"No more tractors, I beg of you!" - Nekocon 2024

Time to drop yet another con summary I swear to god these are never-ending! 

Like the title says, this one is about Nekocon which was once again held in Kuopio (Kuopio Music Centre to be exact) on 13th-14th of July. My traveling companion - and trusted photographer - was, once again, Shiro Samurai. Our journey towards Kuopio begun already on 12th of July - also known as the Friday before the con - buuuut it was a bit of a miracle that we even managed to leave the north. You see...

I mean the situation was 🆘

And to those who don't know what an Earth that means: had there been two more kilometers to drive to the gas station we wouldn't have managed. Oops. In my defense: I had been saving up money for this trip on my part too and had decided to use some of that money to refuel just before leaving so we wouldn't have to worry about it on our way to Kuopio. Well, a wise decision in itself - except that we almost didn't manage to leave point A at all.

Anyway we managed to get on the road a bit before midday. According to Google Maps driving to Kuopio would take approximately 5 hours so yeah, we had a lot of time to just speak and plan what we would do during the evening (invading the spa was our priority number one). After about two hours of driving we saw a tractor in front of us and I remember saying something along the lines "Luckily it's not that fast so I will have plenty of time to pass it" when a cold realization hit me...
It wasn't the only one. Not even close.

DUN DUN DUUUUUNNN

I swear to god there were at least 15 tractors to pass!! I don't know what they were doing there in the first place since they surely hadn't been working on a field or anything but I suppose they were driving to a meeting or something? I mean, it's nice that the farmers have their own meetings - and I totally support farmers, my late grandfather was one too until retirement - but omfg it took ages to pass them since the road was very narrow and I could only pass one or two at a time xD One apparently shall not pass lol. At least my blood pressure shouldn't pass the height of Mt. Everest but I must say it was pretty close.

Zetor seemed to be one of the most popular brands.

After some struggling we finally managed to pass them all and our journey towards Rauhalahti Spa could continue. At Lapinlahti we decided to stop at a very cozy and rustic Matin ja Liisan Asema to eat something; I think I devoured a cheeseburger. The place and food were both 5/5 - I think this might become one of our traveling hangouts.
It didn't take too long to drive from Lapinlahti to Kuopio. We first stopped at the Music Centre to claim our con tickets - and by "our" I also mean the ones that belonged to Sallukka and their boyfriend. They had left a few hours after us because work happened and they managed to get a bit lost along the way but hey that happens, I managed to get lost when we drove from the Music Centre to Rauhalahti Spa and would fetch the tickets from us later in the evening. 

After fetching the tickets we drove to Rauhalahti Spa and dragged our mountain of luggage to the hotel. It didn't take too long until our hotel room sure looked like we had half of our apartments with us...

Boom. The pic was seemingly taken on Saturday or Sunday tho.

Some energy drinks and ~olutta~.

This year we also had a balcony! I'm a bit sad I didn't have time to casually sit there and just read - I mean literally no matter where I go I do have a book with me - but oh well, maybe someday in the future if we manage to get the same or similar room again.
I don't think we did that much during the Friday evening, just relaxed in the spa and quickly met Sallukka and their boyfriend who came to fetch the tickets. Can't remember when we actually went to sleep but this time it didn't matter that much anyway since neither of us had responsibilities at this con - usually at least one of us is working or competing but not this time. 

On Saturday morning we woke up around 8.30, had some breakfast aamukahvi vaan hittaa diffii and then started putting on our costumes. This year I've apparently had my own personal cosplay theme, witch(y) child characters - in Kummacon I cosplayed Alicia from Moominvalley and for Nekocon I had made a new cosplay: Kiki from the Ghibli movie Kiki's Delivery Service! She isn't one of my all-time favorites but still a nice character. I managed to find perfect fabrics for her a few weeks before the con and kind of just... Decided to make the costume lol. And it sure was a good choice; the outside temperature during Nekocon was nearly unbearable to me so yeah, at least I didn't die from a heat stroke or anything.
Shiro Samurai had decided to wear one of the costumes he had worn only once, namely Hotaru from Samurai Deeper Kyo since he wanted to get proper pictures taken of the said costume. I should probably go through some of my older costumes too and see which ones I could still wear; most of them don't fit me now but hopefully will in the future...

It took us about two or three hours to get ready but eventually we begun to drive towards the convention place. It was pretty interesting to drive with Kiki's hair bow; because of the size of it I had to imitate the Hunchback of Notre Dame - also known as I couldn't sit with my back straight.

#doublechinapproves #idonot

The entrance of Kuopio's Music Centre.

At first Shiro Samurai wanted to take the general con photos. That was more than fine with me - until we walked into the building itself and holy shit it was hot in there! I mean, it was hot outside too but inside, once again, the air felt very stiff and I begun to feel sick pretty soon. I have also suffered from benign paroxysmal positional vertigo since the beginning of the year and it sure didn't help when I suddenly started to feel dizzy...

The entrance hall and the info desk.

Stairs leading to the Artesans' Alley which was located in the 2nd floor of the Music Centre.

 

 

A couple of overview pictures from the Artesans' Alley.

And of course there were also promotion booths of different conventions and groups!

Luckily Shiro Samurai was quick and we were able to go outside to take photos of our costumes before our faces melted off make-up was all over the place. First he took some pics of my Kiki costume (link!) and then I took pictures of his Hotaru cosplay; those ones can be seen here. 

And le selfie. As you can see, the sunlight was pretty harsh so yeah, taking the photos was not too simple of a task for either of us.

