Cosplay Village

IMPORTANT NOTICE

It has come to our attention that the roles of VIPs vs Guests for UwU Con 2024 generated confusion in the community. We would like to clear that up by providing descriptions of the positions we hosted in 2024 for the Cosplay Village…

Cosplay Guests

Guests barter with UwU Con and are provided with 2-3 Full Event Badges, a 10×10 space with a table/ two chairs and complimentary parking. UwU Cosplay Guests are expected to be at Professional or Masters Level in at least one Cosplay related skillset (Sewing, Prop Making, Modeling, Performing, etc.). Guests will be asked to promote UwU Con at least once on their preferred social media and they may be asked to perform panel or judging functions for the convention. Guests are expected to remain at their table at all times unless presenting a panel or judging. Guests are also not permitted to enter judged events.

Cosplay VIPS

VIPs are featured volunteers and content creators. This role serves as a means to highlight members of the Arizona community and their contributions to it. Each VIP was asked to volunteer at the Cosplay Lounge for 4 hours in exchange for a Full Event Badge. UwU agreed to feature these creators as a “Thank you” for their help with entertaining attendees during the convention. Once their hours were fulfilled, these VIPs were encouraged to enjoy the convention as any other attendee.

Cosplay Groups

Groups are pretty self explanatory however; we are more than happy to elaborate here! Groups are expected to have one of the following functions: Charity, Genre and/or Community. ALL groups are expected to focus on costuming as a whole and staff their booth with a minimum of 4 people per day. Groups barter with UwU to receive up to 8 Full Event Badges, 1-2 10×10 tables with 2-4 chairs and complimentary parking for the duration of the convention. Groups are also expected to host meetups, fundraise for charity, perform demonstrations/activities and/or provide judging services during the event.

Feedback Acknowledgment

We’ve taken the feedback messages sent to us very seriously. As such, we plan to rework expectations for UwU Con’s Cosplay Guest/VIP/Group positions going forward by replacing them with something that highlights the community as a whole. We are working on creating collaborative tables where local cosplay performers, craftspeople and prop makers can display their skills and knowledge to attendees.

In addition to these changes we are also workshopping more showcases for cosplayers to shine. These showcases will focus on Performative Cosplay, Cosmakers and the Future of Cosplay. It’s our hope that these will generate a collaborative, healthy discussion on cosplay as a networking and creative space. 

We truly appreciate the candor with which you have all put into evaluating this issue.

We look forward to seeing you in 2025!