Mericon 2025 - I wish I could teleport

Hello everyone~!
The con year is almost over for me but luckily I can live the nice memories again in the form of these con summaries! ❤ This time it's about Mericon which was held on 2nd of August at Rauma city library for the third time omg my baby is a toddler already. Unlike previous years, this time I was only in charge of the cosplay competition - and somehow this still managed to become the busiest Mericon by far for me. How? Well, let me explain...

Con venue entrance.

(And, as per usual, every photo that isn't a selfie was taken by Shiro Samurai, thanks a lot! ^^)

We had driven to my parents' place after Nekocon. You see, there was no point to drive to the north since there were only two weeks until Mericon would be held (and I had a friends' wedding to attend a week before the con) - instead we decided to save some gas and money and spend those couple of weeks at Satakunta. Probably not the wisest decision ever since one of the worst heatwaves was going on during our stay and I have a feeling that at least my last two brain cells casually melted back then lol. 
The day before the con we drove to Rauma where we had booked a hotel room at Scandic Rauma. 

Tämä on vettä.

That... Is something I don't recommend, at least not during the summer.

I did mention there was a heatwave going on, right?
What if I told you we had no AC in our room? 
...yeah, you read that right :))) The hotel was built back in 1970s and to this day it lacks some... Quite important things. Literally the only positive thing about the room was the bed, which was one of the best ones I've come across during my hotel stays, but otherwise... Ehhh. The room was also very small which made the situation even worse since we didn't have that much space to go around - which resulted in "Mind moving yourself 5 cm to any direction away from me because your body temperature is practically melting me, thank you c:" conversations at least from my part even when we were on the opposite sides of the room lol.

The morning came after sleeping for like... What, two hours? I was quite nauseous when I woke up due to the room temperature and poor sleep, but managed to drag myself to eat some breakfast. I must give it a positive honorary mention tho; there were lots of different foods to choose from, some of them quite luxurious.
After eating back to the hotel room we went. I had decided to go for a random OC, Shiro Samurai wore his America cosplay again since, well, he kind of had two costumes to choose from and America is easier to wear while photographing than Gaogamon. We started to get ourselves ready...

...and at that very moment - or rather, after inserting my contact lenses - I noticed I had made a horrible mistake. I had taken a costume bag with me and most of my make-up products were there. Except for the brushes. Which were in my other bag.
Long story short: instant meltdown which affected the mood quite badly at the moment but thankfully didn't ruin the whole day, those can be very bad with BPD to put it slightly and I almost decided to go full casual. I can't even describe how much I hated myself at that moment - I had just successfully ruined my plans for the day. Eventually Shiro Samurai managed to convince me to wear something nicer than college pants and a hoodie and put on at least some mascara. At that point my thoughts ran along the lines "Why should I even try?" buuut little did I know that I would thank myself for not putting on the whole costume - especially make-up - later that day.

After getting myself into slightly better mood we left the hotel... And moved like 100 m to get to the library's parking lot :'D Had we walked the distance to the library's back door would have been like 15 m lol. We got there a bit after 11 - also known as a bit after the con had opened its doors.

The lobby, photographed from different angles.

I can't lie: literally my first thought was "Where are all the people?". You see, in the previous years the lobby has been crowded and it's been even hard to move around there. But now... There were very few people and I must say that I kind of felt my heart sink a bit.
That was before I realized something: the drawing workshop had been moved upstairs so the people very likely were either there or at the Artists' Alley (which was located in its familiar spot). And I was right; at the end of the day those who had been working at the drawing/pin making workshop looked like they definitely needed some rest ^^" I mean, it's good that an activity is popular, but that was something we didn't really expect lol.

Said drawing/pin making workshop. There was a drawing contest this year too and its theme was mermaids 💙

Since I was in charge of everything related to the cosplay competition (or, as we say in Finland, "cosplayvastaava", also known as "the person in charge of cosplay stuff") the first thing I did was to gather all the judges together. This year that meant Shiro Samurai, Springdeer and neponen.cos (who competed at last year's Mericon and a few months after that in Gingacon where we actually got to know each other - I asked them to be cosplay competition judge at this year's Mericon); I had decided to give up on being a judge so I could pay more attention to my other responsibilities. That... Turned out to be a very wise decision an hour or so later.
As per usual, Shiro Samurai acted as the photographing judge while the other two stayed in the judging room and did the more traditional costume judging. This year we had six contestants - or, well, we had five before one of them asked at the con if they could take part in the competition. This time we decided that it was okay; five would have been... Well, the minimum amount of contestants for a competition if you ask me.

After giving them instructions it was almost time for the judging to begin - and after that all I can remember is running back and forth for at least an hour, searching for our contestants to get them to the judging room in time! 

