Cosplay at The Gathering 2023

Are you fond of making your own costumes and dressing up as your favorite characters? Then we have a competition for you! This year’s cosplay competition at The Gathering starts on Friday 7 April and registration for the competition is now open! The deadline to sign up is 30 March.

In this competition you will have the opportunity to show off the costume and props you have made yourself. And on the main stage, in addition to speakers, there will also be three judges from the Norwegian cosplay community who will look for this year’s winners.

Dress up as your favorite character from games, TV, manga, animation and the like. We love to see our contestants showcase the creative work and craftsmanship behind the finished costumes and props they use! We make no requirements for level or experience. Whether you have been doing this for several years, or want to try it for the first time – you are welcome at TG!

Buy tickets for The Gathering here

The implementation of the activities for the competition day will be announced via gathering.org and the info page for the competition registration.

Prizes

Rules

• As a participant, you must behave in a sporting manner towards the other participants, judges and crew
  
  Criteria for the costume:

• Participants must wear a costume that has been made/put together by themselves. Props, props or parts of the costume may have been bought or made by a third party, but then we want this to appear in the registration. 
• The character being cosplayed must be a character from an officially published work from the game world, animation, manga, comics, TV, or film. This means that Original Characters or fanfiction characters are not allowed. However, it is allowed to participate with an alternative design of an already officially established character. Ex: Human versions of animal characters and the like.
• The costume must resemble as much as possible the reference image of the character submitted, therefore the gender of the character being cosplayed does not matter. In the case of an alternative character design, a reference image must still be submitted.

Criteria for the costume:

• Only props that can be carried by the participant without the help of an assistant or similar are permitted. 
• No open flames, water or other liquid is permitted.
• Irresponsible behavior with props will result in props/weapons being confiscated and handed over only on departure from the event.
• It is not allowed to use softguns, replica firearms, weapons with sharp blades (knives, swords, etc.), or weapons based on hard materials (metal, wood, baseball bats, etc.).
• We follow the Norwegian Weapons Act and weapons regulations. Information about your props/weapons must be provided when you register for the competition and they will be checked and approved by our cosplay team before the competition. If it does not comply with our requirements, props/weapons will be confiscated and handed over only on departure from The Gathering. Props that are not specified in the registration will not be approved for use in the competition.

How do I enter the competition?

• You must have at least one day pass for the day the competition is held, no ticket – no competition. 
• You are only allowed to register once (1) for the competition in Unicorn
• The following must be included in the registration (the items in bold are mandatory!) : 

• Name of the character being Cosplayed and where it is from. Example: Princess Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• Name you want to appear on stage and in stream, this can be your full name or a nick/alias. Example: Kari Nordman, KariNo Cosplay or Kari KariNo Cosplay Nordmann .
• Description of costume and props/weapons. This means a few words about how you made the costume and props you want to bring on stage. 
• Message to Crew: do you need assistance from us? Something we should know about, or if you don’t want any questions on stage? Please let us know about this. 
• Picture of you in your costume. This will be used to identify you**.
• Picture of the character you are cosplaying. This photo will be used as a reference for your costume, so that the judges can compare the costume with the original character**.
• Work-in-progress photos/description of the process. Tell us about how the costume came to be, which details you are extra happy with. Do you have more photos of the original character, props, props or the costume itself? Add them, because we want as much information as possible to be able to judge your entry. *

(**these are images that will only be used within the cosplay team and shared with judges, all files must be delivered in .zip or .rar files)

Award ceremony: 

• The judges will debate and come to a decision after the show, then the winners will be contacted and asked to keep it confidential until the awards show.
• The award ceremony takes place on Saturday evening and it is desirable that the winners take part in this (optional whether one presents in cosplay or not).

Stay tuned to our Discord server for more information on Cosplay at TG. Here you can also ask questions and follow everything else that will take place at this year’s The Gathering!