Maracon 2025 – A space for classic geek culture

 Hello hello~

I ended up visiting Maracon last weekend (3-5 October), and more specifically Maracon LIII. As you can probably guess from the impressive Roman numbers it's a long-running yet small event and yes, it's held several times a year! There seems to be two bigger and two smaller Maracons annually (one per season) of which the autumn and spring ones are considered the larger ones.
Maracon is dedicated fully to board games, tabletops and card games but it also has other "western geekery" hobbies like miniature figure painting represented. Maracon was a three-day event but me and my company only went on a daytrip and we chose the longest day, Saturday, to visit.

Let's gooo~

Maracon didn't have physical posters on-site so I grabbed this from Cryo's instagram.

I gotta admit my ignorance here first of all and say that if someone had asked me about Maracon in like, 2023 or something, I wouldn't have had any clue about its existence! It just hasn't been marketed or talked about in the larger anime con scene and so I was completely unaware that Oulu had a third convention. How I first found out about Maracon last year was through either Kummacon's or Matsucon's crew Discord channel because Cryo is allied with them and often hosts a board game room at said conventions. Someone advertised Maracon in said insider Discord and my world expanded accordingly.

I'm not the biggest on board games but I used to be into collecting Pokémon TCG and, at one point, I was also into Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG so I think I can say I qualify as the target audience to some degree at least? :'D And besides, Maracon has free entrance and Oulu is only 100 km away – which is close for us northfolks lol. I do casually play that one Pokémon TCG Gameboy game on Nintendo Switch Online right now though.

At first it was just me and Firith going but then we roped in Joni because the more the merrier and we needed a car that wasn't malfunctioning. Joni had come over to my place the day before and on Saturday morning I was woken up by him looking clearly distressed. Turned out there was an unforeseen emergency and we left for the road immediately – no time for breakfast or anything. I informed Firith that we will be late for the planned pickup time. Luckily everything turned for the best and we could continue towards Maracon, although with a jumbled morning and time schedule thrown out the window. :'D Good thing Maracon had no scheduled programs nor activities, unlike traditional conventions, so we were never in a hurry to be there by a set time and thus everything worked out as if nothing happened!

Because we didn't have time to eat breakfast (aside from Firith who joined from a different starting point) we were all hungry by the time noon rolled in. We decided to eat at a pizzeria in Haukipudas, a small town just before Oulu. Gotta fuel up to have energy for all the upcoming nerdery! *insert TMNT theme here*

Pizza goes into the machine! Oli jäätävän iso lätty. :DD

Once we reached Oulu we picked up Joni's friend Pete outside the local Prisma supermarket and then we drove to Kaijonharju's nuorisotalo (lit. 'youth house'). Kaijonharju is an area outside central Oulu so unless you're on the road with your own car you need to take public transport to reach it if you arrive by train. The location was a big reason why we went by car instead of train, didn't want to deal with the hassle of taking buses in a town where you have no idea how they work lol.

We had a wonky encounter because when we put the destination building on Google Maps it claimed that it was closed for the day, which it probably would have been on a normal weekend. :'D We found our way there regardless but once we left the car in the parking lot we kinda just... wandered around the vicinity like awkward penguins. We tried to ask around in the library (in the same building) before we found the correct entrance lol. As non-locals it would have been beneficial with signs or even a poster taped to the correct entrance; we were confused and hesitant to enter because there were no signs outside that anything was going on anywhere, unless you count the bikes parked next to the wall. If any Maracon organizers read this, please consider adding signs so that those who come from further away easily know where to go!

Maracon building.

Once we opened the door we knew we were in the right place because there was a sea of board games greeting us further in. XD But before we could go explore we had to remove our shoes because this was one of those buildings that had that rule in place (just like that one Kummacon years back).

Maracon view immediately upon entering.

I immediately got the feeling that this was a casual, easy-to-approach type of community event once I got inside – it felt like entering a big shared living room, that kind of cozy and safe familiarity. As I mentioned earlier Maracon seemed to have no scheduled events happening, so there was no cosplay competition or anything that people used to anime conventions expect – no panels, no photo booths, no merchandise sellers, no fandom meetups etc. Because this was my first Maracon I can't say if there's been different or more activities on earlier iterations but, based on their website, it seems like whatever is available changes and it's rather spontaneous at that? I feel like Maracon is easier to think of as a geeky get-together weekend so yeah – arrive with the right expectations and you won't set yourself up for disappointment. ;)

Dice tower game. Roll the highest roll on the dice and you win it!

The atmosphere was so laid-back and inviting, my nervosity evaporated rather quickly once some random people casually approached us in a friendly and inviting manner – asking if we wanted to play some submarine card game with them. It really hammered home that feeling of being a place to chill out and play board games and TCG with friends and strangers alike.

