Our ConFuzzled Restructure
Hello!
Today, we would like to address openly some of the rumours that have been swirling on social media, and in other forums online.
Specifically, it has become clear that an internal matter has spilled over into the public domain.We’ve made mistakes in the process of executing some changes to the convention staff structure, and we are sorry for that.
That this has hurt people we consider not just colleagues in running the convention, but friends, is something that horrifies us. At the Director level, we accept responsibility for that, and apologise.
We want to explain a little about what led to this situation.
A Restructure
Reviews and restructuring of our staff and departments are nothing new. Indeed these have happened in the past on numerous occasions. It’s important that we always review our operating structures with a critical eye to make sure we’re giving you the best service possible.
It’s also something that comes from wanting to embrace change. What you, our attendees, expect from ConFuzzled changes and evolves. The Furry community is dynamic; it’s one of the things we love about it. That sometimes means that some historic aspects of our furry convention might become less popular over time, and new elements begin to emerge as important to embrace.
In the months leading up to ConFuzzled 2026 we began to review our structure and how it might be improved. Almost immediately following the Convention that process continued, culminating in the actions of this last week. We sought to embrace change. We sought to streamline our staff structure. Plus, yes, we sought to manage convention costs. Thanks to many years of sound financial management, the convention is in a strong financial position, however future plans may require a larger capital investment than we are currently able to support, meaning it’s important for us to look at building up our savings while we can.
A part of this has involved reviewing some historically informal arrangements in place relating to specific departments, which may have worked for all involved in the past, but had been identified as an area of risk in the event that something were to go wrong. Making a change here was necessary to protect the convention, and the facilities we provide to you, and we have outlined these changes below.
Our goals were simple: keep the convention staff structure fit for purpose, aligned with what is required today to deliver the convention you expect and enjoy, and ensure the convention is properly protected and set up for the future. We are not looking to make cuts for the sake of cuts, to run an austere convention or to play at being a “big business”.
So, what went wrong?
Our Mistake
Staff restructuring can be done top-down, behind-closed-doors. Or, it can be done in a manner that includes the people directly impacted, with open and positive engagement.
We ended up heading down the worse of the above two pathways. That was our mistake, and we would like to own that.
A combination of time pressures and competing priorities after the convention caused us to just press on, at the top, without consulting those affected further down the chain of command.
It led to people being left behind, and resulted in them feeling unappreciated and unseen.
We wholeheartedly apologise for having damaged the relationship with some of our friends and colleagues. We got this wrong. We are truly sorry.
We’re already seeking to shift to a much more open, engaging approach to ensure staff feel directly involved in future changes, and that they have a stake in what is happening.
We know we have some work to do, and we’re committed to doing it. We’re passionate believers in ConFuzzled, and the good we feel it does for the Furry community here in the UK, and further afield. This convention is enormously important to us, and we, much like those who have been affected by our actions, do genuinely only want the best for it; what that “best” looks like may differ, but it’s important to acknowledge this basic fact.
What we’re doing differently
The vast majority of teams impacted by these changes engaged constructively with the proposed restructures. We are actively seeking to refine our initial intentions to reflect the feedback from the last few days with the affected departments.
We have also taken the time to reach out personally and collectively to the wider team to seek feedback and answer questions as the motivations for these changes, the other changes we are making that are driven by the same goals, and to reassure them that we are listening.
This will also be formalised and carried forward into a means for volunteers at all levels to be able to provide anonymous feedback or ask questions of the Directors, which we will then answer as best as we can throughout the year.
Convention Impact
ConFuzzled goes on!
We know that a concern that has been raised is whether these changes will impact the facilities provided by the convention.
We are aware of social media posts, some of which were made by senior members of staff in the direct aftermath of a very difficult meeting, that suggest a serious risk to the delivery of our Fursuit Lounges. Our fursuit lounge facilities are widely considered to be some of the best in the world, and this is directly due to the unique skills and equipment that have been offered to us by this same senior team member for many years .
We can assure all attendees that ConFuzzled will continue to offer world-class fursuit lounge facilities.!
A goal we take very seriously, is to make the convention the best it can be. That means ensuring that the convention continues to offer world-class facilities for our attendees, and that is exactly what we intend to do.
We offered to make senior engineering staff formal contractors, providing services to ConFuzzled while transferring the day-to-day function of that department to another team. Our reasons for this were as follows:
- We could ensure that we had a clear, agreed-upon understanding of ownership of equipment – a position that had become clouded over time without a proper paper trail or any signed agreements.
- It would allow us to ensure that our insurance and liabilities were properly covered with regards to our attendees, our volunteers, and to the venue.
- Finally it would have allowed us to continue to properly recompense senior engineering team members in a manner which was no longer outside the fair and equitable framework that applied to all other volunteers across every other department; which could be interpreted – without full context – as a form of favouritism.
These agreements are common to other events, both within and outside of the furry fandom.
Unfortunately, we never got to explain most of the above in that meeting. Before the reasoning could be set out, directors were sworn at and personally insulted, and the convention was threatened with legal action, with public posts, and with the immediate removal of equipment unless we changed course. That response is why the detail of this proposal, including the continued recompense involved, is being explained here for the first time rather than agreed in that room.
An account of that meeting has since been shared publicly. We are not going to respond to it point by point, because arguing in public helps nobody and there are real people on every side of this. We simply ask everyone to keep in mind that there is more than one account of that evening.
We fully intend to ensure that the convention’s features, facilities and services are not just maintained, but improved over time. This is something we take seriously across the whole of ConFuzzled, and it’s why we continue to push ahead with new changes and innovations, and we regularly review attendee feedback from surveys and social media in order to see what’s working and what isn’t.
To be clear: protecting what we provide to you, our attendees, sits above every other consideration in these changes.
Further Rumours
We are simultaneously aware of rumours that are circulating as to the initial intended scale of dismissals that were to be a result of this restructure. You may have heard suggestions that we were intending to remove up to 150 volunteers from our teams.
That is not, and has never been true.
While some teams are being folded into other departments, some are being retired, and others are being merged this was always intended to happen while maintaining positions for all current volunteers. We currently have numerous openings across many of our departments and every effort will be made to find a place for everyone who currently volunteers with us; nobody is being dismissed solely as a result of this restructure.
While we are hoping that this restructure will deliver a more sustainable volunteering experience for our teams we are also hoping that it will deliver cost savings over time. This will be through the natural rate of people stepping back from the team with those roles then examined to assess whether they really need to be backfilled, or whether we can reduce our headcount and still continue to deliver.
Summary
We hope that this helps with fostering some understanding on the ‘why’ of what has been happening internally at ConFuzzled. We also hope it helps show that we’re listening, and learning, and that we are sorry for the hurt caused.
We thank you for taking the time to read this. We appreciate that a fair amount of anxiety has been caused, and hope we can at least reassure you of this: The ConFuzzled 2027 Race build-up has only just begun!
Many thanks
ConFuzzled UK Director team,
Yinx, Mino, Fioxy