Garden State Fur The Weekend@gardenstatefur
Attention: Please read the following statement from the Garden State Fur the Weekend Board:
There has been controversy brought up by particular individuals/sites regarding the leadership and organization of Garden State Fur The Weekend. Often these points have been misleading others to half-truths and fabrication of ideas that are unsubstantiated, which can be damaging to the convention as well as all the hard working individuals that help make this convention happen for the fandom.
A number of these issues have been brought up in the past and answered, but we feel these questions would best be answered in this Q&A so as to reduce the need to keep repeating our responses.
To begin, GSFTW is in no way collaborating or being paid for/by Nazifurs or other groups with hidden agendas. The convention runs on the hard working people that make up the GSFTW staff and volunteers, and on the attendees that attend the convention. Screenshots can be forged so we’re taking them at face value - Dashing has no recollection of some conversations due to the mutual blocking of both parties, so we can’t confirm or deny the screenshots.
Q: Dashing appeared on a Youtube video (May 2020) where he is interviewed in a podcast with Aeveirra, a known Furry Raider. Is Dashing aligned with the Furry Raiders?
A: Dashing is not aligned with Furry Raiders/Nazifurs in any way. Back at the start of 2020 when Covid became a big deal, people began moving to VR to meet since physical meets were no longer possible. Dashing met one of Aeveirra’s friends on VR - without knowledge of who they were - and they hit it up. Shortly later Dashing was introduced to Aeveirra as someone who could be helpful for GSFTW. Also, without knowledge who they were, Dashing brought up Aeverirra’s name as a potential staff to which he was then warned that they were a member of the FurryRaiders. It was at this time that unfortunately, Dashing did not research and look into the claims of who Aeverirra was, and continued to believe that they were VR friends.
In May, Dashing was asked if he’d be willing to go on a podcast to discuss if VRC would replace furry conventions in the future, to which Dashing agreed. The Zoom call was run by Aeveirra, and Dashing answered questions and also advertised GSFTW as a new NJ con.
It was only after the video that others had a pep-talk with Dashing and showed him who those “friends” were that he then realized his mistake being with them. He refused to be associated with them and he immediately blocked them. He has had no communication with them to this day.
Q: Why was there a mass exodus of staff when they found out about Dashing’s interview?
A: At the time (December/January 2024), GSFTW was growing its staff members. One individual who had joined GSFTW and wanted to help by bringing along a number of his friends to offer their services with security and other departments. GSFTW was grateful, however in a short time, it became evident that they were attempting to gain a spot on the Board and take over the convention as an ulterior motive. Dashing’s past mistake wasn’t something new, but this individual felt it necessary to dig up the past in order to get enough leverage and staff to support him. In the end, the takeover failed and the mass exodus occurred when he pulled out every single person that he planted in the con.
Q: There was an individual who wanted to remove every Nazifur and troublesome individuals from all chats. Why did you not do this?
A: GSFTW has a policy which states that we cannot ban or remove people without just cause and this applies to whether it is in a chat or at a convention. GSFTW’s ban policy is no different than other conventions such as Anthrocon. Deliberately banning people without cause and based on perceived opinions can open up the convention to a lawsuit. It is for this reason that cons do not share their ban list - they follow their own policies on who they remove from their conventions. This individual gave a list of individuals he wanted removed but did not provide any evidence as to why/how these individuals have broken the GSFTW’s policy, and so his request to remove these individuals was denied.
Q: And yet later on, you did end up removing these individuals from the chats?
A: It was unfortunate that due to the drama fallout and at the risk of a lawsuit, the PR department and Board agreed that it would be best to go against the GSFTW policy and remove these individuals from the chats in order to reduce the drama. This act unfortunately had the opposite effect and incited even more drama.
Q: GSFTW was somehow able to bounce back after the mass exodus which meant they secretly had people on standby or misled staff on who was who
A: The people that were part of the mass exodus were one individual staff member and his friends. GSFTW already had the base staff group so him and his friend’s absence had no effect. Our existing staff and volunteers pulled together to make the convention happen.
