Kummacon 2026 – Where did you all people come from?

 Hello weirdos!

I was at Kummacon last weekend (16-17th May) and, unlike all previous times, this year Kummacon was held in the University of Oulu (Oulun yliopisto). This was the first Kummacon in 5 years where I went as a visitor and not as a volunteer worker and, in hindsight, it was the right choice. 

Let's get on with the summary~

Kummacon 2026 poster.

I traveled with Firith and we took the train from Kemi to Oulu on Friday early evening. The train ride only takes roughly one hour (it was like 20 minutes delayed though #perusvr) so one's ass doesn't have time to get flattened by all the sitting lol. Once we got out of the train station we crossed the street and went to eat dinner at a nearby Tibetan restaurant because it had a buffet and it was super close. We did have an average amount of luggage, for a con weekend, but neither of us was keen on walking any more than necessary with it. Another reason why we decided to eat in centrum instead of after we had dropped our bags at the accommodation was because the university that Kummacon was to be held in was located in a part of Oulu called Linnanmaa, which is a fair distance away from the city center and thus a bit of an inconvenience for those arriving from other towns and/or by public transport (aka you don't have a car); there's also only like one restaurant in that area so you were really limited on food options once you got there. We just figured it would be better to eat before taking the taxi to the airbnb. 

We had an... embarrassing amount of trouble finding the airbnb. The taxi took us to the right general area but it was one of those lowkey confusing residential areas with a lot of apartments clustered up and pseudo-hidden staircases leading up to the upper apartments. We were about to go up the wrong staircase (it was the only clearly visible one okay? ;_; ) when some random Finnish man came outside from the apartment just next to said starcase, who was clearly fed up with lost airnbnb bookers wandering around the area, and he asked if we were looking for the place and then proceeded to tell us where the correct staircase was along with asking us to pass along a shitty review to the hosts. He clearly disliked the couple who hired out the airbnb apartment and wanted them to lay down the whole business. I kinda got the impression that some previous guests had been nuisances, at least he raged about some previous guests parking their car wrong – I mean, the first thing he asked us was "did you arrive by car?". Ahh, getting embroiled in surprise neighborhood beefs. :'D

Oh well, we finally found our way inside the apartment, it was on the upper level. I think Mister Angry might even have been straight below us omfg. The apartment was nice and clean and there was even a sauna! A somewhat small one, but still. 
I took out some of my cosplay stuff from my suitcase and noticed that there was no ironing board anywhere. I'm not sure why I was even expecting there to be one (not even all hotels have one!) but when I unfolded my Jedi robe, and took a good look at it, I felt like I had to do something to get at least some of the worst wrinkles out because yeah, it looked like it had been thrown haphazardly into a drawer and forgotten.. which it kinda had, oops.

Desperate attempts are desperate. Go go sauna steam power!

It wasn't perfect but for an emergency solution it worked surprisingly okay. Steam does relax and soften fibers and I did notice an improvement after letting it cook in there for an hour or something. Of course I vigorously threw some water on the rocks to generate extra amounts of steam. xD

I don't think anything else of interest happened during the Friday, aside from the fact we finally finished watching the second season of the anime Bastard!! after having issues with Netflix working at home. It only took like... almost 260 days to finish it. Oof. There's a reason that whenever I start watching an anime I always try to marathon it because otherwise I forget so easily what was going on – good thing Bastard!! doesn't have a lot going on lol, it's mostly just nonsensical action with a ridiculously overpowered protagonist and a staggering amount of fanservice thrown in. I'd assume quite many would file it under that weird why-am-I-watching-this guilty pleasure folder haha. I know I did.

Fazer chocos for breakfast. Our dumbasses had nothing else.

I slept bad. Really bad. Like it-took-me-5-hours-to-fall-asleep levels of bad. The bed was outrageously soft and you just sank into the mattress like a rock once you laid down. The support was nonexistent. My lower back hurt so much throughout the night and I slept like a dog, constantly aware that I'm trying to sleep and tossing and turning non-stop. If anything it was a relief when morning finally came and it became an acceptable time to get up and start the day. Yet despite sleeping like shit I still felt surprisingly fresh? I have no idea how that worked out, the math wasn't mathing.

