Event - Comic Con Antwerp 2022
Some links first and then a few words of wisdom?
There will be several sample images in this post as the processing advances. Once finished ALL the pictures can be found here on Flickr. For updates of the progress & next events you can check the Facebook page. Some videoreels will follow on Clapper and Instagram.
Clapper video 1 - The pink lifestyle
Clapper video 2 - Live by the Creed
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Some thoughts on the event?
First of all we only spent a few hours of Saturday afternoon on the fair. It's Maanrock and the combination of a crazy CFX-concert and the Versuz-stage on Friday made SaturDAY a bit shorter than expected. But this fair also coincided with the gigantic Gamescom & the always highly anticipated Viencon. Cosplayers had so much to chose from.
Secondly I had said almost 10 years ago that I was tired of indoor anime mega-shopping-cons and had thus stopped visiting the likes of FACTS, MiA,.. until evil friends managed to convince me otherwise.
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So the fair.
A small venue.. like: really small.
A good place to spend a day if you're really into gaming.
The ramen was above average for ramen-served-on-European-fairs. (But once you've tasted the real thing you become biassed. Go eat at his place when you're in Osaka!)
Enough retailbooths to keep you busy for 2hrs.. eventhough it's actually always the same selection of retailers and the only thing I bought myself was 50° Moonshine.. something not to be sold to the hordes of minors running around.
The cosplay catwalk went fast and I wish all 3 competitors for the BE-spot in the International Cosplay League competition all the best.
Being in the city I had lived & worked in for some decades it was fun to run into ex-colleagues (one even in cosplay, so nice!)
The famous cranes are too far from the entrance to simply lure a cosplayer there.. I'll do that another time.. but I need batshit crazy people for it.
Yes, enough nice people in cosplay to photograph. Awful lighting conditions and the indoor-fair backgrounds are just something you have to live with.
The anime cosplayers are most certainly still of a much younger age category than the fantasy/steampunk-costuming fans. And since photographing unaccompagnied minors is a tricky thing, I refrained from photographing certain beautifully made or funny costumes when I was unsure.
The horror movie expo was a very nice touch.
Not too crowded when we were there and wide enough walkways between the stalls. Good.
The parking was a disaster. Bad, but that's not the organisation's fault.
A beer was 3€ and cold. I can live with that.
Was the overall event worth the 20€ entrance fee? Sorry.
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In the 2005-2008 period we would welcome any event big or small that would cater to the more geeky genres, nowadays it seems there are simply too many such events to remain sustainable. 2022 is the year of post-C19 release so people feel the need to try and taste everything once again, but I don't know if they'll have the energy & cash to do the same in 2023-2024.
Time will tell and best of luck.
Namaste.
More samples:
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These are only a few samples. All the photos are HERE on Flickr.
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