Kummacon 2021 – First con in two years!

Hello peeps!

Guess what? :D Kummacon was held in Oulu this past weekend on 27-28 November and yes, I was there. It has literally been two years since I last visited an anime convention and everyone knows why – covid happened and fucked shit up on a global scale. All kinds of events and gatherings have been cancelled or strictly regulated since the virus broke out in early 2020 (for northern Europe) and cons were no exception. Things are still not back to normal but Kummacon got the green light to hold their event as they imposed regulations to keep all attendants as safe as possible.

...
But more about that later on, now let's start the summary from the beginning!

Kummacon building, aka Hiukkavaaratalo.

A few days before the con I bunked at my friend Sallukka's place to make the travel to Oulu and Kummacon as smooth and stress-free as possible, especially as I live in Sweden normally and crossing the border is a potential hassle. 

I had toggled between if I should bring a cosplay or not for over a month and the crisis was real until the very last day before I left home. I ultimately ended up going with as little luggage as possible (to give Firith, in turn, more room for his mountain of stuff) and that also meant no costume. I had considered doing a random jedi from Star Wars.

We had decided on driving down to Oulu the Friday before the con weekend and we split our group of four in two. Sallukka and her boyfriend went to an Airbnb while me and Firith raided my aunt. :D The car ride went mostly fine except for the fact that it was slippery as fuck and when we arrived in central Oulu there was a massive rush, for some reason, and the main road (running next to the railway station) was stuck with cars all over the place that couldn't get out and yeah, absolute chaos and road rage ensued...

Friday night we didn't do much. We ate some dinner and I helped my aunt with Metroid Dread on Nintendo Switch. She was stuck in that one water room with E.M.M.I. in Ferenia. Or more like, she wasn't really stuck but more so that it was hard and chase sequences make her somewhat anxious so she hadn't played in a while and, as a result, forgot some of the buttons. I had never played a Metroid game before but she shoved her Switch Lite into my hands and I kept dying cuz the controls are too much for this noob lolol. We ended up teamwork powering through it, her playing and me focusing on the minimap and guiding her through it as well as I could. Later I beat the electric insect boss for her (after dying like thirty times xD) and then the twin soldiers (after dying another fifty times xD). She enjoys the exploration and "figuring things out" aspects a lot more than the fighting (especially hard fights she can struggle with for a long time) so I don't feel like I ruined her game experience in any way cuz she did ask me to beat them if possible.

Saturday morning me and Firith woke up.. err, somewhat early? *insert groggy eyes emoji here*
The plan was to shoot his Luka Megurine (Vocaloid) cosplay somewhere in Oulu and while he was changing into cosplay me and my aunt brainstormed photoshoot locations nearby. We decided on Nallikari beach first and then just take it from there. Eventually Firith was done cursing his eyelash glue and so we set off with my aunt driving us around town. It's convenient because she's an experienced photographer (although I took the cosplay pics, my aunt mostly did her own thing and occasionally couched us) so she pointed out the good spots when we looked for nice backgrounds, haha. We had a dastardly good time freezing our fingers off and got some pretty sweet photos I'd say.

Once we got back to the apartment Firith yeeted his costume and changed back into casual gear to warm up. Wearing a summer dress in winter isn't the brightest thing to do but every Finnish cosplayer out there knows the motto "cosplay without pain is pretending"... :)

Sallukka eventually called and, after scouring through the nearby video game stores to find our two missing links, we were all gathered and could start our drive to Kummacon. This time the road was not as slippery (the brakes actually worked) but the con building was located a 7 or so kilometers away from central Oulu. I don't remember who of us actually said it but while we were driving closer we all must have been thinking the same thing, until someone exclaimed "minne vitun takapajuun me jouduttiin?" (lit. "what fucking backwater place did we end up in?"). :'D It looked like nowhere and apparently nowhere in Oulu is called Hiukkavaara lol.

One of the two entrances. Sign says "prepare to show covid certificate".

It was like -17 degrees outside and as soon as I exited the orange car I quickly noped my way inside the building. At Kummacon's entrance there were workers checking that everyone who entered the building had a valid EU covid certificate to show. Wearing a face mask was not mandatory but strongly recommended and thankfully a big majority did wear masks at all times. In some rooms masks were mandatory (karaoke room and some others) as well.