What do you mean I was sweating like a pig? And even though I apparently looked quite sick, I wasn't lol. I also decided to take my contact lenses off, they would have looked quite weird without make-up.

The next thing I can actually remember clearly is that Maria H. (we had three Marias among the staff sos) approached me and told me that cosplay catwalk didn't have that many participants - and by "that many" I mean "there are no more than three". Yikes. Then... The following conversation happened.

Maria H.: "Do you think that it would be possible to convince Shiro Samurai to participate? His costume is pretty awesome."
Me: "Uh... Ask him? He has some stage fright but then again this is a small convention..."
Maria H.: "Hmm. I could go there with him. Would you come with me to try to convince him?"
Me: "Sure 😁"

We weren't that far from the photo booth so there we went - and both of us were grinning like Cheshire Cats, which was totally not suspicious at all. I could see that Shiro Samurai realized in less than two seconds that we were up to something :'D Well, the conversation was had and eventually the two agreed to go to the stage together - gotta save the cosplay catwalk! 

And after this...
*insert at least 30 minute long "I have no idea" here*
I was seriously so busy that I can't even remember anything else than running back and forth! D: I mean, I'm not complaining lol, I actually enjoyed my duties, but this summary feels like I'm just describing a supermassive blackhole massive blackout :'D 
Oh, there was one minus to the schedule I had made for the pre-judging. You see, this year Mericon actually had a guest of honor, also known as Merenneito Riia who is a professional mermaid! I've had a huge interest in mermaiding for... Like... At least ten years but have never really got around it and right now I would sink like RMS Titanic anyway since I don't really know how to control my mid-section muscles properly. Her program unfortunately overlapped with my schedule very badly so I totally missed it since I was guiding the contestants to the places they needed to be at :( 

Some serious mermaid talk.

That amount of empty chairs makes me cry.

My next clear memory is... 
The cosplay competition.
Yup, I'm missing chunks there. And not just a bit.

This year I actually had requested to have those cards behind which my lines were written. In the previous years I had just written down the contestant name, character name and series - everything else was just winged lol. I wanted to level up my game at least a bit and, well, I must admit I felt a bit more professional. Notice one of Mericon's mascots, the cat called Meri, on the cards ❤ Speaking of the mascots: there are two of them, the cat called Meri and a young sailor man called Rauno. Back in the days I asked Shiro Samurai to create them - when I was still in charge of multiple things and in a good enough position to negotiate project-type/short 'job contracts' - and this year these guys were used for Mericon's marketing (along with a chibi mermaid version of Rauno created by Janika Wahlman, one of Mericon's amazing organizers) for the first time! 💙

This year we also managed to find some copyright-free background music for the cosplay competition and it did wonders to the overall atmosphere during it.

(I'm still laughing at the fact that my shirt says "Serial k*ller documents and chill" and one of our contestants cosplayed Jason Voorhees :'D)

After the catwalk part of the competition was over I spotted a familiar face in the crowd - namely FreakyAngel with whom I chatted for a good while. Fun fact: we were almost neighbors at one point but never managed to cross paths back then :'D But I'm very happy that it eventually happened, meeting her makes me happy each time! ❤
We parted ways after a while and I decided to go check out the merchants near the info desk. Yes, this year Mericon had three merchants too, namely Pinklazercat, Pelivaari and Print Nordica.

There were a lot of people around the merchants basically all the time!

Yes, when I said "near the info desk" I quite literally meant "turn around and you will see the library staff 2 meters away from you" lol.

I bought some stuff from Pinklazercat and after that made my way towards Café Käpälä - I seriously needed some mineral water to stay hydrated enough lol. This year there weren't that many decorations or anything but I heard the café staff had basically just gotten back to work after a summer holiday - and some were there even if they still had some holiday days left! - so it's more than understandable.

The café area.

The guest book was there this time too - directly next to the café area.

There weren't that many people when the photos were taken but I spoke to the café staff and they told me that they had sold plenty of stuff so yeah, the café wasn't that empty all the time. 

This year there were no paintings or anything in the lobby; in the past year there has always been some sort of an art exhibition going on during Mericon but this time that didn't happen. There was something else instead...

These were in the lobby...

...these near the photobooth...

...these next to the stairs to the 2nd floor...

...and finally one on the 2nd floor!

And these were not the only signs; some others can be seen in other pics + there were the ones that Shiro Samurai painted back in 2023 when Mericon was held for the first time! You see, we have gotten some feedback along the lines "there should be more signs to tell where you can find and what" in the previous years so this time it was made sure that we won't get the same feedback again - thank you Maria H. for this! ❤
Though I must mention that this made me chuckle at first :'D But we didn't get any complaints about this topic though!