I had decided to do a random, unspecified Jedi OC again, just like I did in Kemin mangapäivä earlier. Although this time I put in more effort, aka I used a wig and put on makeup – which, normally, is my bare minimum but ehh, even that takes effort and energy I don't always have readily available. Life's been tough lately. After all Kummacon is a bigger event and I kinda didn't want to look like I dined with swamp trolls the night before and woke up from under a bridge lol. Donning my Star Wars getup is perfect for exploring and it's also quick and easy to put on. Besides, I've never been to the University of Oulu before so I wanted something comfy to move around in.

Boring proof pic, in questionable phone quality. Yay!

The clock was roughly 12:40 when we arrived at the university. Conveniently it was within walking distance from where the airbnb was located. The weather wasn't the most exciting though, it was very dull and gray outside and it looked like rain might come down any minute. I wasn't really in the mood to photoshoot my own costume with the cloudy dreariness but I took some photos of Firith's Darkrai gijinka (Pokémon) before we went inside.

Kummacon entrance view.

I'm not sure what exactly my first impression was when I stepped inside but I know I noticed very early how crammed it felt. Perhaps I should have expected a lot of hallways and crowdedness since it's an university building, just like Närcon and many others, but I guess somehow I was still blindsided by the sheer amount of people? I never really thought of Kummacon as a big event, I'm not even sure where on the con size scale it is nowadays; it probably has grown over the years and maybe it's not so small anymore?

General view almost immediately upon entering.

I'm quite sure that the Kummacon location upgrade had something to do with the "Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture" designation. Maybe a bigger culture budget was allocated? Would make sense at least! I'm really happy for Kummacon if that was the case, it's not unheard of that cons struggle with funding and I know several that died because they didn't get enough funding to be able to continue. 
It's just speculation but I wouldn't be surprised if the whole capital of culture thing put Kummacon on the radar for many previously unaware and that's why it felt like there were a lot more people than previous years? I mean for real, it felt like it had exploded in terms of visitors!

Continuing down that same corridor...

... eventually lead to an open, branching area.

I think one of the first things we did was to check out the Kumma Kirppis, aka Kummacon's own second-hand shop.. or flea market, thrift store or whatever else you wanna call it. Basically congoers can sign up for it in advance and have their goods sold there during the con by Kummacon personnel. It's a nice way to sell things you don't need forward to other fans. :) It was quite hidden, outside the main areas and I'm pretty sure that unless Firith hadn't checked beforehand and knew where to go I probably wouldn't have found it lol. I'm not sure if I liked the placement personally, I lowkey feel like it probably affected sales and overall awareness because yeah, I did hear from friends that they never found it. Which brings me to my other gripe – the lack of signs. In such a large building signs are paramount to a good experience and, while there were signs, I felt like there could have been more. I don't have the best navigation skills and it being a new place I kinda got the feeling that perhaps there was an assumption that most visitors would be from Oulu and thus already familiar with the university? The signs that were there were good, but most were just next to whatever they were indicating; what I missed would have been signs in other locations, especially the large open areas, pointing towards places of interest like the Artist Alley, video game room, photography booth etc. Most of these were not easy to find intuitively (aka no map)! The stage where the cosplay competition etc was held was really far away from all the other used spaces and this one had a good amount of signs along the whole distance – yeah it was like a 5 min walk to the other end of the university. 

Kumma Kirppis view.

Along the path to the second-hand area, if you went down the right path (against the wall) you would pass by the video game room, the karaoke room and this little area where a local indie game developer group had a station where you could playtest a beta version of their upcoming game. I chatted with one of the makers and he seemed really passionate about the project and said that their base of operations is in Oulu so yeah, it's extremely local haha! The game is a mix of different genres including puzzle-solving and roleplaying with visual novel styled storytelling. Go support these guys!

Indie devs Runoi Games upcoming Fortune Fragments game.

