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Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: parade

May 20, 2024

San Francisco Pride 2024 is coming, Northern California Furries need volunteers and funding

by Patch O'Furr

RSVP HERE to join the Norcal Furries in the 54th Annual San Francisco Pride Beacon of Love Parade.

On Sunday, June 30th, 2024, supporters for queer history and liberation will pack the city. It will be an amazing day for street fursuiting with a roaring crowd. Furries have over 20 years of fierceness in the parade, and last year we were runners-up for the Best Contingent award. This year we’re reaching even higher.

NEW private club party for furries!

For the first time, we have an entire club reserved for our own afterparty! The club can hold 400 and is walkable from the start and end of the parade.

Volunteers urgently needed, can you help? 

The NorCal Furries bring 100-200 members led by a small team of volunteers. We can’t do it without you. Volunteering is a good introduction for newcomers, and it’s low effort and just as fun in the parade. We need to keep asking until enough heroes raise their paws, and it has to happen early. Contacts below, PLEASE REACH OUT!

Can you help another way? DONATING IS LOVE.

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June 16, 2017

The Bay Area Furries return to San Francisco Pride with an amazing spectacle.

by Patch O'Furr

A Burning Man art car will carry furries in the SF Pride parade… If a few furs step up to volunteer as safety monitors.

Just a few more are needed to qualify. Time is short to make it happen on 6/25/17.  See info below and ACT NOW!  

Here’s some cool art cars at Burning Man, and even more here. (Those are NOT FOR THE PARADE, the car will be a surprise.)

Furries are ready for a better parade than ever before.  They got involved around 2002-2004, and returned with a float in 2014-2015, but relaxed with just a booth in 2016.  The time is right for a big comeback. Before now they used plain rental trucks, but even modest effort got amazing feedback for putting 50+ members in front of crowds and media.  (Take a look back at fursuiting in 2012, a float in 2015, and much more on the Pride tag.)

Capri, a fabulous transgender dragon, sent this memory:

In the last year we did the parade, I met a great friend who helped me to start transition.  I managed to walk the entire way in fursuit, a feat I am quite proud of. I still use that video to show off my suit.  I also really enjoyed passing by the judges and having one of them say awesome words of kindness to me.  We went to a Korean barbeque place afterwords and mistakenly thought it was all you can eat. (Patch): sorry, I confused it with a different place I was at once before… (Capri): It was fine, I should be the sorry one, you took care of it and the bill was pretty staggering.

That’s the positive vibe that furries bring to Pride.  But there’s an important ingredient they need to make it happen.

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September 14, 2015

A chat with Uncle Kage about Anthrocon’s amazing achievements in 2015.

by Patch O'Furr

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This year, it seems like more great press attention went to Anthrocon than ever before.  Take a look!  (Here’s everything I could find in July.)

Why was there rising attention?  One of the big reasons was the fursuit parade.  For the first time in an almost two-decade history, the con took an amazing spectacle seen in private out to a public street.  A lot of the locals must wonder what goes on behind the doors of the con.  Getting to see it drew an enthusiastic crowd of “normals” almost as large as the convention itself.  Apart from the furry/crowd interaction, this was a big deal because of all the logistics and relationship building behind the scenes.  It promises great things to come.

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August 11, 2015

Silicon Valley Pride invites furs – Fangcon makes history with Pride parade sponsorship.

by Patch O'Furr

“Furry Pride” is redundant when you’re a talking animal.  There’s no way you can’t strut your stuff, turn heads and light up a crowd with smiles.  But when furries AT Pride join other groups with a bigger mission, it puts the magic where it most belongs – in a fabulous show – and makes a good cause better.

Furries invited for August 30, 2015:

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Tip from Neonbunny, builder of influential events like Frolic:

“Silicon Valley Pride has reached out to me as they would love to have fursuiters at the pride festival, August 30th.  They will have a changing tent available, and can offer free admission for suiters that RSVP in advance.

The other person who they reached out to, who’s coordinating things right now, is Lani B.  She’s pretty active in the South Bay cosplay scene, and they’ve reached out to her to get cosplayers to go as well. (Anime/comic type costuming stuff).  Her email is dynamiccosplaycouple@gmail.com and she’s on facebook here.

This is the link for the pride event, and Lani has also created a facebook page to get cosplayers motivated to go (and hopefully fursuiters as well.) If anyone is interested in coordinating fursuiters for this, please get in touch!” – NeonBunny

The San Francisco Pride parade may be the premiere event for LGBT culture.  It’s popular among the SF Bay Area Furries, so in 2015, their show-stealing presence in front of a million viewers made a standout event for the whole furry subculture. But it was far from the only one.  (Expect a chat soon with Uncle Kage, about Anthrocon’s awesome accomplishments in 2015.)  In fact, theirs wasn’t even the only Furry statement at Pride events around the world.  Competition came from an unexpected place – Knoxville, Tennessee. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 20, 2015

Anthrocon Anthrocon Anthrocon! Fluffsplosion of hype. NEWSDUMP (7/20/15)

by Patch O'Furr

Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com. 

