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In this episode!

• Furry convention in Atlanta raising 100.000 for charity!
• Spotlight on several awesome women in the fandom!
• How accessible is our fandom truly?
• Animators working together!

And much more!

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Furry Weekend Atlanta continues its monstrous growth, smashing its prior record with a total of 15,021 attendees and raising $100,000 for their charity of Lost-n-Found Youth. This has solidified its position in the top three, and for the time being surpasses Anthrocon – that had a 2023 attendance of 13,641 – making FWA, for the next few months, the world's second-largest in-person furry convention.

The increase this year from last was 4,693 attendees. For perspective, the total attendance of Anthro New England this year was 4,482. So staff at the Atlanta convention this year had to take care of the total they handled in 2023, plus an Anthro New England-sized convention at the same time in 2024. The gathering has never desired further volunteers more.

It was also my first year in attendance, so I wanted to go over my experiences, the challenges, and the strengths of the convention.

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This week[sic] in Digging Up Positivty:

• Pawperty Damage came out on the 24th and we are having an interview with the critter behind it all: Marig. And that is not all! We will be giving away one key of this smashing game so you can stomp around as well. Stay with us till the end for more info!
• Two huge Australian icons working together in a most adorable dance off!
• The Good Furry Award winners are announced
• And of course we are starting this episode of Digging Up Positivity with various charities all over the world

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In October, Biggest Little Fur Con announced that its future 2023 convention will be held in the autumn season as opposed to its usual spring time schedule. This means that four of the largest furry conventions have now settled into time slots to correlate with the four seasons of the year.

The dates for these now include an early December gathering of Midwest Furfest in Chicago for winter, the spring event in Furry Weekend Atlanta, the summer with Anthrocon in Pittsburgh, and now the fall going to Biggest Little Fur Con in Reno. Given this chronological spacing there may be more ample room for these larger conventions to grow in attendance without stepping on one another’s toes.

Before 2022 these four conventions were the most attended furry conventions in the world. However, just this year Furry Fiesta was able to pass Biggest Little Fur Con sliding it back to be the 5th largest convention. The Texas convention having 5,494 this year and the Reno gathering at 5,234. Anthrocon, Midwest Furfest, and Furry Weekend Atlanta retain the top three positions.

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Before the coronavirus shut down many furry conventions around the world, a strange thing occurred at Furry Weekend Atlanta in 2019. The popular electronic dance group Mystery Skulls performed a musical set at the convention. This is a pretty mainstream group, well-known for their singles such as Money and Ghosts.

When in-person events started happening again, Furry Weekend Atlanta's new headliner was again more known for their mainstream work than for their ties to the fandom. FRND, also known as Andrew Goldstein, is not quite as well-known as Mystery Skulls. After having worked with many mainstream musicians (such as Maroon Five's Beautiful Mistakes as a co-writer), he started to work independently and created his own singles.

Now in late 2022, FWA is giving a wink toward Little Nas X, a very well-known rap artist, born and raised near Atlanta. He's known for stirring up moralistic controversy with his music videos. I guess that's how you know it's real rap.

As FWA's drive towards mainstream musical talent has continued, furries have become a lot more pointed in their questioning of the convention. But whoever's been in control of FWA's social media account has continually dismissed such criticism. For instance, during the FRND announcement, they responded to one critique by posting a gif of Clauhauser calling the critical poster "cute". At the time, this post only drew more attention to the critique. FWA later deleted the tweet and apologized for their behavior. In response to the threads that appeared after the Little Nas X announcement, they have started to use their social media tools to limit responses to no one but the artist in question.

In this article, we'll be going over what defines a work as furry, why this is separate from how furry music is defined, and how Furry Weekend Atlanta may be able to help mitigate future concerns for their furry attendees and the musically talented within the fandom.

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The term "ghosting a convention" is when a person attends and hangs around, but has not paid the organizers to do so. It’s seen as a major faux pas in the furry fandom due to the amount of time, effort and money their fellow fans put forth in order to put on the events.

Those who support the festivities through their patronage, therefore, should be praised for putting their time and money forth to support their gathering of choice. For the relationship between convention and attendee is symbiotic.

Instead, certain events seem to have started to shun the precedent of sharing how many furs attended their celebrations. Like a tree falling in the forest, the con did occur; but if you look back years from now, there will be no hard evidence of how many gathered. In essence, it is the attendees who have been ghosted.

Which is why I am writing this piece today, concerning a worrisome trend that a handful of events seem to have taken - including some of the largest events in our fandom. Conventions, as of late, have been trying to push away from publicly putting forth their attendance counts.