Another thing that stood out in Kummacon was this most peculiar rule about no shoes. Wadd de fugg?? :-DD It was not a rule set by Kummacon but rather imposed by Hiukkavaaratalo itself (I think?) which is a school and multipurpose building. So you either walked with just your socks on or you emblazoned your feet in those sexy blue shoe covers. Or you had separate indoor shoes but honestly, who bothers with such nonsense? I was #teamsocks and well, at least I get to air out my feet lol.

These gnomes were judging your shoed feet...

This is the first time the con was held in Hiukkavaaratalo and, when I stop to think about it, Kummacon is probably the con that has changed host buildings the most: Valve, Pohjankartano, Oulu International School, Kastellin monitoimitalo and now Hiukkavaaratalo. Yikes that's a lot!

But anygays, if you passed through the main entrance you were immediately met by the info table. There was always someone scanning the QR code on your covid certificate as well here. No vaccination = no entrance.
Personally I think this is very good as it allows a small public event to be organized while still making visitors feel as safe as possible from risk of infection. The call that an official EU covid certificate would be needed to enter came very late though; it was informed on Kummacon's social media channels only a week before the event. I learned that Kummacon itself had no control over how late they got this information from the higher-ups, but despite some panic (due to Sweden being slower than Finland to take the covid certificate into use) things turned out smoothly for me in the end and I could visit the con.

Entrance information table.

One thing that I noticed upon entering the building was the absence of cosplayers. There were a few from Genshin Impact and a handful of others that I didn't recognize but most visitors seemed to be in casual gear or alternative fashion. That or I didn't realize that it was a cosplay. ^^" But then again, small cons in the north usually don't have a lot of people in cosplay in general (totally guilty of this myself, I don't feel like it's worth the effort to dress up) as there's more of "chill with friends" vibes dominating the mood.

View from the entrance towards the main area.

Urumi's shop near the stairs in main area.

Asian snacks are a hot commodity.

Bard & Jester store, they're cool af.

I must admit that there were more visitors than I initially expected. It's possible that there was an influx of eager congoers as there hasn't been a physical anime convention in ages (as far as I know) and on top of Kummacon actually happening it's also free entrance. Kummacon has never had an entrance fee and I think it's great as it makes the con a low-threshold event to attend for anyone even remotely curious (like parents of an interested child) or new to the scene. 

Someone selling retro stuff near the entrance. Always a delight!

The first thing I did once I dumped my winter shoes at the entrance was to go find the cloakroom that was surprisingly far away from the entrance. I crammed my jacket into a shelf (no free hangars/hooks) and then I waited near the entrance for Firith to come inside (he stayed behind outside for a smoke). Oh and yeah, the cloakroom functioned in a self-service way, it wasn't behind a desk or with designated con workers like big cons usually have. Having no one watching of course means an increased risk of shit going missing but I didn't really feel concerned of theft at all.

Random chill circle I guess? To the top right are the toilets.

Oh and yeah, Hiukkavaaratalo is a two-floor building as visible on one of the photos above. Most of the con was located on the ground floor but the Artist's Alley and the secondhand shop were both on the upper floor. There might have been something else on the top floor as well but I don't think there was? I should maybe have taken one of those con leaflets because yeah, I did walk through the building but I am not sure if I've missed anything. Like was there even a video game room as I did not come across one?

Stairs leading up to the top floor.

 

My number one thing that I do when I get to cons nowadays is to go straight for the Artist's Alley. Maybe I'm getting old but I'm not as interested in typical anime merch anymore (I have way too much and can't be arsed to sell off what I don't need/want lol) and I'd rather buy actually useful stuff like magnets to put on my fridge, jewelry and such from independent artists and support them.
Most of the artists were familiar from previous cons but there were a few new faces too, I think? I bought a magnet to give as a small thank-you present for my aunt for letting us stay at her place over the weekend.

Artist's Alley view when entering the top floor.

More artist booths.

On the top floor the Artist's Alley was located on the right side of the split while the secondhand was located on the left side. I did do a quick trip to the secondhand side but there wasn't anything interesting there. It did look a bit like people want to get rid of their Harry Potter merchandise though now that it has come to everyone's attention that the author is a really gross TERF and yeah, tons of fans want to distance themselves from her work and understandably so.

