Even when we’re not running public events, it’s fun to do something different and see how people like it. House parties and meeting up with your friends can really be elevated into something memorable with just a little bit of humour and imagination.
To inspire you all, I’d like to vaguely reference a few of my own. All of these are real actual events I have either run myself or been invited to:
Furry Potluck
Sure you can have a potluck, where everyone brings their own dishes to share with eachother. You can even have a potluck with your furry friends, which is largely the same thing except someone might break out their full suit later on. Usually you just end up watching dashcam videos together in the living room.
If you really want to spice it up, why not make the potluck itself furry themed. Literally, each dish needs to have some kind of dumb furry twist. I have seen a boykisser shaped cake with my own eyes.
And if you’re going to do this please be more creative than me. ‘Furry Bread’ which uses slightly different sprinkles than fairy bread is clever for the wordplay but also will get you sentenced to death row by that one potluck lady on TikTok.
Charity Stream House Party
House parties are already great fun, but what if the DJ was also on stream, and random party guests were called on to do challenges in order to earn money for a local charity that tackles youth homelessness?
This has happened a few times, actually, and it’s been great fun every single time.
Animal Themed Pub Crawl
A classic, how do we make the pub crawl that happens at the fur con even more furry?
Why, we arbitrarily make it so that all of the bars and pubs are also animal themed. Don’t ask me how I know but there are at least 12 of these establishments in between the CBD and where Melbourne Furry Convention is held at the Bell Street Novatel in Preston.
The Raccoon Club and Tallboy And Moose are even walking distance from the hotel, if you wanted some starter ideas.
Fursuit Speedrun House Party
Do you ever find yourself looking at a fursuit and thinking “wow, I could do that way faster”? I haven’t either, but some people who did made me mad enough to design a diabolical challenge.
The fursuit speedrun house party was part actual house party (upstairs) and part fursuit workshop (downstairs) in which we cut and sewed as fast as we could to get a generously pre-designed suit together.
Did we manage it? Not quite. After a few hours most of us called it quits and went to go and enjoy the actual party happening upstairs. But we got very close, I believe we had a full set of paws and about 80% of the bodysuit done in the end.
Movie Premiere - Con Movie
Apparently I appear in a lot of footage that was taken with a digital handheld camera at Aurawra this year (I also have vague memories of also helping them as cameraperson at some points, you know how cons are) and, now that they have edited the footage together into a film, have just been invited to the private premiere party the filmmaker is hosting.
If you want to make an impact on someone, inviting that person to view a movie premiere that they unknowingly featured in will certainly do that.
I’d love to hear about your own strange and wonderful themed gatherings. You can submit them to the publication if you like, but like also you can just come up and tell me about them too.