Hi everybody!
Hi, Dr. Nick!
Okay, so, first of all I do apologize for being late with this summary - and not just with this one because I have three different con summaries to write now 😵 But I actually do have a reason for this and for once it's not procrastinating: I was away from home for a couple of weeks and when I finally arrived back at the north I barely had a few days to decompress and then it was already time for Matsucon (summary coming later!).
But first things first; now it's time for the Nekocon 2025 summary! 🐈
Nekocon 2025 was held on 19th-20th of July at Kuopion musiikkikeskus (Kuopio Music Center). We - also known as Shiro Samurai and I - drove to Kuopio already on the 18th of July, also known as the Friday before the con. We had booked a room at Rauhalahti spa and figured that it would be a lot less stressful to arrive a day earlier than start driving waaayyyy too early on the actual con morning, especially because it takes like five hours to drive from here to Kuopio.
We left around 11 am if I remember correctly. Shiro Samurai's mom drove him to my place and quite immediately after that we begun our journey towards the eastern region of Finland. Like I mentioned it was about a 5-hour ride but honestly it didn't feel all that long. During the trip we laughed at stupid road and village names and saw way too many lupines and soft ice stands.
At this point I would also like to mention that Shiro Samurai took all the pics for this summary, thank you very much! ^^
Once we arrived at Kuopio my brain went all error 404; you see, there was this roadwork site near the Music Center and apparently nobody really knew how to drive there. I think they were renewing a roundabout and that resulted in some very interesting driving solutions - also on my part. Well, we didn't get into a car crash, that's already a win lol.
We had decided to retrieve our tickets already on Friday and had promised to Sallukka that we would retrieve their and Dongrieg's tickets too; they would arrive at Kuopio a lot later than we did so yeah, there was no way they would have managed to retrieve them on Friday and nobody wants to stand in a queue on Saturday morning when the con is already open. Especially not in the heatwave that was going on during Nekocon; as someone whose body jumps into the Nopetrain to Fuckthatville when it gets too hot I sure didn't enjoy it lol.
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The tickets! The blue ones were ours, the golden ones belonged to Sallukka and Dongrieg. |
If someone wonders why there are two types of tickets: us two had the basic ones while Sallukka and Dongrieg had the ones with which you could go and see the anime concert.
After a quick visit to the Music Centre we finally drove to Rauhalahti, checked in and almost immediately went to the spa to relax after the long drive. We stayed there until the spa closed and then went back to the hotel room to do some skin care routines and, of course, to relax more - which in my case meant drinking a glass of white wine and reading a feel-good book written by Frida Gråsjö. Even though I mostly read horror books (imo the character development, relationships etc. are most realistic in those) sometimes I just want to read a book where everything goes unrealistically smoothly lol.
I think it was a bit before midnight when Sallukka and Dongrieg came to retrieve their tickets from us and it didn't take that long before we went to sleep. We had planned to wake up around nine in the morning, which we eventually did...
...it just didn't result in going to the con place around midday like we had planned to do. Nope. We went to eat breakfast and after that got a huge lag spike; it took us nearly two hours before we could be bothered to do basically anything! And that... Kind of resulted us two reaching the con place around 3 p.m. Oops.
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Music Center entrance view. |
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Music Center lobby + cloakroom. |
When we finally got to the con place it was hot af. No, I don't mean our arrival or do I? - it was +29 Celsius degrees in the shadow. That quickly made the decision for us: we needed to take some costume proof photos before our make-up would be all over the place. This time we didn't make use of the bush we have used as a background the last couple of years; we decided to check if there were any other good locations nearby and I twisted my ankle during the process because I didn't look where I was walking and there was a hole in the ground in which I of course stepped.
We found a place behind Lumit, one of the two con buildings - the one with the Artists' Alley which we decided to go check out after getting at least one decent "hey I had a costume on" pic.
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Is plant. |
And yes, it was so hot that even though Tanemon is a very light costume I could only wear it for like three hours during Saturday until I eventually had to give up.
