All About Megaplex ft. Astra

Furconnaissance Episode 1  | All About Megaplex ft. @astra.the.kitty, hosted by Jaktmfd & @scruffracc #podcast #furryfandom #vrcfurry #fursuiter #furry

Music by Pawsbutton
Consulting Producer: @Sawdeye

Results from Last Episode's Cons:

Eufuria - 1191 - Jak's Guess of 1150 was closer
AWU - 2884 - Scruff's Guess of 3000 was closer
Furrydelphia - 4610 - Scruff's Guess of 4300 was closer

Score is 2-1 Scruff going into this episode

Photo Credit:
Picture with Telephone: @jaggerfrost_
Picture Solo: @mysticchaiphoto
Picture With mavthewolf: Shaeliseroth on furtrack

Deferring to @Rorschach.fox's take on the community rooms, we don't believe it's going to have a major impact on anything quantitative such as con attendance figures.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DbEuB86zC22/

You're listening to Furconnaissance! A new podcast all about furry conventions, trends, analytics, and the fandom at large, hosted by Jak and @scruffracc. Episode zero, the pilot episode if you will, delves into three upcoming conventions in the furry fandom.

Find both hosts on Tiktok, IG, and YT Shorts at the following handles:

Jak: @Jaktmfd on all platforms
Scruff: 
YT: @Scruffraccoon
Tiktok: @scruffracc
Instagram: @scruff_racc

Special thanks to @Sawdeye, consulting producer and Paws Button for the opening/closing theme of the show!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between, welcome to FurConnaissance, the podcast where we talk about everything FurCon and the Free Phantom as a whole. My name is Jack, joined by my co-host, my partner in crime here, Scruff. Scruff, how's your day going? It's going really well. Excellent, excellent. Well, we're obviously you can tell based on the the purple cat sitting right next to me that we've got a very special guest today. But before we get to that, I just have to touch on a couple of housekeeping items. Most notably the results from the first con that we talked about on our last episode, which was the Euphoria fur con that took place in Albany, New York. That one came in. The original number that was that was reported for that con, they came in and they said it was 1,194 people in attendance. So by that tentative number, you could say my guess was close or whatever. I think the bigger takeaway here is that both of us were within margin of error on actually guessing the correct figure of attendance, which I thought was really cool. But they also came out and said that it was about 1200, and WikiFur is not updated with that correct number. So that might be subject to change, but for now, our little score here, haha, is 1-0 Jack over Scrub.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yes, Jack One.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, well whoopy do. Well, maybe. They're still counting. But anyway, originally we were gonna have a couple cons to talk about today, but we realized Nugaplex kind of deserves its own show. It's the fourth biggest con by attendance. It's based down in Florida, and it's honestly the one that people get hot for. So we figured who would be a great guest to have about that? Well, honestly, I couldn't think of anybody better in this case than Astra, which you see right next to me. So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, sir? Tell us about yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:50

Meow meow. Hello, thank you, thank you, Jack. Hi everyone, my name's sorry. Um hey everybody! Oh god. Anyway, uh hi, my name is Astra. I'm a content creator in the furry fandom. I make short-form little interviews that people can follow me on all my fun social pages on TikTok and Instagram and all that fun stuff. I also bend at Dealer's Den at the four biggest conventions, and I staff for both Megaplex and AnthroCon. So anything about furricons, about data, about running them behind the scenes, about being guest of honor at some of the smaller ones, I'm your cat and I'd love to answer your questions and have some fun chats because this is I love just watching how the furry fandom grows and how certain changes affect certain cons and how some cons do things right, some do some things not so well. So I I I would love to talk about this. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Thank you so much for being here. I just can't believe that you're actually sitting here because like when I I've been in a Phantom since '95, but I reactivated last year like really in depth. And actually, one of your videos is the reason why I have the tattoo that I have. You actually were interviewing people you were interviewing people, I forget which con it was at, but you were interviewing people asking them, Do your parents know that you're a furry? And the second being that you interviewed was said, Well, yeah, me and my mom have matching tattoos. It was Blaze. And so there was like then you kind of you know zoomed in on it. I actually have a screenshot of that, which is what I actually gave to the tattoo artist.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Really? Okay, so so that con was that was Fernal Equinox of 2025, and that was the first time I asked that question to a friend, and that actually is one of my most popular videos. I want to say that's like number three or number four. So it actually spawned a lot of good friendships. Like in the beginning, uh, a very good friend of mine, her name is Riley. Her her hook was sadly, but yes, which oh man, that was like the best talk I could ever ask for anybody. And because of that, I started DMing her, and we're amazing friends. But yeah, so that I know exactly who you're talking about with the little paw print and the the rainbow. Ah, I love that video a lot. That's a good one. That's such a good story. Oh, I love that scruff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So, kind of to tie you in to give everybody an idea of what your general experience is, obviously, you're one of the you're you're kind of on the Mount Rushmore of the fandom at this point in time. You're very closing in very close on your silver play button, by the way. I saw that. Congratulations in advance. Thank you. Over on over on YouTube, yeah. And then on top of that, I know you were saying you you're you have your own merch line, you're vending at cons, obviously you're a content creator, you're first suiting everywhere. My main question is of all the things that you're that you kind of do at once at one con, whether it's staffing, vending, not necessarily what's the most fun, because I mean, first suiting, that's like a cheap cheat answer, right? But what are you getting the most satisfaction from? Like, what do you think, like, okay, this is if I can only do one thing for the rest of my life, at least I feel like my purpose is really fulfilled doing this.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Ooh, ooh, that's a gr that's a really good question, actually. See, oh, I like that a lot. For that, I would have to say would just be filming content at cons. It's it's gotten to the point now where the biggest change I would say when when I first started filming my little silly interviews versus now is before I had to find people that were looked in the cool fursuits or had cool jobs, or even like send cold DMs and hope they answered me, like, hey, I know you're big in the fandom for doing, you know, fashion or even vending or making fursuits. Can I please interview you at cons? But now people approach me and I don't have to do that. So when it comes to that, and then people that tell me they joined the fandom because of my videos, or I showed my mom your videos and she now accepts me for for who I am as a furry, or you know, I flew all the way to Megaplex from Brazil just to meet you. It's like, Jesus, that's that's impactful, but hell yeah, let's let's go. So I love that. So definitely vending is a lot of fun because A, it helps me pay for all the cons I go to and just actually have a dedicated point to meet people. And also staffing is a lot of fun too. But I would say, like I said, yeah, filming content is is the best thing, in my opinion, that I like a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah, absolutely. And so, like, I know you've already touched on this in other places, but I'll rehash this one just in case. How do you exactly get into staffing for both Megaplex and Anthrocon? Because that seems like that you you don't just apply for something like that, I assume.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Well, you can. So there's there's the way that most people join staff, and then there's the way that I joined staff, because there's an interesting story with that one. So most people, the way they join staff is you start by volunteering. You give a few hours of your con up to help them out with certain things. And when people think staffing, they think, oh, I'm gonna be stuck behind the registration table all con and not gonna have any fun, or I'm gonna be, you know, wearing a safety vest and just standing in one spot for the dehydrated person to ask me where the water is. Furthest from the truth, there's a almost, I would say more than half of jobs that happen at a con or staffing needs to happen before the con or after the con. That's where the biggest lift comes from. Me, I'm on social media and PR for both Megaplex and Anthrocon, and also on public outreach for Anthrocon. And so, like most people, they start by volunteering, they give a few of their hours to something, either like I said, during the con or after the con. And then if you do it enough, you meet the right amount of people and they offer you to be a staffer, which comes with its own really, really nice perks, such as you know, priority at the hotel block. Some of you might get discounts, you get free meals, you get really cool merch, and you get to skip lines, stuff like that. My story's different. So, Megaplex of 2025. I was ready to go, just like normal. I was ready to film my interviews and have a great time. And then a few days before the con, I noticed they may have sent out a tweet that essentially said, Hey everyone, just a reminder: due to Megaplex's media policy this year, nobody is allowed to film interviews at the con, no exception. And I'm like, Oh, well, that's a problem because that's my bread and butter. I I normally, you know, need Megaplex to film interviews because I stick to a posting schedule of two interviews every single week, and it's my break between AnthroCon and MFF. So therefore I need to get that content in. Also, I'll be at a con, people are gonna ask me for an interview, and I don't want to tell, you know, a hundred plus of them, sorry, I can't. So I DM'd my good friend Nero and said, Hey, what's up? And they told me that because of issues they've had in the past where like Twitch streamers were infiltrating the con and people were harassing others through interviews, they did not want to take the time to develop a media policy that other cons like AnthroCon have, they didn't have enough time or the resources for it. So therefore, as a whole big blanket, no interviews allowed. And I'm like, that sucks, but okay, I understand. And then I asked him, I said, is that it? And he's like, Well, there is an option. I said, What is only more? He told me that there is an opening that they need some help with the social media and the PR team, and if I wanted to join staff, they would allow me to be the sole person in all of Megaplex to film interviews. And I'm like, okay, never staffed a con. I already vend, I film my content, but you know what? Let's add more to this plate. There's plenty of room on there. So I joined. I helped them with what they needed, I helped make social media posts, I helped get the word out for certain things, I helped make press releases, all that fun stuff. And then on the Thursday of Megaplex that year, the the Thursday before the con, they literally had a staff meeting a Thursday afternoon where they had me get on stage and said, Hey everyone, every staff member of Megaplex, nobody in the con is allowed to film interviews. You see anyone filming, shut it down immediately except this guy. And I'm like, oh Jesus Christ. So that happened. And then at the end of Megaplex, uh, my lead, who's a good guy named KP, uh, shout out to KP, said, Hey, Astra, I wanted to ask you something. You did such a good job here at Megaplex. We could use you over at Anthrocon. Do you want a staff there too? And Anthrocon, they allow interviews if you apply ahead of time. I've already applied and gotten media passes the years prior, whatever. And I'm like, Well, I don't really know. I'm not too sure. I'm kind of busy. And he said, You know that if you get in the staff block, you don't have to pay to get silver sponsor for registrar to get main hotel. And I'm like, sold. So so uh for those out there, if you Anthrocon, if you're not in the main hotel, it's very inconvenient if you're not a fursuiter. And to get in the main hotel, typically it's a lot easier if you're a silver sponsor, which is $350. So I will be very happy to not pay that. And also it's nice just giving back to the con as well. So that also and the perks it comes with, and being able to be part of a great team with OC and other also KP. So that is how I got voluntold to be staff at Anthrocon.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

