Cat Extravaganza Coming To Alameda County Fairgrounds

PLEASANTON, CA — It’s almost Fashion Week season, and Pleasanton will be hosting several catwalks. The major difference is that Pleasanton’s catwalks will feature actual cats walking.

The worldwide Cat Extravaganza, organized by Loving Cats Worldwide, is making a stop at the Alameda County Fairgrounds the weekend of Sept. 9-10. The event, which is co-hosted by the East Bay SPCA, will feature five different judging rings for the International Cat Competition, several local rescue organizations (people can sign up to adopt cats, but it is not an adoption event), and all varieties of products for and about cats.

Judges from all over the world will judge cats from all over the world in different categories throughout the entire day: kittens, juniors, adults, alters, non-champions, household pet kittens, and household pets. One cat from each category will be awarded Best in Show based on a point-scoring system, and at the end of the weekend, the judges will vote on an overall winner. That winner will go on to compete in Dallas against winners from other Cat Extravaganzas around the world.

While some cats tour the world with the show, local residents are also welcome to enter their cats. Cats must be fully vaccinated and kept in a carrier, among other regulations described in the link. For more information, email info@lcwwgroup.com.

One of the judges will be LCWW founder and internet personality Steve Meserve, who now lives in Portugal and Tampa, but lived ten years in San Francisco. He didn’t have a cat until he was 18, when he saw an ad in the paper for a bengal cat.

“It was one of the first bengals that were around, and they said you can help the breed if you put it into a show. I was like, what’s a show, that’s crazy?” Meserve told Patch in an interview. He found out quickly, and then started breeding litters and producing shows while he was in college. For 20 years, he was a judge and board member of the International Cat Association (TICA), the world’s largest cat fancy association.

However, Meserve felt that the organization was too insular, and he wanted to spread cat shows and cat appreciation to a wider audience, and founded LCWW in 2015.

“We’re like an industry disruptor,” he said. “We’re concentrating a lot on marketing, on rescues. We’re doing everything the same, but we’re making it a lot more fun. People want to be entertained.”

LCWW has a YouTube channel, and a TikTok channel with 546,000 followers and a total of 14 million likes. A quick browse through the videos shows why: they all feature cats, cats, and more cats, and footage of many cat judging events.

“The internet has done a wonderful thing for cats - it’s made them these crazy, funny characters,” Meserve said. “They’ve had a total reinvention over the last 20 years or so.”

Meserve said that in just a year, over 100,000 people have attended Cat Extravaganzas around the world. The show is going all over the Bay Area. They already came to the Alameda County Fairgrounds in April, and were supposed to exhibit in September at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, but they recently switched back to Pleasanton due to complications. They are set to return to San Mateo in November and San Jose in December.

“The Bay Area in general is a very quirky area - we tend to do very well in obviously upscale markets, where they take a lot of time to take care of their animals, and where the general population is a bit off, in the nicest way,” Meserve said.

Naturally, a number of cat-related Bay Area nonprofits and vendors are taking advantage. The Shopping Village will feature a number of quirky brands, including:

• B.A.D. Kitty Teasers
• Caturday Designs
• Erica Danger’s Catnip Dispensary
• My Feline Friend Cat Training and Behavior Modification

In Rescue Alley, East Bay SPCA, Love All Pawz Rescue, Orphan Kitten Rescue, Paws That Matter, and Valley Humane Society will be hosting booths.

The extravaganza will take place at the Fairgrounds Sept. 9-10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visit lcwwgroup.us for more information and tickets.