Amazed, enamored and hooked! Phoenix, Arizona’s cosplay rep leaked and first hand investigation proved it’s notoriety well deserved and earned! The Valley of the Sun’s phenomenal costumes, friendly folks and fantastic fantasy mixed with spot on character cosplay integrity was breathtaking and inspiring!
Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest is the precursor to the annual Phoenix Comic Con scheduled for June 2-5, 2016 and held in the capital city Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix is located in the northern Sonoran Desert and earned the title of most populous capital city in the United States. For over 2,000 years the Hohokam peoples occupied the lands eventually morphing into Phoenix, and in North America Hohokam was the only culture to rely on irrigation canals to water their crops since 800 AD.
Arizona’s Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, was settled in 1867 and continued to grow, morph and create a vibrant city within a desert. This city is impressive in it’s cultural and artistic panorama, city growth, safety, revitalization and it’s ability to embrace diversity. Daylight savings time is not observed in Phoenix, so when convention planning schedule with time zones in mind!
Image CC BY-SA 3.0
Phoenix Sky Harbor International airport is spread out and easily maneuvered with rental cars or Uber and taxis available for quick transit to either University of Phoenix Stadium (PCFF) or Downtown Phoenix Convention Center (PC) event sites. Spirit, Southwest and American have reasonable rates if you purchase 3+ m onths in advance, and if you’re waiting at the airport try Four Peaks Brewing Company in Terminal 4 (or some of their other sites) – they have THE BEST food you’ll taste at an airport…EVER! They’ve also been voted Phoenix Best Brewery/Best Pub by New Times from 1999-2015!
Fan Fest guests ranged from Aaron Lopresti, Kevin Sorbo, Alaina Huffman, Alan Oppenheimer to Ale Garza, Andrew Robinson, The Arizona Avengers, Dirk Benedict, Justice League Arizona and the fantastic Karen Gillian among many others!
Cosplay was off the chain and at every turn there was character representation that was accurate, well designed, worn with vivacity by the friendliest guys and gals around! This is a wonderful event that will challenge you as a cosplayer to up your game and bring you to a point where you want to come back dressed to impress those in your fandom.
Floor costume trends were group cosplays, duos and exact duplicate character portrayal of the costumes with a minute number of mash-ups or princesses present. Twenty-five percent of costumes ran into the anime genre, small numbers of podcast characters and the majority present were tried and true gamins, Star Wars, Marvel, DC Comics and general comic representations.
Convention itself gets 4 thumbs up out of five, but the cosplay (especially for a Fan Fest), gets 4.5 out of 5! Can’t wait for the ‘amazingness’ of Phoenix Comicon!
Check out the floor cosplay captured below – more to come as edits progress!
For more Comicbooked.com cosplay articles, check out www.comicbooked.com!