After taking some proof pictures we went inside Lumit; during normal days it's a music high school but during Nekocon at least the Artists' Alley, the photobooth, the flea market and the game room are located there. It's also the very same building where Konekocon was held
earlier this year.
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These stairs outside Lumit provided a very popular sitting spot. |
The worst rush hour was over when we got there but it still felt pretty crowded, probably because the corridors between the artists' tables are quite narrow. Well, at least there was enough space to actually check out each table properly! The AC also works quite a lot better at Lumit than it does at the Music Center so yeah, despite the crowd the air quality stayed on an acceptable level. In my opinion Artists' Alley is also one of Nekocon's strong points: the placement is very good!
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A couple of pics showing the Artists' Alley. |
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The game room where one could sit and play - or watch the Nekomättö tournament!
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There's also this cafeteria area where one can just sit and relax for a while.
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After checking out the Artists' Alley we begun to wonder if the Aina Kesä bubble tea stand would be at the town square. At this point Nekocon hadn't advertised it at social media - or at least we hadn't noticed it since they eventually did at some point - so we couldn't know for sure. Luckily it doesn't take more than five minutes to walk to the town square and even before that we noticed there were people holding some take away plastic cups that looked suspiciously familiar. When we arrived at the town square we sighed in relief: the boba stand was there! ❤
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Coconut milk tea with matcha swirl and the vegan strawberry milkshake (or was it raspberry, can't remember anymore lmao). |
Those drinks sure were refreshing and delicious~ 💚
After the drinks we discussed what we should do next; it was already fairly late, thanks to lazying around in the morning so if we wanted to get something to eat AND spend some time in the spa there wasn't much time to spend at the con anymore.
Shiro Samurai mentioned that he wanted to check out a couple of artists at the Artists' Alley again; I couldn't be bothered so I decided to stay outside at the stairs. While I was waiting for him I messaged
Sallukka and asked where they were; turned out they didn't have anything to do at that exact moment so we decided to meet up at said stairs.
Shiro Samurai joined us too and we hang out as a group for a short while until the two of us really had to get going - and the two of them had an anime concert to attend.
After a quick run to the nearby grocery store
and running into one of my acquaintances we drove back to Rauhalahti. We tried taking some photos there too but that... Didn't really work out, especially when I was operating the camera because I could barely see anything anymore at that point. You see, I'm allergic to many beauty products and apparently my lash glue wasn't an exception to this - wearing false eyelashes for more than 1-2 hours was painful af. Luckily my contact lenses didn't act up on top of everything... 🙈
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Our room kind of exploded after taking our costumes off. Oops. |
So yeah, we took our costumes off, showered and cleaned our make-up and decided to get some food before going to the spa. Downstairs, near the spa area is a Scan Burger restaurant and we decided to eat there since it was budget friendly and neither of us really wanted to drive back to the city since it would have consumed quite a lot of our precious time. The food was pretty okay but let's just say that we really couldn't eat in peace thanks to a kid who threw a tantrum about pretty much everything. I mean, I get that the kid was probably tired and hungry but still, it sure wasn't a nice experience to eat when someone was constantly screaming practically next to us.
After the dinner makkaraperunat ftw it was time to relax in the spa for a while. It was so nice to chill in the pool after being cremated alive by the sun for so many hours ❤
We went back to our room a bit before the spa closed. Since we had booked the room until Monday there was no rush to start packing during the evening, also known as we could literally just watch some TV and relax. It was either the LOTR movie or the Norwegian version of Naked Attraction we watched, can't really remember which one happened on Saturday and which one on Sunday lol.
And, of course, we had some snacks and drinks!
I mean, those heart-shaped licorices are the best and work for face censoring very well too lol ❤
Eventually, Sunday morning came.
