FurJAM

FurJAM is a large furry gathering held yearly in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It typically occurs during one of the weekends of the September School Holidays (NSW), or as late as the first week of October.

FurJAM is a very laid-back outdoor, socially interactive event based around city sightseeing, a picnic in a park with a BBQ, social networking, and having a great day (or three). The ideals of FurJAM are that it should not be restricted to a single location or venue, but be a roving occurrence, allowing people the freedom to pick and choose events they would like to attend and to come and go as they wish. While the main event is all-ages, many evening events are 18+, or at least require adult accompaniment, due to.

Over the years some of the members of the community have asked for it to be turned into a convention, but due to the prohibitive costs of running a convention in the Sydney area, FurJam stayed it's original meetup format until the establishment of spinoff event Aurawra by FurJAM staff and other local organizers, the first instance of which is to be held in July 2020 in addition to FurJAM.

History

 * 2004 - FurJAM is started by Ana and Rubberfox, with about 46 attendees during the all-day event, which included visits to Paddy's Markets, Darling Harbour, Rocks Markets, and dinner at Rubberfox's house. The venture began as a proof of concept that furries did actually exist in Sydney. This endeavor succeeded as otherwise hard-to-find furs were discovered.
 * 2005 - FurJAM 2005's attendance jumped to almost 70 attendees over the course of the day.
 * 2006 - (No FurJAM held due to a lack of interest in organizing it).
 * 2007 - The 2007 FurJAM was held on the weekend of September 21st to 23rd, 2007.


 * After Flaydramon and Anakaine decided they did not have the time to plan FurJAM 07, it was postponed. After complaints from various furs about it being abandoned, AussieHusky took over the FurJAM Website and planning for the 2007 event.


 * 2008 - FurJAM 2008 was held on the 26th to 28th of September. AussieHusky had originally stated that he would not be organising FurJam 2008, as he had his own smaller events, but discontent over Alexander's apparent lack of action due to other commitments prompted AussieHusky to take control of the event.


 * The t-shirt design for FurJam 2008, depicting AussieHusky's idea "the Skyline of Sydney harbour (Things like the Opera House and Sydney Harbour bridge) with a Macro Fox, Husky, And Lion (all male) stommping arround with the stylised lettering of "FurJam" was done by DietyOfDooky.


 * In June 2008 AussieHusky described FurJam as "a annual furmeet in Sydney Australia with between 30 and 70 attendees".


 * 2009 - FurJam 2009 was held between the 25th and 27th of September. AussieHusky started planning early and designed a much more advanced website for users to register, purchase merchandise, and edit their registration. However, technical difficulties forced the website to be temporarily taken down, causing many potential attendees to speculate that the meet had be canceled.


 * Website functionality was restored on June 17th, but with the loss of all registration details . Nevertheless, FurJam 2009 resumed its normal dates.


 * 2010 - FurJAM 2010 was held between September 24th - September 26, and organised by Ray Liehm, with many other furs and non-furs contributing both their time and assistance to ensure a smooth hassle-free event, with the furmeet having approximately 70-80 people present. The weekend's event schedule included dinner & drinks at the Rose on Friday, a BBQ & Art Jam in Centennial Park on Saturday, followed by a room party in the evening featuring dancing, competitions and a stand-up comedy performance by Anthrax, with laser tag, a scavenger hunt and dinner at the Docks Hotel in Darling Harbour on Sunday completing the lineup.
 * 2011 - FurJAM 2011 was held over the weekend of October 7th - 9th and was organised under the supervision of Bane Ranaura, Auri and Foxdale, with the assistance of previous FurJAM staff. The schedule of events for the 2011 meet built upon the format set out in previous years, with a pub night, BBQ, dance party and scavenger hunt among the listed activities. One significant change was the new pub venue for Friday night, which moved to the Forresters Hotel in Surry Hills . Shirts for the meet were also available for sale via the FurJAM website.
 * 2012 - FurJAM 2012 was held over September 14th - 16th, 2012. Following previous formats, Friday night was a pub event at The Occidental, with the second floor function room booked out for attendees. Saturday was held again as a BBQ at Paperback Grove in Centennial Park, with night activities taking place at the Easter Suburbs Legion Club. Sunday was left event-free giving friends the chance to meet up in the city of their own accord an organise their own activities. This years events concluded at The Helm Bar on Darling Harbour. Shirts were not available for purchase during 2012.
 * 2013 - FurJAM 2013 was held over September 6-8, 2013. It was organised by Foxdale and Kat Aclysm, with assistance from Auri, Aussie Husky, and Ray Liehm.