Very soon it was time for the award ceremony for the cosplay competition & the drawing contest - congrats to all the winners! 💙 Oh, and before I forget: this year there was one prize sponsor too, thank you so much Talking to myself jewelry! 💗

And a huge thank you to all of my lovely judges, you're gold! ❤

Okay, so finally now I could re---
Hahaha nope.

You see, after the award ceremony it was time for Shiro Samurai's panel about seafaring. And did it go smoothly? 
...well, the panel itself yes - except that the audience was close to non-existent but that's something that is very hard to affect.
But the technology... Wasn't exactly on our side. You see, Shiro Samurai had used LibreOffice Impress to make the presentation instead of Microsoft Office PowerPoint. These two programs are basically the same, except that Impress is free and has less features than PowerPoint. One can usually open Impress presentations on PowerPoint (this can't be done the other way around) buuuut this time it became a huge problem. For some reason the library's laptop tried to push us to use the desktop version of PowerPoint - to which we didn't have a license for. Great.

Next I tried to open the presentation with Adobe Reader but since the presentation hadn't been converted to a PDF beforehand I, obviously, couldn't do that. 

The clock was ticking, there was some general hassle and I was just trying to come up with a solution after we had tried another laptop which didn't work in our favor any better. Until finally I felt the bulb light up and I asked Maria H. if the library staff had access to the cloud version of Microsoft Office 365 which includes PowerPoint. Turned out it indeed was an option and via that I FINALLY managed to open the presentation...

...which looked nothing like it should have looked like. I really don't have the words to describe how awful I actually felt about that; I had seen Shiro Samurai work on that presentation for literally hours (if I counted correctly, close to 17) and now all that work went down the drain. But, unfortunately, there wasn't really anything more I could've done on the spot; we were already behind the schedule and fixing the presentation would have taken hours, so it was literally a no can do situation.

During said panel I also did my basically first and last round around the Artists' Alley. Normally I wouldn't disappear in the middle of a panel but I realized that it was getting quite late and I hadn't had time to properly check the artists so I did a speed-run there (and ran into one of my former colleagues who had come to the library and thus check the event after saying the final goodbyes to her late husband...).

Before Shiro Samurai could actually finish his panel, the clock was already ticking the con's final minutes. It sure was a bummer that he didn't get to finish it, but that couldn't have been helped - technical difficulties ft. too short program slot to begin with don't go well together. However, as someone who had heard some of the stories long before the con itself I must say that I still found the panel very entertaining. If - and hopefully when - Shiro Samurai hosts a panel again I strongly recommend going to listen; even though he isn't really in his comfort zone in these situations, he doesn't let the audience see it. On top of it all his style of speaking is entertaining and unique - and clear, which is extremely important when speaking to the audience (I myself don't hear all that well, so clear delivery is very much appreciated). 

This coming from someone who quite regularly does that at job in a form or another and very rarely praises anyone in this context.

This time we weren't required to stay at the library after the doors closed so we basically just took our mountain of stuff, thanked everyone for the great con and drove back to my parents' place before driving to Eura to fetch some kebab since both of us were starving lol to relax for the evening and pack our stuff since there was a long drive ahead of us on Sunday, namely driving back to north.

And it was nothing short of a miracle that we got back home since my car decided to break down  immediately after the trip 😶

And that's the end of this summary~!

Next post will be Matsucon's summary... And after that I will write about a con I attended a very first time this year! 👀 Stay tuned!

Until next time.

-Firith

Mericon 2024 - Welcome back to the marine atmosphere!

Hello everyone~!
As the title says, this is my Mericon 2024 summary.
Mericon was held on 3rd of August at Rauma's main library, just like in previous year. And, just like in previous year, I and Shiro Samurai belonged to the group of organizers behind it. But, unlike last year, we both worked now from the north and let me tell you, it wasn't exactly an easy task to work as practically the main coordinator from 700+ km from the actual event venue... x__x 

But let's get down to business to defeat the huns!
(And, once again, all pictures are taken by Shiro Samurai. I really should fix my camera at some point but then again, this was one of those conventions when I wouldn't have had time to take any pics myself anyway.)

The more or less official poster of this year. Next year it just might look a bit different...