Well, there was some merch but mainly Cryo's own stuff. 

Technically there was an Artist Alley but there was only one seller and it was someone who was related to the Cryo crew or something so yeah, seemed more like an insider "doing a friend a favor" promotion thing than the typical artist alley application procedure. I do like the thought given to help a dear person's business get a chance at some sales. :') 

There was a flea market but it was like 95% board games, of course!

Miniature figure promotions. I guess this was the closest to a merch dealer? :D

I made sure to write my name on the guestbook laying on the table when we entered because I heard from a guy that it directly affects Maracon's future, it's kind of proof of the event having visitors and so it affects their chances at getting green light to hold it again – you know, budget stuff. I think it's a very good way to safeguard the continuation of small events like this; Mericon used a similar approach with guestbooks and I'm surprised that it's not more common, actually.

View of the entrance as seen from the opposite direction.

Fun fact is that I originally considered cosplaying at Maracon and was trying to choose between a handful of options. In the end I decided against it and I'm quite relieved I did because, on Saturday at least, I didn't see a single cosplayer. I would have felt so out of place and overdressed! I get easily anxious if I'm like the only one who stands out lol. I don't know how uncommon cosplayers are because I remember talking with some Cryo representative at Matsucon this year and he said that there has been cosplayers before. Hmmm. Maybe I'll cosplay another time now that I know what the location is like.

Maracon rules, ads and stuff.

In hindsight I kinda wish I would have brought my old cards, just to strike conversations with people. I saw people sitting in tables playing all kinds of different TCGs and I felt like "man I wish I had put effort into learning how to play properly" because yeah, I can count on one hand the amount of times I actually played with my Pokémon cards and yeah, if anyone remembers that old Pokémon TCG Play it! CD-ROM game from the late 90s then I used to play that a lot at least. xD I remember the disc looking like the pokéball on the back of the cards. If you know what I'm talking about please leave a comment lmao! I can't be the only one whose early PC days consisted of playing this game over and over again...

Dungeons & Dragons session going on, me thinks.

You were free to pick and play anything!

I've never been big on board games but I've also had this interest to try... but only if someone who knows the game from prior can play with me and explain how it works. I'm just really bad at comprehending complicated rules when you have to pick it up on the spot and remember it throughout the whole play session – I just get really overwhelmed easily and then my anxiety spikes because I feel like I'm just too dumb to play and annoying if I constantly ask for help and explanations over and over again lol. It's like I want to learn to play some games that look interesting but I can't get myself to actually start because of this fear. 
And in a way I guess that's one of the reasons I, at least subconsciously, wanted to go to Maracon so I could just mingle and look at others playing without feeling any kind of pressure – just soaking up the vibes and allowing myself to get interested without that negative self-talk in the back of my head telling me I'm a nuisance if I show interest. Not sure if I even make sense here but yeah, I just have this massive mental hurdle with interest and ability to take in new information clashing.. and with anxiety added on top.

More board games. There was a sign you could hold to recruit players too.

I lowkey wanted to try that East India Companies game but I was too chickenshit to dare ask around if anyone had played it before and would be up to it. Maybe next time. It looked a bit like it might play similarly to Port Royale 4 which I started over a year ago and then just left hanging because I was terrified of messing up.

These doodles were cute lol.

And this is a mood on most days.

Oh, I should maybe mention at this point that Maracon also had different open hours than your average anime convention. Instead of the normal con hours (roughly 11:00-20:00 each day) Maracon started late-ish on Friday night and then it was up and running 24/7 until Sunday evening sometime. So technically for anyone so inclined you could pull an allnighter on the Saturday.

Some kind of food/kitchen area, not entirely sure.

I'm not sure if the cafeteria-looking area above was actually a cafeteria or just some kind of self-service kitchen? I know a guy handed me a glass of water when I asked though. xD 
It was hard to know who was a Cryo main organizer and who was just an attendant so whenever I needed to ask any kind of important questions (like if you really needed to change the parking disc every 2 hours or if it was arranged so that there would be no parkkipirkkos harassing visitors) it was a game of "who looks and acts knowledgeable". I don't even know if Maracon has volunteer workers but I would assume there were at least a few? I just didn't see any badges or anything that implied someone had worker status.

At least cleanliness was taken care of.

I overheard something that made it sound like the pizzeria next doors had some kind of deal with Maracon so that visitors got like a 10% discount or something. Shame I had already had a pizza earlier or I would have tested this. xD I love pizza but too much is too much. There's something so iconic with geeks getting together and hordes of pizza boxes and soda cans lying everywhere.

The pizza tower had ambitions. Maybe it was larger before. :')

On the opposite side of the cafeteria thingy was the living room, well, room. When I asked where the half-promised video game room was I was pointed here. I was a bit disappointed because I had been led to believe there would (could?) be retro games and so of course my brain thought it meant retro game consoles – but there was just a single TV and Steam. But apparently there was some kind of issue with getting it to work (I don't even have Steam so I don't know what the problem was) and it seemed like it was unusable this time.