 

I do like Hiukkavaaratalo as a con location for a small-sized event. Sure it's quite far from city (which means that unless you have your own car it might be ass to get here) but it felt cozy, clean, well lit and rather easy to navigate in as there's not a lot of corridors or narrow spaces and rooms. It felt populated but not crowded; I never felt like there were too many people in the same spot and keeping reasonable corona distances wasn't too hard either.

 

View of the ground floor from above.

It appeared like most people came here to socialize and have a jolly good time. I had not planned to participate in any scheduled activities myself, I mostly just came to check out how a covid-safe con could be implemented and to hang with my friends. And I'm perfectly content with there not being tons of things to see and do.
One thing I did pay attention to was that there were plenty of chairs and tables scattered around; I always saw free chairs somewhere so if you needed to sit down and rest your legs you always had that option and weren't forced to sit on the floor. I remember all those years ago in big cons when you just want to sit down before your lower back or legs descend to hell but you can't as every fucking chair and bench are taken. U_U

A group of people playing a card game together.

 

It's nice to see that con folks are respectful and thoughtful of others in these trying times – I did not experience anyone standing so close that they were breathing down my neck or anything of the sort; the only places where it could get a bit crammed was near shops and the cloakroom. There were no "free hugs" signs either which was to be expected as physical contact among strangers should be kept to a minimum.

I do feel like Kummacon took the whole corona thing seriously; there were hand sanitizer stations and signs spread around the con (mostly taped to the pillars) reminding visitors to use hand sanitizers and to keep the face mask on. I did not personally see anyone trying to sneak or forcibly get past the entrance  check either and overall there appeared to be no drama or proof of bad organizing. When I think about it Kummacon has always been surprisingly polished and well organized in fact, especially for being a free con.

 

 

I did not stay very long on Saturday. I mostly just checked through all the stores, did a raid on Pokémon Go, vibed in my oversized (and borrowed) Sabaton hoodie for a while and then we were off. I would probably have hung around longer normally but I didn't really feel a need to make myself any more susceptible for infection, even though the risks were minimized. It's just that you can never be sure that you're 100% safe and this little nugget of worry sits at the back of my head.

But before we left for the night I browsed the table of Veli-Matti Ural, a local comic artist and the con's guest of honor more or less. He was selling comics portraying war times (one of the comics accurately portrays the adventures of a soldier who he is related to) and I ended up striking a chat with him. Really passionate guy, I purchased a book from him that I will give as a present to a family member. I got it signed too! In hindsight I'm very happy that I bought the book on Saturday as Veli-Matti wasn't there on Sunday at all, one less Christmas present to panic about. xD

Water drinking station.

We returned for a quick visit on Sunday, mainly to grab some more stuff from Artist's Alley that wasn't available yesterday. I picked up my acrylic cutesy octopus magnet (it had sold out yesterday but the artist made more for Sunday after I asked for one) and Sallukka picked up something else.
There was some talk that Firith wanted to go to the karaoke room to sing with Sallukka but it fell through cuz awkward potato mode I guess. Me and Firith did another raid on Pokémon Go (no shiny Miltanks boo :<), I bought some discounted ramune and then we left Kummacon for Kemi.

Couldn't pass up on 1 € ramune!

All in all Kummacon was a worthwhile trip and it paves the way for future cons to be organized safely despite covid still raging, showing that it can be done. I enjoyed my time, albeit short. It was so nice to feel the "con feeling" again and be surrounded by colorful people who likes the same things your nerdy butt also likes. I feel a little bit more alive now, more hopeful for con season 2022 definitely! It also feels a bit funny to realize it but the last con I visited before le pandemic happened was actually Kummacon in 2019. xD
I'm quite fond of this lil' northern con and I hope there will be many more; it's a casual, leisurely small event where everything seems to function and where the fruits of labor are visible in the overall quality and accessibility. Free entrance and constant swaps of host buildings in this case doesn't mean that it's an unpolished mess, it means that they take what opportunities they get and make it work.

Showing off the con loot. :D (the book will be a present)

Hoping to visit more cons next year, thanks for reading!

~ Shiro Samurai out.