Yesterday afternoon, as I was traveling back home, I heard Midwest Furfest officially became the largest furry convention in the world with over 8700 attendees. While I’m sure it’s a bittersweet moment for Anthrocon, I’m sure the staff is very proud of their sister con’s success.

So I and quite a few other furries descended upon Chicago this past weekend to have fun. And that’s what I really love about the con experience – 99.9% of people are there just to have a good time. We take pictures, eat, drink, dance, game, suit, and chat with each other. I’m glad to say that MFF 2017 was a very fun experience with plenty of awesome encounters!

My con experience began on the road, where I passed through Cleveland, Ohio, and got to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Christmas Story House. That’s right, the house from the 1983 movie is still standing in Cleveland and renovated to look inside as it did in the movie. They also filmed several scenes from the movie there and I made sure to pick up some Ovaltine on my way out. By the way, Cleveland can get kind of a bum rap in popular media (*cough* “Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video” *cough*), but my experience was of a very lovely city.

From there I went to Chicago proper, and grabbed a few local favorites. Vienna Beef is like the main hot dog supplier for the city, and they have a factory outlet where I like to grab a few packs of dogs. Also, the fundraiser chocolate company World’s Finest Chocolate has an outlet store with factory seconds for very cheap prices. I have enough candy now to last me until next Christmas! Naturally, I also swung by a Portillo’s and had a chocolate cake shake. Not bad, but not as good as everyone claims it is! Way too cakey and not enough milkshake >:( I finally came to terms this year with my lack of interest in Chicago deep dish pizza. In 2015 and 2016 I went with a group of macros to Giordano’s, and each year I wasn’t feeling well enough to try it. This year I skipped it entirely, because you know what? It’s not really for me. I’m a thin crust sort of guy, and that’s okay.

Since this might be my last MFF for a while, and since I haven’t actually gone into downtown, I visited the city on Thursday and saw a host of local musts, such as Millennium Park/the Bean, the Field Museum, the Art Institute, the Christkindlmarket, and Wrigley Field. At the Field Museum I met SUE! She is the world’s largest, most complete T-rex fossil ever found. I thought it was sad to hear she had such a rough life (parasites, leg problems, tail problems), but at least now she’s more famous than any of her kin!

Then it was time for the actual con to start. I roomed with  geldazane (aka Bronzewing) only this year, which was great because I could finally avoid sleeping in a sleeping bag on the hotel floor. We stayed at the Hilton, which is a fine hotel and more convenient to the convention center than even the Hyatt itself. I’m sure you heard the skybridge between hotels was a tad warm for fursuiters this year, and that was very true. But it’s nice to be able to travel back and forth without having to deal with the horn-leaning Rosemont drivers.

A highlight of MFF is always meeting up with  RidleyDupree. Unfortunately, the Godzilla con G-Fest which he sells merch at usually runs concurrently with Anthrocon in the summer, so I can only see him once a year. On the other hand, it makes for a rare and exciting treat to hear his fascinating stories of the Godzilla art biz over dinner. In fact, Ridley is an excellent local guide for the area, because by coincidence G-Fest is in the Crowne Plaza right down the street. As a lover of good food and good drink, he can reliably tell us about the good haunts. Bronze and I like to play it safe, so he pointed us to a bar called the Five Roses Pub that has excellent heavy, greasy pub food. They had these shoestring fries that beguile you into thinking they’re not seasoned, but are actually hiding some excellent flavor. The bacon in my bacon burger was also some of the best I’ve had on a bun; very high quality. We also had lunch with him across the street at the Park Tavern, which I can attest has good food as well, although perhaps not as great an atmosphere as the live music Irish pub.

The rest of Thursday was pretty uneventful, but I did partial a bit in what Bronze described as “Steve Jobs gear.” You can see that picture here.