 

Fun fact: I actually spent my summer vacation for organizing Mericon - and what I mean by that is that a week before the con I and Shiro Samurai drove to South-Western Finland and spent a few days at my parents' place. During that time we visited Rauma multiple times to help the library staff with organizing the event and decorating the venue, to pick up stuff from our partners etc. It was indeed a very hectic week and tbh I really don't have that many memories of it - I just remember I was busy all the time and didn't really have that much time to spend with my family... But no can do, they knew I was coming to do some volunteer work there so yeah, they didn't mind too much and my father actually visited the con when he came to pick up my brother <3. 
The week went by fast and on Friday it was time to pack our bags and drive to Rauma where we would spend the night before the con. We had agreed to do that since it would be so much easier to be already at the town than to drive 40 km in the Saturday morning - I mean, we would have had to wake up way too early so yeah, we decided to make our lives at least a bit easier. We had booked a room at Haus Anna, a small B&B near the city center. Our main reason for booking a room there was that it was very cheap; 95 €/two people (we took the cheaper option, also known as breakfast wasn't included) and when we got there we knew immediately we had made the right choice, the room was very comfy! 💓

Notice the 'Raum - Rome - Paris' decoration board 💓 'Raum' means Rauma in 'Rauman giäl', the local dialect. The writer called Hj. Nortamo was actually famous in Finland since he wrote books in said dialect (which most Finns don't even understand) and his legacy still shows in the town.

Despite the room being comfy we slept poorly. Even more so than before other cons; I was nervous about the event and couldn't help but think things such as 'What if nobody shows up this year?' and 'What if something happens and this is the last Mericon ever?' etc. Sometimes I would really like to be less pessimistic about things.
We were supposed to put on our costumes and do our make-up (I had a random outfit w/tavern keeper pirate vibes and Shiro Samurai cosplayed Team Aqua Grunt from Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire) at Haus Anna but eventually we decided to do it at the library instead. Main reason for this was the fact that we were already behind our schedule AND we would likely have to do some last minute things at the library which meant possible sweating which would have meant our make-up and costumes getting all ruined and wrinkly before the event even started. So yeah, we just grabbed our stuff, left our room key in the post box meant for it and drove to the library.

This year we had more people organizing Mericon. Of course there was library staff (old and new) but then there were also a couple of volunteers; Oiva, a local student had sent an application for the position of an information man at the lobby and Springdeer had applied for the position of a cosplay competition judge. A big thanks also goes to my little brother Hermanni who agreed to keep watch at the PS4 room when I couldn't (I was also a cosplay contest judge) - I knew I could trust you bro 💓

Said brother - who isn't on any social media platforms and prefers to not show his face - working at the PS4 room which was seemingly empty at the time the pic was taken.

Aaaand a huge thanks also goes to my twin flame dearie Gure and her girlfriend Selja who also came to assist us; Gure was in charge of updating the Instagram stories and taking the event pictures and Selja helped with the escape room. Thank you both so much! 💓
After some last minute stuff it was time to put our costumes on; two hours had went by very fast and it was already time to open the doors for the congoers! This time I didn't have that much to do during the first 40 minutes of the event so I had plenty of time to do my make-up and put on the rest of my costume.

People chilling near the library~

The main lobby. The man in grey is Oiva.

Café Käpälä was open this year too, they sold tasty event themed snacks and drinks!

This year there was more to do and see at the con than last year. There were a couple of dance programs hosted by Opia Dance Crew and More More Hop, a cosplay catwalk, a cosplay competition, a drawing workshop & competition, "I like this - I don't like this" anime character Kahoot game, an escape room and the PS4 and this meant that I didn't have to be a panelist filler this year too lol. I'm under the impression that getting program hosts for conventions is a bit easier than last year in general but still not the easiest task to do. However I'm super happy that we got so many hosts this year - thank you all! 💓

The program schedule! The escape room is missing from this...

 

...but it had its own signs! There were quite many groups participating eventually; this pic was likely taken during the first hour of the event since not many people noticed the sign right away.

Oh, and Mericon had approximately the same amount of visitors than last year; most of them were from nearby but then there were some people from Eastern Finland and even one guy from Germany! I didn't have the chance to meet the guy but Shiro Samurai - who worked as the photographing cosplay competition judge - had chatted him. Apparently he had come to Rauma to meet a friend but said friend had ghosted him and eventually he ended up visiting Mericon. I still feel pretty bad for the guy - I mean traveling for hours and hours and then getting ghosted is not cool - and I sure do hope that he got at least some good experiences at the con...

The guest book was there again! This time it was probably a bit easier to spot than last year :'D

The drawing workshop. Even though there aren't that many people in the picture it was popular this year too. The theme of this year's drawing competition was 'Design a cosplay costume/Halloween costume/etc. for a pet'!

People chilling near the room where the Kahoot game was held. The entrance to the Artists' Alley can be seen in the background.

Since Mericon is held in the library it's pretty obvious that there are theme-related books too.

