Budgeting for a furry con

Everyone has their own budget for conventions, so how do you make sure you keep within yours? There are several ways you can keep an eye on your spending while still enjoy the convention to the fullest, most involve a bit of advance planning. When budgeting for a con, I like to separate the individual expenses into three sets: Travel expenses (hotel and transportation), food and supplies, and convention & leisure expenses.

TRAVEL EXPENSES

Unless you’re fortunate enough to live locally or within reasonable driving distance, the greatest part of your expense budget will be your flight to Pittsburgh, and your hotel stay. Flights across the board are more expensive this year as summer travel picks up, and more people are vacationing post-pandemic, so be prepared to spend a bit more on air travel than in previous years.

That being said, make sure you price check regularly, especially midweek as airfares tend to dip from Tuesday-Thursday, and you can also sign up for price alerts on several websites that will send you a text or email when your flight itinerary lowers in price.

Also, a 4-night hotel stay in a standard room at one of the Anthrocon hotels will run close to $1,000 now after taxes and fees, so a huge factor in your budget will be the ability to split hotel costs with roommates – ideally a 4-way split will save you about $750 as opposed to staying by yourself!

FOOD and supplies

Once you have your hotel and travel costs figured out, then you can see how much of your remaining budget you can allocate for the con itself. Say you are on a $1,000 budget, and your total travel costs are $700 - that leaves you $300 for food and miscellaneous spending. While there are many food options in and around the convention center and main hotels, I would allocate at least 50% of your remaining budget towards food. One cost-saving tip would be to make a trip to a local grocery store (especially if you are driving in) and stocking up on affordable, healthy snacks such as fruit, granola, refrigerated salads (all of Anthrocon’s partner hotels come equipped with mini fridges) and beverages, including bottled water – instead of paying premium prices for those essentials from the hotel lobby or nearby convenience stores.

In addition, if you plan on dining out with a big group (6 or more people), restaurants may automatically charge a service tip so you don’t have to worry about calculating a tip. This automatic charge is normally between 18% to 20% depending on the restaurants, but it’ll make your final bill go up more than you might be expecting.

CONVENTION & LEISURE PURCHASES

Fur cons are vacations, so make sure you budget for some “fun” money as well! Maybe you want to do a little sightseeing in the city around the convention days (recommended if it’s your first time visiting!), Pittsburgh certainly has quite a bit of history and culture to explore, or maybe something furry-related such as one of our Anthrocon River Cruises, or the more extravagant Dinner or Cocktail Cruises, strikes your fancy. Just make sure that whatever your plans are, that you know the cost of the excursion before you go, so there are no budgeting surprises.

Budgeting for the Anthrocon Dealers Room/Artists Alley, pardon the pun, is a whole another animal! Nowhere else in the fandom will you find a such a diverse collection of vendors selling furry-related art and wares. Without a budget, it’s very easy to spend much more than you anticipated. What I like to do is, knowing how much you can spend, make a quick pass through the room, making note of vendors that I may want to purchase items from as well as the price (and noting their position in the enormous room for reference). Once I have that list, I’ll go through it and prioritize. For example, if I have $100 to spend and I want a $50 badge from Vendor A, a $25 shirt from Vendor B, a $25 matted print from Vendor C, and a $25 plush from Vendor D, then I’d have to choose which of the $25 items to drop from my list.

Also, keep in mind that many, if not most dealers offer the same or similar merchandise online on web-based stores. Ask for a business card, and if your budget doesn’t quite allow for the purchase at-con, save it for after you get home!

Other helpful tips to budget

• It can easier to split your budget into daily increments – if you’re staying for 3 days, for example, and figure you can spend $100 total on food, that’s ~ $33 a day. That’s a lot easier to budget for than $100 over 3 days, where a more expensive meal will put you behind budget.
• Beware of additional service fees! Unless you’re flying Southwest Airlines or have status with another airline, you’ll have to pay a premium for every checked bag – as much as $140 round trip if you’re checking two bags. Also keep in mind things like gratuities for service industry workers ($3-$5 per day for housekeeping staff, same for shuttle drivers), and your transportation to/from the airport if you need it, as it can be easy to overlook those costs.

Hopefully this blog post has helped you in planning and budgeting for your experience at Anthrocon! If you have any further questions or would like to submit feedback, you can contact our team at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to respond.