I missed the EOY (End Of Year) cosplay event last year as I was in Japan for a month. Little did I know that it was to be the last EOY ever, as the organizers had run out of people to keep the thing running.
Fortunately, the event name was acquired by a new group of people and given new life. Under the new administration, a lot has changed from the familiar practices of past EOY events, some for the better.
The most prominent change is of course the venue this year: the Drama Centre on the 3rd floor of the National Library. While I can see the advantage of moving the event from the Singapore EXPO, located at the eastern tip of the island, to a more central location in the city area, the National Library just seems to be an odd place to have such an event. For one thing, cosplay events are always very noisy and flashy.
The Drama Centre consists of a decent-sized theatre, where the on-stage programmes were held, and a rather spacious lobby area, where the cosplayers and doujin booths were located. Of course, while the lobby was more than roomy enough to serve its primary function, it was wholly inadequate as a cosplay area. Walking space was extremely limited and there was very little room for any photo-taking. In the end, most of it spilled outside to the first floor, which I think the librarians were not too happy about.
The event area does have pretty good natural lighting, but unfortunately it turned cloudy and started to rain immediately after I arrived. And as I had predicted in my AFA09 post, I once again did not have in my possession an external flash for my camera. Maybe next time.
Due to the unholy trinity of the stage programmes in the fully-packed theatre, the overcast sky and lunchtime, there was pretty much nothing for me to take pictures of when I got there. Fortunately, the sky cleared later in the afternoon and all the cosplayers came out of hiding.
For some inexplicable reason, the organizers invited Yui Makino to perform and sign autographs at the event. It just seems so out-of-place and bizarre for a cosplay event. Perhaps the new committee has greater things in mind for EOY…
The Gundam was too huge to fit into the event area and had to stay around the open area on the first floor.
Interestingly, I applied for a media pass for this event which was supposedly approved. When I asked for it at the entrance, the guy gave me the pass without verifying anything. This seems very easily abusable, and considering the fact that the normal entry ticket costs S$15…
I want to say that EOY this year felt more professional than the previous ones, but I think professional isn’t the right word. It feels more commercialized, despite the organizer’s assurance that EOY continues to be a fan-organized event for fans.
With the new SOY (start of year) cosplay event being organized by Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Japanese Cultural Club next year, there are now four annual cosplay events in Singapore: Cosfest, Anime Festival Asia, EOY and SOY, all of them taking place within a short span of half a year. Does anyone else think that this is getting a bit out of hand?
Was there from about 11 to 5. Missed out quite a number of cosplays because I went into the theatre to hiki.
Namely the F/SN group and the Izanagi from P4. D:
I disagee with your notion that 4 cosplay events every half year is something out of hand, seeing as how our local cosplay/otaku community is so active.
Same shit every year, people cosplay what is popular and not what could be really outstanding, so 4 might be indeed a little too much, seeing as how cosplayers will likely reuse their costumes anyway. I was there for a bit as well, but nothing special. I did not go in though.
I heard they messed up the place a lot and inconvenienced the people there. o.O There’s even a huge argument going on in SGCafe forums about the event.
I didn’t go for the event, but I definitely think that location was a bad choice. For goodness sake, its a library, not a convention centre.
Nice photos! You’ll probably know about this already but, you could always spend some time adjusting the lighting of the RAWs if you shot in that mode and had the time to do so. They’re very flexible and you can recover some detail in them such as an over exposed sky or under exposed shadows unlike JPGs.
I sure hope you’re prepared for the collapse of the Petrol Dollar
I refer to my reply on double‘s blog post to reiterate what I have said there:
i wouldn’t put AFA under cosplay event, since technically its a anime culture event of sorts. So by right, if you count actual Cosplay as the main programme in events, that would be EOY, SOY and Cosfest. Otherwise, might as well add in TGX, GCA, STGCC ?
Pingback: BlogLinkJapan » EOY Cosplay 2009
Man! The Lightning Cosplayer looks cool!!! Hope to see her again in EOY 2010