That's amazing. Yeah. And now what's what's funny is that that was what, just three years after you first even joined the fandom.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

For the most part, yeah. So I joined the fandom in Megaplex of 2022 when I was dragged there against my will, and I became staff at both of them in that was, yeah, that was last year. So that was 2025. Yeah. So three years.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

That's amazing. So kind of as we've as we've pointed, as we pointed out in the last time, and we get we gave people in our first episode zero kind of mine and Jack's background as to why they should be listening. So obviously, I think it's pretty obvious why also having Aster here is an expert really on cons. How many cons did you go to last year?

SPEAKER_03 10:44

So well, this year I'm doing nine. So Megaplex will be my eight of nine and MFF will be my nine of nine. And then the year before that, I want to say I did six, I think. So I'm in the high 20s, low 30s right now of total cons been to since Megaplex of 22.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, that's definitely number is pretty high, but it's not it's not that high in fur cons because that mine are all like PAX East, PAX West, Twitch Con, that sort of thing. Because I'm anime cons. If I did, I'd be even higher. Those are not they're not quite anime, they're like gamer con they're like gamer side cons more than anything else. I used to do Twitch under a different name, but anyway, uh Scruff, you were saying, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Oh no, I was just saying, so we obviously were talking about Megaplex. And so one of the things we did not talk about last time with any of the cons was really any kind of analysis or evaluation about who they're the guests of honor are. Yes. And so we have Paleo Games coming in. Uh, we've got the dinosaur theme, obviously, that's going on this year at Megaplex 2026. So, and I'm probably gonna butcher these names and I apologize, but we've got Dr. Nathan Barling and Dr. Michael Sullivan. This is an England and Ireland-based paleontologist each respectively. And they are co-creators of a tabletop DD. I I don't know much about DD, so you're gonna tell my appearance.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So they they host a lot of or they they posted a lot of different Kickstarters back in like back in the day as well as today, where they they will often try to put out different, you know, either dragon or dinosaur or that sort of thing, themed either like tabletop games by themselves or like expansions for Pathfinder, expansions for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, that sort of thing. And almost every time I I was actually really surprised, I found one Kickstarter where they had to cancel, it only hit 70% of its of its goal. But pretty much every other one that I've ever seen from them has somewhere in the neighborhood of like 700%, a thousand percent uh funded, that sort of thing. Wow. It'll be funded like seven, eight, nine, ten times more. And you know, when people do that on Kickstarter, they'll usually have like super intricate, like, oh, these are all the different extra perks you get. They've got to be well beyond even their like their like gold platinum sponsor status of things every time they do it, pretty much. So the other guest of honor we had here was Straya Obscura. They're an they're a dragon-themed artist, illustrator, and product designer. They like to add a lot of merch that's dragon themed, and they they put things like, you know, effectively con fanny pack stuff that would go really well in a first suit, uh, funnily enough. I know you're, as a staff member, you're not necessarily on the committee that picks, you know, who would be the guest of honor. But if it is like, let's pretend it's Astracon here, it's your con that you're that you're making all the decisions for, where do you go into making the where would you go into making the decision of like, okay, we want like a poppy fur this year, guest of honor, or we want someone who's on theme, we want someone who's you know in the sciences, want someone who's in the arts. How do you believe someone would come about making that kind of decision? Because there's so many people to choose from with something like this.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

