Hello Everyone,

Last weekend I was at What The Fur. What The Fur is an hour drive away from where I live which is not too far from the Ontario-Quebec border. It was a bit hard to try to get to the hotel though. The convention was located at the Sheraton Airport Hotel. On Thursday afternoon, it was raining and there was quite a lot of traffic so I missed the exit on the 40 and wound up driving right past it. I had major issues trying to get to the actual vicinity of the hotel too. I didn't have a GPS so I kept asking directions from every single person I met who was walking by. Quebec has really weird highway systems. Also, I don't speak French that well and I wound up getting twisted and turned upside down. When I finally made it to the hotel, I was relieved. I walked in and the first person I met was so I knew that I was in the right place.

The hotel is very clean, very spacious and very shiny. It was easy to navigate around the hotel and the convention space. The convention itself was on the second floor. We were sharing the hotel that weekend with what I think was a Prom Party and also a Hockey Kids Camp. There were a lot of children running around on the Friday of the convention. A lot of the fursuiters (including myself) were running after the kids. They seemed to be pretty entertained by us. The only main issue with the extra flow of people who weren't furries (because you will get those at the hotel anyway) was they kept walking through the convention space rather frequently. Most of them were nice, but many others seemed uncomfortable as they were walking through the space and that in turn made me feel uncomfortable. Some non-fur hotel attendees for the course of the weekend were even so bold as to walk right into the dance on Saturday night and sit down without even paying for the event or giving the convention staff some extra money. I felt that was pretty rude on their part. The security did nothing to stop this either. A few fursuiters came up to me and said that they felt uncomfortable about this but they did nothing either.

The convention space itself was small but it was what What The Fur had to work with. It melded nice with the amount of people who attended. The total amount of people who attended What The Fur was something around 305. There were 75 fursuiters I think. What I enjoyed most about the hotel was the outside of the hotel located in the middle of the Sheraton Airport Hotel. There was a large amount of beautiful greenery, flowers and general plant life. There were a lot of beautiful trellises and walkways. It was so beautiful! There were so many opportunities for photoshoots. The fursuit parade ended in this garden/pool outdoor/indoor area outside. There could have easily been a Fursuit Photoshoot outside there all day on a Saturday. That would have been a fun highlight. I didn't wind up going into the pool or the outdoor/indoor pool area but man, was it ever nice looking!

I thought that the games room was the zoo too because it was the only place where tables with chairs were set up. Whenever I was in the games room, there was a certain person in there pressuring people to play games the entire time that they were in there. There were a number of furs who only wanted to go in there to relax because there was no official zoo from what I could see anywhere in the convention space. That seemed quite alright to me, because the actual convention space that What The Fur had had no real room for that. It was not the fault of the convention. There was some really cool stuff in the dealers den. Lots of shiny things and lots of other interesting things. People in the dealers den were extremely nice and approachable. The What The Fur staff are some of the nicest and warmest people I have ever had the pleasure of interacting with at a furry convention.

What is so special about What The Fur? There is one general thing that is common of most small conventions and that is just the thing; the small, close feeling of the convention itself. The two things special to What The Fur itself would be the Chocolate Social and the International Fursuit Hockey League. I didn't attend the International Fursuit Hockey League this year but it is a lot of fun. The Chocolate Social comes right after the Opening Ceremonies. The fur who runs the Chocolate Social brings chocolate from across the world right to What The Fur.

Anyway, that is my report on What The Fur. It is an amazing small convention located in a beautiful hotel and needs to be experienced by everyone. Thank you.

~Horlequism~