Q: It seems oddly coincidental that Dashing was sick, stepped down, but then appeared healthy and working at the con
A: Dashing was sick and at times in the hospital. At the advice of PR and Board, he did step down as Con Chair, but would continue to help with the convention. Stepping down never meant that he would leave the convention. Shy stepped up and was named Con Chair to fulfill the empty position. Dashing remained sick for 3 months but mostly recovered by the time the convention started.
Q: It seems oddly coincidental that the convention was first a 501c3 and then switched to an LLC. Was this meant to be a bait-and-switch, make people believe the con was non-profit, and then afterwards not?
A: The application for the 501c3 was incorrectly filed. Since the 501c3 process is long and complicated and given the timeframe at which the convention was scheduled to happen, it would not have been possible to be 501c3 compliant. The only way for the convention to happen was to switch it to an LLC.
Q: Was GSFTW colluding with FOX News? They were filming freely at the convention without a press badge?
A: GSFTW has no association with FOX News. GSFTW was contacted by FOX News to find out more about the event and what it was. The news crew was always being escorted around or locked in a room with someone from the Board.
Q: If GSFTW was not colluding with FOX News, why was Peter interviewed?
A: The news crew was looking for people in fursuit to interview. Peter was in fursuit at the time and in the vicinity of the news crew, and they had asked if they could interview him. There was no reason at the time to deny them from interviewing a suiter. Moving forward, GSFTW does realize the situation could have managed the situation better, with having a proper spokesperson for future interviews. As a new con, we are always trying to improve what did not work well for the following year and we regret that it we did not handle this properly the first time. With the way they presented themselves, FOX News will not be returning next time.
Q: It was said Peter was staff and did A/V work for the convention. There are pictures of him taking photos for the con
A: In no way was Peter representing a staff member or volunteer for GSFTW. Peter did not do A/V work for the convention, only other than to help load boxes at the end of the con. Any photos of him taking photos are his own photos and not GSFTW official photos.
Q: It was said Arctico was on staff
A: Arctico was listed as staff but he never attended the convention and so he was dismissed
Q: Who quit after the con, making the staff collapse?
A: With all cons, people (staff/volunteer) come and go due to life priority and decisions. In addition, staff members can change departments as well. We’re sad to see some people unable to stay but we also welcome all the new members joining us for the upcoming year.
Q: Staff request for budgets stonewalled
A: It was absolutely imperative that a request from staff for what items were required. No requested item was ever assumed to be useless/excluded. But being financially responsible, especially for a 1st year con, meant we needed to make sure that we were cost-conscious so that we could survive for a future year. Getting a wishlist asking for thousands of dollars worth of items ONLY for registration was a lot of money. It was a better decision to ask: without excluding any required items, how and where could we save money? What alternative suppliers can we find that could give us better discounts? This is literally Business 101. In the end, the Registration department was given all needed equipment at a fraction of the cost of the original wishlist price.
Q: 957 official attendance was inflated and hard to detect due to Reg Dept turnover
A: This is the number as provided by the registration service we use for GSFTW
Q: GSFTW overestimated their numbers and after realizing their error, inflated their numbers
A: We did a lot of projections and estimates prior to the convention. Without actual 1st year data, we also looked at other cons and con trends in order to make our initial pricing decisions. We erred on the side of being conservative especially for a con with limited budget. We never made bold estimates – far from it. In fact, our estimates ended up being a little lower than actual.
Q: Numbers aren’t adding up. Based on the attendee count and reg pricing $65, they would need almost a thousand people to get the event off the ground.
A: A con doesn’t just sell base tier registration. As mentioned at Closing Ceremonies, our financials were good - we were in the black and able to break even, thus making a 2nd year possible. And we have to thank the hard work of all staff and volunteers for making this happen.
Q: They have outside benefactors artificially boosting their reg numbers on paper and secretly funding the con so it wouldn’t go belly up
A: We didn’t have any external benefactors and we didn’t boost reg numbers.
