My First Convention Experience

So, even though I've been going to conventions for a few years now, I thought it'd be nice to write about my first time ever going to a convention. It was a fairly small Anime convention not especially far from where I lived (from my perspective at least). When I first started going to anime conventions, I wasn't very much into anime. Sure I'd seen some anime episodes and read some mangas, but I wasn't totally banzai fangirl over it. I'd never really dressed up in costume outside of Halloween and dance performances that I'd been doing for a major part of my life at that point. Maybe it was because of my dance career, but I felt that it was necessary to dress up for the convention, even if it wasn't cosplay. I appreciate that not everybody feels comfortable wearing costumes outside of Halloween, so I've never felt the need to force everyone to dress up for conventions. I personally just feel it makes it more fun.

Another thing that I've done since I started attending conventions is wear different outfits every day that I go to the con. In previous years I've gone so far as to wear two to three different costumes in a day. My fist time going to a convention wasn't quite that elaborate though. I went to the con two different days, so I wore two different outfits. The first one was a cute China dress I'd gotten to wear for a birthday party a few years prior along with a sash and a shirt underneath. The second day I wore a Lolita-like outfit I'd put together. It consisted of a black A-line skirt I'd hemmed to knee length, a white polo shirt, some lace and roses I had lying around, some quickly made wrist cuffs, and a cute teddy bear that I had wearing a Gothic Lolita like dress. (The bear can be seen modeling my Mini Cherry Tophat here.) Unfortunately, I don't know where any pictures of either of my outfits are at this point in time, but I'll be sure to post them when I get the chance.

As you can probably guess, I didn't really get any compliments on my outfits, no one recognized me from such and so an anime, but I didn't mind. I enjoyed seeing everyone else's cosplays and outfits and had fun despite my lack of experience cosplaying. So this is to anyone who's never been to a convention before and is unsure if they have to dress up: Do whatever you want. If you feel comfortable dressing up in a costume in public, go for it. If not, don't worry. There's plenty of people who wear a anime themed T-shirt or a colorful wig and call it good. There's nothing wrong with that. There's also plenty of low quality cosplays. You don't have to look like Yaya Han to have fun cosplaying, just go for it and have fun. Have fun at any future conventions you choose to attend, Anime, Sci-fi, fantasy, or what have you and don't feel like you have to have an amazing costume to have fun.

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