 * The format of the Furjam as remained the similar to those of previous years; with the Friday night pub event at The Occidental, saturday BBQ and Club event and the sunday lasertag/bowling meet in the morning and closing ceremony pub meet on sunday night. The saturday park event was moved from Centennial park, in the eastern suburb of Randwick, to Sydney park at the near the heart of city centre in St peters.


 * This was done in order to make the travel between the park event and evening club event which was now held at Marrickville Bowls club easier due to them being one train station away, but unfortunately Sydney Trains trackwork had not been announced at the time the bowls club was booked and thus it created minor problems for transportation wise. The sunday daytime events coincided with the Bronies of NSW "Equestria Girls" screening and was presented as an alternative to those who didn't wish to attend the lasertag/bowling, while the sunday night pub was at the Pyrmont Bridge hotel.


 * In response to calls from some segments fandom for FurJAM to transition from a meet to a convention, Kat Aclysm has issued a statement detailing that due to the cost of convention spaces in Sydney and that the desire for the con to be held in or near the CBD, that it is currently not financially viable to keep FurJAM affordable while also becoming a con.


 * 2014 - FurJAM 2014 was held over September 19-21, 2014. The Friday Night venue was held at the Harlequinn Inn in Pyrmont, with a BBQ on the Saturday morning in the bottom corner of Sydney Park. The Saturday evening event saw attendees at the Manhattan Superbowl, a mixed venue where people could go bowling and meet downstairs afterwards in a privately booked room for 6:00pm onwards. The Sunday events were open-ended in the morning half, with the final venue being at The Palace Hotel, a pub near the State Capital Theatre. 2014's organisers included Foxdale, Kat Aclysm, Shadow, Sli, and Paulfox. FurJam 2014's population floated between 120 ~ 140 on Friday and Saturday, with approximately 40 people attending the Sunday evening venue.
 * 2015 - FurJAM 2015 took place over Friday September 18 - Sunday September 20. There were various grades of pre-registration, ranging from Saturday-Day BBQ Only, to Regular-Weekend sponsorship, and the top level was referred to as GOD-tier, or Guest Of Dishonor (this was a play on GOD-tier from videogames. The actual acronym is also a play on conventions and Guests of Honor). There were 227 registered attendees (not counting Staff or minors who attended the BBQ under their Guardian's membership). The t-shirt artist for this year was Ivy/Muttasaur. The 2015 T-Shirt design was available in kelly-green for regular purchase, and the GOD-Tier version was black with the owner's name on the right sleeve.


 * 2016 - FurJAM 2016 took place over September 16-18, 2016. Events will include a pub meet on the Friday night venue is once again to be held at the Harlequinn Inn in Pyrmont, with a BBQ on the Saturday morning at Cahill Park. The Saturday Night venue is to be held at the Mercure Sydney International Airport, where a Ballroom has been hired out exclusively for the event along with a seperate room for digital game competitions and a headless lounge for fursuiters. Sunday night will be at the Palace Hotel..
 * 2017 - FurJAM 2017 took place over September 22-24, again at the Harlequinn Inn in Pyrmont.
 * 2018 - FurJAM 2018 took place September 14-16. There were 275 registered attendees.
 * 2019 - FurJAM 2019 took place September 20-22. There were 327 registered attendees, and at least 92 fursuiters.

Controversy

 * FurJAM 2007 - On August 9, 2001, links to the FurJAM website were placed on 4chan's /b/ image board, with the intention of flooding the forums and messing with the poll choices for event activities. Following this, the polls and forum were closed, leaving the site less interactive.
 * FurJAM 2009 - The 2009 FurJam suffered from disruption when an anonymous individual claiming to be AussieHusky changed the booking dates for several events just a week before FurJAM was set to go ahead. However, the sabotage attempt was quickly thwarted, with all venues restoring the bookings within 24 hours. FurJAM 2009 went ahead without further incident, excepting a minor physical altercation on Friday night between attendees, and the attendance of Timon_b on both Friday and Saturday despite being officially prohibited from attending the meet.
 * FurJAM 2010 - Timon_b was refused entry to the Eastern Suburbs Legion Club on Saturday night by RayLiehm after being banned following an earlier incident.