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Guest posts welcome. “Local correspondents” wanted to talk about your local networks.  

This week’s Newsdump: Everything Anthrocon!  There was SO MUCH of this news, and it was such a busy month, that I will be playing catch-up for a while with it… I’m not able to read all of these links.  Good job catching all this attention, AC!  Has there ever been this much?  Some of it is national (the Onion A.V. Club and NPR notice seems particularly cool.) It was quite a coup to parade outside on the Pittsburgh street for the first time.  5,000 regular public watchers came out to see the furries, and they went nuts for it.  I hope the crowd doubles in the future.  I’d love to interview Uncle Kage about the planning and reception. (Official Anthrocon wrapup report.)

Onion A.V. Club: Watch almost 1500 furries strut their stuff at this year’s Anthrocon.

The official count of members in the Anthrocon 2015 Fursuit Parade Group Photo is 1,460.  This reminded me of a neat aspect of the con.  All that show value!  These costumes represent so much investment… we could do a few estimates to figure out how much.  In a previous post, “$3 million sale raises furry auction topic”, I came up with an arbitrary $2,320.51 per fursuit represented in Anthrocon’s parade.  Multiply by the count of 1,460 members this year to reach a (rough guesstimate) value of $3,387,944.60 in fursuits.

NPR: The Furries Have Landed — And Pittsburgh Is Giving Them A Bear Hug.

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July 13, 2015

If you visit New Orleans, see the anthropomorphic sculptures at Mardi Gras World.

by Patch O'Furr

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New Orleans is a renowned party town.  In the French Quarter, on Bourbon Street, you can get potent drinks like a Hand Grenade or a Resurrection in to-go cups, and walk around the neighborhood as boldly as you dare.  A walk into some of the restaurants can make you sneeze, because the crawfish boils have so much seasoning, that it pervades the air like a whiff of pepper spray at a crime scene.  Signs on murkier streets warn you to walk with friends, and be vigilant.  Petty crime seems taken for granted in a place scarred by hurricane Katrina a decade ago.  People party to forget woes or live life to the fullest with reminders of mortality all around. (At least that’s an excuse for barfing out the door of a taxi.)  There’s many stories about long ago lives held in above-ground mausoleums of famous cemetaries.  A tour is a nice calm way to walk off too many drinks, even if guides will tell you any kind of silly ghost story for tourist bucks.

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July 6, 2015

San Francisco Pride, gay marriage, and historic happenings in Furry Mecca.

by Patch O'Furr

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Billet Sheltie – pic by Eric Campbell.

Gay marriage just became legal across the USA.  Even if you have no plan to get one, it’s a big deal.  People of a few generations ago thought we’d have flying cars before this happened.  The writer of “Furry Force” says:

In San Francisco, the news hit right at “gay christmas”.  The city was getting ready for Pride, “the largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the nation.”

It was already going to be one whopper of a party. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry fresh off the presses, Sunday’s Pride Parade in San Francisco became a rainbow-colored, joyous celebration for the ages.

The whole country was involved. The Chief of Police called it “the largest Pride celebration ever.”  Being mainstream was a big topic. On a subcultural level, the excitement spread among “the world’s greatest concentration of furries per square mile.” Furries were in the parade in 2005, returning in 2014 and 2015.

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Pic by Vincent

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December 7, 2014

Hazmat Party Foul, $3 Million Fursuit, Parades, Hugs, Tickling… Newsdump (12/8/14)

by Patch O'Furr

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Story tips are always welcome.

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In the Media

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Midwest Fur Fest evacuated by chemical spill. Fursuiters: stick to good old fashioned rug cleaner! 

Initial report: Chemical leak prompts evacuation during Midwest FurFest at Rosemont Hyatt.

Several people could be seen in animal costumes waiting outside of the hotel. Ambulances from area suburbs were on scene helping transport people.

More: Glass Jar with White Substance, Strong Chlorine Smell Causes Firefighter, EMS Hazmat Response, Evacuation. Man, that’s a hell of a party foul.


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July 2, 2014

Making a successful Furry float for San Francisco Pride 2014

by Patch O'Furr

(Video from SFPride/Clear Channel. Unedited here at 2:36:00 – may be NSFW.)

Bay Area Furries brought the first Furry float to SF Pride since 2004 or so. I estimate 50 at the parade (with 20 or more fursuiters), plus 20 or more at attached Pride events we held. We carried out a long-time wish to be in the parade after two years of informal Pride meets.

Setting aside the reason for Pride, here’s stuff I learned about fursuiting – a request for help with contributing photos/videos – and a no-expectation hint that donations would be loved to cover costs (but really, the $1000 budget was a gift.) Read the rest of this entry »

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