About Us

Hey there! We are Scotiacon, Scotland's first and currently only furry convention. We hold annual events in the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow. But we didn't start here, we have over a decade's history of events held, attendees entertained, and charities supported, so join us as we gaze into our crystal ball for a look at our history.

An Ancient Magic

In the beginning there was Scotland, Irn Bru, a few Tunnock's Tea Cakes, and a dream of a furry convention. Then, in 2011 those dreams came to fruition and Scotiacon was born, located at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Inverness (now the Mercure Inverness). About 50 furs joined us for that first event, which helped us lay the foundation for everything that Scotiacon would become.

Three years later and Scotiacon had outgrown its Inverness home, so the decision was taken to bid a fond farewell and move to the Mercure Livingston hotel near Edinburgh for our 2014 event where we raised £655 for that year's charity, World Horse Welfare. This gave the convention room to grow and by 2015 we had tripled our attendee numbers to over 150 and raised £2,089 for the Scottish Owl Centre.

That rise in attendee numbers would become a theme in itself over the next few years and, as much as we came to love our second home in Livingston we eventually outgrew that venue as well. Eventually, with attendee numbers reaching almost 500 in 2019 and a charity total of £3,500 for the Five Sisters Zoo, we announced the news; Scotiacon would move again.

To move to the new venue, the convention had to move from a November date to one in February. That didn't leave enough time to plan for an event in 2020 as it was only three months away. So an announcement was made; "There will be no Scotiacon in 2020".

Well, that turned out to be pretty prophetic, didn't it?

Our Current Conjurations

In 2022, as pandemic restrictions and lockdowns eased, we returned for the first event at our new venue, the Crowne Plaza in Glasgow. This was our tenth convention and we celebrated in style with our Disco Fever theme, welcoming over 500 attendees and raising £11,650 for Sunny Harbour Cat Rescue.

That new beginning led to even bigger plans and our next convention in 2023 we welcomed 955 attendees back to Glasgow for our biggest event yet, a gaming themed convention where we finally brought our mascot, Wallace to life with his very own fursuit. You might have seen him around our convention, or maybe even elsewhere! He does like to travel around a bit! Our attendees also raised an amazing £41,152 for Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Centre.

In 2024 we returned to Glasgow once again for a healthy dose of Prehistoric Panic and, with the help of 1,170 attendees, unleashed dinosaur-related chaos on the unsuspecting Glaswegian population. We have it on good authority that reports of dinosaurs devouring onlookers in George Square were greatly exaggerated. What wasn’t exaggerated, though, was the £22,500 that we raised for our charity, the Hebridean Whale & Dolphin Trust.

Spells As Yet Unwritten

So what's next? In 2025 we will embark on an adventure filled with Magical Mayhem! Once again, we'll return to the Crowne Plaza in Glasgow and we look forward to inviting everyone back to enjoy our biggest celebration of furries and furry culture yet.

And what comes after the magic subsides? As long as there are no unfortunate fireball or magic missile related incidents, we'll be back for our fourteenth convention in 2026. We’ve got some big plans!

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves! Before all that, we have enchantments to cast, an adventure to embark upon, and mayhem to create! We hope you will join us in February 2025!