A friend was part of the crew running operations for Motor City Fur Con, a furry convention. It looked like he was short of volunteers and he asked if I'd be willing to work a few hours for a free admission.

I've never been to a furry convention, so I thought this was a clever idea.

Then the volunteers poured in and he didn't need me after all.

But, it occurred to me that furry conventions attract the same sort of off-beat folks that SF conventions attract, so maybe they'd like my books.

So I headed to the hotel about noon on the first day of the convention. Nothing much will be happening yet, so this is a good time to get in and get out.

Just off the road was a big plywood "PARKING" sign pointing to the grassy area by the tennis courts. It was almost full of cars.

I took the hint and parked just two counties away from the hotel. I got the last spot in the overflow lot.

I knew furry conventions were large and popular, but I didn't expect one this large. Most folks don't show up at these things until after work on Friday, and this was already overfilling the overflow parking.

This early in the day, only about 1/4 of the attendees were in costume, which is still a lot of anthropomorphic animals to see walking around. Dog-like costumes, wolves and foxes, seem to be the most popular. Some masks are quite realistic, and others are very cartoony with big (fake) eyes and goofy grins.

I wandered around the public areas, feeling a little uneasy since I wasn't wearing a membership badge. One of the displays in the public halls was a 12x12 foot fenced in area filled with rabbits and baby goats. I wasn't sure if these were for sale, or it was a private petting zoo.

Given the number of wolf and fox personae, they might have been the lunch buffet.

I learned later that this was the convention's charity partner, the Pipsqueakery, a small animal rescue group.

Eventually I found a table with business cards and such on it and left a stack of bookmarks there.