The following is my review of DenFur 2024 based on my experiences at the convention and after having a good minute to think back on everything that happened and discuss with my close friends. I'm also not posting this review as a way to push people towards or away from the convention, but hopefully it will act as a critique for the con staff to make a better con in future years. Also, I was not paid nor given any special status during this convention, and even though I mention staff in the review, I went thru the entire con on my own dollar as a normal guest.

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Overall score: D. This is an expensive con with a short timeline, with only 1 full day of events (as compared to most cons that have 2 or more full days of events. So if you’re going to do something short and sweet, you better make sure you hit all the details right. And unfortunately I didn’t feel like they managed to make a con that left me wanting to go next year.

Con Operations: C-. Con staff was better at being good to con-goers (not something I can say about 2023 when they yelled at us for *checks notes* absolutely nothing). And when things worked, they worked decently. Not great, not excellent, but decent. 



Where con operations failed was in organization. Things were completely disorganized on the backend, which was clear when they lost my application for staff and also never gave me hours nor got back to me. When they figured out where I worked, the person running that department didn’t have me on their list. I didn’t feel like getting involved anymore, so I just kinda opted out of staff at that point. Honestly, the conventions organization needs a huge overhaul.

 I also felt that staff communication were not very professional and that was weird for a convention operation. While I don’t mind the “sweeties” and “honeys” dropped in messages, it’s not appropriate for everyone. And honestly, that’s kind of how operations felt… like they were whispering sweet nothings to try and water down the complete lack of a good structure.


I think part of the problem with the convention operations is that AEIOU has their hands spread thin by hosting 4 conventions a year, and so instead of getting 100% of their effort, the con only had 25% at any point. They should really restructure or drop some cons if they can’t handle that many.



Hotel: C-. No problems with room parties this year, pretty good accessibility to room. However, the price tag for a room was expensive. Parking was not included and was expensive, even for downtown Denver (though did have in-and-out).

Oh and as far as hotel rooms go, these ones were small and poorly ventilated with weird noises from our HVAC system. Our room typically had to use the “I’m going out to the bathroom” and then go downstairs to the lobby to keep smells at bay, and we absolutely hated the non-locking barn door bathroom which didn’t allow the person in the bathroom to get real privacy (yes, we could hear all your business). Side note, I hated that the metal floor piece in the shower dinged when water hit it. Rooms had a small fridge and coffee maker, a TV on a built-in bench wall, and a table. There was a lot of outlets and USB-2.0 charging locations including on the side of the bed frames (that was nice) and the room came with 2 standard-size, free water bottles plus a ridiculous large, $4 water. Microwaves could be added to the room with a call to the front desk, but were not standard. Overall there was enough space to comfortable fit 4 people, or if on a budget… squeeze 6 (maybe 8 if you are on a super tight budget). Our room came with 3 towels (which is like… why three?) and they did not offer late check-out. Hotel pool is in the tower and does not have a hot tub... or at least I didn't see one.

Outside of the room, the hotel layout is totally shit for the con which means people were riding elevators up and down to go to other con spaces, causing additional congestion.

 No really. The Convention was held mostly on the “C” level of the plaza building, though many people hung-out on the “L” level, and the party floor was on level 2. Registration, dealers den, and artist alley were held on level 2 of the Tower building, and there was a bridge connecting the two buildings on level 2 or you could go underground on the “C” level. There is no direct connection to the two without an elevator. This meant a lot of going in and out of the building (something fursuiters don’t want to do in a hot, slightly muggy August Denver) or riding elevators. I don’t have a solution for this but it really made the convention feel split in half.


Registration: C. Average registration with some decent flow. I would have like to have seen more badge art, especially since badges were not pre-printed always. I want to also add that my registration was worse than others, because they lost my registration and I had to go to the special assist lane to get registered. When in the lane, the person managing it let people cut ahead of me and even insulted me by saying the lane was only for people that had special needs for reg (which I did… duh… that’s why I was there). The whole special reg layout blocked the normal reg which then made me feel like I was standing in the hallway. These are easy things to fix, so I hope they fix them next year.

My reg, with small lines (because we skipped opening reg because there was a long line), took a little over 45 minutes. My friend’s reg not requiring the special lane took about 15 minutes. Not bad.


Theme: F. I’ve been to tons of furry conventions at this point, and honestly outside of BLFC I don’t think many go all-in on theme. But they’ll have a poster here or a small art decoration there.