On Friday, Bronze and I had breakfast at the Hyatt, which has become somewhat of a tradition. I suppose the buffet is good value if you like to eat big breakfasts…I do not. But the waitstaff there is the same each year and they’re awesome since they really get into the con. Our waiter had a MaryMouse badge on…didn’t catch what it said though! Soon after that we ran into  Kurrikage, Saxon, and Razz. All three were really fun to chat with, even if unfortunately the latter two had to split from the con early for work.

That afternoon I tried an escape room for the first time, which was a blast. The group was myself,  SyLoX,  Nommz,  dragonfireny,  Draylen, and  hotjazz. The room was located in the basement of the Hyatt, and in a very general sense you have an hour to figure out logical puzzles to unlock successive challenges with the ultimate goal of reaching the last locked item. Boiling it down to that, though, sells it short, since it was a frenetic, social, utterly rewarding experience! We managed to beat it with time left on the clock, and look forward to seeing Fuzzy Logic at future cons. Feel free to ask questions here about the escape room, but I might withhold some information out of respect for the organizers’ wishes.

After that was the macro meetup. This year it was enormous, enough to fill the entire space outside the grand ballroom. I met so, so many furs here I hate to list them, for fear of leaving someone out. But I will say this:  Sovrim was a huge help for picture-taking, since Bronze now has a suit of his own. Thanks so much for snagging many of the group shots you’ll see on my Twitter page! I also chatted with  BuckD and  Splat at length, both of whom are great guys. While I didn’t think to get a stomp pic with either at the time, I did embarrass Buck by asking about his favorite commission of mine and tease Splat by mentioning those Chucks I forgot to bring with me. Hey, I’m a dragon, and it’s what we do! I also said hi to everyone’s favorite dragon mom,  Sapphy! Just missed the baked goods, though, unfortunately :( Oh, oh, and I got some glamour shots from Nightdragon! Cool dude.

On Saturday, we got our first good look at the Dealers’ Den and Artists’ Alley. The Dealers’ Den hugely grew from last year and rivals if not surpasses the size of the Anthrocon one now. They had plenty of swag right up my alley: cutesy, anime-inspired, and scaly! I thought it was cool Bad Dragon came to the adult area this year with their product line-up. It’s interesting to see that stuff in person when usually you have to buy that sort of stuff sight-unseen. I also won a random shell game in the AA and got a cheap heart pearler badge! Not bad.

The menagerie was in the early afternoon. I think all of us fursuiters are glad we don’t have to go through the necessary evil of the fursuit parade. Instead, we get a much lower-key hour or two to go around and simply get group photos. I have some great ones on their way in the coming weeks, but I got pics with green suits, dragons, and mythical creatures.

Saturday night  IanCorvid spearheaded a very fun game of Snake Oil, whose rules I’ve already detailed in my AC2016 post-con journal. I was a little punch drunk and laughing my ass off, but that’s par for the course with the game.  Chittebengo was playing this cool drum-like instrument there and he’s really good! I told him the music he was playing reminded me much of the Super Mario Odyssey soundtrack, particularly that of the Lost Kingdom. He did a great job fighting back against the pounding bass of the dance next door!

Sunday was pretty dead since Bronze and I wake up early and everyone is hungover. But I did pick up some cool 3D art from the art show (in the link of con swag below). I was almost late leaving because MFF was having technical difficulties, but I escaped just in time. Hey, kind of like that escape room! Hurr.

Usually in these post-con journals I mention the commissions that are pending. Believe it or not….I didn’t commission a single piece of art this year! Yep, after being burned a few too many times with con artists, I decided to save my money and play it safe with known quantities. Thus, I’m expecting to get a few things from pig and Nommz soon. What I did get was a lot of con swag. You can view it here and here (unless you are  ArgentVZ in which case you are FORBIDDEN FROM VIEWING THE SECOND PIC WHATSOEVER…SERIOUSLY!).

So that’s MFF 2017! I should probably stop writing now because I'm sure I could bang out a few additional paragraphs about the con. I’m currently planning on travelling to Atlanta to attend FWA 2018, but as always I will definitely be at Anthrocon 2018 next July. I will be posting more pictures to my Twitter as they filter in, so be sure to follow me on there. Enjoy!