The 8th edition of Seattle's furry convention ran December 31, 2025 to January 4, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Seattle under the theme "Nature." Attendees rang in the new year together downtown, then spent the long weekend leaning into a Pacific Northwest outdoors aesthetic, five animal mascots representing the region's wildlife, an Anthropomorphic Film Festival, a Classical Music Recital, and a charity total that nearly doubled the previous year's.
ANW 2026 drew 3,466 attendees (a new record, up from 3,112 in 2025) and raised $30,040 for Sarvey Wildlife Care Center, the local wildlife rehabilitation partner the convention has supported every year since its 2017 debut. That charity figure is a 63% jump from 2025's $18,446.76, the largest year-over-year donation increase in the convention's history.
For evergreen travel info, hotel detail, and the full Past Years archive, see the Anthro Northwest convention page.
After 2025's "Remembrance" (a softer, retrospective year that followed the convention's gradual post-pandemic rebuild), 2026 leaned into the Pacific Northwest's defining trait: the outdoors. "Nature" ran as much more than a decor theme, it tied directly to the convention's mascot family and to its long-standing charity partnership with Sarvey Wildlife.
The convention's promotional art (visible in the cover image above, drawn from the official anthronw.com hero of the 2026 site) placed the five mascots inside a Pacific Northwest waterfall scene: moss-covered rocks, evergreens, a stream pooling under a mountain backdrop. That same wildlife-and-water motif carried through badge art and lobby decor.
For attendees considering a Seattle trip, our winter cons guide covers the cold-weather travel layer (ANW sits at the front of the post-NYE winter calendar alongside Further Confusion and JMoF) and our first-con packing list has the basics for any trip that crosses an airport.
ANW does not run a traditional Guest of Honor lineup. Instead, the convention's identity has consistently centered on its mascot family: Andy the wolf, Cove the sea otter, Storm the osprey, plus two more added in recent years (Echo and Pip), each representing a piece of Pacific Northwest wildlife. The cover artwork for 2026 places all five of them in a waterfall scene together, the headline image for the year.
This is one of the more distinctive programming choices among major U.S. conventions. Where most cons in the ANW size range (3,000-5,000) anchor their weekend around a Musical or Artist GoH headline set, ANW gives that slot to its in-house mascots, its volunteer art teams, and to programming tracks that lean cultural rather than performative: the Anthropomorphic Film Festival and the Classical Music Recital are both annual fixtures and were back for 2026.
The choice to skip a headline GoH also keeps the convention's all-ages branding tight. ANW formally brands itself as completely PG-rated and family-friendly, distinguishing itself from conventions in the same size range that run 18+ programming tracks. The mascot-and-cultural focus reinforces that positioning, there is no headline act whose set might pull the convention's tone in a different direction.
The headline number for ANW 2026 is the charity total. $30,040 raised for Sarvey Wildlife Care Center lands a long way above 2025's $18,446.76 (a 63% increase) and well above the previous record set in the convention's pre-pandemic peak.
Sarvey Wildlife Care Center is a wildlife rehabilitation organization in Arlington, Washington, about an hour north of Seattle. The connection to the convention is thematic as much as logistical, every year's ANW charity dollars go back into rehabilitating injured wildlife from the same Pacific Northwest ecosystem the convention's "Nature" theme celebrated. ANW has been a Sarvey partner since the convention's 2017 debut year, when the inaugural edition raised $3,100. The running lifetime total across nine years of partnership is now into six figures.
For a convention in the 3,000-attendee range, $30,040 is a strong per-capita figure: roughly $8.67 raised per attendee, which is competitive with much larger conventions when measured that way. That ratio suggests the charity push had real attendee engagement, not just a single large auction win.
The community side of the convention also produced the running joke captured above: a hand-drawn illustration tallying up "your quota" (badge, chair rental, water bottle, and a full fursuit) to a $21,206 total. The bit landed for the same reason the con-budgeting guide does on a different register: U.S. furry conventions are increasingly expensive trips, and the community's defaulted response is to joke about the math while quietly figuring it out.
