NYC FurMeets: November in Review
- Eberra
- 7 days ago
- 4 min read
Written by Eberra
NYC FurMeets held its six events across four days in November, so let’s recap it.
During Halloween weekend at Furpocalypse, the team held a panel on Sunday the 2nd. In it, they told the story of how the organization came to be. Starting as a group of friends who wanted to walk around the Big Apple in their fursuits, they wanted to turn it into a regular thing open to the furries of the greater New York City metro. (Ten people showed up to the first, this February. The next month had 70.) The group of organizers expanded, and so did the scope: FurFeast, FurFlix, FurBar.
The panel was for helping others across the country to start up their own furmeets. Tip: create a “run of show” document detailing what will happen, and go to the place yourself to do a test run. It was taped, but the video is yet to be uploaded. (There was also a panel later in the day, presented by a New Hampshire fur named Fast-Fox, who covered different aspects and tips of creating a local furmeet.)
Right afterward, the group did a celebratory ride on the Metro North rail line, from Stamford to New Canaan.
Weeks later—a long gap between events—was the sixth FurBar, returning to Alewife Brewing in Sunnyside, Queens (the first time a FurBar has returned to a previous location).
Two days later was the combined FurRide and FurWalk in upper Manhattan. The FurRide, on the A train at 59th St-Columbus Circle to 190th St, took furs up to where the FurWalk was to begin, at Margaret Corbin Circle. A chilly and windy day out, furs walked around Fort Tryon Park, played frisbee, and ended the walk on a pier near Inwood Hill Park. (Really, it was freezing out.)
Then just a few days ago, furries saw Zootopia 2 at the AMC on 34th St., and had dinner at the nearby Skylight Diner. The response to the sequel, judging from the chat, was overwhelmingly positive. (I didn’t go because I was out-of-state with FAMILY.)
There will be only one more NYC FurMeet event in December: FurRide 6, which will be on a special holiday train ride in Manhattan. The month will be dedicated to planning for next year and making the events better. Please give them your feedback from this year, and please tag fursuiters on FurTrack! Really, go through the photos of the FurWalk and FurRide and tag yourself. I like seeing myself; we’re all so vain.
What does this community mean to you?
At this FurWalk in Fort Tryon, I asked a few people what this community means to them. Talking with people at previous walks, furs really like these events. Here are some things people said about the furmeets that day:
"It’s a lot less lonely..."
"It definitely has made me more confident about just openly being a furry..."
“I go to these groups just for fun, chatting with people, meeting people,” said Blue Tinge. “At first it was just like, I wanted a social group. Like, an in-person thing. And now that I’m here, I know so many of the people here. It’s like a cool hangout I get to see people [at].” He added that “it’s not just meeting a bunch of friends, but also meeting a bunch of people who can do different things. It’s a good network to know who can do what around you.”
“It’s just nice to have a community who’s not focused on—especially in these days with social media being what it is—people who are just focused on hanging out and having fun,” Inkjet/B0lt told me. “I think that’s what I get the most out of it.”
“Definitely it’s a lot less lonely,” 10art1 said. “I was going to a lot of conventions, I was going to a lot of New Jersey and New England mini-meetups as well…because there was nothing to do in New York City. And now that there’s stuff to do in New York City, it’s like, Wow I don’t have to go to nine conventions a year anymore, I can just chill out on that.”
“I’ve made a lot of friends here, from the meets,” Spexy Trexy said. “It definitely has made me more confident about just openly being a furry. … A large percent of my friends are not furrries, and I guess one thing was like…saying that I’m a furry to them was a really big—it’s kind of like coming out as gay.” He said that people have been cool about him coming out as a furry.
“I think it’s been amazing so far,” Heka Otter (pictured above) told me. “It’s almost like getting the experience of VRChat in real life. You have your furry community on there, and so many people are scattered across the country that you wish you could hang out with. And this is basically the experience where you get to be with the people in real life that you want to actually hang around and can relate to.”
Thank you to those who talked to me, and happy holidays. 🎄
Note from the Mayor:
Many thanks to Eberra for contributing to our NYC FurMeets blog postings! We want to post a lot more going forward, and a big part of our upcoming monthly blog series will be featuring the voices of our wonderful community! Your feedback and your thoughts are greatly valued; they help us make sure our events are as fun and memorable as possible. See you at the next meet. 🧡