For sure. So that's actually a really great question. So, in my opinion, when you when you think about a guest of honor for a con, it's all about ROI, return on investment. So, first off, for those who don't know, a guest of honor at a con is somebody that they pick to promote the con, and in turn, the guest of honor, sorry, the the con promotes the guest of honor, and in return the guest of honor promotes the con. And what I mean by that is let's say you're a small rural convention in, I'm gonna name state, Idaho. Sure, you're a brand new convention, Idaho, you're gonna have a couple hundred people there. Therefore, for them, it would make a lot of sense to invite one of the bigger names from the furry fandom that normally would not go to your convention. Somebody who's big and known on social media or somebody who's made had a big impact, somebody that people want to meet, but the locals may not necessarily go to the bigger cons that they normally go to. Because, you know, if you go to Anthrocon for Europe for example, yes, I will be an Anthrocon. God willing, I will be at Anthrocon next year. But there's 20,000 people there. To find me, it's gonna be very difficult for you to find me, get a little one-on-one time with me, be in a video, just chat with me, whatever. But if you go to this random made-up Idaho convention where there's three to five hundred people and I'm one of them, it's gonna be very hard to miss me, especially because I'm contractually obliged to host these panels to be suiting this amount of hours of the day, to, you know, be the face of the con. So therefore, with your original question is do you pick a poppy fur or do you pick somebody who's themed to the con or, you know, makes an impact outside of the fandom? In my opinion, it all comes down to what does the con need? Do they need to promote it to get more people to come, or are they satisfied with their attendance numbers? Bigger cons like Megaplex, like MFF, like Anthrocon, actually, Anthrocon doesn't even do Guest of Honor anymore, and actually I know why, but we'll talk about that later. But the main thing of that is that they don't need a big name to attach to it because if you are big in the fandom, quote unquote, you're probably gonna be there regardless. So, what sense does it make for them to spend the money to pay for your airfare, for your food, for your hotel when they're already gonna have you there, if not have people that are comparable that are gonna be walking around. So that's where my school thought is. So if you have a con where you're kind of fine with attendance, you're up in there, you really don't need the the headline star of Astra coming to your convention, then go with somebody outside the family that normally wouldn't be there. Get a paleontologist, get a bunch of DJs or a music artist, like the Living Tombstones that FWA had one year. Get something like that where it's like, dang, I wasn't gonna do an FWA, but wow, Pitbull's gonna be there. Now I gotta go. You know what I mean? So, first off, that would be awesome. Pitbull, please come to a convention. Ah, God, I'd love to meet him so much. But but for exactly, but the smaller cons. Uh, for example, I was just guest of honor at Brazil Furfest, which is a con in Brazil. And I, to be honest with you, while I had an absolutely amazing time, it was so cool getting drunk with Uncle Kage and having an amazing time. I probably would not have gone if they were not paying for my airfare because it's just very expensive for me. And when I go to nine cons per year, I really have to pick and choose which ones I go to. And also a lot of that is which are gonna be the cheapest for me to go to. Megaplex is a two-hour drive. A ticket to Brazil round trip in Florida is about a thousand USD. So when it comes down to it, it's all about that. And when, you know, people heard that Astor was gonna be there, they had people flying in from Cuba, from Chile, from Argentina telling me I came here just to meet you. So, in my opinion, that's kind of where my my school of thought goes. Now, as I said before though, I've never been on the committee that actually picks the guest of honor or even has a vote in it. But when it comes down to the short list, cons typically look for, if they're picking for like popular people like myself, like any big name TikTok star, they want people that have a good upstanding reputation in the fandom without too many controversies. They want people that do a lot for charity or just, you know, will up uplift the the con as much as they uplift themselves, if that makes sense. So that's my that's my ticket. I I hope I didn't speak too much on that.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

No, no, that's amazing. And that actually gives us a lot to look at when we look at future statistics for future comments. Actually, our it was actually our friend Saudi that runs a whole bunch of different podcasts that actually said, you know, you should probably look at this as an analytic measure too, is who is the guest of honor, you know, and and different things like that. And so this this will help Jack and me in moving ahead.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

You mentioned Uncle Kage, and I I just how many people did you have to interview before you actually got the answer of cockroach?

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

I found that really surprising.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

The first one got it. I was so pissed. Oh my god. So, for for reference, for those who didn't see my video, I I posted a video on Anthrocon that the first video I ever actually had to spend money on outside of equipment was where I asked people, like a little trivia stuff show, that I actually got the idea from the Bartcast for a hundred dollars, what species is Uncle Kage? And if you've been in the fandom for quite some time, you know the answer right off the top of your head. He's a cockroach. So I decided let's ask people. And so the first person I asked knew it. So I had to give him the money, obviously. I'm not gonna, you know, say, oh JK. No, of course, I'm gonna give the money. So for the rest, okay, so this is actually me a little bit of behind-the-scenes stuff that most people I haven't told anybody about this yet. So you guys gotta keep us quiet. The rest, because I already spent the hundred dollars, I didn't want to have to give a hundred to every single person that answered it. So I changed the question. I kept it the same, was I changed the reward. The question was the same, but everyone else after that was for a sticker, what species is Uncle Kage. So, yes, the the first person got the sticker and they gave me a dagger, and then everybody else I asked them what uh species. And the thing is also, I had to have the first person I asked had to get it wrong, and the last person I asked had to get it right. So there was I did have to offer the money to one other person, and before I asked them the question, before the camera's wrong, I said, How many anthro cons have you been to? And they said, This is my first perfect okay. So, yeah, so if they answered right as the second person, I obviously would have given them another hundred. But yes, the first person I asked knew the answer. So I was oh, I was so angry.

unknown 19:23

That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

So I don't know if he rec I don't know if he recorded more people than well. I mean, I assume with audio, because you've said in the past, when when people have bought audio and stuff, you just you give them an interview in the future and then you just you don't include it. How many people do you think you interviewed for that question in general after the fact to get the amount of people that we saw in the in the video? And how many of them knew the answer off the top of their head without having a lot of it?

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Great question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I on an average con I film about 50 to 60 interviews. It's actually gone up because now I'm doing a lot more compilation style, which is quicker, even though it requires more people to interview. But I would say that question I asked, I want to say probably 60 people, and out of that 60, I would probably say about 15 to 20 knew the right answer. And obviously, if you knew the right answer, I didn't include your footage, but if you didn't know the answer, then I pretty much included your answer unless there were audio issues or I couldn't understand you or the mic got in the way. You know, there's there's there's a plethora of reasons why I don't post people's answers. It it always pains me like, oh, you never posted my interview. I'm like, I'm sorry, but this happened. But I always tell people if I don't post your interview, I would love to give you another try. Just let me know at a con, or I'll even send you your footage if you want, but I can't post everybody's interview because uh there's about maybe half to a third really don't see the light of day in in one way or another. But except except my end of the year video where I do my big little run through every interview I've ever filmed that year, I always try to include every single person's clip in there because it's just video, not audio. And even if your interview sucked, I can still do a quick one-second gimme a hug, you know what I mean? So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

