Furry conventions are known to be a place to showcase the arts, and those include dancing. Alongside fursuit parades, music performances, and raves, dance competitions are a staple of the modern furry convention experience. Let’s look at how they got so loved, with memories from two deeply involved furries: Anthrocon’s long-time competition host Ronnie Noodles, and Tommy Dino, a member of the dance community.
Two ways to please crowds
Fursuit dance performances have gone from a small part of the con experience, to centrally scheduled main event attractions. Main event rooms are filled with people sitting both in chairs and on the floor to see fursuiters show off their dance skills and hype up the audience. Anthrocon, for example, saw over 80 applicants in 2025, with an estimated attendance of around 1500-2000 for the event.
Many people hear about dancing and only think of shows where fursuiters perform on stage, but there’s more to it than that. There are two kinds of dance shows present at furry events: Dance competition and Dance Battles.
The annual Furry Studies academic conference is a multi-field brain-food buffet. Their first event launched in October 2024 as part of a furry arts festival in the Netherlands. It featured scholarship, presentations, and celebration for international authors, researchers, and fans. The second Furry Studies conference happened on Halloween 2025 in Tacoma, WA, and was also virtual to join from wherever you are. They will soon start planning for the 2026 conference. To get future info about how to attend, participate or collaborate, follow them here: https://furrystudies.org/
Here’s an interview about what the conference offers. Many presenters give academic talks about a variety of furry-centric topics. For Dogpatch Press, Patch and Zeldstarro discussed the event with key organizers Spaxe and Jack Newhorse, as well as Hazel, who is the director of gender, sexuality, and race studies at the 2025 host venue, Pacific Lutheran University.
