A new location. WCS qualifiers. Larger profile. How would Animania Sydney handle it?
 

Where: Australian Technology Park, Locomotive Workshop Exhibition Hall, Eveleigh, NSW

When: August 23rd - 24th 2008

Website: Animania

 

Having previously been held at the Sydney Town Hall in the middle of the city with it generally being hailed a good venue it was a bold move to preempt the numbers increase and shift venues. The new location was not that far out of the city but was a fair walk from the closest train station (that included stairs) and also a bit of achallenge to find. Once inside the venue though conditions were very pleasant. Everything was pretty well on ground level so no stairs, ventilation was good and the temperature control was also adequate to try and keep everyone comfortable.

Unlike previous Animania's or other conventions in general this con was very much directed toward cosplayers in my opinion. There was the regular activity of cosplay chess but in addition to that there was a display of impressive costumes from Australian cosplayers, a props display and competition, a photo booth and the two contests each day for regular entry and theWCS competitors. The only real problem with the venue itself was that is was all open and any sound travelled everywhere making the acoustics a nightmare. However when on the look out for a venue, sometimes you just have to deal with what you have.

What I was most impressed with though was the set up for the cosplay contests. The stage was a nice large size with a cat walk at the front and screen at the back able to play video in skits. The new feature though that got my attention was the milling/organising area for cosplayers behind the stage. Often the problem is that the cosplayers are out the front taking up space that audience could be using or standing in a line next to the stage but this time they were in a curtained off area with seating available and plenty of space to move andprepair . Normally this would mean the cosplayers would miss out seeing the other contestants but a television was set up in the area showing the live feed! In myopinion this is the best set up of its sort I have seen.

Contest was run on both days and went the same as most other contests. This was followed on both days by the WCS contest, with the second Sydney qualifier on Saturday and the Australian final on Sunday. This was won by Tsubaki and Catty cosplaying from Fullmetal Alchemist who will represent Australia, in Japan next year.

Animania main has made great strides in the past couple of years, building up its reputation and gathering a reasonably sized following and this can be seen within the standard of cosplay that keeps improving each year.

 

 

 

Saturday