That's amazing. So going back to going back to Megaplex, we've talked about the guests of honor, and I think it really kind of goes into the core of what Megaplex is. Obviously, it's got the theme this year. If I had to sum up, and I keep it in mind, this is just my outside research. I've talked to some people who have been in Megaplex, including a guest of honor from last year who's you know one of my best friends, and we and if I had to really summarize it just from what I know about it, it's really it's a performance-rooted con based in Orlando, Florida, that grew basically into what is, in my opinion, a a mega con now, but it never left the hotel format. It has never had to leave the hotel yet. And I think that is part of why it just continues to have the growth that it has. So, like just some of the numbers. Now this is where we get a little nerdy. 2002, when it started, we had one, you had 126 people when it started in Orlando. They tried the they tried the experiment in Jacksonville, their attendance actually dropped a little bit there. They came back to the Kissimmee area, and then they eventually came back to Orlando. 2025's attendance, 10,038. That's massive. A thousand people in their main parade, and then another couple hundred that were in their evening parade. There was obviously some overlap. I mean. There's just it's just continuing to grow. When you look at this on a graph, it's it's like a hockey stick. Like it's just going up exponentially. And I think a lot of it is at roots. You mentioned KP before. This grew out of the Sunday Popet show, correct? Is where Megaplex's roots really start.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

I believe so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah. And so I mean, the per the aspect of performance, performance is not just a side note or uh, you know, a panel here and there. It's like the puppetry, the performance, even like with the the external things like the DD games and and things like that, like this all just fits together just exceptionally well. Also, being in Orlando, so many hotels to pick from, you've got this great Hyatt, and I think it really exploded up when Megaplex hit the Hyatt for the first time. And then you also have that 18 plus draw. As we pointed out just in our research so far, I'm only aware of three in the United States now. I used to think it was two that are at least 18 plus or over. So we just talked about Euphoria, Euphoria is 18 plus, Megaplex is 18 plus, and then you have LVFC out in Vegas that is 21 plus. And so I think that also brings brings in a significant draw.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

I'm I'm glad you mentioned the hotel, and I'm sure we'll speak about this when we talk about location base. But as somebody like I said, I've gone to a plethora of conventions across this uh the country and even outside the country. I've been to Canada, I've been to Sweden, now I've been to Brazil. In my opinion, Megaplex is one of the only cons that has it made when it comes to location. And what I mean by that is if you uh have either of you been to Megaplex uh personally on the boots on the ground, or no?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Maybe I have not. I've I have been to that hotel in my day-to-day job. Okay. I've been in that hotel in my day-to-day job, but never to Megaplex.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Gotcha. Okay, so it's great con. Also, by the way, 10 out of 10 recommend Megaplex. But regardless of that, when you think about other big cons like MFF, like FWA, like Anthrocon, they are boxed out. And what I mean by that is they are going, and if they've not already hit it, which MFF has hit this a long time ago, they are out of space. There is no more hotels, and there are it's luck of the draw. If you get a good hotel, you're gonna have a great con. If you don't, you are SOL. Megaplex has the blessing, and they got that Hyatt, which again, it's a whole big story about how they finally got the Hyatt. But they have so much room to grow, it's not even funny. Well, yes, the Hyatt is sold out, of course. Number one, the Hyatt is building two of the massive towers to add to it, but you also have not only about six more giant hotels right next to it, you have the Orange County Convention Center right next to it connected to the main hotel via a Skybridge. That is one of the largest convention centers in the world, to the point where there is an anime convention there called MegaCon, which happens every year. Do you know MegaCon's attendance?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I do. It's gotta be it's gotta be close. If it's anything like a Penny Arcade Expo kind of thing, it's gotta be at least 100,000 people.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

It is between 100 to 200,000 people comfortably. It is inside. I've never seen I went there once. I've never been more seeing more people in my life. Of course, it's wall to wall and it's an anime con, so I'm not a huge fan of them. But I'm just seeing that because Megaplex already is in talks, and I believe in 2027 they are going to hopefully be moving registration and possibly dealers den to the Orlando Convention Center. So they already have the contracts in place, they're still figuring out the logistics, so it's nothing completely written stone, but it will happen. They have the room to grow, and while they already have sold out the uh Hyatt and most of the Rosen, and I think of the crown as well, there's around another 10 hotels because they're all the hotels there for the convention center. So they're gonna turn that whole little downtown corridor into essentially Anthrocon. Well, while it is hot as hell out there, it will happen and they have the room to grow. It's not like Anthrocon where every hotel and then like three, four blocks are booked up, or MFF where every hotel in in uh Rosemont is completely booked up. They have the room to grow, which is such an incredible honor that it's it's it's really unlike any other con out there.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Yeah, it's kind of funny you mentioned that, which I'm gonna flash the graph on. For those of you who are watching by video format, you can see the graph right here. And this is kind of what the attendance has looked like since the con has started. Obviously, you'll notice the little uh missing number 20 there. Obviously, we had this thing called COVID, so obviously that doesn't apply, so we just don't even use it in the data. But as you can see here by their by their graph, they're one of the handful of cons at this point that seems to be going parabolic in their size. And especially one of our big concerns with doing research on this episode was so Megaplex is in this kind of like imagine like just car analogy. You're out of the main flow of traffic, and there's a couple people speed that have been sped ahead of you for a while, but you're all by yourself right now. There's no one within a thousand attendees, plus or minus, of Megaplex right now. They're in their own lane, they control their own destiny, they don't have to care what anybody else is doing right now. That being said, what you just said about the whole the whole point of the other three cons makes us realize because we were doing this too. We thought we thought Anthrocon full-on hit cap when we were doing forecasting for when I was doing forecasting for it, and they kind of did. It was like 20,600,600 or something like that. So it was it was barely over the line of 20k. I don't see a reason looking at this graph and based on what you just said, why Megaplex isn't gonna shoot to the number one within the next five years. I know that's a little aggressive of a statement, but I don't see any other con that's growing by two, three, four thousand people in attendance per year. Like that just isn't something I've seen so far.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

I mean, the 2025 jump alone was enormous, and it's the second year in a row they've had this kind of jump. Like in 2024, you had 7,202 people. 2025 you had the 10,038. So I mean that's adding just over 2,800 people. That's that's like 40% or just 39 point you know, some decimals growth, and that's that's consistent. Like when you look at the even between 2023 and 2024, it was around the same type of growth. And so I don't know if this one actually is gonna plateau off.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Like, I think it really is not only that too, but you guys are also ignoring the other thing too, which comes to accessibility. Pittsburgh Airport is not known for having a lot of flights, especially international ones, where MCO, Orlando International Airport, is one of the biggest when it comes to vacation tourism and cheap flights because everyone wants to go to Disney and Universal. Not only that, too, but the main hotel, the Weston at Anthrocon, is I want to say close to $350 to $400 per night for a tiny room. The rooms in the Hyatt in Megaplex are massive and about I want to say $250 per night. It is cheap to go to Megaplex. So when you think about the cheaper dollar for value as well, it's even cheaper.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Like a standard king room was somewhere around $150 and then it's $175, I think, for the two things.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah, what's crazy? And with Orlando in two, it comes with parking on one of the on the first ticket. Free parking as well. Yep. So you and you can get a second parking for 15 bucks. This is not like an ad. I'm just pointing out that that's insanely good accessibility, insanely good value to get to the con in the first place. I mean, my home con of Las Vegas, if you want to park anywhere other than like good luck finding a spot at the Alexis, but if you want to go anywhere else, then you're paying upwards of like $30 to $40 a day for parking. Whereas if you're just going in Orlando, you can you can make it nice and easy for $15. That's insane. It's a very drivable city compared to some of these uh you know other con locations, and you're not stuck on the eastern seaboard, so you're not dealing with like an urban sprawl that goes from like four states over and is bumpered a bumper traffic the entire way.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Jack, my buddy paid $340 for parking at FWA just in the main hotel, so his car wouldn't be broken into.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

I absolutely believe that. Now, the question that I have for you, Astra, is because since you have that boots on the ground knowledge, you've obviously been to Megaklex before. I'm not myself and Jack have not. I've seen what the hotel looks like. I've been to lots of things at the Orange County Convention Center. But so the highlight's huge, it's large, it's like 315,000 square feet of meeting space. It's got like 1641 rooms and everything. Their largest ballroom, though, can only comfortably hit around 4,000 people, give or take, based on what I've seen. Unless they have the ability to reconfigure things. Like actually in the Hyatt, you can hold about 4,000. Well, for a kind of hit 10,000, does that create any kind of logistical problems? Or to me, it seems like the bottleneck in general there would be movement. Or, you know, like getting people, you know, like if everybody wants to go to the opening ceremony, you can't fit 10,000 people in the opening ceremony. So how is that handled?

