COVID-19 and Furries: June: Furcon cancellations fuel trend for online furry events

Chinese article – 点击这里查看中文报道

This month, 12 furcons from the Americas, Europe and Asia reported cancellations and postponements to next year, as the coronavirus continues to develop.

In the Americas, Canfurence, Golden State Fur Con, Denfur, Furrydelphia, Western PA Furry Weekend, Furry Migration, Furvana are canceled.

The same goes to Rusfurence, Furcation and Golden Leaves Con in Europe, as well as Fuzzy Oasis Party and West Aussie Fur Frenzy in Asia-Pacific. 

With 12 cancellations this month, we have a total of 71 globally, as well as 4 deferred and 24 still on plan.

As more furcons cancel, so does the increasing trend of online furry events as well. Previously we’ve seen online furcons such as Down Home Furcon and Furality Online Xperience, which has attracted much intrigue and created an odd yet unique experience over the weekends.

Events like these may be online and lack the physical part of furcons, but they still do not fail in creating and contributing positivity back to society, which I’ll now pass it over to the host of “Digging Up Positivity”, Thabo Meerkat.

The fact that these events live on the internet also means that they can be much more flexible as well, being able to go from something as simple as YouTube or Twitch streams to big ones like full-fledged Minecraft servers.

One of such online events was in fact held just last weekend; Fursaverance, South Africa’s first online furcon hosted by local furries. Held from 27 to 28 June, it was hosted on YouTube, featuring a variety of panels from creative workshops to tutorials on how to livestream and play games like D&D. Husky Rescue was their charity partner and they’ve donated a total of US$1,150 to them, a 1,150% increase from their expected count of US$100.

You can look forward to more online events coming up, here are some of them:

• Fuzzy Omegle Weekends, holding every Saturday and Sunday on Omegle
• NONSTOPWORLD, a Minecraft-based furcon, holding from July 18-19
• Furvana, moving online after cancellation for this year, Sept 18 on Discord

Online events may be inferior to physical cons in many ways, but in the end, they are sure to keep the furry spirit and paw-sitivity running by continuing to connect furries together for a floofy and fun weekend.