It’s very unexpected to me that I’m writing a journal about Anthro Northwest 8 (2026), I’ve been attending so many conventions lately that I can’t write journals of each one of those, despite each one has their own special moments, and actually I missed writing journals about BFC and Confuror 2025, those two were special and I was too busy that I couldn’t finish writing their respective journals.

It’s unexpected because I thought it was going to be “one more furry convention” to me, and I was considering this one like a working convention, mainly about being in the artists alley and to be drawing commissions. The friends I was coming to the event are staff members so they were going to be very busy all time and I was already accepting the fact that I was going to be very solitary during the event, also because I know not many people I know go there, not even some friends who live in the area of Seattle.
I have never had problems about being solitary, as I had said in the description one of my drawings, it’s about appreciating being with yourself, but I was thinking that the only sad part was going to be spending the new year eve celebration by my own, surrounded by furries but kind of alone, since each one were going to be with their own friends (spoiler, I ended up not being alone), and I even received an invitation to go to an external party instead at someone’s house , which I considered (sorry for not going in the end!).

But I’m gonna start from the beginning, I received the invitation, as year by year, to attend Anthro Northwest, but since they moved the convention not only at the beginning of the year, but also during new year eve, it has been kind of difficult for me to attend, either for the dates because we made plans for new year eve, or because the flights to Seattle are terribly expensive that time of the year.
This year it was easier to accept because just days before I was traveling with my sisters to Las Vegas because we got tickets to see Backstreet Boys live in The Sphere (amazing! Such an experience to see a concert in that place!) so getting a flight from Las Vegas to Seattle was easier and cheaper. Roni had no problems at me not being for new year eve and he kind of pushed me to go.

Already at Anthro Northwest, all staff and chair were incredibly generous and kind with me, they have always been, but this year I think they were beyond, and I’m incredibly grateful with all of them, it makes me want to help the convention even more.
Among all the amazing stuff, I got a room in the 45th floor, the very last one of the building, so every night and morning those views I got from the window were amazing!

I arrived on December 30th, 2025. And indeed the first two days I was mostly solitary, but I never got bored, since I had many things to do and to arrange. But since I had access to the hotel lounge, I spent most of the time there with free snacks and unlimited coffee (I drank a lot of coffee all that week!), but also I walked a lot around downtown (when it was possible because most of time it was raining, surprisingly I didn’t get to use one single time my umbrella, but I was always carrying with it)

It was December 31st, it was getting late, I had to decide if I should accept the invitation to go to someone’s place to celebrate, place where I only knew one person and it was not even the place’s owner; or to stat at the hotel to celebrate during the official event with free mocktail. But then I received the message of Tubs, the panda, that he was going to be at the official event with his friends.

Tubs was someone who messaged me almost exactly a year ago, it was during past ANW, he practically asked me “who are you!?”, he had debuted his new panda fursuit, and people kept calling him Paco Panda, and he had no idea who the heck was Paco and why he was confused so many times by that certain Paco. Since he contacted me, we chatted occasionally during the year, and when I told him I was attending next ANW, we mentioned that we may be confused since we were going to be two pandas, so I thought on the silly idea of making matching badges that says “Definitely not Paco Panda” for him and “Definitely not Tubs” for me.

When I knew he was going to that new year celebration, I thought that could be the right moment to surprise him giving him the badge. But in my mind, in my expectation, I thought it was not going to be that special, maybe it was going to be something funny, maybe we were going to giggle a little bit, but then he was going to hang out with his friends and each one making their own plan. But his reaction about those badges was more positive than my expectations, and he invited me to join his friends, we were there for the new year countdown, also my friend Arty, who was very busy during the convention as staff, joined the countdown with me, so in the end I was surrounded by furs who wanted to be with me. All this happened while me being a panda.
We kept dancing, but the music was too loud, the bass of the place was so loud that I could feel my head shaking. I cashed my free mocktail and went out the main stage to drink it, they were giving long straws for those drinks so it was more convenient, I didn’t want to remove my panda head just to drink something, same reason why I didn’t grab one of those wines they were giving for the countdown (that I guess more than wine was sparking juice, knowing the event).

The party was over very quickly, it was 12:30 am and the music stopped and everyone is already leaving. Tubs invited me to spend more time at their room with his friends, and since I had nothing else to do and I didn’t want to end the first night of the year alone, so I accepted. It was a very nice time there, I feel that I clicked very well with his friends, after all it was a good beginning of the year with good company. I even joined their group chat for the convention.

That January 1st I found Mudkipper and Winrawr. Mudkipper gave me a watercolor painting of Art and Biro that I love sooooo much, and I got to hang out with them for that day. Later in the night I went to Tubs’ room, they were having a karaoke night. I’m terrible singing but that’s something I find so much fun especially among people I like.