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Yeah, yeah. So I I wouldn't say that Megaplex has too much of an issue in that sense because Megaplex is not like Anthrocon, where three-quarters of the con wants to go and to watch the opening ceremonies. And heck, even the raves at Megaplex, while they are put on by some fantastic DJs and good friends of mine, and I know so many great people on the AV team, they never get busy. You'll never find like an FWA style rave at Megaplex when it comes to attendance because most people are going to be there for other reasons. Megaplex is not big when it comes to opening and closing ceremonies. They're not massive on theming, they're not massive on, you know, the dance competition or floor wars. That those, of course, exist, and people can go to them if they want to, but Megaplex is there because think of it as a big summer vacation for furries. People are there to go to the pool, they're there to go to panels, and they're there for room parties, which the hyde is really accommodating for. It's not like LVFC where you can go to the spam with Subi party at two in the morning. By the way, love LVFC. First time I went this year. Seriously, in my opinion, number one con in the States. But besides the point of that, we'll talk about that later. Megaplex doesn't really have that issue. Now, the only problem that they had last year, which was a massive problem that we're hopefully gonna fix this year, is registration. They really did not have the amount of staffing they needed, plus a lot of technical issues where the reg line was very long, more than any other con I've seen, and even existed. Like the line throughout the main concourses existed till like Friday late and even early evening, I want to say. It really was there. Like it was it was wild. But outside of that, the line for dealers, it moves once it's open. There really isn't a line for dealers after you know the original rush of people. The there's never a line for the rave. There's never really a line for opening ceremonies. It's because the high is so massive that people spread out. And while you are gonna find, you know, maybe a thousand people partying it up off Saturday night at the rave, you're gonna find probably another five to ten thousand just going to the various room parties that they have throughout the con. So it it does a really good job when it comes to traffic flow. Not to mention, too, I know so many friends that it's like, oh, Saturday night, let's go to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, let's go to Disney, because it again, while the con is there, you are in Orlando. You can literally see the Disney fireworks from your hotel view. A lot of the rooms have views of Epic Universe at Universal. It's because it you're right there in the in the heart of the tourism corridor at uh in Orlando. So there's a lot of things to do and go off site, there's plenty of food options. It's not like you're stuck there on an island, you're you're in Orlando. So, in my opinion, that's not really that big of an issue.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

I was gonna say, what's the social geometry at Megaplex like? Like, for example, the one thing I'll say about AC is because of the problem, as you stated with the hotels, the chance the I tend to be someone that goes for more of the social aspect when I go to con. So, like, my favorite so far that I've been to this year has really been TFF. It was a single hotel, almost everybody was in the single hotel, you were in one of three towers, we all came together in the middle, and I could just vibe in the lobby, I could vibe in that second floor hallway or in the main con area. Someone I knew eventually would come along and kind of kidnap me and take me wherever, you know, and we we'd go do things. At AC, it was almost the polar opposite. Like if you did not have a plan, you had not made out a schedule, you didn't know anywhere when you're not gonna find them. So, how what is that like in Megaplex?

SPEAKER_03 32:51

So, Megaplex is more like the TFF style. The way that it works is you have the main hotel and then you have a couple of satellites, but again, the only reason people are in the satellites is because they couldn't get main and they might be in the pool in the satellites, but the main pool is where it's popping off. So during the day, outside of again the pool where everyone's trying to get to, there is one giant con space that's right next to and attached to the main hotel, connected via a massive hallway that's air conditioned, has nice windows, it's all carpeted, so it's nice and clean. And you're gonna find people just hanging around that giant hallway because you take that hallway to get to dealers, you take it to get to the panel rooms, you take it to get to the rave, that one giant wall, it's a very long hallway. I'd say it's probably about you know over a thousand feet in length. And you also have some DJs that pop up too, with like the little balconies that overhang. Majority of the time, if you want to find friends, just literally just sit right there by the escalators or, you know, right in front of the dealer's area, and you will find your friends that are just queuing up, or even there's like some food options right next to it as well. It's not like it's segmented like Anthrocon, where they might be at the waterfront, they might be in the West End, they might be on the second floor of con, they might be on the third floor of the con. It's not like that. There really is one giant concourse people walk through, and if you just stand there, you will find somebody that you know, I guarantee it.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Absolutely. It's kind of interesting that you, you know, we've we've invoked LVFC and how it's very similar to Megaplex. On, in my opinion, on a larger scale, Orlando is basically just Vegas in the sense of it's it's more of the gateway kind of con where you you go to the con and then you have the entire vacation area around you that you can do. Like obviously in the case of Vegas, you go to the strip, but that's pretty much where that would limit, and then you have whatever attractions whereas Orlando, you have everything there is to do out there. Pivoting a little bit because you uh you mentioned the dealers den line, and that kind of got me thinking about FWA. Because I realized one rumor that kind of kept coming back over and over with FWA was that a lot of people at that con basically showed up with just a fursuit on and didn't even reg for that con, which is why in most cases where all year long cons have been growing in size, FWA was the first time where I actually saw a smaller number than what had happened previously. So, with that in mind, how important does, or like how seriously does the Megaplex take like registration security and that sort of thing, of making sure that everybody who's at the con is supposed to be there and has paid the ticket? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

For sure. So ghosting, of course, is a very big problem with cons, as you can imagine. In my opinion, I am not a fan of people that do ghost conventions because you might have your own reasons on why you do it, whether it be monetarily or you're just no don't support the con or you never get the value out of it. Regardless, by ghosting a con, in my opinion, you are using up resources that somebody else who would have bought a ticket to support the con is going to use. So I am not the biggest supporter of friends and tell me, oh, I'm just ghosting it this year, or oh, you know, a friend's gonna lose their their their badge and I'm gonna take theirs. Don't don't do that, guys. Come on. I mean, if you paid all this money to get to a convention, even if you are never gonna go to dealers, even if you're not gonna go to a single panel, support the con. They the biggest expense when a convention happens is the space that you are currently taking up, whether you know it or not. It's I've seen the bills the hotel charge, and it is jaw-dropping, but they have to pay it because otherwise they don't have a convention. Support them. It's not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, and you will, you know, it's it you it's the right thing to do. But going forward with your question, in my opinion, about the same percentage of people that ghost FWA, I would say also ghost Megaplex, because the main things people do there, or at least not the majority, but what the con is known for are the room parties and the pool. And you only need a hotel key card from the Hyatt, which you can, as long as your friend is in the block, which also you don't need a reg to be in the block, to my opinion. I don't believe you do. You you you as long as you have a hotel room, you can get in the pool, and to wander the halls of the hotel, you don't need to be registered. So, therefore, unless you're going to the den, unless you're going to that main concourse I was telling you about, going to panels, you technically don't need to reg. So that, in my opinion, the numbers are should be a lot higher than they should be for a con like, you know, FWA or or Anthrocon.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