I took a peek inside the video game room and I liked the retro dominance going on in there. I saw a Nintendo Gamecube, a PS2, a Super Nintendo and I think there was an older Xbox in the back. Always when I see a Super Nintendo I have to go check what games are available and I'm in particular looking for Super Mario World and U.N. Squadron (Area 88 in Japan) because those were a major part of my childhood and I miss those games, especially the latter with its banger soundtrack. ;_; Neither was available so I didn't stay to play this time, although I saw there were some other awesome games like good old Super Smash Bros. Melee on the Gamecube!

Gaming room!

I gotta give props for the gaming room having retro consoles, especially because most people who are gamers probably own at least a current gen console or last gen console (like the PS4) but I think there's many attendants who might not have the older consoles at home, especially the younger people who didn't grow up with them when they were new. I've noticed a shift in the age groups of attendants, I feel like there's been a big influx of young people (school-aged children) while people my age and older have slowly disssipated or moved into being a part of the organizers and workforce. So yeah, it makes my millennial gamer heart extra soft to see older consoles accessible for those who didn't get to live that era (or those who miss that era!), especially now that the value of older games and consoles are skyrocketing and are, quite frankly, rather unaffordable for the average person without a lot of spendable income.

Chill beanbag corner. Every con needs one of these.

Our exploration journey continued. We had to pass through the main shopping area where both the Dealer's Hall and the artisans were (it's basically the same as the Artist Alley but for those deemed 'sellers', aka who have a registered business and probably do vending as a full-time job) located and holy moly was it crowded on Saturday! There were so many people it was really anxiety-inducing. Neither of us could stand to stay in there long enough to even browse, it was way too overwhelming.

General Dealer's Hall view.

Another corner of the Dealer's Hall incl. Manga Cafe.

And Dealer's Hall again but from the opposite side.

We unequivocally decided to check the Dealer's Hall the next day, in hopes it would be more manageable. I did like what little I had time to see, there was a nice variety of items for sale and not everyone were familiar faces either! 

After some time Firith had to leave for some worker responsibilities (cosplay contestant judging) and so I was left to wander on my own. I have no memory of what I did during this time, I just know that when the cosplay competition was about to start I walked all the way back to the other side of the building, only to be met by this ludicrously large queue to which I said "fuck it" and walked back to the main area. xD I'm not so interested in that I'd stay in like a kilometer long line, especially when my feet were killing me at this point and standing still was painful. 

I proceeded to sit down near the cloakroom-ish area and played Pokémon Go to pass the time and wait for the cosplay competition to finish. There was conveniently a raid at a gym within distance so I played it (sent raid invites to get backup from players in Kemi) and got a perfect IV Pheromosa from it lol.

Classic paper wall where you could draw and write con greetings.

I know that when I was I was in the middle of the raid Firith tried to call me and ask if I was ready to leave the con and go grab dinner with Sallukka and Dongrieg, whom we had already briefly bumped into earlier in the Dealer's Hall. I had to click away the call at first because there's a high risk Pokémon Go crashes/restarts on my phone if I answer calls. I felt so rude lol but luckily all three of them were very close so it wasn't a big deal in the end – it was more silly than not because we were so close to each other but yeah, that damn tie-dyed fabric drape curtain conveniently hid me from their point of view lmao.

Sallukka and Dongrieg had arrived with their own car to the con (a one-day trip) so we could actually drive to centrum and choose from a much larger pool of restaurants than if we hadn't all had the same idea to go eat at the same time! But before we went to eat we quickly docked at our airbnb and Firith and me removed our costumes, it's easier to eat when you don't have to worry about messing up your cosplay fr. 
We ended up going to a sushi buffet restaurant called Okiniiri and it was a nice experience to wind down for the day. Very nice dessert table with mochis, honey cake and churros! Still thinking about that random cute ladybug that was on the wall next to our table though, I hope it got out safely. :c