January 2nd, I got in fursuit for the opening ceremonies but I had forgotten completely that the ceremony there lasts like 10 minutes or less, suddenly it was over, and I remember reading on the chat I was invited that they wanted to take some photoshoots after the opening ceremony, that’s why I had been in fursuit, but none of them were ready either, nobody had idea the ceremony was going to be that short and they moved it until some hours later, so I got to be out my fursuit and I went to have a proper breakfast. Among the amenities the convention gave me, it included coupons for breakfast and I wanted to take advantage of them, but at seeing what exactly that breakfast were, it was debut and farewell to me for that breakfast buffet, they only had very few options: scrambled eggs (made by those powder eggs), potatoes and bacon, you could grab muffins (that were made of pure sugar) and apples (they were green inside), that was all! No coffee nor juice, nothing else! I had to go back to the 8th floor (the hotel lounge) for some coffee. I still have my breakfast coupons for the rest of the days, I never went to cash them again.

I got to be in fursuit again for that photoshoot, and it was just in time for going directly to the Doodles for Charity event, I love doing that one in fursuit as panda. I had said in the past journal: “nobody really goes to my charity event and I need to be calling people to come with me for a drawing for charity”, this time was all the opposite, I had a very big queue of people wanting a drawing for charity, and I didn’t want to stop until finishing them all, but that caused me to exceed my allotted time, which I guess they didn’t mind since all that was for charity.

That day the Artists Alley started. In my perspective I thought they were not many people, it was a good amount of people buying shirts, pins, stickers, some asked for commissions, but it was not that crazy amount of people that I’m used to see at big conventions, but I think ANW is very decent in number, it has 3K+ attendees. Then I went out the room for going to the restroom and I understood why, they were restricting the amount of people on the room, and there was a HUGE queue wanting to enter to the room. Something I like from the Artists Alley at ANW is that it lasts only few hours, you don’t need to spend, as a vendor, the entire convention day sitting behind the table, only 3 hours and that’s it, then you can keep enjoying the convention! But there were people who were lining up for more than one hour for it. It was a good business day, tho.

Just after the Artists Alley, I had a ticket for a dinner, which was amazing, all the opposite than the breakfast! I didn’t have anyone who to sit with so I sit with two guys who had a spot free, I’m very shy to talk with random people, I’m not that confident, and just when I finished my dinner and I was about to go, we started talking, me awkwardly standing with my backpack already on my shoulder and that’s when we started talking, apparently I had done a commission for them in the past.
That night I was planning to just advance on commissions, since I had no other plan and I wanted to feel more free for the rest of the convention (or being able to take new commissions those upcoming days), but I kept talking with people while I was working on only one, including a raccoon named Frost. I finished one but then it happened I got to hang out with Tubs again and we get to know each other even better, he was escaping from the night dances which sound was very loud. And it really was!! The sound was still the same than the new year eve! You could hear it from the distance! Your brain could be shacking even not being slightly close to main stage. Tubs gave me a plush of a raccoon, very cute, which was very funny but it was insanely similar to Frost, the raccoon I had just talked with some minutes before.

January 3rd, I had many plans for that day, but all those plans were almost squeezed together at very similar times, so before the rush of the day started, I went down to the art jam area to finish those commissions that I couldn’t finish an evening before, and I really finished them all, I felt very pro! One of the highlights during my drawing time there was Hubcap arriving with a very big bag, giving away dino plushies to each one of us who were sitting. He’s such a sweetheart.

Just after finishing those drawings I went to the “Winter Feast”, an event that ANW has been doing year by year, even before when they moved the event to January and they were doing it in November, so the event was originally dedicated to Thanksgiving. I’m still surprised of this event, how they manage to feed successfully the entire convention with very good meals. They served cordon bleu for entree, and pumpkin pie and ambrosia salad as desserts, everything so good. I had to rush my dinner since I decided to skip the entire first hour of Artists Alley just to get free food. No regrets!
I was even considering to not go that day to work at the Artists Alley, because I also wanted to go to the Fursuit Parade that was going to overlap the Artists Alley as well, but I decided to go just for one hour and to deliver the commissions I had finished, and only that one hour I was in the table that Saturday I got very decent income. I could have stayed and I would have earned even more, but I really didn’t want to miss Fursuit Parade, not many conventions nowadays make those parades and for some reason I love them, so I closed early my table and run to get in fursuit and go to the parade, it was too much fun.

