[ConReview] Anthrocon 2014 - Pittsburgh's not so Secret Annual Furry Invasion

Even if this year's theme for Anthrocon was "Secret Societies" it's definitely no secret in the Pittsburgh region that it was in town over the 4th of July weekend. Once again the city played host to not only the annual regatta, massive fireworks display, Pirates vs Phillies baseball series, but also the world's largest furry convention.

Toonseum Gertie Award and Mayoral Proclamation

In and around the David Lawrence Convention Center, it was hard to believe anything else was really going on though. The way that the city welcomes the annual furvasion is truly like nothing else. Don't believe me? Bill Peduto, Pittsburgh's current Mayor, declared that July 5th was "Anthrocon Day" in the city of Pittsburgh during the convention's opening ceremonies on Friday.

Not only that, Pittsburgh's very own Toonseum, presented the convention with it's Gertie Award for "Exhibiting Great Character" for 2014 as well. Even the local news gets excited close to Anthrocon. So yeah, it's kind of a big deal around here.

With events spanning the course of 4 days, from Thursday all the way until about 1:30am on the following Monday, there's always something going on or something to do. Even part of the convention center stayed open 24 hours a day this year for "The Zoo". While a slightly controversial move, definitely made things interesting.

If you can't have a good time at this event, you're probably dead inside. You don't even have to "be a Furry" to have a great experience either. We have about 4 or 5 friends that come with us every year and they have a blast going to panels and exploring the fandom. Maybe their status will change due to the exposure in time, but it just goes to show how much fun one can have regardless. The fandom is just welcoming and while I'm sure there are issues, ewe just never saw any first hand to say that you shouldn't go and check this one out.


This year's attendance was up, once again, to 5,861 and attendees from all 50 states (plus D.C.) and 26 countries in all were represented. All of that added up to a whopping $31,738 being raised for this year's charity, The National Aviary. Additionally, this year's special guests were Lee Tockar and Jim Cummings.

Update: The actual amount raised for The National Aviary? $32,372.79! 

Recommendation: If you're a Furry or a fan of anthropomorphic artwork, cartoons, movies or anything in between, it's a no brainer, you simply have to go at least once. Not only is nearly everyone that I've ever met that works the convention great, so are the attendees and the city itself welcomes Furries with open arms. It just has to be experienced. Again, even if you're not a Furry or fully understand the fandom, you can have a blast as well.

Disclaimer: Like the other attendees of Anthrocon 2014, everyone on our staff paid for a weekend badge. However, we do get special credentials that allow us access to certain areas during events to provide better coverage and vantage points for what we do. As always, this hasn't and never will influence our thoughts on an event.

Now, for those looking for a little more of an in depth look at what we experienced, keep on reading for the full review!


As I said, Anthrocon takes place over 4th of July weekend and mercifully for our crew the 4th fell on a Friday. However, not wanting to deal with the insanity that Friday would most likely bring in the form of traffic, we got down on Thursday afternoon. While some come in as early as Wednesday or even Tuesday in some cases, it seems Thursday seems to be the most popular. Not only because it avoids the rush of Friday, but also because there's stuff to do already!

Not only does registration and "The Zoo" open up, but other events such as the pre-convention mixer, last minute sewing get together, the To Absent Friends event for those lost and of course the Thursday Night Dance get going as well. It's a lot more than many other conventions having going for them on their "zero nights" and definitely a welcome thing to see going on here as well. So many come in early and stay longer that it's nice to see the convention offering something for those folks too.

That said, after checking in and getting a report that the registration line was insanely long, we decided that heading out for dinner was the best option. However, upon returning, we saw that the line really hadn't died down much and this was an hour before registration was to close.

Thankfully, the staff kept it open and bless them for seeing it through to the end. Sure, cycling the line is the right thing to do, but the fact that it had to be well after 11pm when they were finished, major kudos! That's a long day, especially considering that they were going since much earlier in the day with Super Sponsors and Sponsors.

Sure, the first day of a con is always crazy, but this late? Kinda nuts if you think about it. However, we found out the reason why things were taking so long and it definitely needs a look at. The line you see pictured up there is only part of the equation. First you go through that line, get to a series of computers to register and then you get into another line to pick up your badge and pay. It's a little confusing to say the least and compared to per-registering, definitely time consuming!