We woke up around the same time, went to eat some breakfast and by some miracle managed to start putting on our costumes and make-up immediately after that! My cosplay choice for Sunday was Espeon from
Pokémon and
Shiro Samurai decided to become the nation of stars and stripes, also known as America (Revolutionary War version) from
Axis Powers: Hetalia. It didn't take us that long to get ourselves ready - I overestimated the time I needed for Espeon's make-up - and a bit after midday we arrived at the Music Center.
The very first thing we decided to do was to take some photos of our costumes in the nearby bush. And I mean literally
in the bush lol. During our short photoshoot session we also ran into
Sallukka and
Dongrieg - we didn't have that much time for chatting but it sure was nice to have that brief encounter!
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This costume was so comfy to wear ❤ Also finally found a chance to wear those purple fake eyelashes a bought from Tokmanni over a year ago - they were discounted and cost 1 €! |
I will post more pictures in a separate post - not sure if I'll publish them after this post or after I've written all my more or less delayed con summaries but definitely in the near future!
After the photoshoot session it was time to check out the Artisans' Alley and Dealers' Hall which were located in the Music Center. And yes, the air quality there was hideous this year too lol - almost immediately after entering the building I started to feel dizzy and somewhat nauseous. Not really a pleasant experience.
I think the artisans and vendors are pretty much the same every year; of course they have different products for sale but the same ones are pretty often there. Not complaining about this tho, just something I have noticed over the years.
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Fantasiapelit - a booth to visit if you crave some manga in your life! |
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Bard & Jester - I surely will buy something from them in the future, their products are awesome! |
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I was so tempted to buy a Miku figurine from Puolenkuun Pelit but eventually realized that it wasn't within my budget ;__; |
I didn't buy anything from the Dealers' Hall this time even though I was tempted to buy a Miku figurine and a kinky themed T-shirt from
Niramuchu but as mentioned in the text above I really didn't have budget for either of them ;__; Well, I'm kind of eyeing both products online so yeah, likely going to buy some stuff when my financial situation gets a bit better lol.
After the Dealers' Hall it was time to check out the Artisans' Alley - and if that didn't feel like a sauna, I don't know what actually fills that criteria
except for the sauna itself lol! The room is indeed spacious and all but the huuuuge windows definitely didn't help, especially because it was extra sunny outside 💀
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I mean there indeed is a lot of space but it was warm af and the air quality still sucked. |
After we had checked out the Artisans' Alley we decided to check out the Artists' Alley again. There were a few different artists on Sunday than on Saturday so we wanted to check them out - and I actually bought more stuff this time! It wasn't nearly as crowded on Sunday as it was on Saturday either so it was easier to actually check out the products without constantly having to worry that you were blocking somebody else's view.
When we had made some purchases we both kind of got the same idea - to the boba stand we went! This time we opted for some... Very interesting options I must say.
Shiro Samurai bought a drink that was called The Reviver (and contained Red Bull) and I had a green apple soda float. So good!
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I swear to deities unknown: this drink stand is 30 % of the reason why we visit Kuopio annually lmao. |
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This was probably my favorite: banana milk tea with matcha swirl! |
I must say that I don't really remember what we did after this, probably drove back to the hotel and went to the spa :'D Not much really happened at Nekocon but it was still an enjoyable experience; this year the heat wave just was a bit too much (for example photoshooting didn't feel that comfortable). But overall I've always liked the con and Kuopio as a city; this sure wasn't the last Nekocon I'll attend! ❤
My Nekocon loot!
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So many talented artists! ;__; Thanks Shiro Samurai for the brib bird charm! |
...and some, khm, bonus photos too xD
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This is what happens when you leave a bag of chocolate candies on the car's dashboard when it's sunny af - you get one big and messy chocolate candy! xD |
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Is plant. Needs watering. Hydrated plant is happy plant. And, for some reason, very shook plant. |
Okay I feel this summary was a bit all over the place but at least it's now off the table :'D
Next up: either Espeon photoshoot or Mericon summary - we'll see which one!
Until next time.
-Firith