Update 5/24: An updated tentative count was released by BLFC in the comments below.
Update 6/16: FWA has provided their counts with the video of closing ceremonies in comments below.
Update 6/16: AnthOhio, which took place in late May after the article was written, has as of today not released attendance numbers on any internet media platform. They did release charity numbers of $13,000 raised.

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Convention attendees to Atlanta, Georgia's furry gathering are advised to keep a look out for any updates on traveling conditions as news reports of a major highway failure have surfaced. The infrastructure failure due to an intense fire has made national headlines and has occurred near a main road artery near where interstate 85 and 400 conjoin.

The loss of such a major road for the city could exacerbate traffic conditions in the region for the foreseeable future. It is advised if any attendees are traveling to the convention by automobile, particularly from a Northern direction, that they take additional time and make sure to keep abreast of any detours and delays that may result.

Furry Weekend Atlanta is only six days away, starting on April 6th. Its main hotel is located at 265 Peachtree Center in downtown. The infrastructure failure is located approximately nine miles north from there. The image on this article is a screenshot as of publication. Clicking on it will link to a more current map view of the area.

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Furry artist FilthyRotten Jackalope (Tangela Parten, née Harris) has been reported dead following complications from emergency surgery at the age of 35.

A long-time resident of Atlanta, Georgia, and a long-time participant in the local furry community, FilthyRotten served as Volunteer Coordinator at Furry Weekend Atlanta from 2008 to 2013. She moved in June 2013 to Vancouver, Washington, with her husband DarkPatu (Paul Parten) and their three children.

On April 1, 2014, FilthyRotten posted pictures to her Twitter account from her stay at the Peace Health Services Hospital for a blood transfusion (due to a history of chronic internal bleeding), but by April 4, she posted that she would be heading to emergency surgery the next day. According to DarkPatu, "Complications after an emergency hysterectomy led to an infection in her brain and cranial bleeding."

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For those who missed out on the news over the last three months, here's a quick roundup.

2013 opened with a feature on the business of fursuit-making, as detailed by Snap E. Tiger.

Further Confusion 2013 garnered some coverage, including a Kotaku contributor's weekend at a furry convention – which started out with party-hopping, followed by a fursuit parade (admittedly, the experience for many FC attendees). The author reached the [adjective][species] statistics panel before returning to the party floor . . . and then, the dance floor.

SanJose.com also provided coverage of FC, albeit limited to an apparently remote Q&A session with the con's media representative, Chairo. The brief piece was fact-filled, yet in comparison with Kotaku did not venture deeply into the motivations of those attending.

Sneaking in at the end of the month was a cover piece in Nashville LGBT monthly Out & About (subtitled "It's not all about sex in fur suits"), and a photo-heavy article of the "everyday lives of furries at home", featuring the furry photography of Tom Broadbent. [tip: HappyWulf]

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Fursuiters featured today on G4's Attack of the Show at 7PM Eastern, in a segment involving footage filmed a fortnight ago at Furry Weekend Atlanta 2011. [time tip: FNN]

FWA's decision to allow filming was controversial, with several dealers complaining that they were not informed of their involvement or given the option to opt-out.

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FWA's IT staff have been hard at work restructuring its registration system, myFWA.com. This new system allows users to register once, and pay at any time for not only convention registrations, but other services and products found at FWA, including items in the con store.

Local dining and convention schedules are also to be available by the start of the convention.

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Furry Weekend Atlanta 2009 has announced the Guests of Honor for the sixth installment of the convention: Matthew Ebel a.k.a. Hali of Firpine and, Moonstalker a.k.a. Richard Foley.^[1]

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Furry Weekend Atlanta will not be held during the usual Valentine's Day weekend next year - instead, the fourth largest furry convention has been moved to March 19-22 for 2009, and presumably for all FWAs to come.^[1] The change in dates was primarily due to space conflicts with a large cheering competition taking place in Atlanta during the same weekend.^[2]

The convention has also changed hotels for 2009, switching from a two-year run with the Sheraton to move to the larger Hilton Atlanta hotel.

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Recent news from conventions near and far.

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As Furry Weekend Atlanta 2008 wrapped up its fifth year, convention staff counted 1,046 registered participants as of its closing ceremonies, once again a 37% increase over the previous year's count.^[1]

By surpassing the one-thousand-member mark, Furry Weekend Atlanta solidified its ranking as the fourth largest furry convention, a position it attained the previous year.