It’s been almost a month since Yunicon and I feel bad for not making a post about it earlier. But I’ve been so sick and stressed since, I haven’t had the energy.

I was sick on the day we headed home (31st of October) and as of writing this (22nd of Nov.) I’m still slightly sick. Hurray for winter, I guess.

But let’s talk about Yunicon, because it was too good an experience to not talk about! Zibartas Cosplay was invited as a judge and I was his helper on this trip, meaning I got to have all the fun while he did his judge duties. Yunicon is a convention hosted by cosplayers for cosplayers . I’m unsure of the visitor count, but it’s a large convention that happens over 3 days – friday-sunday. Each day has a separate cosplay contest – first day was for beginners, 2nd day a craftmanship contest and 3rd day a show with acts and qualifications to WCS. There were several photo- and videographers and many artists in the artist alley and a dedicated cosplayer area where cosplayers could sell prints and show off their crafts. Of course there were also vendors, but it was clear that the focus was on cosplayers and small artists, which I really appreciated and enjoyed.

There were many cosplay guests and this was great, both because it can be hard to find time to do anything else as a guest if you’re judging every day (I wasn’t judging at all at this event, but for the ones who were) and also because you get to make friends with the other guests.

Friday Zibartas was judging the beginner’s contest and that left me a bit forlorn, as I didn’t know any of the people at the event. But this wasn’t an issue, because the other guests who didn’t have judge duties were friendly and welcomed me to join them at their tables. I also did photoshoots with some of the photographers.

Every night after the regular convention ended, there was an 18+ afterparty with drinks and live music. The highlight for me was definitely Babybeard – a Japanese/Austrialian metal kawaii pop group. Their music was a mix of cute Japanese idol meets metal and the combination was unusual, but entertaining and surprisingly catchy. Their show was made all the better by a very unexpected wrestling show between the main singer, Ladybeard (a bearded man dressed in a maid outfit) and a “random” convention visitor.

Possibly the every night party didn’t help towards keeping me away from getting sick, but I think it was a mix of the season, many people gathered and me wearing not enough clothes for outdoor photoshoots. While I am annoyed that I’m still sick this much time after, I feel it was totally worth it.

To go back a bit oddly, I wanna talk about the outside-of-convention part of the trip. The hosts took such good care of us – picked us up at the airport and drove is directly to the hotel. We arrived a day before the convention, which gave us a few hours to look around a bit in Vienna – a city neither I nor Zibartas had had a chance to visit before. I was especially excited to see Stefansdom, since I’ve watched and rewatched Kommissar Rex more times than I can count since my childhood, and the iconic church is featured in almost every episode.

The organizers booked a hotel for us close to the convention centre and still drove us every day back and forth. They also took care of us for all meals throughout the weekend we spent there.

All in all, I had an amazing trip and I hope to return some day again. I warmly recommend Yunicon to any and all cosplayers!