Hello nerds of all shapes and sizes!
Me and my crew went to Maracon last weekend and although the event ran through the whole weekend, 16-18 October, we went on a day-trip on Saturday only. Maracon technically has no dealers nor an Artist Alley but I happened to see that they advertised free tables for anyone interested to sell something and so I took my chance. :D I got a table and soon after Firith messaged them asking about an promotional table for Kemi's upcoming new Sampocon event (which we both are organizers at). The request was also accepted and with that we roped in Joni for company and a less malfunctioning car and headed towards Oulu.
 |
| Maracon promotional poster. |
This is my second Maracon experience (with the first one being last autumn) although one can see on the poster that, based on the mind-boggling Roman numbers, that this is the 55th Maracon. That's a lot of Maracons! Although, in the defense of other conventional hehe anime conventions, Maracon is held four times a year, aka once every season. So yeah, technically I should name this post something like "Autumn Maracon" because there's more than one Maracon in 2026 but I figured since I'm only attending one a year for now that it shouldn't really add too much confusion about which one I'm talking about lol.
I should mention that Maracon is not an anime convention, despite the ending. A lot of people seem to think that anything ending with con is by default a cosplay and/or anime event but that's not really true! Maracon is dedicated purely to board games, roleplaying games and TCG enthusiasts, aka the classical "western geek interests". There's no cosplay competition, no Dealer's Hall, no karaoke, no anything that's a staple at anime conventions. That's not to say that cosplayers aren't welcome, just that you won't really see any here except for the occasional odd one out. :D
I should mention that Maracon is not an anime convention, despite the ending. A lot of people seem to think that anything ending with con is by default a cosplay and/or anime event but that's not really true! Maracon is dedicated purely to board games, roleplaying games and TCG enthusiasts, aka the classical "western geek interests". There's no cosplay competition, no Dealer's Hall, no karaoke, no anything that's a staple at anime conventions. That's not to say that cosplayers aren't welcome, just that you won't really see any here except for the occasional odd one out. :D
 |
| Maracon view upon entering. |
Our lot arrived in Oulu at around 12:00 local time, pretty much as planned. I immediately went to find any organizer I could get a hold on to ask about the promised tables. I gotta admit here that I was worried it would be a really small table
We immediately got to work and started putting up our table, which took roughly 30 minutes. Now you're maybe thinking that shouldn't it be two different tables? Well, yeah kinda, but the Sampocon booth needs so little space (it's basically just handing out flyers) that we figured we might just as well combine our tables since the table we were provided was enough for us both.
 |
| Table is almost ready, save for a few tweaks. (KaamosWolf on Instagram) |
Almost as soon as we got our table up and running an announcement was made about bad parking in the nearby parking lot, encouraging those who had arrived by car to go check their placement so that more cars could fit. This affected us so Joni, who was free to roam as he pleased, went to go check how our orange car was doing. Or so we thought. Turns out he came back almost immediately and with the most sudden sentence in tow – "my shoes are gone!". I think my brain just did a reboot and I was like really? I mean sure, Kaijonharju's nuorisotalo (lit. 'youth house') that Maracon is held in has a rule that shoes are dropped off at the entrance but who accidentally puts on someone else's shoes? Surely everyone recognizes their own shoes regardless of how basic they are and how many other similar ones are there? It has to be a honest mistake and not some planned theft, right? But nope, Joni couldn't find his shoes and so we went to look and I didn't see anything that matched his description in the sea of black sneakers either. Weird. :S
Oh well, the car still needed to be checked and, luckily for us, all three of us happen to have roughly the same shoe size so Joni could borrow Firith's shoes to check the parking lot.
With the sudden twist of Joni's shoes vanishing, which was humorous for the first few minutes but quickly grew serious when we learned that his shoes were almost brand new and yeah, with only two pairs of shoes and three people we had some logistic rescheduling ahead. This also of course meant that Joni would return to check the cloakroom area time and time again in hopes that his shoes had reappeared. We even had a bit of a running joke that whenever we went outside he would inspect people's shoes – shoevestigating skill unlocked. xD I mean you gotta make fun of an unfortunate situation or it's gonna consume your mind.
