The granddaddy of all animal rights conferences starts tomorrow in Washington DC. We won’t be there this weekend (we will be attending the 2011 conference that is being held here in Los Angeles next year) but in our absence our friends at Cosmos Vegan Shoppe will be stocking our entire line of products at the convention. This includes a couple of new wallets which haven’t made it up on our site yet! So stop by Cosmos booth and say hi to Leigh and Ken for us. To find out more info about the weekend, including the full list of speakers, vendors and events, click here.

If you missed the 2009 Animal Rights Conference then you made a big mistake. There were booths abound filled with a wealth of knowledge and a treasure trove of cruelty free goodies. Attendees were able to visit shops and purchase items that would normally be only available through the internet. The conference also included a plethora of workshops and discussion panels. The Westin Hotel allowed dogs to attend the conference, but food vendors were not permitted to openly sell food. Vendors fortunately found a loophole that allowed samples and accepted “donations” from its patrons. For many of the exhibitors the conference could be seen as successful. Cosmos Vegan Shoppe sold out of some of its more delectable candy bar items early; while our own booth sold out of men’s medium and XL sized belts. The ballroom in which the exhibitors resided was described by one attendee as, “loud and aggressive,” wishing that the venue was outdoors. Despite this setback the event was both well organized and attended and we met a bunch of great people! Check out the pics below:

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This Friday, Saturday and Sunday is the 2009 Animal Rights National Conference which is being held at the Westin Hotel near LAX. Admission to the exhibit hall (with over 100 vendors, AR groups and retailers) is free and open to the public from 9 AM – 6 PM every day, but admission to the full conference including speakers, networking events and videos is $160. The Vegan Collection will be there with our belts, shoes and new wallets, so stop by and say “Hi!” if you’re there. Also, it sounds like I will be sitting in on Sunday’s “Printing Our Message” session at 2:30 to answer any questions people have about paper, software or dealing with printers. See you there!

The Animal Rights 2009 National Conference happening is being held on July 16-20th at the Westin LAX Hotel near Los Angeles Airport. There will be more than 80 speakers from 60 organizations speaking on a wide variety of animal rights subjects. If you register before May 1, you receive a $40 discount so jump on it now. Here’s a link to the conference’s website and here’s the direct link to the registration form.

Trying to capitalize on the Prop. 2 victory in California, animal rights groups FARM, IDA, APRL, and the Animal Rights 2009 National Conference have launched the new website livevegan.org (not to be confused with the old-ish SoCal site livingvegan.org). You can keep up-to-date on their website about all their California campaigns including placement of ten billboards across California informing people about a vegan diet, 700 bus display cards, letters to the editors of over 120 California newspapers and a major leafleting campaign. You can download all their literature including a vegan starter kit and their global warming literature here.