Inside Midwest Furfest, the sacred playground of the furry fandom

Photography by Alex Wallbaum
Retouching by Evan Sheehan
Words by Maggie Traxler

For the last twenty-five Decembers, the glacial landscape of suburban Chicago has been transformed for three faux-fur-filled days by the kaleidoscopic colors and textures of the Midwest Furfest, a convention celebrating the furry fandom, an online and IRL community centered around the appreciation and creation of anthropomorphic animal characters.

This year’s Furfest boasted nearly 17,000 attendees, who could be seen in varying degrees of animalistic dress, many with negligible deference to actual animal anatomy. Those familiar with the furry fandom might recognize the expressive eyes and exaggerated muscles of the popular “toony” fursuit style, though many other hyper-realistic furries (glinting wolf eyes, uncannily shiny fox noses), “partiallers” (rabbit ears, cotton-ball tail, t-shirt, jeans), and onlookers in street clothes joined them in electrifying the otherwise drab conference center.