We all talked about this at length and some upgrading and streamlining this process is definitely something that needs to happen. One idea was tablets, another was just newer computers, also the ability to pay right there instead of the secondary line. Either of these could work and while it is an expense, might save a lot of trouble and hassle for everyone involved over the long haul. In the end, it was fine, just time consuming and the staff was amazingly friendly and helpful through it all.

A short while later, we had our press credentials in hand and were pretty much tapped out for the night. So, we decided to wander a bit with a few folks outside of the Westin and across the way before making our way back to our hotel for some much needed sleep. Friday brought a whole new day and tons of craziness to go with it.

I should mention in here that we once again stayed at the Omni, which is always a great choice and with 10 elevators, you rarely run into the issues of the line at the Westin. Completely understand why so many stay there, but for us? We like things a little more low key and the walk is never really that bad at all. So, if you're looking for a little more luxury and maybe a slightly quieter and easier to access place to stay, definitely give it a chance. We've never had a problem with them and despite where we stay in the future, we'll always love the William Penn Omni for what it offers.

So, onto Friday! Admittedly, we didn't quite make it to the opening ceremonies again this year. (Seriously, we will one year, I swear!) However, thanks to the live stream that was provided on live.anthrocon.org, I was able to tune in while getting coffee in the morning. Have to say, loved the touch and great for those who can't make it...or are like us and had a little too much fun the night before.

Speaking of the live streaming, as you can see by the schedule to the left, they had a ton of stuff this year. At times the quality wasn't the greatest, but overall it wasn't too bad and hopefully it'll improve in the future. More conventions could stand to try this out if they can!

So, our first order of business on Friday was the Meet Jim Cummings panel, hosted by none other than...well, Jim Cummings. The voice of Ed from Lion King, Don Karnage, Monterey Jack, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and several others, his range and career has seen it all.

We always try to get to at least one Guest of Honor panel in and we're glad we did for this one. Again, held up in one of two auditorium style rooms of the DLCC and just perfect for such an event. Jim was not only great with the crowd, but the moderator was having fun with everyone as well.

Not only did he answer questions  in character, but he gave some pretty interesting looks at his experiences with various roles over his storied carrier. Again, it just seemed like he, along with the audience, was having a blast with it all. For more, check out our video of the the whole panel on our YouTube channel coming soon.

Seeing as how it was nearly 6pm by the time we were done, we didn't get a chance to check out the dealers room or artist alley. Crazy, that we had already been having such a great time and hadn't even seen most of what the convention had to offer yet. It may seem weird to say but that's just doing it right, some of that is on the convention staff and some the attendees, but it's always a good sign.

It also being the 4th of July, the roof of the DLCC was open to convention goers for one of the best views of the fireworks in the whole city. That said, we opted to go a little less traditional on this and ended up down by the river to watch with a couple of local friends who weren't attending the convention.

This was mostly since the DLCC is closed to the public during Anthrocon and party because we wanted to see what it was like down by the river this time around.

After hitting up a couple of local places that had rolled out the red carpet for Anthrocon around the city, we finally made our way back to the convention center to check out the Friday Night Dance. Since we had missed it on Thursday night, we were ready to see what this year's DJs had in store for us and while we only caught the tail end of Recca's set and the entirety of Genki's we still had a blast.

Once again, it was painfully obvious that other conventions could learn a thing or two from Anthrocon in this department (some definitely more than others). Dances or Raves are a huge part of any convention and no one does quite like the folks who put on Anthrocon's every year. It's a massive spectacle that takes up the entire Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom, not just a section of it...all of it.

The lighting, sound production, DJ selection and everything else is just perfectly flawless. If you're running a convention, sit up and take notice.

Not wanting to head back to the hotel just yet, we did what many others do late at night and decided to people watch for a while outside of the Westin Hotel. This in and of itself is an event at Anthrocon and you never quite know what you'll see. It doesn't matter what hour of the day it is, there's always great company and a relaxed atmosphere going on. Probably one of our favorite things to do. However, seeing as how it was rather late and we had to get up early, we didn't hang around for too long.

