme! AFC had a grand total of 5642 attendees, up almost 2100 attendees from last year, and the theme for the following year would be a Arcade Fighter theme (They said a really long name here, I forget what this was off the top of my head :P). Not only that, but the convention going forward would operate under a new name: Anthro SoCal! Here’s hoping they do a 2000’s tech based theme in the future so that the con acronym could be ASCII! What I find particularly remarkable about this convention, is that this was only the second year of the con’s existence, and it has already broken into one of the top 10 most attended furry cons of all time! That’s California at work! After the closing ceremonies, I walked around in suit for the briefest of times before going back to the hotel together with Jinx to take off our fursuits and to plan on dinner. We went to a nearby cantina called Mariscos together, along with Moregenta, and had some nice Mexican and seafood dinners together! The three of us agreed to meet back up at the con center to cap off the last day of the con, and I donned Ringgar one last time to dance at the dead dog dances for some time, then go to the Karaoke with Tommy! The dance was great, and I got to say my goodbyes to some of the folks I had met at the con before ending the con with a group sing of that Earth Wind and Fire classic that everyone remembers on this day of the year! After that, the con center had closed, and I went back to the hotel room for a good night’s wolf rest.
Returning to the Present!Another Furry Con was certainly not just another Furry Con for me. Truth be told, it felt like a throwback to some of the very first cons I ever attended, which I suppose is appropriate considering how back-in-time the theme of the con was! I was in a brand new place, with very, very few people I knew in attendance. I felt a little lost at times, not sure what to do or who to see. However, through the whole weekend, I felt a strong urge to be very sociable, just as strong as I did when I attended my first couple of furry cons after COVID! I don't know if the folks I met at the con will remember me, especially considering going to the West Coast isn't something I 've never done before until now, and I am OK with that! What is important to me is that I connected with several folks in person for the first time, that I had only previously known online, met my adopted family from the West Coast, brought some East Coast love with me to share, and to make people laugh and smile. Best of all, I did all of this in my most favorite way: by being a goofy circular animal! From an attendee’s perspective, there are a few things I would do differently knowing what I know now: I’d plan ahead a way to get around outside of the immediate area of the hotel and con center, and take some extra time to go visit the areas around the con, like Joshua Tree National Park or Palm Springs! I can say with certainty that I’ve enjoyed my brief time in Ontario, and I would absolutely love to come back for another Anthro SoCal!
Thank you so, so much to all of the staff and volunteers who made this con such a nostalgic and exciting experience, as well as allowing me to host my very first panel! Thank you to everyone I met for making my first time on the West Coast a warm and welcoming one! Finally, thank you for reading!P.S, my next convention will be Furpocalypse 2025! This wolf hopes to see you there, in the Midnight Dimension!
You felt the same way I felt AT Anthrocon, with switching what coast I was on.
With friends grounding and guiding your way, the con was a success.
A trial run of the panel, that is exactly what was going on.
It was very informative and well made. I owe you a scrapbook page before the next presentation.
Going out was great, ramen, ice cream, Mexican - a little taste of what it is like here.
The rave that ran until the end, on the last night left a great feeling in me.
I wasn't sad it was over, but looking forward to the next.
Until we loop around this ring again, my friend