That's interesting too, because I think of I think of Anthrocon, and I think of Anthrocon as like the big hook, the big con that people go to, they treat it like the mecca of the furry fandom. I need to go there at least once, pilgrimage, and you're you're never gonna not register to go to Anthrocon for the history of the phone.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Of course, because there's not a lot happening in the West End.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Exactly. And you're like you're going to Anthrocon as a fan of the furry fandom in general, like you're the super fan. That's why you're going to Anthrocon. Whereas if you're going to, you know, an FWA, an LVFC, uh uh, a Megaplex, it's a vacation with a fursuit on, so where you could see that that would be a little more of a situation where people might might be more inclined to ghost.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Of course. Also, uh very uh small tangent. You mentioned earlier comparing Megaplex to LVFC. So again, I went to my first LVFC this year, had an amazing time, it was awesome. But a friend asked me, he's like, yo, yo, man, you were at LVFC. What was it like? What was it like? And my my my perfect description, in my opinion, please correct me if I'm wrong here, it's like if Megaplex was hosted in a Motel 6.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

I I There are there are very real pros and cons to the venue at LVFC, not to get too much off Megaplex. The pro is that if you somehow get into that main hotel, it is super hard that everyone tries to get into Maine. Like all of my friends failed to get into Maine going into next year. They do the raffle so far in advance. But if you are able to get into Maine, you can just go right to your room, you can put your fursuit on, you can walk out, and you're there. And there's one, two, three, oh, it's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

I was in Austin Card my first year. But the problem was in my the hotel is not very luxurious to the point where the water cut off while my friend was mid-shower.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

That's that that is hilarious and does not surprise me at all. I'm I'm waiting for the moment, and I don't know if it's gonna be this year or next year, but what there's so many hotels that are casino hotels that are around. Any single one of them just has to say, you know what, fine, bring the furries in. I mean, the Grand Sierra in Reno does it every year with BLFC. Like, there's already plenty of precedent to show that they don't have to worry about you know it cutting into gambling revenue or anything silly like that. That con is going to explode as well the instant they get into a bit like they already did kind of explode. They grew by over a thousand this last time anyway, which was fantastic. I was super glad to be there. But I think the moment they get in a real con, they're gonna be in a a power position in my.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Yeah, I mean, so just basically the is there anything that what you think is gonna bend the curve, you know. So we've got the we we've got the curve that Jack showed previously, which is just showing this this really crazy exponential growth. 30 38 to 39% year over year for two straight years in a row. It sounds like capacity is not gonna be a problem, especially with building those two new towers. The only thing in my research, I mean, obviously the weather, it it's it's August and Orlando, and because of the air conditioned corridors, which hopefully are air conditioned a little bit better than that corridor at MFF that we all complain about.

SPEAKER_03 39:47

Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

The only thing that I really could see that potentially could do anything, and I wanted your opinion on this, is that it it appears in the past a lot of times Megaplex would target Labor Day weekend because then you had that extra Monday. That then, you know, people could could have that extra day, they're all gonna be off work to travel home and everything else. Do you think the the date and the time of it this year is without that extra Labor Day Monday or that that extra day off? Is that gonna impact anybody's decision to come, you think?

SPEAKER_03 40:12

Or I doubt it. I actually preferred it because I do get Labor Day off of work, but I know a lot of people were not a fan of it because sometimes I had to work and they wouldn't let them take off. And there was a whole big fighting from both ends. Oh, my country doesn't represent Labor Day, so why is it on Monday? Well, so last year, fun fact, the reason they had to do that weird like Saturday to Monday thing was because the hotel messed up the bookings and they had like a McDonald's founder conference that uh that Friday. Long, long story, a lot of drama with that, but we're not gonna do that again. In my opinion, though, I I'm all for having cons on holidays like Anthrocon on July 4th, Megaplex on Labor Day. I am not a fan of FWA being on Mother's Day because then I've told my mom, hey mom, I'm missing Mother's Day again. Sorry for being at Animal in Atlanta. I I don't think that would impact it too much, to be honest with you. Uh in terms of your area to grow, what's really nice as well is that all of the entire hotel and convention center and hallways are meticulously air conditioned. It's Florida. We know how to do air conditioning down here. So, therefore, if you are in the main hotel, just like FWA, you do not need to go outside for four days. Literally, there is enough food in the hotel, enough options. You could also get, you know, delivery, the con space is attached, the dealer's den is attached, the raves are attached, the rooms are attached. Unless you're going to an outside hotel, you do not need to walk outside in the blazing Florida sun. Unlike the original hotel, the Carib Royale, which was cool hotel in concept, but you had to walk across a hot parking lot in the middle of Florida summer in a fursuit. Good luck with that. So I was at the Caribbean my first year of my first Megaplex.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

But regardless of that, like I said, the I was gonna ask you, sorry to jump in, not not to my my inner Midwesterner is showing a little bit, which was the the heat in Florida isn't the issue. The issue is that Florida is one of the most humid states in the country. So you're humidity gets you it gets you all the time, and it's now I'm in Vegas. You it's almost better to go outdoors sometimes in fursuit, even if it's 90 degrees out because there's such little humidity out there that's better than being in your apartment where it's set to 40 to 50% humidity with the AC on.

SPEAKER_03 42:08

So absolutely. And and with the geography of it as well. So I had mentioned earlier, I alluded to the Orlando Convention, sorry, the Orange County Convention Center. It is attached with a sky bridge to the main hotel that is not air conditioned. But when they start adding in that convention center, there are other sky bridges that go from the convention center to the main hotel, but also from the convention center to the satellite hotels. So instead of having to cross the street, it is outdoors, but it is at least a little shaded. There will be a lot more accessibility from the satellite hotels to get to the main via crossing through the convention center skybridges. So that also will help them as well growing because oh, we didn't get main, but it's just a quick sky bridge to there and a sky bridge to there, and you're you're home free. So it's not the end of the world. It's it helps them.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Yeah, and I'd say that I've I've seen that myself because I've gone to conventions where originally we were in the Hyatt, and that was fantastic for like a pharmacy convention or whatever the heck I was there for. And then we went to uh the next time I had to go to like a meeting or meet up with a college thing was over in the Rosen, but the Rosen is literally it's right there. And so you can walk outside, but you there's also what routes that you can walk inside if you want to to get to the same place. So Yep.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Well, yeah, I think we're at a I think we're at a good point here where we can we can kind of start taking some guesses here. I think we know a pretty solid pros and cons list of things that could be impacting, obviously with pros. You've got the venue, you've got the traffic situation of Orlando, you've got things to do, you've got consistency with the venue, you've got future growth that it can span to expand into the convention center. There's a lot of things going for Orlando right now and going for Megaplex. The only real things that kind of fit in the con profile for me, and it's not even they're not even really huge, is the switching off, the switching off a holiday. That might matter, that might not. The there's also obviously controversies that we're not really going to talk about here. If you are like you all probably know what I'm talking about, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, quick Google search, Megaplex, you'd know. My recommendation on that if you want to if you want a full sort of take on. what's going on there. I would go and check my friend Rorschach. I would go check his Instagram. He has a pretty good post where he talks about basically what's going on what's going on there with the community rooms over at Megaplex. And we'll kind of leave it at that. That's not really our place to to sort of weigh in on that and you know Yeah exactly.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

