Eurofurence 2014 at Berlin Germany

The SGFurs were at Eurofurence (EF) this year. EF is Europe’s premiere and largest furry convention. Held every year usually in the 3rd quarter of the calendar year, the convention is one of Europe’s finest, starting with its roots in Germany, and evolved into a roaming EU convention where it currently finds its place in Estrel hotel, Berlin Germany.

What makes this con special is that this is Eurofurence 20th anniversary, with the convention theme “Crime scene Berlin”. There were 3 guest of honours including Socal author Kyell Gold (known for his Out-Out-position novels), American illustrator and artist Ursula Vernon, fursuit acrobatic performer Sardyuon from Japan, and the crew from Sofawolf Press (a book publishing company). The convention ran from August 20-24, 2014 and saw a new record attendance with 2015 attendees. Berlin is a very affordable part of Europe, let be Germany, and is home to the Estrel Berlin- Germany’s largest hotel with 1,125 rooms and suites.

The Estrel is a big welcome to the growing premiere European convention. The entire hotel is themed to a crime scene. decked with police cars, no-crossing signs and the occasional chalk body outline. The hotel is highly accessible using Berlin’s U-Bahn/S-Bahns and is also very self-sufficient for food with five restaurants, three bars all located within the glass lobby of the hotel, with something catering to suit every taste and needs from Asian, French, western, etc. There is even a summer garden for guests to lounge in too.

Our fursuiters even found Eurofurence’s very own equivalent of their very own “Furnados” called the just outside the con hotel as well. The owner was so thrilled to have us he even opened up his beer garden for the fuzzies with complimentary shots of peach vodka.

The hotel is adjoined to the newly completed Estrel Congress & Messe Center, a space of 269,000 sqft convention center which is home to main convention activities, such as the Artshow, dealers den and art auction. The fursuit parade see fursuiters through the main convention space, dealers den and the front river side garden of the hotel where the group photo was taken.

You get dances (Fursuit Friendly Dance, Big Blue Dance, Dead dog party) every night of the convention, the dance competition was energetic and pure entertainment, with Japanese fur Seki, coming in champion. Other notable panels here includes Uncle Kage’s story hour, furry music cafe and the Charity concert staring Fox Amoore (keyboards), Amadhia (vocals) and Alex (violin). €21,081 was raised at the end of the convention for the con charity, going to bat conservation organisation Stiftung Fledermaus.

A staple of every Eurofurence convention will be the Pawpets show. Shown at this Eurfurence is the Pawpet show: 15 “Keepers of the Light”. It is an action adventure-comedy play and skit brought about through a live performance on-stage using hand-made hand puppets. Despite the show being notorious for never starting on time (the show this year had a 3 hour delay and wait), the show was professional and well put together with props, backgrounds and really well-made puppet, definitely a must-watch at any Eurofurence. Despite the long waits, con goers always find creative ways to keep themselves occupied in the queue lines.

The Motor furs meet up sees a gathering of Furry motor enthusiasts. Motor vehicles including cars, trucks and motorcycles here all belong to con-goers who drove all over Europe to attend the convention here.

Eurofurence is definitely of the top fur cons to attend, it still does not feel as large as Anthrocon as it has not lost its homely feel as Europe’s premiere furcon.

Check out more photos of Eurofurence here.

« ‹ of 7 › »