World's largest cat-centric event taking place in Pasadena

(30 Jun 2019) WORLD'S LARGEST CAT-CENTRIC EVENT TAKING PLACE IN PASADENA

It's been dubbed "the biggest cat-centric pop culture event in the world": CatCon, a two-day festival where promoters estimate a record number of humans will gather to celebrate their favorite things -- felines.

The event, held this weekend (29-30 June 2019) just outside Los Angeles in nearby Pasadena, is the brainchild of Susan Michals, who was surprised by the big response she got to a cat art show she put on some years ago, and began seeking the means to put on a cat convention.

"Now, cutting to where we are now, 2019, it's the fifth anniversary of CatCon," Michals said. "We expect 18,000 people. I have 200 vendors. The first year I had 68. To date, I've donated $200,000 to cat charities and we've gotten 504 cats adopted specifically at CatCon."

This year, cat-loving celebrities including Seth Green, Macaulay Culkin and "The Office" actress Angela Kinsey are giving the event human star power.

"I really wanted to come to CatCon, because I love cats and a lot of different charities are sponsored here that work with different types of cat rescue and animal rescue," Kinsey said. "And you know what? I feel like, and this is going to maybe sound a little silly, but there's a lot out in the world right now that maybe shows us that we have all these differences with each other. But then you go to a convention like a cat convention, and as as silly as that sounds, you realize there's this common interest that everybody here loves cats. They love cats. I mean, they have their cat shirts on and cat pants. And it is like every age represented, every walk of life represented, and it's just sort of nice to see a bunch of people who otherwise would maybe not have anything to share about with one another all here because they love cats."

Michals said the success of CatCon goes beyond the popularity of cats. It's really about the relationship between pets and humans.

"Cats, dogs and animals in general are a break," Michals said. "They are a break from the everyday. They're meditational. They're Zen. They're relaxing and they don't care. They just want to love you. And I think that that is the overarching theme of CatCon and I'm doing DogCon soon, too. That we have this love of animals that they just want to give back to us and we can't live without it."



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