Now, Saturday we ended up all over the place. Catching everything from the PA Furries Meet 'n Greet, some of the Floor Wars dance competition, Furry Fued and even some of 2's Rant as well as popping into the Feline and Dragon meets as well.

Oh, the Fursuting Parade was a thing too, ya know...nothing major. Only 1326 fursuiters this year, nothing major at all. So yeah, we were busy and moving around all over between the convention center and Westin hotel.

Speaking of the parade, here's the video of mostly the entire thing. We had a slight hiccup with our camera and had to do a battery swap during it, but only missed a very short time of it.


One of the interesting things was the odd split that happened around the elevator. As you can see that kinda screwed up our angle a little bit, but at least if you look to the right you'll see what's going on for the most part. Again, sorry for the weird little jump in the video, I'll make sure to check the batteries more thoroughly next time around!

Before we headed anywhere else, we decided to take a trip through the Dealers Den and Artist Alley. As usual there was tons of great stuff this year, but unfortunately, nothing really called out to any of us and said "buy me!". Dealers and Artists are always like though, very hit or miss with us, but overall we kinda got the feel that it was a little off. Not sure why, but just didn't seem to have the same energy in the room as it did last year.

Now, with that out of way, have to say that we absolutely loved the Allegheny Ballroom being used for Floor Wars this year. Huge improvement over the space from last year, this is exactly the kind of space the event needs and one of the reasons The Zoo was moved into the DLCC for much of the weekend.

As far as Floor Wars? Definitely awesome as always and we'll have video up soon showing off a couple of the match ups that happened earlier on in the competition. Next year we're hoping to get a lot more footage from this event as it's proving to be one of our favorites.

Speaking of that video, here ya go!


Another thing that we really enjoyed was how the screens in the Westin were being used to provide updated information on panel locations and maps as well. Sure, this has been around for a while, but it's always a good thing to see being utilized more and helped us get around to the couple of meet ups going on, specifically the Feline Fiasco and Dragon Meet.

Both of them were a lot of fun and along with the PA Furries Meet Up, all had great attendence as well. Definitely a good thing to see and was really fun to connect with some other furs from PA and many other places as well.

Back on the DLCC side, it was a little confusing to get around as there isn't such a system in place and sometimes signage can be a little funky. Perhaps putting out banners by the rooms with names that can help folks to find where they're looking for could help with this. I know that Tekko does something similar but it would go a long way here as well.

Either way, we did manage to find our way around pretty easily enough, just thinking for first timers there that it could be a little easier. If not, just ask someone, the staff is super friendly and easy to find too!

One of the big events for us to hit this year was Furry Fued and it didn't let us down. A bit dirty, a bit raunchy at times and all around hilarious. The final match was interestingly enough between a bunch of "fleshies" (non fursuiters) and an entire group of Crux. It was amusing as all hell and those looking for a pretty good time, even if a little disjointed every so often, you gotta check this out.

To kind of wind our day down, we stopped in and caught 2's Rant in the Spirit of Pittsburgh Ballroom. The room was packed and it's easy to see why he's such a favorite of attendees every year.

While we didn't stay the whole time, we enjoyed what we saw. That said, he might not be for everyone, but he's pretty damn funny and always a good show covering all kinds of topics in the fandom and out of it.

At this point we were pretty much ready to wrap up our day and get to relaxing. Unfortunately it also marked the end of our time at Anthrocon this year.

One of these years we'll actually be around for a Sunday at a convention, I swear! Either way, we had a blast from Thursday until Saturday night and we hope that the staff and volunteers that make Anthrocon run continue to adapt and try new things to make the convention better each year. I also hope that the city of Pittsburgh keeps on loving the Furry community more and more each year as it's great to see the outpouring of support from them as well!

Again, this year's convention was great and despite the few issues that we found, there were a ton of improvements to many things. With a few more tweaks here and there, things will be nearly perfect and definitely set for a long time. 

We'll see you next year for our full coverage and hopefully a little more time at the convention during Anthrocon 2015!