This past weekend, I went to the Sea-Meow Convention, which, as you might be able to tell by its name, is a cat convention in Seattle, Washington.

I do a lot of traveling and I’ve been to a lot of conventions, but all the conventions I’ve been to so far have been work-related, or at the very least, industry-related—all of them have been focused on video gaming or technology. This may come as a surprise, because I live in Las Vegas and there are a lot of conventions hosted in Las Vegas, so you’d imagine that I would’ve had many chances to go to a wide variety of different conventions… but I guess I never really seized any opportunities.

When I received an email encouraging me to attend Sea-Meow, I took it as a calling to finally go to a fun event completely unrelated, and not even adjacent, to my work. I did a bit of research first to make sure that it was actually a cat convention and not a furry convention in disguise, and when I confirmed that the organizations running and sponsoring the convention were cat cafés, cat shelters, and veterinarians, I bought tickets.

Con-goers were allowed to bring their own cats to the convention. Not too many people did, but I got some photos of a few of the cats that attended.

There were also cats that had been brought in by cafés and shelters, which con-goers could pet after making a donation to their cause.

There was a balcony-like area on the sides of the exhibition center from which I was able to look down onto the main floor. Here is what it looked like from the top-down perspective.

Here are photos I took of some of the booths on the convention floor. It was interesting and different than most other conventions I’ve been to in that, instead of it being filled with companies trying to promote their product, a majority of booths were run by independent artists trying to sell their art, custom-made cat toys, or other creations.

On one end of the convention floor, there was a stage that had a handful of panels scheduled. I didn’t watch any of them, but they seemed to have taken a fairly educational approach for their topics.

I got a VIP ticket, which came with free drink refills. Unfortunately, the website did not disclose that the only drinks that are free are hot coffee and hot tea—all specialty drinks were excluded, and even regular iced beverages didn’t count. I don’t really prefer hot drinks, so I didn’t really get much value out of that perk.

Here are some cat-shaped macarons:

The convention was interesting, but small. I don’t know if it’s because I’m just used to conventions of a much greater scale, but there didn’t really seem to be that many booths, and there wasn’t really much to do. I got a VIP ticket for full access on both days of the convention, but I think getting a one-day general admission ticket is more than enough to experience everything.

In the convention’s defense, I feel like there might’ve been more activities in which I could have participated if I combed through everything more carefully and was more willing to wait in line for things. I also went together with a friend who I had not seen in almost three years, and she wanted to spend time walking around and exploring downtown Seattle with me as well while I was in town, so we didn’t stay until convention closing time on either of the days.

Based on my experience, if you own cats and/or are a fan of cats and you already live in or around the Seattle Metropolitan Area, this could be a fun one-day trip to check out a bunch of cat-related artistic creations, buy your cat some new toys, and support independent artists and small businesses.

The VIP ticket I got was US$99.00, but there is a much more affordable US$27.00 one-day general admission ticket, which I think would be worth it for regular cat enthusiasts.