Furry conventions are inherently tied to the places people are, and thus can give us both context about furry history and perhaps a glimpse into the future. Plus, there are quite a few misconceptions about the world that annoy me; this may help break a stereotype or two.

Hello, and a big welcome to the September edition of Digging Up Positivity! These months are the height of convention season and it shows! So many events, both online and offline.

Last premiere I was at Eurofurence together with FoxAmoor, the guest of the previous episode. But when I got back to the Netherlands, merely half a day later I was on the road to Splinter, an amazing four day event in the Netherlands. And after that, we were guests at the Stork Run in The Hague, more about this all that later. And at the end of the episode I will tell you how to win one of these amazing Thabo paw pillows from my artwork Tee merch store.

But first, the astounding amount of charities since last episode!

DenFur has announced that furry musician, Pepper Coyote, will not be attending, or performing at their 2022 convention. This is in response to videos, and tweets made by the musician himself, that showed him in attendance at a Center for Political Innovation assembly in Chicago over the weekend of August 6th.

While describing itself as an anti-imperialist organization, the CPI led the meet by flying flags which included the infamous Z insignia that is being used by the Russian forces occupying the country of Ukraine in the current war there. The CPI Twitter account retweets regularly from sources that Twitter has denoted as Russian state-affiliated media.

Update (Aug 12): Eurofurence has also removed Pepper Coyote from their performance schedule.

Update (Aug 21): The CPI has dissolved following accusation of sexual misconduct around leader Caleb Maupin. In response, PepperCoyote has simply stated he's no longer a member of the CPI.

Corgi Events LLC, a for-profit organization that operated five furry and two brony conventions, is to be disbanded according to a letter released by one of the conventions, AquatiFur, on February 12th. This follows a series of events and malfeasance concerns that started with an unusual email sent out to their Dealer’s Den mailing list. This letter, sent February 8th, alleged the LLC's sole-proprietor, Corey “Treble” Woods, was going to file for bankruptcy and bail on the organization.

This troubling news followed a stressful slate of Corgi Events running Sin City Murr Con’s première instance, just after Painted Desert Fur Con a month prior. Testimony from Boiler, a prior member of staff, shared their side of the story on this unrelenting demand on staff. It talked of a loss of faith in their organization’s leader due a spate of problematic behavior, including alleged drunkenness, prolonged response times to urgent financial matters, and delays in compensation. Tempers finally blew over into the public sphere when Treble terminated Koi from staff, a person who he admitted was running many day-to-day operations.

Welcome to the August edition of Digging Up Positivity! Slowly we are sliding into convention season and of course this comes with plenty of the traditional charitable goals. Speaking of which, this months featurette has a big role with that in South Africa. We have some animation news, and we see where badgers teach traffic safety! And also, if you want to win this T-shirt? Then stay until the end of the show!

The fandom continues to show strong growth on the last weekend of August 2018. A weekend in which 5 furry conventions took place: Fur Affinity: United, Eurofurence, Camp Feral!, Indyfurcon, and DenFur. Of them the inaugural gathering in the state of Colorado has turned heads as it had shattered the first year attendance record of a furry convention at 2,086.

The first year attendance record was previously held by FurryPinas, a convention in the Philippines at 1,542 attendees, which acquired it just this last May making this year a strong startup for furry gatherings in general. Other conventions also had solid growth in attendance rates. Fur Affinity: United showing its first growth since their move out of the state of New Jersey. The number breakdowns for last weekend's cons can be seen below:

Update 6/29: Story indicated previous record holder was Biggest Little Fur Con, was corrected to be FurryPinas. -Cirrus credited for correction.