The scene in San Jose last January was beastly, indeed. Hundreds of people were wandering around the Doubletree Hotel dressed as raccoons, tigers, and other four-leggers. A reunion of sports mascots? An audition for The Lion King? No—a convention of anthropomorphic enthusiasts, more popularly known as "furries."
"It's a twist on a science-fiction convention," explains Lee Strom, public relations director, board member, and a founder of Further Confusion, or FurCon, as the gathering is known. And contrary to stereotype, attendees aren't kooks; rather, they're serious and often professional devotees of the anthropomorphic arts, whether as cartoonists, costume designers, writers, or just plain fans.
The interest in blending human and animal characteristics "hearkens all the way back to the cave paintings, up through Disney," suggests Strom. And it's growing—attendance at FurCon has jumped 15 to 20 percent each year since the convention started in 1999.
FROM RED TO BLACK When Strom chaired the convention back in 2003 (when it was moved to the Doubletree after outgrowing its original venue) he introduced several unique elements. "I wanted it to be more than just a fan-run, volunteer convention—I wanted to run it like a business," he explains.
The former IBM project manager put his organizational skills to work and professionalized the gathering, adding dozens of educational workshops on writing, animation, music, drawing, painting, costume-making, and so on. He introduced theming (the first year's was Alice in Wonderland; this year it was ancient Egypt), "to make participants feel they've entered a different world." He even ran fiber optics from the hotel ballroom to an improvised TV studio on the tenth floor so that classes and events could be broadcast live, and rebroadcast into guest rooms via the in-house closed-circuit system.
Strom's efforts paid off: That year, FurCon turned a profit, something quite rare in the volunteer, fan-based convention world. The following year, the get-together earned $32,000 on a budget of just $50,000 (at presstime, more recent figures were not available). "We're one of the first anthropomorphic conventions to go from losing money to making money," boasts Strom. Rarer still, its books are completely open—anyone can go to the parent company's Web site (www.anthroarts.org) and look up what was spent on each budget line item.
OF MICE AND MEN One of the beauties of an all-volunteer organization is utilizing free local talent, says Strom: "The people who organize this convention run the gamut from unemployed couch potatoes to geneticists and nuclear physicists." He saves beaucoup bucks on audiovisual equipment, for instance, by relying on a member who donates his own gear (and stipulating in the hotel contract that FurCon won't use the in-house supplier). The drawbacks? Motivating people and maintaining their interest when they're not paid. To accomplish the latter, FurCon, which is a nonprofit organization, plows its proceeds into a summertime picnic and camping event, to reward volunteers and promote the convention.
To date, FurCon has also raised over $38,000 in charity money for organizations such as Therapy Pets, which trains animals to help people with physical and mental ailments. Even if Strom's attendees sometimes wear fur suits, those getups never obscure their human hearts.