What an exciting weekend!  Gateway FurMeet has finally happened, and the result has blown away everyone's expectations.  On behalf of the entire GFM team, we'd like to extend our thanks to several people and groups.

Attendees, Sponsors, and Supersponsors

To our attendees, especially sponsors and supersponsors, this convention is for you and would not have happened without your support.  Thank you for supporting a first year convention and ensuring that we will be able to do this for many years to come.  This year, we had 211 total attendees of which 62 participated in the fursuit parade - more than twice our goal, and far more than we had ever expected to have this first year.  We hope that we'll see all of you next year, and then some!

Team Members, Volunteers, Panelists, Dealers, and Artists

To our team members and volunteers, thank you for the hard work that you've all put in.  This convention would not happen without those who put in their own time and effort.  While our team was small (http://gatewayfurmeet.org/gateway-furmeet-team/), we had some big goals, and exceeded them all this year.  To our panelists, dealers and artists, thank you for keeping this new convention fun and entertaining.  The Dealer's Den/Artist's Alley and many of our panels were well attended this  year and we hope that next year is even bigger.

Our Guest of Honor, PeacePaw

From Gateway FurMeet's inception, we have made a goal of showcasing amazing artists within the furry fandom that may not have had a lot of exposure, and this year was our first opportunity to accomplish that.  We have all had a wonderful time working with PeacePaw and we would like to thank her for the work that she has put in for us.  If you haven't yet, please don't forget to check out her artwork at her FA page, http://www.furaffinity.net/user/thegreencoyote .

Stray Rescue of St. Louis

This year we supported Stray Rescue of St. Louis (http://www.strayrescue.org/) as our charity.  We were very excited to have them at our convention and to work towards supporting such a wonderful cause.  The final amount of money raised is still being counted but we will post that information as soon as it becomes available.



We had a blast, and we hope that our attendees feel the same way.  We'll be sending out a survey soon (and posting it here as well) so we can get some good solid feedback, please take the time to fill that out when  you see it!  This convention is for you, our attendees, and we need your feedback to make this convention even better.  We already have many ideas for next year but we want to hear from you.

Last but not least, for those of you who wanted a t-shirt but were unable to buy one before we ran out, our shirts are available on Redbubble (http://www.redbubble.com/people/gat.....ild-west-theme) for a limited period of time.  If you didn't get one, order now!  As the shirts are made to order you do not have to worry about them running out, but this design will not be available forever.

Thank you all for a wonderful weekend!