A Letter From FWA’s CEO

To our amazing attendees,

First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to each and every one of you for joining us for FWA 2026: Nowhere Inn Between. The energy, positivity, good vibes, and (sometimes unhinged) goofiness made FWA 2026 one of my personal favorite events I’ve ever been part of.

Seriously, it’s not lip service. In 2025 we committed to listening to your feedback and implementing real change to the FWA experience in 2026. You gave us real and actionable feedback about the event in 2025, we took that and stayed laser focused on improving the experience at every step of the way. Seeing all of our plans come to fruition and seeing our attendee’s happiness with that execution made our entire team even more committed to our mission. We’re not going to talk about how many of you pulled on my heart strings all weekend long celebrating how we listened and improved. It means the world to us that you took the time to stop our volunteers and thank them for an amazing job.

Were we perfect? Of course not, we still have work to do and some rather big mountains to move to continue improving the experience for our community - our team remains committed to improving anything and everything we can. That’s what FWA does and will continue to do.

As volunteers working to make this big ship sail - we’re beyond appreciative of your love and support. It means the world to us. So whether this was your first FWA or your 22nd, thank you for trusting us with your weekend and thank you for bringing us the amazing energy to make all of the hard work worth it.

With much love,

Ranan FWA CEO

There’s a specific feeling that happens every year in those first hours of a furry con, when the hotel lobbies starts filling up with faces you’ve missed and fursuiters you’ve been dying to see in person, and the area around the con really starts to come alive. That feeling is why we do this. It’s why we spend the other 361 days of the year in meetings, and staring at spreadsheets and documents, all so that one weekend can feel like coming home.

Back in November, we wrote to y’all about the changes we were making for FWA 2026: a dedicated People Movement & Circulation team, more convention space, programming spread across our hotels, better communication, and a bigger push into the city of Atlanta. We meant every word of it, but promises in a convention newsletter don’t mean much until you’ve actually seen them put into place. So, now that FWA 2026 is behind us and we’ve gone through all of your Post-Con Surveys, some glowing, and some hard to read but still very valuable, we wanted to reflect on the year, talk about what went well, and what we still need to work on improving.

First, let’s go over the numbers we’re most proud of. 1,777 of you responded to the survey, 96.5% of you told us you enjoyed FWA 2026, and 90.5% of you told us you’re already planning on coming back for FWA 2027: Grand Prix. Those numbers blew us away. When you tell us that this many of you had a great time, we know it’s real. Thank you. To everyone who traveled across the country, or even world to join us, who found a quiet room when it got to be too much, who took a chance on a new venue or a new event, and who filled out this survey with honesty, thank you, and thank you for being patient while we learn how to handle the immense growth we’ve seen over the past few years. FWA is only as good as the people who show up for it, and this year, you all really showed up for us.

Now, onto our takeaway from the responses we received from your surveys.

What Worked

The queue and space overhauls were where you all said we made the most improvement, and they were personal for us too. Nobody on our team enjoys watching you stand in a hallway for hours, so reading that registration was some of the fastest and least stressful it’s been in years was truly wonderful to hear. Last year, “queue” or “line” showed up in nearly 40% of your “what can we do better” answers. This year, that dropped to under 18%. That’s hundreds of you who saw a major issue at last FWA and this year didn’t have to mention it.

We got a lot of positive responses about the new People Movement team keeping lines moving at Dealers Den and around the hotels, and moving the Dealers Den into AmericasMart got some of the loudest praise in the whole survey with more room, shorter waits, and a space that let you breathe even with attendance holding steady.

Spreading programming across more of our venues went the way we’d hoped too, several of you told us in your feedback that it was the first year the con didn’t feel overwhelming. And Cars & Collars, now an official FWA event, was a clear favorite for everyone who made it out. It’s a good feeling to welcome a community built event onto our team, provide it with our support, and watch it bloom.

What’s We Need To Improve On

We’re not going to sugarcoat this part. You told us we improved, but you also told us where we’re still falling short, and that’s what’s guiding us now.

Elevators, especially in the Marriott, are still the thing you brought up most. A few more security guards manning the doors isn’t a real fix, and we aren’t going to pretend that it is. Elevator lines are one of the hardest problems we deal with. They may never be perfect, but they’re a top priority for us to improve on for 2027.

The FWA App got a mixed reaction. Some of you loved it, some of you fought with it. We don’t have the fix figured out yet, but we’ll use your feedback from this year to make it better.

Our new Virtual Waitlist system for Hoppy Hour and Moonlight Festival split the room almost exactly down the middle. Some of you had a great experience with it, but for many of you, it meant missing out on something you were really looking forward to, and that one stings to read. Events like these are tough to get right with limited space and huge demand. We need better ways to accommodate more of you, and we’re already working on what that looks like behind the scenes for next year.

We’re proud of this year. We’re also not finished, and we never will be. FWA 2026 was the best year we’ve had, and we’re already in the weeds making FWA 2027 better still.

FWA 2027: Grand Prix Registration Is Open

We hope you’ll join us next year to see what we build next and how we improve. Registration for FWA 2027: Grand Prix is open right now at furryweekend.com/register. For the 90% of you that told us you’re returning, or those who weren’t able to join us but know they’ll be coming next year, don’t forget buying your registration now scores you a discount! The pre-reg discount ends TODAY so grab your badge early, and let’s do this again.

Something New: New Years Furry Festival

If FWA is our big family reunion, we wanted to build something smaller and a little more intimate too, a chance to gather again before a whole year goes by. So we’re also excited to introduce New Years Furry Festival (NYFF), a brand-new 21+ event presented by FWA, running December 30, 2026 through January 1, 2027 at the Courtland Grand Hotel in Atlanta.

Picture ringing in the new year surrounded by this community: live performances and furry DJs, a heated pool party in the middle of December, a Ball Drop to count down together, quiet rooms and sober spaces for anyone who needs them, and a fully closed space that’s just for us. Registration is open now at newyearsfurryfestival.com, and we’d love nothing more than to spend the first hours of 2027 with you.

Thank you for trusting us with your weekend, year after year, and for trusting us enough to keep telling us the truth. It’s the reason FWA keeps getting better, and it’s the reason we can’t wait to do this all again.

See you again soon.

— The FWA Team