 

After the photoshoot we left the camera in the car and walked to the Lumit building which was next to the Music Centre - and where Artists' Alley was located. This year we knew to look for it there; last year we would have missed it had Sallukka not told about its existence lol. This year I also had a personal task in mind: meeting Momo, also known as the founder of bunicorn_design. I have bought quite a lot of stuff from them - for example the Ouija necklace I wore at Matsucon in 2023; there's a photo in the summary in which the necklace can be seen. We chatted for a while and I bought a guillotine necklace from them; I mean, I'm a fan of gothic, dark and twisted things so yeah, it caught my attention quite immediately.
We also quickly checked the other tables but as quickly we decided to come back to the building on Sunday when we wouldn't have our cosplays on; Kiki's hair bow was already causing me a headache and Shiro Samurai had some difficulties to keep his costume in place so yeah, not exactly ideal clothing for checking out the Artists' Alley.

The Artists' Alley was crowded basically 90 % of the time, no joke.

The video game room was also in the Lumit building. This year they didn't have the consoles etc. at the entrance hall - nope, they had their very own room (which I think was a gymnastics hall)! The reason for this may have been - at least partly - Nekomättö, also known as a Tekken 8 Tournament, which took place on the stage there. We didn't check it out but Sallukka and their boyfriend did and enjoyed it. I also saw signs that pointed towards a second hand shop but we didn't visit it - mainly because at this point we both begun to be quite fed up with having cosplays on. 

 

There was so much space this year - also a working AC was 6/5!

But... We couldn't take our costumes off just yet. We still had one final mission with them.
"...and that would be..?"
Boba tea.

You see, the Kuopio town square is only a short walk away from the con venue. This year Aina Kesä's boba tea stand was located in there and if you went to buy products with a cosplay on you got a 20 % discount! Of course we wanted to take advantage of this and begun to walk towards the town square. At this point I must admit that I hadn't tasted boba ever before (unless you count those ones who are sold in cans but in this context I don't count that one) and I was pretty excited about going there! When we arrived there the queue wasn't that long and in no time we had boba teas in our hands and a bumblebee took interest in them too lol.
Let's just say that 1) I wasn't disappointed and 2) I may have a new addiction now.

After our boba tea adventure and a quick trip to the Dealers' Hall we decided to go back to the hotel. The day had been warm and both of us were still a bit tired from traveling - and knowing that we would have to drive back on Sunday sure didn't make us feel less tired. I can't help but feel sometimes that I'm getting a bit too old for this; then again, the hype to cosplay and go to conventions is still there and I intend to go on as long as I still have that hype going.
When we got to the hotel we took a few more pics of Shiro Samurai's cosplay and then we went to take our costumes off - mine was almost glued to my back. Ewww. After a quick shower it was time to go to the spa again; I think we just melted there for like two hours again until we decided it was time to go to eat something. This time we went to the hotel's restaurant and, well... The food and dessert were very good. What didn't amuse me was the time we spent waiting for the food - I swear to god it took at least like 30-40 minutes. But oh well, the quality was still good and the staff was friendly so I can't really complain.

After eating we just played some games on PS5 for a bit before going to sleep; after all we would have to get proper rest to be able to sit in the car for those 5 hours again.

Sunday morning came. We thought we woke up early enough but still ended up being in a hurry. The morning wasn't particularly catastrophic though, we were just slow and my make-up skills had decreased since Saturday or at least felt like it since it took ages to get a basic make-up done. Both of us were dressed in alternative outfits - I must point out that I really liked the one Shiro Samurai had - since it would be easier to travel in those than in cosplays.
We checked out of the hotel already looking forward to next year and drove to the Kuopio Music Centre one more time. I think this time we first went to check out the Artists' Alley; you see, there were different sellers there on Sunday than on Saturday so we wanted to check the new ones out too!

The outside of Lumit building. Most times it was near impossible to find a spot to sit down.

And because the Lumit building was closer to the town square than the Music Centre... Oh yes, we decided to go for more boba tea.
After taking a selfie, of course.

Selfie time!

This time I also ordered a croffle - in other words, a croissant waffle. Turns out that it's not only boba that's delicious at Aina Kesä's stand. 

After our quick trip to the boba tea stand we returned to the Music Centre and spent most of the remaining time checking out the Dealers' Hall. We also ran into Sallukka and their boyfriend who were also doing the last round there; after all we all had a long drive ahead so we had to leave pretty early. I think there was still enough time to check out the sellers there.
And I also ran into jansutti who casually just screamed my name across the room to get my attention xD It was so nice to talk to her; we went to school together but I graduated before her and hadn't talked to her since! Fun fact: both of us also worked as cosplay judges in Kitsunecon 2018 of which I never wrote a summary about - mainly because, well, my whole day there consisted of judging the contestants and I didn't really get to see anything but one small room and the stage lol. It was pretty hectic day. Still, nice memories.

Well, these didn't cost anything obviously but could be found literally anywhere, even in the Dealers' Hall.

Some overview pictures of the Dealers' Hall.

After the last round in the Dealers' Hall it was time to leave Kuopio behind and drive back home. I can't even describe in words how much fun I actually had there and next Nekocon couldn't come any sooner! <3 Like Shiro Samurai mentioned in his Nekocon 2024 summary we both have been stressed out and in more or less dark places for a while now so the Nekocon weekend was very welcomed - and we actually managed to relax there and just have fun. Can't wait for next year! 💓

Oh, my con loot!

I won't make many purchases, he said. I'm on a budget here, he said. Still no regrets.

I still have a couple of con summaries to write so stay tuned! The next post, however, will be the Kiki photoshoot - and after that I just might drop another circle lens review. Literally might, don't know yet - either that or my Mericon 2024 summary. We'll see which one it is~!

Until next time.

-Firith