Visitors chilling at the children's/youngsters' section. That's where I also used to work at when I still lived in the south.

During the day I was mainly in charge of the cosplay competition judging and hosting it obviously I had other duties too but a huge part of my day consisted of the cosplay competition stuff. Like I mentioned before there where three judges; Shiro Samurai judged the competitors when they came to be photographed (how character accurate their poses etc. were) and I and Springdeer did the costume judging in the separate room. Each cosplay competitor had 10 minutes to tell about their costumes and show them to us - and I must say that all of them had done fabulous job! 💓 I stick to what I have said before: no matter if you win a prize or not, you are already a winner if you win yourself and get yourself on that stage. I'm so proud of all our competitors and I sure do hope I will see them in the future too - maybe even on bigger stages!

The stage was pretty easy to find - one could see it from the info desk and vice versa!

The stage from last year was back. This year we had that one added stair that helped a lot. Both dance groups also hosted their programs in the second floor of the library; for dancing this stage is far from optimal.

The competition and the award ceremony were popular this year too!

This year's winners! 💓 2nd place on the left, 1st place in the middle and the 3rd place on the right. Congratulations to you all! 💓

Some of this years prizes were sponsored by Talking to myself jewelry and Pinklazercat - if you ever read this, thank you were much! 💓 The cosplay competition winners also got prize cups; those were ordered from Laatupalkinto, just like in the previous year. 

After the cosplay competition I had some time to walk around and, for example, check out the Artists' Alley! I didn't do much shopping this year though; not because there wouldn't have been stuff to buy but because I didn't have too much money at the time and I wanted to save some up for Matsucon (which was held in the following weekend) too.

This year we actually had a visible map of the Artists' Alley - thanks Janika!

A couple of overview pics from the Artists' Alley.

The Artists' Alley was located in the same place than last year; however, the organization promotion booths were located in the second floor of the library. This year we had two booths!

Suomen Hopeanuoli-fanit ry - they were at Mericon last year too!

 

Rauma Pride!

I have to admit that I don't have that many memories of the event itself this year either (and this also means that I don't really have much more to say); everything was so hectic and it was my duty to be alert all the time - which means I took care of the "behind the scenes" stuff. Luckily there was not much drama or anything; it's just that there was still kind of lot to do (for example answering the feedback we got during the event etc.) and I felt quite exhausted when we finally closed the doors for the day. After the con we did some cleaning up, met once again a security guard since the alarm had gone off even though it shouldn't have done that and... I think after that I and Shiro Samurai drove back to my parents' place since we had a long drive ahead of us on Sunday and I wanted to get a good rest before it.

Mericon 2024 was quite exhausting but still a very positive experience and I owe a huge thank you to everyone making it possible - let's hold the flag high in the coming years too, whatever they may bring! 💙
Next year my job isn't the main coordinator anymore though; I will only take care of cosplay competition and everything related to it (picking cosplay judges and planning + hosting the competition). This decision was made in unison with the Mericon staff and it had nothing to do with my capabilities or anything; it's just that the library staff can use their work time to plan the event meanwhile it's basically impossible for me these days. This is just taking a huge workload off my shoulders and even though I still find it a bit hard to let go I know that this was a necessary decision for both me and them.
But I'm more than happy that they still want to continue this new tradition at Rauma; what started as a school project that got a bit out of hand became an event that attracts hundreds of visitors at Rauma's main library on an annual basis. It's been (and will be) an honor to be a part of something like this. Let's see what kind of cosplay competition we'll have next year then! 👀

Oh, this is how I looked during the day! I kind of want to dye my hair red again...

My next post is going to be my Matsucon 2024 summary and after that I'm finally back on schedule, about time after like 2-3 years x__x After that... A ton of circle lens reviews I suppose. Send help 🆘

Until next time.

-Firith

Mericon 2023 - Maiden voyage of a harbor town con

This is also one of the summaries that are so late that it's literally ridiculous but it can't be helped at this point anymore. 

 Mericon, a new small cosplay event was held on 5th of August at Rauma's main library. Since Rauma probably isn't the most familiar town for many of you, let me introduce its history a bit because the event's name (which would be Seacon in English) is heavily linked to it. If you're not up to the history lesson, skip a bit forward and continue reading.

