Cosplay is a contraction of the words costume and play. Dressing up as your favourite character is a great way to show love and to enhance your experience out at an event. If you want to take it one step further and put your crafting skills to the test, AVCon presents the 2024 Cosplay Competition!
For the AVCon 2024 Cosplay Competition, you may dress up as your favourite character from any franchise, be it from an anime, video game, fantasy novel, sci-fi movie or even your own unique creation! In each potential category, cosplayers will get the chance to go on stage and present their work to a packed house of cosplay fans and be judged by our special guest judges, with plenty of awesome prizes on offer.
This year, AVCon will feature multiple different divisions to cater for all experience levels of cosplayers. Each will have different requirements and is meant to allow anyone of any skill or experience level to be part of AVCon and learn about the aspects of higher-level cosplay competitions as they go.
Aspects such as:
Cosplay Creation - building garments, accessories and props from scratch using plans, patterns and raw materials such as cloth and foam.
Cosplay Modification - modifying or altering existing garments (whether regular clothing or costumes) to change their look to better match the appearance of a character's ensemble.
Pre Bought Costumes - buying a full costume or parts of a costume that are already fit for purpose and do not need modification to match a character's appearance.
Build Book - a scrapbook of your journey in building your costume and information on the how and why. It will usually contain reference photos of your characters, sketches of the different aspects you will need to build, swatches of fabrics, diary entries about your build process, and explanations of technical aspects. Essentially, this will be the proof that you made the costume. Like showing the working out before you got to an answer to a math question.
For every division, the applicant will go on stage to show their costume off to the audience for a maximum of 2 minutes. For those looking to add an acting element to their work, we have a skit category. All skit content and dialogue must be rated as family-friendly (no swearing, no adult themes). All skits must have the basic premise and dialogue vetted before the performance. This must be provided in a Word document by June 17th.
You will be asked to provide a reference image of the costume (to be used in a slide that will be projected when you come on stage to give the audience a reference) as well as an option to provide music specific to your character.
Cosplayers can only be part of one division, so please read through the descriptions and requirements of the divisions below and make your choice based on your skill level, experience, and the costumes you plan to wear for the AVCon weekend.
A reminder that as per AVCon's
General Terms and Policies, entry into AVCon constitutes a grant of rights to Team AVCon Incorporated to reproduce, display, distribute, perform, create derivative works, and otherwise use any media derived at the Festival.
Entry into AVCon constitutes consent to be filmed or photographed by AVCon staff or approved industry or media during the Festival without compensation to you.
Attendees should also be aware that staff members gather footage of the Festival and attendees in public areas, events, and panels, which may be used in a highlights tape for advertising or other uses. These rules apply to all Festival attendees.