You could, in theory at least, play on Steam if you wanted something digital.

I have no idea how many visitors there were but it felt like a decent amount. There was never a crowd anywhere nor was it hard to move around. Something I really appreciated was the amount of sofas, chairs, bean bags, mattresses and other stuff you could rest your legs on. People also seemed mindful of the personal space of others and I didn't even get a whiff of the infamous con funk anywhere, which I half expected to come across.

View from above.

Tables were set up everywhere, including upstairs.

Once you had picked out a game to play (or found someone to do a TCG match with) you just had to find an empty table to sit at. I noticed while wandering around that there were a lot of rooms along the corridors, in the big gymnastic hall etc – it didn't look like there was any real risk of running out of tables!

This room was full!

At some point I was sitting on the couch near the entrance and someone randomly came up to me and asked if I was interested in a miniature figure painting challenge. I asked if there's like a cost to participate and there wasn't so I was like why the hell not? :D It's been one of those things I've wanted to try out eventually but that eventually came now. You even got to keep the figurine once you were done!

Four color painting challenge!

My little alien worm thing. I only saw the reference after finishing. :D

This was surprisingly fun! A bit tricky with all the small details and yeah, it took me a while to figure out how to best paint the thing because the paints didn't really behave like I expected them to, despite being acrylics. It was a bit difficult at first but once I got the hang of it it was really satisfying. Would absolutely do it again if this kind of opportunity comes up! Maracon gets the honors of taking my miniature figure painting virginity lol. 

By the way, for anyone curious about the figurine itself I understood it was some kind of promotional figure used exclusively in events that's an original creation so yeah, not based on any existing franchises like Warhammer 40K or the likes. I heard some bros talking about how they went about designing it, like inspirations and what they were trying to achieve etc.

The main hall had most of the tables...

... and loads of happy nerds enjoying themselves.

Eventually our group of four (or well, five at this point since Firith stumbled upon a familiar face) ended up getting our hands on Trial by Trolley, a party board game with art from the famous webcomic Cyanide & Happiness. This looked easy enough to understand and the familiar art pulled me in lol. It turned out to be a blast and yeah, while we were playing some randoms came to watch us play (I guess we were entertaining xD) and eventually they joined us and so we had this merry cluster of random nerds just trying to play this hilarious dark humor game.
If you haven't played Trial by Trolley before and enjoy Cards Against Humanity and the like then you should definitely give it a spin.

Trial by Trolley starting. This was our starting group composition.

It was nerve-wrecking to be the conductor because you had to make the choice of which team to run the trolley over and yeah, despite it not being a serious game at all it felt like or more like my anxiety made it feel like you'd have to disappoint someone and get judged for your morals or lack thereof.

We did play some Cards Against Humanity as well, or more like the expansion called Crabs Adjust Humidity. I was a spectator at this one but I did make some of Firith's card choices lol. This seemed fun and easy enough to play too but I was a bit bothered by how many of the cards were US-centric and thus alienating for European players because we don't have that lived experience. Wish all cards were neutral.

Eventually I started yawning nonstop and that's when it hit us, or at least me, that it's getting pretty late. We wrapped up our playing session and bid farewell to Maracon. It takes us a bit more than one hour to drive everyone back home and so we couldn't stay super late. 

All in all Maracon was a worthwhile experience and a breath of fresh air. I went in with rather low expectations and thus I wasn't hyping myself up with unrealistic ideas of what it "should be like". Of course it would have been nice if there had been more things to buy, be it a proper Artist's Alley or a Dealer's Hall or a mix of the two, but in no way was it detrimental to the overall value of the event. 
I would consider visiting Maracon again, it's a welcoming low-threshold event for the more traditionally geeky hobbies; think "western nerd stuff" instead of "eastern nerd stuff" and you get the gist of expectations correct. I do want to mention that –if your interests are strictly within the anime subgenre and you have zero interest in any other subgenre of geekery– then you might not enjoy what Maracon offers. 

I definitely had my share of fun and the whole event was delightfully slow-paced and full of friendly vibes. So yeah, if you're into Pokémon cards, Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! and the likes you will definitely find kinship and company here to chat and battle against. I think there might have been some sort of tournaments and stuff going on too because I saw some card playmats that were reserved for something? And if you're a board game enthusiast then Maracon is keeping you well-fed and entertained for hours as well.

Bonus pic: don't take the bad bread.

Is Maracon something up your alley? Remember that you're welcome to attend all the Maracon events even if you're not a member of Cryo's club! 

Thanks for reading! I'm still not done with con summaries for this year hehe..
~ Shiro Samurai out.