Why Pittsburgh?

We had been looking for a larger venue even before the Adams Mark shut down. The big trick was finding a place that (a) we could afford, (b) that our membership could afford to attend, (c) was big enough for our purposes and had enough hotel rooms for everyone, and (d) was not already booked solid through the next decade. Three out of four was not going to be good enough.

Naturally we started our search in the Philadelphia area, and we were quite surprised to find that there was nothing that fit the bill. We'd be told, "Sure, we've got lots of space! We can give you a special rate of $199 per night per room!" or "Our rooms are only $88 per night. And we have ONE HUNDRED FIFTY of them!" (We need at least six hundred). The search area expanded again and again, with the chairman getting particularly worried about the commute for himself and his senior staff.

That was about when the City of Pittsburgh contacted the chairman and asked to be considered as a new home for Anthrocon. As a native Pennsylvanian the chairman was skeptical, since he remembered Pittsburgh as a gritty and soot-caked steel town. He was surprised, however, to see that the city had undergone a stunning transformation into a green, well-manicured and upscale metropolis. The David L. Lawrence Convention Center beckoned, with hundreds of thousands of square feet just waiting to be transformed into a Furry Mecca; the gorgeous Westin Hotel with its 600 rooms would make any event organizer's mouth water. The Convention and Visitor's Bureau lobbied hard to get Anthrocon to move -- as far as we know it was the first time in history that a city had actually asked to host a Furry convention -- and overall, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

The City of Pittsburgh offers an incredible variety of things to see and do. Whether you're the parent of a young Furry looking to keep occupied while the kid is at panels or you're a Furry yourself thinking to stay an extra few days, you can find just about anything within a few miles of the Convention Center. Click here for a list of things to get you started.