Anthro New England Celebrates Ten Years

Anthro New England, or ANE, held its tenth annual convention, and its ninth in-person one, at the Westin Boston Seaport District hotel in Boston, Massachusetts in mid January. The convention was sandwiched between the Hanover Insurance Group’s National Sales Meeting (ended Thursday) and a MathWorks event (Monday onwards).

Charities for the Year

Over 5,700 furries attended the convention, a jump of nearly 1,300 since last year, according to numbers provided by the convention. More than $40,000 was raised for the two charities: New Hampshire-based animal rehabilitation Wings of the Dawn Bird Sanctuary, and Queer Scouts, an LGBTQ-focussed Scouts-like camp in western Massachusetts. Both charities were incredibly thrilled with the convention.

This was the second year for Wings, a small charity from a town an 80 minute drive to downtown Boston. “It’s such a warm, wonderful event,” Maria Colby, the director of Wings, told me while holding a great horned owl that Wings rescued. “Everybody’s been so respectful” towards him, she added. Much of the $20,000 donated will go to food and housing, Colby informed me in the dealer’s den. Nearby was the charity’s booth, with greeting cards that could be bought with a donation. In addition, several ANE staffers volunteered at Wings, who spent a day cleaning cages last year. None of the volunteers at Wings are paid.

Queer Scouts Troop #5, a chapter-based organization, had its first year at ANE, as the second charity. “Honestly it’s been an incredible experience,” said Perry Livingston, board member of Queer Scouts. “Everyone’s super friendly and kind, and I’m learning a lot. My kid’s been having a good time as well,” she added. She didn’t know much about furries before ANE reached out to the charity. “And now your kid is wearing a tail,” I remarked. “And now my kid is wearing a tail,” Livingston repeated, before laughing. “We have a laundry list of accessibility equipment that we’re going to buy,” and plan to create a Junior version of Queer Scouts for kids, with donations. “We’re really trying to fill a need that we really think—and know—is there in the community.”

I spoke with Kris Critter a.k.a. Floebean, head of charity, about the charity department. Kris, who uses they/them pronouns, is an expecting parent, due midyear. Kris’ protege, Bee Bunsen-Buckley, will be taking over for 2026. “The charity auction raised a lot of money this year,” Kris told me. “I think we raised over 10k just in the auction, which is the most I’ve seen it raise. I’m really happy about that.” Kris, starting in charity in 2022, added that one of their goals is to make the items in the charity auction rotation predictable.

Both charities run staggered in three-year cycles. ANE aims for one human-focussed charity, and one animal-focussed charity. Wings will have their third and final year next year, and Queer Scouts will leave after 2027. “Basically every year, people in the con just send me recommendations for organizations that they know about,” Kris told me. Then, Kris digs in and researches the proposed charities, before presenting their findings to the board, who then votes on them.

Anthro New England 2025's guests of honor (left to right): tattoo artist Jaystor; digital artist GodBirdArt; and musician NonstopPup.

Handling continued growth

With an attendance of more than 5,000 and increasing every year, the convention has to contend with ever-increasing lines. From elevators to registration, dealer’s den to night market, lines are a fact of life.
Thursday night’s registration line was long, stretching from one side of the hotel to the other, even traversing a set of escalators. General attendees started lining up more than an hour before registration opened, and, by the time it opened, stretched past the main atrium, past the check-in counters, and down the escalators to the Grand Ballroom. (Sponsors and above had a separate, unmarked line.)

A woman named Marshmallow leads those lines, with approximately a dozen staff under her in the safety department. “One of the major differences this year from last year is that we have a lot more staffers.” In previous years, she told me, only when the elevator line got lengthy enough did staffers swoop in to corral people. “We’re fully-staffing the elevator line this year” around the clock. “Last year we didn’t realize that it was a thing that needed more control.” In addition, last year was her first year managing lines. This year came with the lessons learned from then.

