Yorkshire CosplayCon Interview

Written by Ross Locksley on 29 Mar 2016

For those who aren't aware, Yorkshire Cosplay Con is now a legendary event, first started in 2010 by Kat Furniss as a place for fans of Cosplay to gather and discuss ideas, tips and, of course, show off their cosplay efforts.

6 years later, the event is about to take over the Sheffield Arena on June 11th-12th, and we asked the very busy Kat for a little time to talk to us about this year's record-breaking event!

First of all, congratulations on creating such a monstrous convention! You’ve moved to Sheffield Arena, what are the advantages to visitors of the new site?

Sheffield Arena is a much larger venue and very accessible for public transport. Also we have more space for new activities as well as being able to increase the size of some of the more popular activities from our previous conventions.

As well as this, we have been able to add an additional 50 trading tables to add more variety to the merchandise that's on offer to our attendees. We have also increased the size of the trader aisles, allowing for people to browse the stalls more easily. We also have been able to utilize the seating that is at the venue to give plenty of places to sit and watch the live entrainment on offer on the stage this year.

You’re now large enough to attract guests who are visiting the UK for the first time, such as Kerrigan Mahan (Power Rangers). Do you actively look for the guests or do they find you now?

In the past we never looked into international guests as when we enquired previously the flight costs were really expensive.

This year that hasn't been an issue for us and Kevin Duhaney approached us directly, and after looking into flights again we found that the prices where much more reasonable this time and well within our budget so we booked him and Jeff. Later we found Lauren Landa and Kerrigan Mahan through another anime voice actor and his agent.

What are the main features of this year’s convention?

With our name being Cosplay we always like to try and get the best cosplay costumes available to attend. As well as the costumes we have an action packed stage full of great acts, panels and competitions.

The video game area has proven popular at past events and this year will be bigger and better than ever. We have Retro video game console returning as well as the addition of free to play arcades and a multiplayer Xbox LAN set-up.