Editing ConFurence (section)

==History==
After trying the Red Lion hotel, Confurence 0 was held at the Holiday Inn Bristol Plaza in Costa Mesa, California, on January 21 to 22, 1989.<ref name="patten-conventions">{{cite book |last1=Patten |first1=Fred |title=Furry Fandom Conventions 1989-2015 |date=2017 |publisher=McFarland and Company, Inc. |isbn=978-1-4766-6381-4|page=57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6EMODgAAQBAJ&pg=PA57}}</ref> According to Joe Strike, While attendance for this first serious attempt to create a "[[funny animal]] fandom" convention was sparse at 65 persons, it was enough to encourage the Californians to attempt a full-fledged furry convention next year. Attendance was doubled to 130 for the first official ConFurence convention in January 1990,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Strike |first1=Joe |title=Furry Nation: The True Story of America's Most Misunderstood Subculture |date=2017 |publisher=Cleis Press |isbn=978-1-62778-232-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1QJuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT2}}</ref> proving them right. 

In 1997 [[KARE (TV)|Kare 11]] reported adult oriented events going on at the convention.<ref>{{Cite web|last=ChangaLion|title=Kare 11 at Confurence 8 – The ConFurence Archive|url=https://confurence.com/1997/01/kare-11-at-confurence-8/|access-date=2022-01-06|language=en-US}}</ref> At the height of popularity in 1998, ConFurence 9 boasted the then-largest furry convention attendance of 1250.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20010406090827/http://mustelid.com/otterhall/afcis.html Anthropomorphic Fandom Convention Information Sheet], Flint Otterhall</ref> 

Control of the ConFurence convention was transferred to Darrel Exline in 1999, who created a new entity called "The ConFurence Group" to run it, but by 2003 attendance had dwindled to 470 due to increased competition from other regional furry conventions and infighting among different factions of anthropomorphic fandom. The final ConFurence gathering gained notoriety when television crew from ''[[The Man Show]]'' appeared and attempted to interview attendees on camera.<ref name="flayrah">{{cite web|last1=Exline|first1=Darrel L.|title=Rumor control from Darrel Exline |url=https://www.flayrah.com/1472/rumor-control-darrel-exline |date=30 April 2003 |accessdate=25 December 2022|website=flayrah.com |publisher=flayrah.com|quote=Unfortunately, this rumor helped to make problems at the convention, and since the "good" footage ended up unusable, only the bad footage remains... If either program is seen as "bad" toward the fandom, it's largely the fault of people who didn't want to speak up in a positive light when given the opportunity.}}</ref>

With the demise of ConFurence,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Exline|first1=Darrel L.|title=ConFurence is no more|url=http://www.polarden.org/confurence/|website=The Polar Den|url-status=bot: unknown|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20030527083759/http://www.polarden.org/confurence/|archivedate=2003-05-27}}</ref> Mark Merlino and Robert Johnson Jr. teamed up to establish [[Califur]] in 2004 to continue the tradition of a furry convention in Southern California.<ref>{{cite web|title=CaliFur 2011: A Furry Convention|url=http://www.ocweekly.com/slideshow/califur-2011-a-furry-convention-33476341/|accessdate=29 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211022108/http://www.ocweekly.com/slideshow/califur-2011-a-furry-convention-33476341/|archive-date=11 December 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref>