Tracon X - when the shit gets fun!

Last weekend we went to Tracon, a 2-day anime convention held in Tampere :3 We had so much fun with our friends - without them the whole weekend might've been a complete disaster, since our hotel turned out to be quite horrible... But with all the humor this turned out as the best weekend ever! ♥

At first I thought I'd write more about the con experience itself, but I still feel quite tired so I guess this'll be more of a photo spam than a rambling post X'D

Saturday

The first day was pretty much just standing in the line for getting in and then running around (first to get something to eat, then to check-in to the hotel, etc.), quite an exhausting day. We met up with Janina and her husband, Patrick, right after getting in to the building and went to check out the sales hall and art street first.

I wonder if someone really bought this? :'D

There was so much cute stuff! Keychains, plushies...

Those giant hamster plushies were adorable XD

Besides all the stuff there was for sale, we also kept an eye open for the amazing cosplayers! There were so many that it was impossible to keep track and ask for photos from them all ;___; I think that Tracon had around 5,000 visitors during the weekend.

Ultimate Madoka and Devil Homura *o* Such gorgeous outfits, I never would've expected to see these characters in Tracon!

I found Pri Para cosplayers!

Minion cosplay XD This was really adorable~

Scary Jigsaw dude in the tree...

Team Rocket!! ♥ I think these were one of my favorites from the whole weekend~

Iron Man >3<

I also took a few photos of Ceci and Miu that were both cosplaying ;3

Since Janina was cosplaying as Sonico, I wanted to make a Sonico cosplay for Ceci as well, as a fun surprise! I chose to make this outfit as it looked pretty simple, yet perfect for Ceci~ Sadly I forgot to make a headbow, but otherwise I'm really happy with the end result :3 (Sarg made those amazing headphones!)

As for Miu's cosplay, she's Yui from Sword Art Online ♥ I had fun making the costume, though it was also quite a challenge due to Miu's small size... She has to be the smallest cosplayer ever XD I was hoping that I'd run into some SAO cosplayers, so I could ask for a photo with Yui, but whenever I saw one, Sarg was somewhere else with the camera X'D

Miu seems so happy about her first cosplay~ ♥

Thanks to Tiinyan, we all managed to get seat tickets to the cosplay and AMV competitions! ♥ The line was insanely long and there would've been no tickets left for us (at least to the cosplay competition which was more popular), if Tiinyan and the boys who got a good spot in the line didn't get them for us too ;___; We bought a little cat plushie for her as thanks~

There were three different cosplay competitions held on Saturday: Word Cosplay Summit preliminaries, pair cosplay contest and outfit design contest.

This was my personal favorite from the WCS participants~ Their costumes, performance and acting as the characters was all perfect ♥ They won the second place.

The winners of the Word Cosplay Summit preliminaries that are going to represent Finland in the finals that are held in Japan in summer 2016 :) I'm not familiar with the series/characters, but the outfits were quite detailed.

Ultimate Madoka and Devil Homura again, these two participated in the pair cosplay contest~

Rin and Hanayo from Love Live ♥ These two were so adorable and really acted like the characters~

The three best of the pair cosplay competition :) My favorites (Madoka and Homura) won yaaay~

All contestants of the outfit design competition

And the winner! This character design looked so amazing that I bet everyone was blown away :D

After the cosplay competitions, there was a small break and then the AMV competition started! There were 22 great music videos in total, here are my favorites~

This is probably the most touching AMV that I've ever seen and I still can't believe that it didn't win any prizes! :( My heart was literally hurting the whole time and I had to wipe my eyes a bit, this was so sad yet beautiful at the same time.

I really, really liked the song and had to search for it afterwards so I could listen to it again XD The video fit the music well too!

Right when I saw the title of the AMV, I thought could it be this one song that I know... And it was! Trading Yesterday is one of the bands that I absolutely adore for their beautiful lyrics and I could've never believed that I'd encounter their songs in Finland, since the band is not very well known (and has been disbanded many years ago, sadly ;___;) This video also won the price of Best Emotional AMV ♥

Best Comedy and also Audience's Favorite, which was not a surprise! This is unfortunately in Finnish :c It was just awesome and super funny, we all laughed so much XD

We didn't attend any other programs on Saturday (it was around 8pm when the AMV contest ended), instead we went to eat at Burger King and hang out at Janina and Patrick's hotel room XD I think it was around 11-12pm when we finally went to our own shitty hotel, it was quite an adventure to even get in to the hotel room, but no more talk about that X''D

Sunday

On Sunday, the first thing we did in the morning was get in line for the seat tickets of Sunday's cosplay competitions :'D Me and Janina waited in the line and got tickets for us all (including Tiinyan and co.) while Sarg and Patrick went to the sales hall again.

We did have a moment to sit down with all and take a group picture of the Neemos that we had with us. Woody, Sonico and Kirbys are the guest stars XD 

Next we went to see the cosplay competition, this time the contestants were only judged by the performance. Unfortunately our seats were really far from the stage, so I didn't manage to get any pictures :( A big Attack on Titan cosplay group won the contest.

After the competition, we went outside to spot more cool cosplayers and see a dance show~!

Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII and Snufkin from Moomins

Princess Kraehe and Princess Tutu ♥ (lol the ducks at the background...)

Another photo because they just posed so beautifully! ♥

Saw these two from yesterday's cosplay competition~

Ash Ketchum! There were quite many Pokémon cosplayers that we saw :3

A cute doggie~ The owner was wearing a furry suit made to look like the dog XD

Ahri from League of Legends ;3;

Cute Kotori and Umi!

More Moomin characters >3<

Another cute Kotori~

We had planned to go listen to a panel after the dance show, but were getting quite hungry and thought it might be best to leave already and walk closer to the bus stop. It was a wise decision in the end, since after eating we didn't have that much time left until the bus came. Janina and Patrick were in the same bus as us, so the con journey was really fun right until the end XD

This is my and Sarg's loot from Tracon:

Sarg bought a blue hamster plushie and she also got us those cute cat creatures that look like us X'D The black one is mine and purple one is Sarg's. The purple bird was the first thing that I bought, I just couldn't resist since it looked so cute hahah~ I also had to get that little artbook and a Nozomi pin. There was a "buy 5, get 2 extra for free" offer for the pins, so me, Janina and Tiinyan all got something to get those free pins as well hahah, I wanted that Rin for Sarg XD 

My favorite pages from the artbook! ♥

Special mention to Patrick / Manager-san for his awesome cosplay, as well as for helping me with my bags and teaching Sarg how to pick locks XDD (Though hopefully it was the last time we get a key stuck like that...)

Thank you my dears (Sarg, Janina and Patrick + Tiinyan and the dudes) so much for the amazing convention~! ♥ You guys are awesome, hope to see you again soon ^3^