After we had finished eating we went to a nearby foodstore and bought some necessities for the upcoming Eurovision-watching, aka beverages and sweets. Sallukka and Dongrieg dropped us off at the airbnb after that was done and continued on their way back home. Firith went to turn the sauna on and I had just time to shower and get ready by the time Eurovision started. 
Before the show started I remember there was a silly slip-up where I was trying to explain that dismissed call during the Pokémon Go raid earlier didn't mean that I was in a bad mood or anything and yeah, while explaining I didn't even notice at first that I accidentally said "laittaa luuri koiraan" instead of "laittaa luuri korvaan" until Firith burst out laughing. In my defense I was exhausted from the day and talking on autopilot. xD It's a bit hard to translate but the phrase of 'hanging up on someone' in Finnish would, when literally translated, be like "to put the phone in the ear" and, well, I accidentally said "to put the phone in the dog" lololol.

Eurovision time! (oli hyvä lonkku. :D)

My favorites were Albania, Croatia, Romania, Sweden (the singer is the former Fröken Snusk) and Finland of course. Serbia got my hopes up with the outfits and the cool sword but the song just didn't click the way I hoped it would. I was hoping Finland would win with all the hype around it, 20 years since Lordi's first Finnish win etc but I guess it wasn't meant to be. Well at least a certain country didn't win in the end, that's all that matters. 

It was like... uhh, way too late by the time I fell asleep. And I felt it on the morning! I think I slept like 4 hours at the very best and those hours were shit quality sleep. Once I was up and sat down in the kitchen I felt an absolutely debilitating pang of nausea building up – it felt like I'd blackout and throw up at the same time and it took a lot of effort to just stay conscious. It was horrible.
It's not exactly a secret that I struggle with chronic sleep difficulties and nightmares and often am very tired on the mornings and throughout the day.. but this was an unprecedented level of sleep-deprivation nausea even for me. In hindsight I'm so relieved I didn't apply to be a con worker this year because waking up with this level of nausea on a work day would have been a death knell. There's no way I could have predicted this nor the shitty bed but I'm so glad I listened to my gut feeling this time and decided to go as just a visitor.

Eventually the nausea somehow slowly passed, don't ask me how because I didn't go back to sleep, I have no idea. I had not prepared a cosplay for Sunday and that was a good decision – no way would I have been able to go costuming with both the lingering nausea and the feet pain! I should have taken some spare shoes because yeah, I could have fit my flip flops in the suitcase. Well at least I didn't get blisters although at one point it looked like it could have formed.

General corridor/hall view.

We took a taxi to the con just to avoid the trickling rain and having to drag all our luggage around. The weather did clear up a bit later on but we had to be out of the airbnb by 12:00. Oh well, if one thing was immediately noticeable it was that there were fewer people around – which meant we could finally go take a proper look at the Dealer's Hall.

Various organization booths were present, mostly other cons.

I didn't buy anything from the Dealer's Hall this time, mainly because I'm painfully aware of how much stuff I have at home that I don't need and in fact need to get rid of due to a shortage of storage space. I've been quite a hoarder most of my life and I'm trying really hard to work on that and only buying things that I actually need or really want – in other words I'm trying to be more aware of my spending habits and, in particular, to lessen impulsive buying and comfort buying. It's hard because all my life I subconsciously self-soothed by buying stuff that gave me joy, even if just for a moment. Having a broken childhood sucks.

Entrance to the Artist Alley...

... and a view inside it. 

I did buy a wooden fridge magnet in the Artist Alley though depicting a smiling samoyed. I had to buy it because for some reason I got suddenly emotional when I saw it because it made me think of our old family dog, a samoyed named Lady, whom we had in my early teenage years.

Kumma Kahvila sortiment.

In the same general area as the Artist Alley was the Kumma Kahvila, aka Kummacon's cafeteria. It sold sweet and salty snacks, coffee and such. There were a bunch of tables around the cafeteria so you could sit there and eat. On Saturday there was a homemade chocolate banana cake available that I almost bought a slice of but on Sunday there was no cake at all. *sniff* A little bit of ragrets.