January 4th, the last day of the convention, I skipped the free sad breakfast again but this time because I went out with my friend Jordan, a local from Seattle who didn’t attend the convention but I wanted to hang out with him, and he had told me about a furry coffee shop from long ago, and I finally could be there. The name of the coffee shop is Vulpine, I like the place more than I thought I was going to like it. Indeed it was furry themed, but also the coffee and the food was actually very good, I ordered a regular latte, but since I wanted to try one of their specialities, I also ordered one that was called “Bearly Awake”, which syrup was really lovely, it was not too sweet and it had a very pleasant soft flavor. This place was very inspiring, since I’ve been “playing” to have my own coffee shop at home, so I can be the bearista of my friends who visit me, but I’ve been daydreaming of actually having a coffee shop, but that’s a plan to do when I get tired of traveling so much and I can settle down more, to have people drawing on my shop while serving them coffee. Oh, the owner recognized me, Tucker, funny thing is that I also reminded me from an Anthro Northwest from the past, when I confused him with another Tucker I knew.
If you ever go to that place, you may see some Paco stickers around, and maybe if they haven’t removed a post stick I added to the wall, also a drawing by me.

Returning to the convention, I didn’t do too much but taking down the art show, giving the pieces I sold, and going back to the Artists Alley for one last time, this time it was less crowded, people could come and go without lining up, we had a very decent amount of people checking the artists merch, I could take one more commission to do during that day because I had finished all the ones I had taken before (it is rare when I say during a Sunday of a convention that I’m open for commissions). And suddenly… the clock marked 18:00 (6pm), and it was so magical how all people disappeared, I could hear all artists saying “oh, it is because closing ceremonies is happening” “once closing ceremonies is over, we’ll have people again”, but that didn’t happen! We had scheduled the AA opened until 20:30 (8:30pm) and we barely could see people checking the place, I think from 18:30 to 20:30 I sold two more shirts and that’s all. At around 19:30 a chain reaction occurred: one artist began to take down their booth and everyone else started following up, suddenly at 20:00 I was the only one who still had his booth standing, but it was because I was wanting to finish that commission I was doing, not because I was really having hopes that more people were coming.
I remember in the past, I could be at the Artists Alley and after that going to the closing ceremonies, they decided to extend the hours as request of vendors, but this proved it was a bad idea, this is one of those conventions that dies just after closing ceremonies.

But for me it was not over, I was told that there was going to be an event at 22:00, a “Kaiju Adventure” event, about destroying a cardboard fort that was on the 6th floor, I invited all the new friends I had made during the convention to do this activity and they really went. Also I got to see Tostada, a very cute bunny who is very fun to play with. The event started and we destroyed the fort in seconds, it didn’t last too long, it was so much fun. 
After we were done with that, I invited everyone who was there to go one floor up to main stage and dance on main stage until it was over, we did, we were there until the last DJ stopped playing and they kicked us out from there, but we refused to let the convention over, and we stayed in fursuit doing stupid stuff to the point that we were the only fursuiters at the entire event. It is one of those timess that, when that moment is happening you know it is going to be very nostalgic to think about it again, and it really is, while I’m writing this I’m feeling it that way. After have attended many conventions, to be precise 66, I would think that I don’t get that feeling of nostalgia when a convention is over, and especially since it didn’t happen one month that I was at another furry convention (MFF) and it is not going to be more than two weeks that I will be at another (Further Confusion), but that moment of the night, at around 1am, not wanting to go back to my room because I want this to keep going, and enjoying my time until the last second… I’m very grateful it is still happening, I’m very grateful I can still meet new amazing people, that I can make new friends, and that all this has been enjoyable as the first time, I was so afraid this was going to be redundant and routine when we are living something unique. Very honestly, because when in the world I would think to turn in a panda bear, surrounded by people who are also animals, coming from different parts of the world, different backgrounds, different jobs, and we are able to meet on these events and don’t even feel we are doing something weird, this is only happening at this right time on the universe. I’m truly grateful for all this.

The next day, January 5th, it was one of those days after the convention that I need to wake up very early before hotel check out, because I left everything “for tomorrow”, like packing, and I need to pack a lot for the artists alley, and label many boxes and ship them, so I need to do extra steps than usual, but I got everything on time and I could spend more time with Tubs and Gunner, and say a farewell to Arty and Mathias, before heading to the airport, that I was lucky to be going out at the same time than Kloree was also searching for going to the airport and we could share a ride.

This was, again, unexpected I was going to write a journal about ANW 8 (2026), but it happened and I’m so glad it happened!
I’m gonna share some pictures, that most of them are from other people o///o since I really didn’t take too many myself, but I was saving those that I got be shared and now I’m sharing them with you:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wno2aal1nmca8uh8qorfb/AGGr3yPQN-J2y1H9AWKhHu0?rlkey=d86wjliph6sw7uuk3c9t5a6ry&dl=0