Midwest FurFest 2014



Midwest FurFest 2014 was a convention that was held at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Rosemont, Illinois. from December 5th to December 7th, 2014. Total attendance was 4,571, including 1,132 participants in the fursuit parade and 186 staff members.

The change in dates from its traditional weekend before Thanksgiving (US) was due to scheduling conflicts with the hotel and lack of available rooms.

Guests of Honor
The Guests of Honor were:
 * Lacy and CloudPouncer
 * Novadog/D. Walker
 * Sabretoothed Ermine

Charity
The convention's charity was Critter Camp Exotic Pet Sanctuary. Critter Camp is an exotic pet sanctuary which cares for over 300 abandoned abused pets of 30 different types.

Through various fundraisers, including the Poker tournament ($2,610), 2 and Kage show ($2,633), Charity auction ($2,710), table donations ($3,197), and a donation from the convention itself ($20,000), approximately $31,445.93 was raised.

Theme
Midwest FurFest 2014's theme was "Holidays in the City" (originally announced as "Bright Lights Big City").

Sabretoothed Ermine's cover for the Midwest FurFest 2014 convention book was awarded a 2014 Ursa Major Award in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration.

Chemical incident
At 12:45 a.m. on the third day of the convention, December 7th, Midwest FurFest's primary hotel was forced to evacuate when somebody dropped a jar of powdered chlorine inside the building. First responders were called to investigate a noxious odor that was spreading across the ninth and eighth floor of the hotel, where a high level of chlorine powder was discovered in the air. The Rosemont Public Safety Department reported that the chemical was released from a smashed glass container containing powdered chlorine found in the 9th floor stairwell. Due to seasonably cool temperatures, the Hyatt and Rosemont Public Safety evacuated attendees, some in fursuits, to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center.

Nineteen people were transported to nearby hospitals after complaining of nausea, dizziness and other medical problems. None were hospitalized and all were released. HAZMAT technicians decontaminated the area and after conducting several tests deemed the area safe within about two hours. People were allowed back into the building around 4:20 a.m.

A television news stringer arrived at the scene during the event and recorded footage of the evacuation in progress, which became the footage used in news reports around the world. News coverage of the evacuation began almost immediately, with two of Chicago's 24-hour news radio stations (WGN-AM and WBBM-AM) mentioning it on the air within minutes of the evacuation beginning, initially as traffic alerts (due to the road closures caused by the emergency response) but quickly moved it into news segments as additional information regarding the scope of the evacuation reached their newsrooms. The incident was a lead story that morning during newscasts on almost all of the Chicago television stations, with WMAQ (NBC 5) and WLS (ABC 7) sending crews to the hotel for live reports. The incident also featured on an episode of MSNBC's Morning Joe.

Normal convention operations and events continued on schedule, with the convention staff releasing an official statement about the incident and evacuation later on the day.

Vice News followed up with the incident in an article on February 12th, 2016. An incident report filed by the Rosemont Police Department shows the case was logged into the system on December 8, 2014, assigned to a detective on December 29 of that year, and closed on July 29, 2015. Detectives from the Rosemont Police Department declined to comment directly on the case, but reports they provided to VICE show that in the days following the incident, officers interviewed at least 30 hotel guests, more than 19 hotel employees, and a number of hospital workers, taxi drivers, and staff employed at local pool and hardware supply stores that sell chlorine. While officers investigated the whereabouts of several individuals, it's unclear how many were considered suspects and during what time.