So it’s already a few weeks since Fantasy Basel, and I thought it’s time I make a little post about my experience! I was there was Zibartas Cosplays +1 – he was invited as guest and judge. We arrived early Wednesday morning and set up our booth. It’s lucky we came early, because our costumes had taken quite a beating on the airplane and Zibartas’ big Mercy wings needed a bit of repair before they were back to fully operational. We managed, though, and while we were working, we met up with Yaya Han, our booth neighbour, and then made plans to go to dinner together. It’s always my favourite part of convention: Meeting old friends again and making new ones! And Fantasy Basel was definitely no excuse! There were so many cosplay guests, and it felt kind of like a family reunion, because everyone either knew each other or had a friend in common, and everyone was just so friendly.

I’ll admit, whenever we get to be part of the guest list at events like these, I feel like an imposter – everyone is so talented and I’m just little potato me. But then I realize that everyone there is like me – just a normal person who likes to make cosplays. It’s just that some of them have hundreds of thousands of people watching them do that! But all of the guests were just so friendly and humble and easy to talk to!

But back to the convention! Our hotel room had a view of the big square in front of the entrances and we could see how people were lining up while we got ready with our cosplays. I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous – it’s probably the biggest event we’ve been working at. But there was no reason to be – everyone who came to our booth was just so nice and friendly and we had many talks with people. Zibartas wore his big Mercy wings, and they are not the most crowd friendly, so I wore Rapunzel, which is nice and small and mobile, so I could stay at the ends of his wings and make sure people didn’t accidentally walk into them. We had a few panels, but it was mostly a day to meet people at our booth.

Over the weekend there was almost 90,000 visitors, but mostly it didn’t feel like that much, because it was a very big convention center. But getting to and from the hall with the stage was insane – I rarely get claustrophobic, but I did a little bit then!

Friday was a very busy day – first Zibartas hosted a panel on LEDs, which had quite a lot of people, then straight to pre-judging of the Newcomers competition and straight to stage after that. I mostly stayed at our booth, but I did get a chance to walk around a little bit and see some of the convention. I loved how many different booths there were. The artist alley was huge, and the talent there insane. The same can be said for the Cosplay Village.

There were also a book, medieval village, tattoo , asian fandom and street art areas – and lots of food stalls spread out (which sadly I didn’t get to try, but many interesting looking things to eat!)

I also got a few photos taken of my Druid, but I haven’t gotten that many back yet – I guess we’ll see if I get any!

Saturday was a big day for us, since I debuted my new Songbird cosplay and we had a photoshoot planned with other Cyberpunk cosplayers – Yaya Han as Lucy, Stylouz Cosplay as David, Fenix Fatalist as Rebecca, Zibartas as Sandayu Oda and me as Songbird. We had both James from Omaruisfed and Xaraphoto doing videos/photos, so I’m excited to see the outcome – the first group photo we already got looks promising! 😀 

The rest of Saturday we had no plans, so we were finally able to walk around the convention and talk to people and see some of the booths. Sadly I feel like I didn’t get to see everything and I could have easily spend another 3 days there, but all good things come to an end.

Sunday we had a day off before our flights back Monday, so we spent the day touristing. There happened to be a Marvel exhibition right next to the hotel, so we went there with some of our new friends from the convention. Afterwards, Zibartas and I explored the city a bit on our own, but since everything is closed on Sundays, we just had a short look and then spent the afternoon and evening relaxing with McDonalds in the hotel.

Our trip home monday was a whole saga on it’s own involving a cancelled flight, 10kms of running/speed walking through 4 different airports and a lost suitcase…. Don’t worry, though, airtags saved the day and eventually we did get it back. But if we return to Basel, the 12 hour car ride might be preferable to that ordeal. Especially considering the damage to Zibartas’ cosplays… But let’s keep this happy! Below are some photos from the trip – as always I suck at getting photos.