In the run-up to ANW 2026, a major Washington snowstorm pattern threatened to disrupt attendee travel days before the convention opened, with community channels tracking flight delays into Sea-Tac and road conditions across the Cascades in the final week of December 2025. The storm hit hard enough that FurryTMZ ran an explicit warning post about a potential travel shutdown. The convention itself ran on schedule and Sea-Tac stayed operational through the opening days, but a handful of attendees on Bluesky and Telegram reported re-routes, delayed bag drops, and Cascades-route cancellations.
The Pacific Northwest winter is a real travel variable for ANW (more than the "Nature" theme implies) and it is one of the considerations our winter cons guide walks through for any convention that anchors itself in the December-to-January window.
Spanning New Year's Eve is ANW's most distinctive scheduling choice. The 2026 edition ran Wednesday December 31, 2025 through Sunday January 4, 2026, with midnight on the convention's second night. Attendees rang in 2026 together inside the Hyatt Regency Seattle, one of only a handful of furry conventions in the world that crosses the calendar boundary.
The dates also place ANW in close conversation with Further Confusion in San Jose, which ran the same MLK weekend (January 15-18, 2026 for FC) and which is the only larger West Coast U.S. convention in the same season. The two conventions don't compete directly (different cities, different week) but they do form the front end of the post-NYE winter calendar that our winter cons guide walks through in detail.
The closing announcements confirmed ANW 9: "Beauty" for January 7 to 10, 2027, notably not spanning New Year's Eve. After eight consecutive years of NYE-crossing dates, ANW 9 will be the first edition in a long time without a midnight countdown weekend.
The shift moves ANW out of direct alignment with the New Year holiday window. The new dates put ANW 9 the weekend before Further Confusion 2027 rather than two weeks ahead, which subtly changes the West Coast trip-planning calculation: attendees doing both will land into January with a tighter turnaround and may need to choose more deliberately than in past years. The official site listed the new dates and the "Beauty" theme as confirmed at the close of the 2026 weekend.
ANW is one of dozens of major furry conventions worldwide. Browse the full calendar to plan the rest of your year.
Browse the Full Calendar3,466 attendees, a new record and an 11.4% increase from 2025's 3,112. Anthro Northwest has more than doubled in size since 2021's 1,374 and is one of the fastest-growing mid-size conventions in North America.
Sarvey Wildlife Care Center, the Arlington, Washington wildlife rehabilitation organization the convention has supported every year since 2017. The 2026 total of $30,040 is a 63% increase over 2025's $18,446.76 and a new convention record.
"Nature," with a Pacific Northwest outdoors aesthetic, waterfalls, mountains, evergreen forests, and a focus on the convention's mascot family (Andy, Cove, Storm, Echo, Pip) which represents PNW wildlife.
ANW does not run a traditional Guest of Honor lineup. The convention's headline programming centers on its mascot family and on annual cultural tracks like the Anthropomorphic Film Festival and the Classical Music Recital.
ANW 9: "Beauty" runs January 7 to 10, 2027 at the Hyatt Regency Seattle. Notably, the 2027 dates do not span New Year's Eve, a break from ANW's recent tradition of running across the holiday.
ANW runs at the Hyatt Regency Seattle, a downtown hotel a short Link Light Rail ride from Sea-Tac Airport (SEA). The convention's central downtown location puts attendees within walking distance of Pike Place Market, restaurants, and overflow hotel options. For full venue and travel detail, see the Anthro Northwest convention page.
For first-time ANW attendees considering 2027, our first con survival guide, first con packing list, and winter cons guide cover what to expect from a Seattle-in-January trip. If you are weighing ANW against the wider North American circuit, our North American cons 2026 guide ranks the continent's major events by size, season, and travel cost.
Sources:
#anthronorthwest and #anw on Bluesky, surfaced via FurryGuides' hashtag harvester (attribution per photo).Have a correction, additional source, or moment to add (especially the official 2026 closing-ceremony recap link or programming highlights)? Send us a note and we will update this recap when new data lands.
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