As the day rolled by we had our dumb jokes during silent moments, especially once we ran into Inait's been a common occurrence these past few cons lol who ended up staying with us almost the whole event! Our shared table was at a really nice spot (same corner, next to the stairs, where the flea market and miniature figure booth were last autumn) so we had a nice overview of the event and all the people who attended because basically everyone passed us by at some point. Probably.
Obviously we weren't free to participate and play games, aside from Joni and Ina, so me and Firith couldn't really explore the event fully. But that's okay as it looked very much identical to the one last autumn, down to the placement and everything. Only the decorations were different to some degree (more Halloween stuff this year, although I think Maracon might have no part in those and it's from the youth center) and the activities were not the same. I saw no figure painting contest on this daymaybe there was one on Friday or Sunday, can't know but instead there was a throw-a-dice-down-the-stairs-and-try-getting-the-best-score game which seemed really casual and fun! At least it brought on a lot of cheer and excitement!
I also heard from Ina that one fun thing with Maracon is that it's pretty much always a surprise what'll be there because on some years there might be a flea market (including Matsucon's Matsukirppis) and on others there might be something completely different, like me with my one-man Artist Alley lol. I think it's pretty awesome to have that one element of surprise of "what's gonna be in the corner this year", haha. It keeps things fresh, that's for sure!
After a few hours had passed we all noticed that we were in fact rather hungry, and it wasn't just food noise. I got up and went to ask the people around the cafeteria area if the deal Maracon had last year with the nearby pizzeria still existed but instead I was told that it's currently closed for renovations or something. Welp. The follow-up question was whether we had access to a car and after saying yes I was told of this one pizzeria, a short drive away, with really large pizzas and soon enough several people chimed in to praise it. I mean when someone says their ordinary pizzas are closer to family size than standard it's probably worth it, right? xD
We decided in unison that me and Joni will go out to grab the food while Firith stays behind to watch over the table. I was sweating bullets because my phone had been very low on battery the whole day (and there was no socket conveniently placed near our table..) but I had at least enough battery to navigate us to the pizzeria and back. It was a 10 minute drive but even that ain't short enough to not spur at least one road rage over how absurd Oulu's street markings are. Why can't they be like in other cities?? :C #oulussaajaaminenonperseestä
After getting our orders from Pizzeria Lila (it seemed popular, there was constantly new customers walking in) we returned to Maracon. This time we didn't have to do any additional maneuvers due to crap signage. C:
 |
| General view of the lobby area. |
With the sudden twist of Joni's shoes vanishing, which was humorous for the first few minutes but quickly grew serious when we learned that his shoes were almost brand new and yeah, with only two pairs of shoes and three people we had some logistic rescheduling ahead. This also of course meant that Joni would return to check the cloakroom area time and time again in hopes that his shoes had reappeared. We even had a bit of a running joke that whenever we went outside he would inspect people's shoes – shoevestigating skill unlocked. xD I mean you gotta make fun of an unfortunate situation or it's gonna consume your mind.
 |
| Bro is a bit crispy. |
As the day rolled by we had our dumb jokes during silent moments, especially once we ran into Ina
Obviously we weren't free to participate and play games, aside from Joni and Ina, so me and Firith couldn't really explore the event fully. But that's okay as it looked very much identical to the one last autumn, down to the placement and everything. Only the decorations were different to some degree (more Halloween stuff this year, although I think Maracon might have no part in those and it's from the youth center) and the activities were not the same. I saw no figure painting contest on this day
I also heard from Ina that one fun thing with Maracon is that it's pretty much always a surprise what'll be there because on some years there might be a flea market (including Matsucon's Matsukirppis) and on others there might be something completely different, like me with my one-man Artist Alley lol. I think it's pretty awesome to have that one element of surprise of "what's gonna be in the corner this year", haha. It keeps things fresh, that's for sure!