Oh and yeah, before I forget! This is unrelated to Kummacon but is relevant to my blog at large so here goes a brief mention that I was, once again, featured on FeedSpot's Top 60 Cosplay Blogs list, hooray! It's nice to have one's work acknowledged. I mean I really enjoy blogging and I wouldn't be writing for over a decade if I didn't find a lot of enjoyment in sharing my whimsy hobby experiences with others who are likeminded! I hope this summary and all previous and upcoming posts will keep inspiring people near and far and maybe even bring a smile on a bad day. :) 

Fih.

Speaking of smiles and being whimsical I... *clears throat* .. I might not have been entirely 100% in ordinary clothes on Sunday. I wore this funny Magikarp hat my big sister bought from Japan as a gift after she made a joke to me about seeing it in passing (she knows I'm a Pokémon nerd and pokes fun of it lol) and I answered by saying I seriously want it... which meant she had to backtrack and find the shop that sold it like two hours later because time zones. xD Jokes on her! No but really, it's all in good fun – she knows the first generation mons (Gameboy era) but after that she lost interest, she was more into Magic: the Gathering back in the days.

Photo booth for congoers. It's a free photography service.

My Magikarp hat generated some fun reactions including some random congoer trying to show me their Pokémon TCG collection while I was browsing treats from the cafe. It was cute but unexpected!

Sunday was otherwise a pretty slow day for me. I didn't really participate in anything aside from Firith's book talk program. After the book talk was over we went to pick up what remained of our second-hand items, the clock was roughly 15:30 at this point. We both felt like we were satisfied with our con experience and ready to leave once we got our unsold items back and so we booked a taxi and went to wait outside. You could tell a lot of other people had the same thoughts because we saw people in droves leaving and others possibly waiting outside for a ride to come pick them up. 

Have some random eggplant art in the university. 

We left Kummacon around 16:00. We got a decent discount on the taxi because VR (Finnish railway company) had a deal with that particular taxi company so that if you went to the train station you got a cheaper ride, profits! 

As soon as we arrived at the train station I booted up the ResQ app on my phone to check if there was any good deals nearby but alas, there was none. We then wondered if we'd have time to go eat something before the train arrives because we were quite hungry by now. The good Chinese restaurant we'd usually frequent was temporarily closed due to fire damage so we couldn't go to our trusty place this time. It's almost literally on the opposite side of the road so that's one reason we've been regulars there haha. But yeah, we browsed our options on Google Maps for a while before we saw that the hamburger place that's in the same building as the train station actually had pretty damn good customer reviews. I was worried it might be one of those really expensive ones but we decided to take a look and thankfully it seemed to have rather normal prices so yeah, we booked our foods and sat down. 

After-con burgers om nom nom~

The burgers were a lot better than expected! I had some chicken burger with devil's jam and I certainly wouldn't mind having another the next time I'm in Oulu, hehe.

The rest of the journey home went well, I don't have so much more to say because nothing out of the ordinary happened. But in regards to Kummacon itself I'm generally pleased with the trip, although I do have mixed feelings about the building and how the location was used. It was nice how big the university was but I constantly had that feeling of it not being used to its full potential and some placements just seemed suboptimal to me, I guess? I'm also not sure if Kummacon had the whole university in their use or just specific sections of it, yet regardless it did feel inconvenient and empty that you had to pass through tons of unused space just to get to the stage – it felt so disconnected from the rest of the event. I don't know, I saw the potential and I had a good time but it also felt like it could have been even better? Of course I don't know what exactly the organizers had to work with and yeah, if they had used all sections they were given and the rest was off-limits then that's not on them and the choices made were thus understandable. :)

All in all Kummacon is a great free entrance event with a very low barrier of entry, it's very chill and relaxed. Kummacon's main focus has always been literature, popular culture and queerness and they're very visible with the latter – there's rainbow flags everyone and the safe space principle is followed – if you feel like the odd one out in everyday society then in Kummacon you will feel right at home. It's a con for all the outcasts, weirdos, queers, geeks and bookworms. I would recommend visiting if you live within the northern half of the country.

Thanks for reading and thanks to all the people keeping Kummacon alive! Stay nerdy~
Shiro Samurai out.