For a few years now, DreamHack has been featuring special activities dedicated to the cosplay community. This ever-growing portion of the event is another great excuse to warrant a trip to Sweden and we feel the same way about this. Since the early editions of the DreamHack cosplay competition, we’ve been bringing our own Dutch cosplayers with us on the bus to participate in these shows. Standing on that big stage in front of a huge audience is a great way to get a cosplayer noticed or just for having a first taste of “fame”.
The first and foremost thing to do as a cosplayer at DreamHack is of course participating in the Cosplay Competition. You’ll meet a lot of great cosplayers from all over the world, experience what it’s like to perform for an enormous crowd and perhaps even win a prize! The top three best costumes and acts, as judged by the selected jury, will win some great prizes with the number one receiving a sum of over 1500 EUR for their efforts.
Besides the big official competition, smaller contests can be found in the Expo Area, where exhibitors might ask you to hop on the stand and participate in what they have on their schedule. Meetups with the cosplay community and photoshoots are also a common activity to be found on the venue’s floors while wandering around. You’ll find most Swedes love to see your costume and can’t wait to take a picture with you.
The very first time we decided to bring Dutch cosplayers with us to DreamHack we immediately hit the jackpot. One of the cosplayers participating in the official competition, EnvoySoldier Cosplay, managed to grab First Place with her female Barbarian cosplay from Diablo 3. At that moment we knew cosplay was a big deal, which resulted in the current cosplay activities we host at our other events.
Since then we’ve tried to get as many cosplayers on that big stage as possible, some even got to climb up multiple times like Merel/Willowcookie. We were very impressed with her skills and how she crafted her Worgen Death Knight cosplay. When we asked her to write a blog about her experiences at DreamHack as a cosplayer she was eager to get to work on it, which you can read here. Of course we can’t have a cosplay show without a proper photographer so we brought Jeroen Weimar along with us on several occassions. Jeroen is one the Netherlands best professional Cosplay Photographers and he also wrote a blog about his first experience at DreamHack.
There’s plenty to do and see at DreamHack, even for cosplayers. For a more visual representation of this aspect of the event, we made a short video of the show way back when we first started featuring cosplayers, so have a look. Are you cosplayer and would you love to experience all this goodness firsthand? Tickets are still available in our shop! Want to participate in the competition? Then let us know in advance by contacting us via email or through Facebook.