 |
| Main board game and TCG room. |
 |
| Someone had left a whole suitcase with board games to share. |
After a few hours had passed we all noticed that we were in fact rather hungry, and it wasn't just food noise. I got up and went to ask the people around the cafeteria area if the deal Maracon had last year with the nearby pizzeria still existed but instead I was told that it's currently closed for renovations or something. Welp. The follow-up question was whether we had access to a car and after saying yes I was told of this one pizzeria, a short drive away, with really large pizzas and soon enough several people chimed in to praise it. I mean when someone says their ordinary pizzas are closer to family size than standard it's probably worth it, right? xD
We decided in unison that me and Joni will go out to grab the food while Firith stays behind to watch over the table. I was sweating bullets because my phone had been very low on battery the whole day (and there was no socket conveniently placed near our table..) but I had at least enough battery to navigate us to the pizzeria and back. It was a 10 minute drive but even that ain't short enough to not spur at least one road rage over how absurd Oulu's street markings are. Why can't they be like in other cities?? :C #oulussaajaaminenonperseestä
 |
| Mission accomplished! |
After getting our orders from Pizzeria Lila (it seemed popular, there was constantly new customers walking in) we returned to Maracon. This time we didn't have to do any additional maneuvers due to crap signage. C:
When we returned to the same parking lot we had left from we were worried for a second that it was now full, but then we spotted a couple friendly blokes who did hand signs to us pointing towards a free corner spot next to their car, thank you~
Okay, they weren't kidding when they said the pizzas were huge; I swear even the cardboard box was larger than average and still the pizza had its corners folded in. Apparently some locals can recognize them by looks alone because the second we opened our boxes a lady beamed "Lila's floppy ears!". :'D I'm not gonna lie, I swear that thing was half a meter across! I can usually finish a whole pizza by myself but I ate half of this one and I couldn't have done a single slice more – good thing Firith and me had decided to share to save costs. So yeah, I can definitely recommend that place and will probably return next year, haha. Even Joni, who hadn't had time for breakfast, couldn't finish his pizza and his stomach is a black hole on some days.
The rest of the day flew by fine, Maracon has a really relaxed and welcoming atmosphere so it's easy to feel at ease; I have my mental health struggles but it's easy to just exist here. I also feel like the organizers are very helpful and the average attendee is good-mannered. I'm always worried of getting bad encounters when tabling but once again nothing happened and, speaking of which, I feel like I had pretty okay sales considering that there was zero marketing of any vendors being available (I don't count my own marketing on Instagram because 30 followers means my reach is dead af) and I can only assume that most visitors were unprepared and/or unaware. I was prepared to bomb and originally applied primarily to gain experience, as well as for visibility. I'm too chickenshit to go to any bigger events just yet so these small local ones help me build up my courage to be visible and socialize. I made a sum closer to one hundred than to zero so it's a win in my meager book. :')
Towards the later evening we decided to pack up our tables at 19:00 as interactions had grinded to a halt and the overall influx of new visitors had slowed.I find it funny that the moment I went away to grab the pizza that's when there were three sales lmao. We also had Joni's shoe problem to solve – which was fixed by him doing a solo trip to Tokmanni while we packed our stuff. He came back soon enough with some budget felt shoes but, before we left, I made sure to inform Samuli about the current shoe situation, aka that they're still missing and that we'll be leaving now and to please keep an eye out.
Plot twist: on the following Monday after the Maracon weekend I got sent a photo of a pair of shoes on Discord asking if these are the ones that went missing – Joni recognized them as his own when I showed it to him! Now we just need to arrange how the shoes are transported 100 km to their owner...
All in all Maracon was a fun little excursion on what would otherwise have been an uneventful weekend. I really recommend checking it out if you're into or at least curious about tabletops, card games, board games, Dungeons & Dragons and the like – it seems like every year there's varying activities and I'm also getting the impression that it's easy to befriend people even if you'd show up alone; there doesn't seem to be a clique mentality going on and people seem open to expanding their company should anyone approach them interested in whatever they are doing.
Maracon is also nice because it's free and you don't need to be a member of Cryo to attend either, which is nice because it means anyone is welcome. It is very male-dominated on a quick glance though (unlike anime conventions that skew closer to fifty-fifty) but that's to be expected with the focus being on a subset of nerdy hobbies that have historically been more associated with men.