That's I don't think that's going to affect the numbers at all. I think the people that are complaining for about that, I think I I heard a Kaga even say about Anthrocon one year when there was some controversy there. The people that were submitting that kind of feedback, the people that are the armchair, you know, one the armchair con organizers, I guess you could say on on Twitter or X or whatever, a lot of those people don't even come to the cons. So I'm just going to kind of ignore that for now.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

A little bit of people that like to have some professional social media rage and you know that's what they do in their free time. But other than that I I can't think of too many cons that are uh as a not pros, I should say that are going to impact the attendance at this fur furry convention. Can you think of anything off top your head, Scuff? Otherwise I think we're probably good to go through it.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

I really can't and after talking with Astra like I think even the things that we had talked about because we had kind of pre-discussed what our guesses were going to be before the episode even looking we we ran this both myself and Jack are analysts by trade and so we ran this through a couple of different models for uh looking at things like the Kagger and everything going up and even our conservative and even our high I think our high is too low.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Like I mean we were looking at like I changed my guess during this episode.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

I have changed I have changed can I predict the number can I am I allowed to do that? Absolutely so what were they last year?

SPEAKER_01 45:22

So last year 1038. 10,038 but we have a we have a little spreadsheet where we keep our score but we also have like the guests the guests can guess as well so if we have you know 10 different guests and we'll see if all those 10 guests completely blow us out of the water or you know I figure if you're more involved in the con you're gonna have a better better focus on it anyway just from being on the inside.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

I I do um and uh while I am like I said on the con I do not have access to registration numbers so this is coming from just experience and I'm gonna we said we were at 10,038 last year. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

12491 12491 you heard it here first that is Astra's prediction the funny thing is that's actually a little lower than what my guess had been up to my guess going into this episode uh before we had had our before we had sort of picked your brain on it I was at about 12600 but and I'm not the one to price the right people I'm not gonna you know that's not I like to leave one dollar. I I like to leave a fair amount of buffer between Scruff and I so if it's like anywhere in the middle I could say like well there's there we are at that margin of error. In this case I'm gonna up my guess and I'm gonna go 13,200. Which same sounds a little aggressive but the indicators are there that there's not going to be a lot holding the com back from a huge year.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

You haven't given me a lot of room to work with here. Like I was I was gonna actually just base based on no I mean so the thing is is that like the modeling and thing that I had done had a high range of around 12300 which is basically very close to where you just just landed and that would represent 22.5% growth over last year. You've had two banger years of almost 3839% so it's like I'm almost tempted to go up even above that. I just don't know if the con staff can actually support that or not if but it doesn't sound like there's much room for like you know capping or anything else. It sounds like the sky's the limit here so I'm gonna go with 12 what was yours again? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

1291 I believe I think 391 I think that's 391 I'll put it up on screen right here.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Yeah right and you went with 13 too I'm gonna go with 129.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

129 that's that's a good one that'll sort of cut the cut down the middle here. So if it's so if it's a realistic expectation then it'll be your your win. It's just funny because I think Astro was coming in thinking that's a huge swing and he's like dang these guys are are more optimistic than I am what's going on here.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

I normally I normally go higher but I started to realize more and more that while so again I I do feel the Megaplex has a large ghosting problem that there's really no big solution to and while I heck I would even say that they probably have already hit that last year may have 13 14000 it you're not going to see that reflected in the registration numbers unfortunately it's the only con that really doesn't have that problem is Anthrocon and they've already kind of hit their cap. So while I do have a good idea of how many people are going to be there I don't know how many people are actually going to spend the 80 or whatever dollars it is for registration.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Like I said I've I've been guessing attendance on this show on my own channel before I was before we had this podcast. So for me the big one that I got wrong on the conservative side was Forlandia and Anthro Ohio. I actually guessed low on both of those I think it was by 500 and a thousand respectively they both completely blew out of the water my expectations were and I don't remember exactly the reasons why I'd have to go review my own footage but kind of the same applies here. FWA like I said is the only one that's come in below their previous number I don't see any reason why Megaplex would do that in this case so I I feel pretty confident in my answer especially because they've even with the ghosting problem they've had parabolic growth the last two years.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Hovering around the same area so right so lighting round astray what does mega what does megaplex do better than its size suggests?

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Ooh what does megaplex do better than the size suggests? Good question. That's actually a really good question. I'm gonna say room parties. So the the main thing the main thing is if you want a good room party con, you have the the the staples you think like FWA you think like L VFC at least FWA in my opinion is you know what people are known for as the room parties. The FWA rooms are tiny. Outside of the event suites you really can't pack a room with more than like maybe 50 people without getting crowd crush the megaplex rooms are massive and there are so many suites they have there that it really adds to it that allows you to have so many themed parties. Now they're not like LVFC where they're open invite or they're very themed but your group of people you probably know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody that can get you an invite to this party so let's go to it. You know what I mean? So that and just the elevators too are also there's really as long as you're in like tower B, there really is never a problem with elevators. They do handle them exceptionally well.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

All right so let's continue with this example I gave earlier of this hypothetical AstraCon. So you can you can take AstroCon and you can found it in any city you want and let's pretend for this case it's gonna support a minimum of a thousand people. So no matter what your first year it's gonna get at least a thousand people to show up. What kind of theme would you go for what city would you pick and what what would your guest of honor be that you'd want okay okay okay so I want to it doesn't have to be AstraCon just whatever you want it to be.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

No no no let's do AstraCon no so if I were to pick to open up a convention that I knew would get a minimum of a thousand people in my opinion the best bang for the buck and the best time anybody could have and all this stuff I know it exists but it's extremely tiny and I'm not even sure if it's still around I would do a furry cruise because think about it you could have a cruise ship that easily supports a thousand people or have their own section of the boat roped off for the general populace you have free food and free alcohol included with the price of your convention you have general gathering areas that can have a rave every night you could have a little dealers then set up the pictures you go you go places we could go to the Bahamas we could go to the St. Martin you know what I mean like the casino on board like oh my god why is there no big convention like I said there's been a small one I've heard like I think I forget what it's called but I think they've had like 20 people or something like that a tiny little thing. But I want to see a furry cruise con out of the port of Miami. Yeah it could work I'm telling you somebody out there please make this happen.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Well no so it's you're you're planning it who do you pick as your guest of honor?