Not DenFur. Honestly if they hadn’t told me the theme was Chocolate Factory, I wouldn’t have known. There were no posters, no theming to the AV, nothing. It was so poorly themed that you honestly just felt like a bunch of furries in a hotel. And if that’s the case, then the theme was only used to sell stuff in the ConStore which in my opinion is subpar theming. At least get a poster made… something. 

If I missed something from theme, that’s on AEIOU because I walked everywhere and never noticed anything that said “Chocolate factory” to me.



Events: F. Seriously I didn’t know when anything was happening… like at all. Maybe this one is on me because I never looked a the con schedule, but also thats the only way you would learn about events happening. And when I’m at con, I’m usually not going to look at those especially if it’s on my phone. It should be obvious.

Here’s some tips for AEIOU, turn the badge over and add main events (dance comp, opening and closing ceremonies, etc) and put it in that big blank spot on the back. If you went to DenFur, take a look at the back of your badge. Perfect spot to add main events so people have one more way to know where and when. Second, buy a damn TV (they’re cheap, especially since you spent nothing on theme) and put it at ConOps with the upcoming events or another central location. And get signage. Seriously I never knew what was happening because it’s nowhere to be found. Felt like they didn’t want us going to things, and as such the events I did go to felt empty overall.

And this includes the panels. They were held down the same corridor thats not near anything… so I never knew what was going on down there and it was either walk that weird corridor to find out, or look-it-up.

Dealers Den / Artist Alley: B-. Dealers Den was bigger than the previous year, but still felt too damn compact. For reference, there was about 3 lanes for traffic in each aisle, so if someone stopped to talk to a dealer on either side, there was 1 free lane. This led to multiple announcements to keep the traffic moving, which honestly sucked. This is my main gripe.

Variety in the dealers den was overall pretty good. There were some dealers that felt out-of-place in my opinion (this is a furry con, please keep dealers as furry as possible). But overall the selection was good.

There was on exception to this rule, which was the 18+ area… which was just a dildo-fest of every dildo maker except bad dragon. I’m not complaining bad dragon wasn’t there, I’m upset because it basically felt like the dildo room with a few other wares. I hope in the future they select less dildo sellers and offer more spaces to artists, gear, or something else. Just something for a bit of variety and not just dildos. Or make the space smaller and add more space for normal dealers den. Line management for the 18+ was also not great, with a lot of space given to a line that wasn’t really necessary. I think having an entrance and an exit would have also helped… and maybe use the switchback design rather than hiding everything behind a cloth to improve movement and flow. Just some thoughts.



OH, and also please get rid of the con services in the dealers den. What a waste of prime real estate right at the front of the room. Move that out of the den since they don’t sell shit and move the table in the den when they close.

Artist Alley was pretty good, though could have been expanded (not that it was in full use though).



Dances (aka Rave): B+. Some of the DJs weren’t great and some were excellent, but that’s to be expected. 

My main problem with dance was during the one of the DJs I went to the overhead lights suddenly came on and the stage lights turned out, which sucks for that DJ and also completely ruined the atmosphere. Took them almost the rest of the set to fix, and they continued having problems as it went. 



Con Pack-up: A+. Seriously about the only thing AEIOU got right was packing up the con… and they did it almost too well. Once the dealers den shut down, they were calling for all hands to pack-up… and before I knew it everything was gone.

I know I gave this an A+, but I want you to think about that. Sunday night there was no Rave, and as such as soon as the con was gone so was everyone else. It felt like a desert and the quick-pack-up also made the whole convention feel as though Sunday was just a discount day, which left many of my friends feeling ripped-off since that was before 5PM. So this is just a note to everyone else, AEIOU packs-up and gets-out like they robbed you.

Other notes: This year the Denver 16th street mall was under construction, which made getting food a disaster for con-goers. Normally getting down 16th street is a breeze, but because of the construction we found ourselves avoiding the street to get to locations faster. Outside of that, many of the food places were either a little pricier, sit-down or they were fast food. And being as the con is held at one end of the mall, we found that meant some places were not easy to get to. 

On the good side though, there were options that stayed open to a decent hours (9pm or so) and they also have a Target if you forgot something and needed to make a quick shopping run. There’s also some cool spaces within the mall which was a lot of fun to check-out. 



These other notes were not used to judge the convention, just some FYI.