I want to note that the overall vibes always felt friendly and safe and I didn't see any questionable behavior, in fact Firith was witness to the opposite – when I was away my keychain board fell off the table and before Firith had time to react a whole slew of random people nearby had rushed to help pick up all the fallen stuff and return it safely. ;_; That kind of helpfulness, especially unprompted, is a rare trait and speaks of good character. All too often you see people around any kind of accident or injustice just ignore it, even though they saw it play out. Maracon restored my faith in humanity and I will definitely attend it in the future too in some shape of form. It's especially worth it if you live within reasonable distance to Oulu, like I do. :)
 |
| You can see the cafeteria in the back. We sat and ate there. |
Okay, they weren't kidding when they said the pizzas were huge; I swear even the cardboard box was larger than average and still the pizza had its corners folded in. Apparently some locals can recognize them by looks alone because the second we opened our boxes a lady beamed "Lila's floppy ears!". :'D I'm not gonna lie, I swear that thing was half a meter across! I can usually finish a whole pizza by myself but I ate half of this one and I couldn't have done a single slice more – good thing Firith and me had decided to share to save costs. So yeah, I can definitely recommend that place and will probably return next year, haha. Even Joni, who hadn't had time for breakfast, couldn't finish his pizza and his stomach is a black hole on some days.
 |
| Cozy beanbag chairs upstairs. |
The rest of the day flew by fine, Maracon has a really relaxed and welcoming atmosphere so it's easy to feel at ease; I have my mental health struggles but it's easy to just exist here. I also feel like the organizers are very helpful and the average attendee is good-mannered. I'm always worried of getting bad encounters when tabling but once again nothing happened and, speaking of which, I feel like I had pretty okay sales considering that there was zero marketing of any vendors being available (I don't count my own marketing on Instagram because 30 followers means my reach is dead af) and I can only assume that most visitors were unprepared and/or unaware. I was prepared to bomb and originally applied primarily to gain experience, as well as for visibility. I'm too chickenshit to go to any bigger events just yet so these small local ones help me build up my courage to be visible and socialize. I made a sum closer to one hundred than to zero so it's a win in my meager book. :')
Towards the later evening we decided to pack up our tables at 19:00 as interactions had grinded to a halt and the overall influx of new visitors had slowed.
Plot twist: on the following Monday after the Maracon weekend I got sent a photo of a pair of shoes on Discord asking if these are the ones that went missing – Joni recognized them as his own when I showed it to him! Now we just need to arrange how the shoes are transported 100 km to their owner...
All in all Maracon was a fun little excursion on what would otherwise have been an uneventful weekend. I really recommend checking it out if you're into or at least curious about tabletops, card games, board games, Dungeons & Dragons and the like – it seems like every year there's varying activities and I'm also getting the impression that it's easy to befriend people even if you'd show up alone; there doesn't seem to be a clique mentality going on and people seem open to expanding their company should anyone approach them interested in whatever they are doing.
Maracon is also nice because it's free and you don't need to be a member of Cryo to attend either, which is nice because it means anyone is welcome. It is very male-dominated on a quick glance though (unlike anime conventions that skew closer to fifty-fifty) but that's to be expected with the focus being on a subset of nerdy hobbies that have historically been more associated with men.
I want to note that the overall vibes always felt friendly and safe and I didn't see any questionable behavior, in fact Firith was witness to the opposite – when I was away my keychain board fell off the table and before Firith had time to react a whole slew of random people nearby had rushed to help pick up all the fallen stuff and return it safely. ;_; That kind of helpfulness, especially unprompted, is a rare trait and speaks of good character. All too often you see people around any kind of accident or injustice just ignore it, even though they saw it play out. Maracon restored my faith in humanity and I will definitely attend it in the future too in some shape of form. It's especially worth it if you live within reasonable distance to Oulu, like I do. :)
That's more or less all I had to say, thanks for reading! Thanks to Cryo for arranging Maracon!
~ Shiro Samurai out.
~ Shiro Samurai out.