Like the title of this post tells you, Rauma is a harbor town and has actually been since the 15th century. Back then it was mostly merchant ships visiting Rauma but things were about to change; in 19th century Rauma was already known of its own merchant shipping companies. For a few years (1892-1898) Rauma actually had the largest sailing fleet in Finland - in 1895 57 vessels belonged to it! However, in 1898 the sailing ship fleet of Helsinki outgrew the one of Rauma's - and it didn't take too long for the ships to disappear from Rauma, one by one. The last sailing ship built in Rauma was the barquentine called Uljas and she sailed for a good 50 years, from 1891 to 1941. She stayed in the ship register until her fate was decided; Uljas was ceremoniously burnt and sank in 1950.
Even though the times have changed, seafaring is still an important thing to Rauma. Cargo ships come and go at the harbor, new ships are being built (at the time Rauma Marine Constructions, also known as the local shipyard is building four Squadron 2020 corvettes for the Finnish Defence Forces) and there's also a restaurant ship at Poroholma's tall ship harbor! Or, well, at least at the time; the ship in question (galeas Marita) is not in a good shape anymore and there have been rumors the she would be sunk in the coming years. There was also another ship at that harbor, brig Gerda Gefle (she was a copy of the original brig Gerda that got destroyed in 1959) but the fate was cruel on her; in September 2023 shit happened and the ship half sunk at the dock it was anchored at. By the time I´m writing this post she has already been dismantled. However, she was a sight to behold and, luckily, we managed to take some promotion pictures for Mericon on her deck! 

Gerda Gefle in June 2023. Picture taken by yours truly (you can also find this pic on Mericon's web site but yeah, I took this one).

The pirate captain, also known as my colleague Katriina on Gerda's deck. The farther tall ship in the background is galeas Marita. Picture taken by yours truly.

If you want more information about Rauma's history as a harbor town, check Majakka (from where I also searched for the history info) - it's an info site held by Rauma Maritime Museum!

But yeah, back to the con summary - and to the question what part do I play with organizing Mericon. And to this question the answer is simple: at the time I studied to become a librarian (graduated in December) and worked at Rauma's main library where I decided to test the waters and suggested holding a cosplay event at the library when we were brainstorming what kind of events we should hold in 2023. It was an immediate green light and so Mericon came to exist!
I also had to pass the event organizing course at school so yeah, totally took this opportunity to be one of the organizers behind this event! Since I was the one with most experience with cosplay and cosplay events I got pretty much responsibilities but, to be honest, I enjoyed every minute behind the scenes even though it was a bit stressing at times. The organizing actually begun in February and that meant we had six months to get everything ready. Plenty of time!

I didn't do everything by myself though; my colleagues and boss were so sweet and supportive - they helped whenever they could with whatever they could!
Buuuut there was one task none of us could do and that was painting the info signs. It didn't take long to figure out who I wanted to help me with this task and after a few emails and meetings Shiro Samurai joined the team! He was also in charge of photographing the event and cosplay contestants this year (and he was also one of the cosplay contest judges) but his main task was to paint the signs which turned out to be wonderful even though he only had a few days to make them. I'm still sorry about the short time span but dude, you did great job with those signs - thank you so much! <3

(The rest of the pics in this post are also taken by Shiro Samurai since my camera begun to act up even more after I had taken the promotion pictures for the con.)

Mericon banner. There were actually two; this one was located near the parking lot.

 

The main entrance of the library. Café Käpälä was also open during the con - they had even developed a pastry menu that fit the theme!

 

The week before the event was quite stressful since there were quite a lot of last minute things to do - Shiro Samurai was painting the signs, I was trying to hold the whole event in one piece (pun not intended omg) and my colleagues helped with decorating the library and whatever task I gave them. At this point I was the one with most intel and lord, anybody who knows me also knows that I forget things very easily so it was a bit stressing to try to keep track of tasks that were still on "to do" list.
The evening before we finally got everything done - well, most of it. Let's just say that if you need to fix the fabric for the photography booth, do yourself a favor and check if your sewing machine is fine AND DOESN'T BREAK DOWN A DAY BEFORE THE CON. The photography booth was one of the greatest disasters of the event (read between the lines: the con actually went pretty well but more of that later) anyway but we sure didn't need an extra rush like that, also known as 1) hearing the sewing machine break, 2) panicking, 3) going through our very few options and 4) eventually speed-driving to my grandma's to borrow her sewing machine...
Also known as I don't have a sewing machine of my own at the moment since those things cost almost my month's salary at the cheapest :))

The con morning came and I was feeling extremely nauseous. I had barely slept during the night - or at least it felt like it - and when Shiro Samurai and I left my apartment I was so ready to call it quits and stay at home. That's how anxious I felt about the event - and it's totally different kind of anxiety as I usually feel before the conventions. No, this one was a lot greater and when we got to the library I was basically unable to do anything for the first 20 minutes until my brains finally sorted themselves out and I begun functioning again. The clock was about 7:20 in the morning at this point and the con started at 11 so luckily there was still time to do the remaining tasks and put on our costumes. I had intended to cosplay lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil 8 but hadn't managed to make the costume in time so I wore my Just Be Friends!Luka again.
The sellers for the Artists' Alley (which was probably the greatest success of the con) arrived at 9; I had asked them if two hours would be enough time to set up their tables and apparently it was since they agreed on it.
Or, well, Nana - who was representing bunicorn_design and whom I have also called Rikari in my past blog posts - arrived a bit earlier so she could help us with the rest of the decorating and all. Thank you so much, my dear friend! <3 

Said friend in question.