The line to the elevators at times was non-existent, and at others wrapped so far it passed through a badge checkpoint to get to panel rooms. What made the elevators to the rooms an inherent challenge in the past is that there were no stairs that let hotel guests in from the lobby. Previously, “from coming down, those are all fire escape doors. And the hotel [didn’t] want us using them,” Marshmallow said. “People were picking up the boxes of rat poison and using them” as door stops, much to the annoyance of the hotel staff. Instead of taking the stairs, guests had been forced to take an elevator even if they were able to walk to or from their rooms.

“The Westin does listen,” WordGuru, co-head of operations told me. “Prior years the stairwells were originally designated for emergency use only. This year they did actually open up one of the stairwells,” unexpectedly. “We actually found out that they had opened it up Thursday, so we actually hadn’t made any signage.” Then, on Friday, the Westin unlocked the rest of them. (Marshmallow says the Westin was more begrudging, telling me that this happened at a slow pace.

Thursday night's registration line stretched throughout the hotel.

Marshmallow was very pleased with how the Thursday evening registration line went. Staffers had been placed at various points in the lobby to keep attendees from blocking crucial areas during the registration, like escalators and the check-in desk. The line was kept tight and straight. This year, rather than having a single line that split higher-tier attendees once in the Harbor Ballroom,  there were two lines from the start.

Perhaps the biggest difference between last year and this year with the convention’s lines was now giving out green wristbands at registration, rather than checking IDs in 18+ zones. Last year, staffers trialed a system for scanning IDs at the night market and only gave out wristbands then. This change removed the labor-intensive bottleneck that likely granted more privacy to attendees, too.

Barring another pandemic, the convention is set to grow above 6,000 attendees next year. “We do expect that, based on prior projections, we are probably going to see another similarly large attendance increase,” Word said. At the peak of the registration line length, I noticed that there was little additional room to line up safely. Attendees might be turned away or told to line up outside if another solution isn’t found to deal with the sheer volume of Thursday night registrations. “I’m looking forward to next year,” Marshmallow said. “I have a lot of ideas and a lot of feedback already, and I think working with all of that I will be able to find a happy medium” in the convention. Word is also confident that all departments are up for the job.

Marshmallow’s duties go as far as the door to registration. After that, Fital, the new director of registration, takes over. Fital (sounds like “vital”) has been in registration since 2022, when he started as a staffer there. “With what data we do have, we knocked it out of the park. In terms of our throughput and efficiency, the time it took” from check-in to retrieve their badge “was about a minute,” Fital told me. This year, “we changed the entire process from everything happening at one station,” to a pipeline with three different areas. Rather than one line of booths where people would check in and get their badge and merch, those steps were separated to be more streamlined. Attendees would check in at one of the ten booths with their ID, and go to a second line that had their badges. Throughput peaked late Thursday night, with 140 people being registered in a 15-minute window, according to data provided to me by Fital.

Almost thirty staffers worked to check attendees in at the three tables. This also includes Wes, a board member of the convention and the person who built the registration software in-house. “Wes is, like, the convention,” Fital said. “If we did not have Wes, there would be no ANE.”

Fital wants to open the registration line early next year for sponsors and above. He also hopes to be able to acquire the room earlier in the evening, to allow opening registration sooner and to be better prepared for the crowds. Mostly, the process is to remain the same as this year; only minor rearrangements to check-in. A big limitation in adding more check-in booths, Fital told me, is the amount of Chromebooks they have, and, as usual, the amount of staff on-hand. He wants to add eight more people to his team at registration for next year.

“We hope that other conventions take note of our system and implement it in a way that they can,” Fital said, adding, “we always strive to be the best convention that we can be, and it’s always in our best interest” to be that way. “I just think that we are on the bleeding-edge of innovation” compared to other conventions.

COVID Safe Furs set up a table in the Westin lobby

Vaccination policies and accessibility

ANE is the largest convention to still require vaccinations and that masks be worn inside convention spaces to slow the spread of airborne viruses. The policy, introduced in 2022, is part of a fading approach to public health: taking preventative measures. Attendees continue to closely follow it. The setting makes it ideal for respiratory diseases to spread: a cold, dry January with thousands of people from very far away coming into close quarters.

