BabyFurCon – The USA’s Newest Crinkly Con!

October 20, 2023

BabyFurCon - The USA’s Newest Crinkly Con!

Hey everyone! Miles here for another exciting Big Diaper Friday!

For almost two weeks the internet has gushed with the slowly fading warmth of recent experiences and memories from BabyFurCon, a new BabyFur/ABDL convention that had an explosively exciting first year. For those just hearing about it now for the first time, BabyFurCon was held this month in Santa Cruz.

I am here to tell you that everything you heard is true and to give our best baby followers an insight as to why, wherever you sit on the the ABDL to furry spectrum, you might want to think about going to BFC yourself in 2024.

Sponsoring A New Event

When anyone does anything for the first time it’s a risk. Especially when you’ve taken ticket money from 500 people and booked a mid sized hotel for your first in person event. That being said, the team behind BFC didn’t spring out of nowhere, their top team has a good pedigree of fluffy folks who have worked in some of the world’s biggest cons and they ran a number of digital events through the pandemic. These events brought folks together via some nifty bits of tech and Zoom and were full of hilarious moments and at times had a sense of the uncanny… Getting together with a few hundred other people by… sitting in your living room or office in your favorite bab gear.

The virtual BFCs provided a vital sense of connection through a really tough time for the community and ABUniverse was there every step of the way. After all our team does love to wave our big diaper flag to support folks who were working hard to do something good for the community.

Fast forward a few years: The team behind BFC had always had a real event in their sights. Would ABUniverse be there? You can bet your crinkly butt we were. Why? As someone who often gets the opportunity to participate in events both large and small I find there’s a special magic to the smaller events that gets lost… The logistics of putting on a big event means that no matter how awesome your programming is, the event is an exercise in safely moving people from one place to another and accepting that a lot of folks won’t get to see some things they’d really enjoy. BFC was, as a new con, able to bring all the potential advantages of its size to bare and create something utterly ephemeral and totally immersive.

Setting The Scene

It’s a warm October Thursday in Santa Cruz, and there’s a crowd assembling in a hotel lobby, it’s bubbly but pretty contained. The BFC team are gathering and there’s a friendly chatter as some attendees are checking in early to the hotel. If I was being a bit whimsical I’d say you might even be able to hear a growing crinkle of the kind you only get when you bring a bunch of big diapered kids together. Either way the excitement and growing energy was palpable. As soon as the ballrooms were handed over and the team went to work. As the night went on the hotel felt more and more like it belonged to the con and around 11 am the next day the hotel finally checked out the last of the “normies”.

Now BFC was a small event, but that doesn’t mean you had time to do everything – – there were multiple distinct spaces with fun activities running all weekend long – everywhere you looked you could certainly find something new the con had to offer all the while seeing familiar faces. As the con went on the coziness of the hotel space meant finding new friends became almost inevitable.

The Spaces

One of BFC’s most unique experiences for me was the creation of a playground behind the hotel with adult sized trikes to speed around in, chalks to draw on the ground with, and bouncy castles that were at times super-high energy and at others great to just chill and talk in.

The venue had a great outdoor pool space that hosted some great parties with abundant water-pistols, giant pool toys and great tunes, keeping the water splashing for hours. Every time I thought “these kids must be tired” it would just bubble up and spill over again in to rapturous shouts of utter joy.

In the main hotel space there were three areas:

A little-led play space. This had a great ball pit, rocking horses, play pens and a couple of cribs tucked away in a secondary quiet space for when it’s all just been a bit much and you needed a little time out.

The School – I could write an entire piece about this but I cannot emphasize enough how brilliant the total immersive experience that was crafted here was. Singing lessons, making, teaching, a little firm admonishment for the brattiest babies… and it overflowed into the rest of the hotel. When 20 or so beaming big-kids are marched out of the school room and into the lobby to sing to every and anyone (and did it well!) I knew this was something special.

Then there was the Vendors Hall with some great makers of various sizes that work in and around both communities. A chance to pick up a pin, diapers from us and a whole load of cute crafts. I have a thing for bandana-bibs and my stash has been refreshed and refilled!

One of the nicest touches in my opinion was to centre the ‘Artists Alley’ in the lobby. There was so much creativity behind BFC and the organization that oversees it really recognised the value of creatives in our communities.

Baby-Furries though?

Yup! The diaper and furry communities have a massive crossover. Every major furry event I have had any deep engagement with has had babyfurs at its helm or on its board. At BFC you could be either. You could be sat in the school room in a fursuit and a diaper next to a kiddo in their cutest bab-threads and be treated just the same. IT WAS AWESOME! And the fact that you could slide from one to the other if you wanted was a total blessing in the Southern Californian heat.

So Where Was The Magic?

I know, it all sounds cool, right? But magical? That’s a big word. The magic came from the small touches. Whether that was WennBunn walking around giving the kids ‘regression shots’ with a very cool film-prop-syringe, or the fact that the incredible chef at the hotel made gourmet babyfood for the littles that did breakfast in a highchair… It was the small details and the people that made an already unique event really special.

I have also never been to a con where the hotel staff gush at every chance about how easy their lives were made and by how kind the attendees were. All too often Littles and BabyFurs are reduced to the used diaper left in a dumb place. Not here. The staff joined in wholeheartedly. Coming downstairs on the Saturday to the hotel manager in a skin tight deer suit vacuuming the lobby was a killer move.

I know that even as I type this, I am maybe just about approaching the edge of doing the event justice, but as I’ve been writing I have felt comfortably buoyed by my time amongst an incredible group of people in a little segment of the world where every where I looked, all I could see was people smiling. As a responsible con, most of the photos from the event are soft red squares from the camera privacy stickers, but the official ones that attendees choose to share do give a brief glimpse of how cool the event was. The thing is, I don’t need them. I enjoyed that it was wonderful and fleeting and I am excited to attend BFC again in future. This is why BabyFurCon is the US’s best new crinkly con and why I believe it will go from strength to strength in the years to come; people came, gave everything, lived authentically, smiled and laughed deeply and all walked away knowing it was something special.

See you all there next year!

Miles // Tigger – (He/Him) – Lil Bear, Kiddo, Soggy-Pants, Lover of Orange.

To sign up for more information about future BabyFurCon events, click HERE!

BabyFurCon – The USA’s Newest Crinkly Con!