The Artists' Alley was located in the newspaper reading room which is quite a lot of bigger than the picture shows. There's also one of the signs Shiro Samurai painted (and signed with his other handle KaamosWolf).

At 10 a.m. I begun to put on my costume since I knew it wouldn't take me ages to get it done - especially because I skipped the contact lenses this time mostly because I didn't manage to find them among all my stuff since I had just moved from Kauttua to Lappi TL so yeah. The final preparations were done... And after that it was time to open the doors.

This is what it looked like a mere minutes before we opened the doors. In the upper picture Maria H. (the info/guide person) dressed as the sea itself and lammasnoita (drawing contest judge and the other hosting the drawing workshop) dressed as Kiki, in the lower picture Katriina (also responsible for the drawing workshop) dressed as Miss Quackfaster.

 

A small con detail - a guest book (that was quite popular once people noticed it)! <3

 

I said the opening words to a few people (including a couple of my school mates back then) who came to listen to them. After the opening... Well, thing - since I can't really call it an opening ceremony - I and one of my colleagues did a Japan related book talk. And, after something like 30 minutes I and Elililyca begun judging the cosplay contestants - to which most of my con day was spent to. Shiro Samurai was also one of the judges with a slightly different job description than usual; he judged the way the contestants related to their characters in front of the camera.

Our book talk may not have been the most interesting thing at the con but hey, we had fun!

I must say that at this point I was feeling pretty anxious. I'm, unfortunately, something of a control freak when it comes to hosting events etc. and this time wasn't any different. Even though I trusted - and still do trust - my former colleagues with all my being, it just felt so hard to try to trust in everything going well. Without a good team hosting this event wouldn't have been even possible - I owe them a huge thank you.
I also must say - if someone is considering hosting an event and reading this - that choosing your team wisely will make it or break it. This time it definitely was "make it"; however, it took a lot of working hours from all of use to make it all possible, to make the event happen. I had no idea what I got myself into when I suggested making an event like this; I had been one of the main organizers of Euran Mangapäivä in 2017 and 2018 but it was nothing like this. I'm thankful of the experience and will be one of the people behind this event in 2024 too but, seriously, be prepared if you consider making an event, be it a con or literally anything.

We also had a PS4! Can't really call our glass cube a gaming room but well, we worked with what we had and it seemingly worked well; there was always someone gaming when I passed it!

The hallway leading to the glass cube...

...and how it looked inside. The NHL game was among the most popular ones during the day. All the games were suitable for kids too!

We pretty much had the whole library at our use. Next time we may need to reconsider how to use the space we have but hey, you can only learn by doing. Also: loving the detailed signs.

Well, we obviously had a drawing workshop and contest, cosplay contest, opening... Thing and book talk since I've mentioned them before in this post. But we also had some other programs - and actually two including dancing! A couple of members of Idol Master dance cover group Andromed@ hosted a show called Andromed@ Duo: Special Live and a wonderful local k-pop dance group Opia Dance Crew hosted a K-pop Random Dance. There are a few things I would do differently after the event - and will do this year in case dancers want to come - but both shows went well as far as I know, even though there were minor difficulties with certain things.

Andromed@ Duo: Special Live by Andromed@. The stage worked well for cosplay contest but for dancing? Never again.

K-pop Random Dance hosted by Opia Dance Crew. The paintings in the background were made by Pentti Peura and not harmed during the program - even though they made hosting it a bit difficult since they took pretty much space in the lobby. However, the lobby worked better than the other area originally planned for the program.

 

We also had a couple of panels/lectures/games too! Mirko hosted a "Smash or Pass" anime character game (which was safe for work even though the name suggests a bit otherwise - I didn't have a chance to participate but I confirmed this from the host) and I talked about my cosplay experiences that I've gathered during all these years I've cosplayed.

Mirko's program that was actually so popular people didn't even fit into the room in the end!

My lecture about the cosplay memories. Not as popular but well, it was meant to be a filler anyway since it was very hard to get people to host programs.

The drawing workshop/contest - there was always someone drawing.