Correction: 2024 was the last year proof of vaccination was required

Surgical face masks have been provided every year to attendees since the policy was implemented. COVID Safe Furs, an organization advocating for COVID safety and education, visited the lobby Thursday night with higher-quality ones. On their table, free N95 masks; stacked in a tower were free COVID rapid tests.

COVID Safe Furs started in early 2023, and have gone to other conventions out west. “I kinda just realized that there were a lot of other furries out there who still cared about COVID, still were trying to wear a mask and protect each other,” said Yatchi, the founder of the organization. With his friend Juni, Yatchi has been hosting panels at most of the conventions COVID Safe Furs has attended, educating furries on the virus.

Relatedly, the convention takes accessibility fairly seriously. Both the opening and closing ceremonies had a sign language interpreter on stage, as they had for the past few years. These interpreters are made available to panelists, but only four panels took advantage. The convention also provides silent, dark destimulation rooms, tucked away far from all the noise and foot traffic.

ANE went off without any major disturbances, though there was a person who was chased out by several staffers Sunday night, and a non-attendee who, in two separate incidents, dressed up in a Sean “P Diddy” Combs costume and brought a MAGA flag. (Anthro New England declined to comment on these cases, citing legal issues.) Perhaps the biggest thing to happen this year really happened last spring when RemyGryph was removed from being the convention chair without explanation.

RemyGryph, the former convention president and chair, in 2023

A changing of staff after 2024

Remy, who uses they/them pronouns, had been volunteering since the first convention, in 2015, and became a member of the board in 2018. Starting in 2021, they were elected chairperson and president. They remained in the position of chair and president up through ANE 2024 until the roles were split. The roles of chair and president up until then were held by the same person, but, as the convention grew, Remy told me they suggested the two positions would be given to different people. Right after the 2024 convention, the board elected then-head of safety, Kat, to be the president of the convention, with Remy remaining chairperson.

Three months later, right after Furry Weekend Atlanta in early May, artist and 2023 guest of honor HearthFox began describing on Twitter a negative experience with an ANE staffer. Hearth, who also uses they/them pronouns, alleged that they were “insulted and antagonized by a member of staff and nothing was done,” despite having “volunteered with ANE since the beginning”. Remy declined to remove the staffer, and the board dismissed this incident, according to Remy.

“Being GoH and then cut loose the same year kind of ruined the whole GoH experience,” Hearth tweeted. “It made it feel fake. It's [sic] made me feel so alone and outcast. It's only recently I've learned I'm not the only one that's been hurt by these folks.” Their attention then turned to subtweeting Remy—a term for referencing a person without naming them specifically. Hearth alleged systematic covering up of staff behavior at the convention. They also alluded to a “missing stair,” referring to someone who is an internal obstacle—a comment Remy believes was directed at them.

Hearth began to solicit testimonials on Twitter about Remy specifically, which was sent to the board. In two statements made to ANE’s Twitter account two days apart, the convention first acknowledged allegations to unnamed members, before announcing Remy and their partner Scales, then-head of events, for unspecified reasons. In their stead, Remy was replaced with interim co-chairs Flinterstuff and Atlas, a.k.a PolarisWoof, who both had been in ANE’s media department for several years. Anthro New England declined to comment on why Remy had been removed, citing privacy concerns.

Hearth declined to answer specific questions or share the original document given to the board, citing fear of retaliation for themself and protecting the privacy of those alleging misconduct. “All I can say is that the con chair and their partner abused their status and made decisions about who they thought should be welcome in the community without asking the board,” Hearth told me in a direct message. “They are highly petty and vindictive people who hang onto grudges and rely on their friends to bully people in private and hide their abusive behavior. All of that caught up to them.”

Separately, an August document was shared publicly, which Remy tells me is a “pared-down” version of the document sent to the board. (The compiler did not respond to a request for comment through the email listed in the document.) Remy denies the allegations or conclusions made in both sets of testimonies.