SPEAKER_03 51:22

Oh okay I would for again a thousand people I would want a big headliner to support the convention so therefore I would want somebody with a decent social media following that doesn't have too much controversy under their belt somebody that's a general known name in the fandom heck I would I would shoot for the moon now probably say I'll go with one of the OGs I'd go either telephone or Majira but if I wanted one of the newer ones I would pick I would say Milo little alpha pup he's done no wrong in my eyes he's he's a good guy. I'd say Milo he'd be a good guy plus he could host shows at the con too he'd be singing in the lounge it could it could be oh yeah no Milo you're coming to fur uh what are we gonna call this thing I need I need a fun name we're gonna call it like Fur to see I don't know I'm just I'm just thinking of something off top of my head uh the the alpha liner cruise or something of the seas or fluff of the seas that the that the anther of the seas I don't know fluff of the seas is good I like that thank you F O S that would be its its acronym because we got to put it in the case seriously team like I know big like cruise lines out there actually team up before special events to rent out the boat or partial boat. Like they have like EDC SEA which is an EDM festival on water and they have like nightly raves every night they have like it's literally an EDM festival on water. I know spicy cruises they have like through Norwegian I think they have like adult only swinger cruises where there's like sex rooms set up and they have like you know the you go to different room parties that are just giant orgies and stuff like that. Like this could be a thing. You guys are laughing like this could actually be a thing I'm nodding my head absolutely I'm nodding my head this could literally and think about like I said in your ticket your reg. You have your food is included your drinks are included the Wi-Fi's included you know what I mean like dealers then everyone on board is has registration so it would be oh man it'd be annoying as hell to get dealers on board but still we couldn't make this could be a thing there be no ghost name because you can't how you what are you gonna do like drive up a stowaway so the dealer's thing so here so hear me out to add to that you take the dealer's portion and you do that at your home port.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

So before people get on they have a chance to go to the dealers that you got four hours to board. So you could do the dealers I don't think that would work.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

You don't think so if you've ever been on a cruise the cruise terminal there's really nothing around the terminal area where they could do something like that. Yeah no good point good point no I think they would just have to just bring a crap ton of luggage to be honest with you and just have something with the con where if you're a dealer you get like you know four or five plus bags included plus there aren't normally big ballrooms to have like you know there's like you know theaters but there isn't big ballrooms to have like you know dealers' areas in so I would think they would do it like a Brazil thing where it's just like a small little bazaar for like one day or something like that. I could see that.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

No is the attendance actually I should remember I do like we someone needs to look into this soon.

SPEAKER_03 53:59

I was just a furry convention where they've done like a group block at cons where it's only been like 20 people or so but this should really be a thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

Man oh man the gears are turning all right you heard a first here guys we gotta get on this if anybody's a suspiciously wealthy furry that happens to you know own a cruise line Oh one last question I forgot to ask that is more con staff related are there any positions that usually come with being involved with the staff such as volunteering DJs panels hosting that sort of thing are there anything that comes with those that are usually harder to fill than others or is that usually something where usually just they're overflowing with applications more than they can handle?

SPEAKER_03 54:39

Actually it's the opposite most cons are are biting at the bit for staff. They'll take what they can get in in my opinion what the the best kept secret in in the furry fandom is people all the time love to scream and yell oh my god I didn't get the West in at Anthrocon I didn't get you know the Hyatt at MFF you know oh I'm not going to this con this con's rigged I I never get it I've been to the lottery X times join staff it's not doesn't ask a lot and you get so many cool perks just by giving back to the con. You get free Reg. You get early access to the hotel you sometimes get discounted rooms you get a staff buffet you get free drinks you get really cool swag I got megaplex in uh engraved shot glasses um I got like an Anthrocon mouse plaid and like what some other cool stuff I had from Anthrocon really cool stuff. Seriously the best kept secret is if you want to get you know in the main hotel you enjoy cons so much but you hate having to fight tooth and nail for the lottery you will know you have your room weeks before the lottery even goes out. Just join staff. It you give back to the con in so many ways that really does not take up your whole convention and just by giving them a few hours of your time or even a few days before or after the convention everything is needed whether it be head helping with you know rigging and setting up the lighting and the vision audio visual for the rave crowd control helping people get in line for registration uh the headless lounge setting up fans social media making posts even working on the hotel and working with the hotel as a liaison some of my best friends work for the hotel for the FWA and you could just be the point of contact with them or there's safety you know people are and needing the ambulance called or you need to bring somebody water or somebody's not feeling too well and help this person. It really helps to give back to the fan the more than you could ever imagine and you get all those perks associated with it. Join staff just apply and if they say no cool volunteer they'll never say no to volunteers especially at Megaplex which is actually one of the most like staff starved conventions because it takes a lot of staff and there's not many people who sign up for it. Join staff. Megaplex is hiring for literally every single department I promise.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

So if someone is interested in joining staff or alternatively just volunteering at Megaplex uh what's the best resource to reach out through do they go to the Megaplex website or how would they go to the website at the top right you'll see help out and then you'll see a staff app and you'll see a volunteer app.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Difference is staff gets all those major perks like I said where you get like the staff block you get you know discounts you get cool swag volunteering they give you other things too I think that they give you like lesser swag they give you like I think a certain amount of hours gives you certain things and I will tell you also one very interesting thing that I forgot to touch on to date to my knowledge Megaplex is the only con where if you host a panel they give you a discount on next year's Reg. I have never seen that at another Pacan where I've hosted panels beforehand and it is a great idea in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

I agree with that entirely and honestly you've probably had the best pitch to join staff that I've heard in a while so I I may have to I'm ready to buy a ticket to Megaplex now. I might need to add some cons to my to my calendar and start staffing a little more but it's a really great thing to get back.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

It's a really really great thing to get back.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Absolutely so in any case I think that about wraps us up on the hour here. So once again thank you everybody for watching we'll be back with this con or with this podcast roughly every two to three weeks as we cover future cons. We try to do them in blocks I know the whole Denford thing we we may have an episode come out earlier we'll figure that out or we won't we'll figure it out. Where is everyone able to find you on socials?

SPEAKER_03 58:01

Obviously it'll be in the description of of every platform we have but in general so so small note my biggest tip if you're trying to make content in the fandom is find a username that you can use across all platforms. Otherwise you're gonna end up like me ahem TikTok astra.the dot kitty instagram underscore underscore astra oh no sorry that was astra underscore underscore youtube at astra kitty twitter at astra underscore the underscore kitty Facebook I think I'm Astra kitty on there blue sky I think I'm as well asterkitty just search astra and just all be there as well yeah the one who is at astra beer is a beer company in Germany and I have more followers than them so haha scruff you can be found on on pretty much at scruff or at scruff underscore rack in or scruff rack whatever no it's they're no underscore it's just scruff rack.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

I think it's I think it's YouTube I think it's YouTube you have underscore but that's a new account so it doesn't it doesn't matter. And then obviously you can find me at jack tmfd ever on all platforms because nobody thought to put TMFD after just a regular word. So makes it really easy to find me. But anyway thank you all so much for watching are the final thoughts for anybody before we take off are we good meow meow you heard it here you heard it here y'all have a good one thank you so much for watching we'll see you on the next one meow meow