 

(At this point I notice that I really don't have so much more to say about the con itself since I didn't have the time to just roam around and check everything. If you want to know more about what the con had to offer, check out Shiro Samurai's Mericon summary. I will, however, tell about the cosplay contest and then some more things about actually organizing the whole thing. Want to read a summary in Finnish? Here´s one by FreakyAngel!)

So... Uh.
After the judging of the cosplay contestants was over I... Literally have no idea what I did. Likely just asked the team how it was going (all good - and if there were any problems they had been solved already so no panic) and after that it was already time for the contest itself! I was the one to take the mic and do the speaking since, well, nobody else wanted to do that (or at least didn't volunteer) and speaking is a big part of my job anyway. I had made the first plans and rules for the contest and Elililyca helped me make them even more rational, still thankful for that! <3

Mericon's cosplay contest rules differed a bit from the usual; for example it was allowed to compete with a bought costume as long as at least something was made by the contestant - this also counted props, styling wigs etc. Otherwise it was a very simple cosplay contest; the contestants walked to the stage, did a couple of poses and walked away. Doesn't really get any simpler. 

I guess this was taken in the beginning of the contest. As you can see, many people wanted to see it - there is even more crowd outside the frame!

Our wonderful contestants <3 Elililyca in the background - still very thankful for her help in both planning and judging! ;__;

After the contest (and before announcing the winners) Elililyca and I decided to eat something - and bought some snacks from Café Käpälä that was also open during the event. The café is located in the library's lobby and it's hosted by young adults and their supervisors. The young ones have for some reason or another dropped out of work/school life and trying to get back there and the supervisors help them with it. They had baked tasty event-themed pastries and everything - it was so nice to see that they wanted to be a part of this too! <3
We ate our snacks (I have no idea where Shiro Samurai was at this point but I assume that probably photographing or at Artists' Alley) and chilled for a while... And in no time it was time to tell the winners of the cosplay and drawing contests!

About the contest and the prizes.
Since the library event budget is not that great we couldn't afford to have expensive materials, such as worbla or stuff like that as the prize. However I think our prizes were still pretty good! I had ordered trophies from Laatupalkinto ; I found three perfect ones for our use! The one who placed 3rd got a bronze-colored trophy, the one who placed 2nd got a silver-colored trophy and a gift card to Pelivaari (a game shop located at Rauma) and the one who placed 1st got a gold-colored trophy and a gift card to Suomalainen Kirjakauppa. The contestants who didn't place got honorary mentions for participating.
Lammasnoita also announced the winners of the drawing contest (there were two categories and both had one winner); if I remember correctly they also got gift cards to Suomalainen Kirjakauppa. After all it was a library event so we wanted some of the prizes to be book-relevant too.

After announcing the winners it was my time to run to host my lecture (or, well, I could fit a quick shopping spree at Artists' Alley in this gap lol). Opia Dance Crew's show was happening at the same time and most people wanted to see it so yeah, there weren´t that many people listening to me. It was more than okay tho tbh; at that point I already felt quite tired and even nauseous. The event, even though I could still flag it a success, had pretty much worn me out and I also felt kind of... Empty? I mean, I had spent countless of hours figuring out which would be the best way to do things, contacting multiple companies etc. and all. This school project sure got out of hand - in a good way but still, it sure was a handful :'D
After my lecture and the K-pop Random Dance, Mericon 2023 was officially over. We begun to clean up the place since we had it pretty well decorated and had to assure the Securitas guard that we were actually working there and not trying to steal anything since for some reason alarms were on even though they weren't supposed to be. 

So.
How did it feel?
Even though it sounds a bit weird, at first I felt like I had failed. My perfectionism is a double-edged sword; it obviously means I want to do everything as well as possible BUT even though other people could see the success I'm mostly able to see just those things that weren't done/perfect. I guess this is kind of a built-in Kaizen method in my head; always aim for doing things better and never stop developing since you can always do better.
But after all these months, when I look back to the event I must admit one thing: I couldn't have done anything better. The event was a first-time one and since there wasn't any feedback to build on... Well, you have to start somewhere, right? So yes, even I can say it was a success. This year we're probably gonna do a few things differently (we already have changed the font on our Instagram posts and will make our website better etc.) based on the feedback we got but even most of it was positive! So yeah, an important lesson to me: sometimes it's okay and even rightful to pat yourself on the back and say "hey, good job".
Got a very bad grade for my essay about the event though but to be honest that doesn't even matter anymore, I graduated months ago and nobody's gonna ask about it.

So yeah, that's a wrap for this text wall! 3rd of August is the date of Mericon 2024 so see you there! <3

Last but definitely not least: our wonderful team! <3 Photo © auriraitsu.

Until next time (which will be my Nippori 2023 summary).

- Firith