According to AWU chairman Ven “Giga” Ferlin, while the official theme may have been mechanical beings against kaiju, another overarching theme seemed to take hold this year.

“This year there seems to be a really big focus on kind of just putting yourself out there, being excited to step forward, trying things you’ve never tried before, and not being afraid to make mistakes,” Ferlin said.

That was best exemplified on the convention’s last day, according to Ferlin.

“In our dance competition, we had a nine-year-old who competed, Copper, and ended up winning second place,” Ferlin said. “And he did such an incredible job. It was so cool to see on stage, especially because, you know, very, very small nine-year-old kid up on stage dancing for everybody, and in costume and everything, and just the size difference out the gate is just so fun to see. Just seeing this younger crowd come in and be able to compete. And not just compete, but place in our dance competition.”

Photo supplied, Anthro Weekend Utah

It was also a huge year for giving as well.

“We had our usual charity partnership with Nozzles & Co. this year, but we also brought on two extra charities that we were working with,” Ferlin said. “The first one is Fawn’s Family Rescue. They’re the ones who brought all of the cats and kittens.

They’re a local rescue out of Bountiful. They do really, really good work. We had a lot of fun with them, and they got three kittens adopted over the weekend.”

Ferlin said $600 was raised for Fawn’s Family Rescue with an anonymous donor matching it to boost their total to $1,200.

“We also had Magpie Events,” Ferlin said. “They’re out of Denver, Colorado, and they’re kind of just a community outreach organization. They do really, really good work, especially for minority groups and LGBTQ+ individuals.”

Ferlin was unsure of how much was raised for the group, saying they know at least $250 was raised but this was likely a low estimate.

“For Nuzzles and Co., our final charity numbers that we got for them was $34,349.14,” Ferlin said, noting the AWU staff would chip in 86 cents to round up the amount to $34,350.

Attendance also rose in 2026 with 2,884 attending this year’s convention.

“Everything ran just the way that we wanted it to,” Ferlin said. “Our staff was absolutely incredible. Our attendees were really respectful, really, really kind, and very supportive the entire way through. And by the end of it, everything went so well that, I really can’t complain about much of anything — not that I’m usually one to complain about things — but it was just such a great year, both for our charity, for our attendees.

“The biggest thing is just our focus on community and putting on a really, really fun show,” Ferlin said. “I mean, we’re a very passionate group. We’re a group of  artists and actors and former theater kids all coming together to create something that’s really fun, not only for us, but for all the people who attend.”

They noted this year’s festivities featured Guests of Honor Sean Chiplock — a voice actor with credits including The Legend of Zelda and The Amazing Digital Circus — and artist Tokyozilla.

“Bringing them together and then bringing together all of these other artists to have like this really tangible, custom, human-made experience that focuses so heavily on community and bringing people from all over the place together — I think it has a really strong effect, especially in an age where, you know, we’re seeing more and more stuff that’s led by AI or AI being pushed on us in so many different ways,” Ferlin said. “The expectations come to be that pretty much everything uses it nowadays. Our focus was to not go anywhere near it and just really focus on community and, you know, people and bringing people together. And I think that’s really what’s been helping us grow more and more. We grew by 10% this year and kind of just feel more and more close together as opposed to more isolated.”

Anthro Weekend Utah will return at the Davis Conference Center with “Anonymous Weird Unexplainables” July 30-Aug. 1, 2027.