Kummacon 2022 – Luck in misfortune

 Hello nerds!

I was away at my first convention for the year this past weekend and well, what started as simple plans to go as visitors to Kummacon with a group of friends ended up being a lot more chaotic than that. :D So I'm gonna tell you all about my Kummacon experience but first some base info about the con itself – Kummacon is a free entrance, small-ish convention held in Oulu that is dedicated to literature and popular culture. This year it was held in Tuira's school (Tuiran koulu) during 29-30.10.2022.

Let's go~

Kummacon main entrance (school's courtyard).

So as I said I had originally planned to go with some friends and we had sleeping accommodations planned over at another friend's place, who had newly moved to Oulu to study. Everything was looking normal but less than a week before the con one of my friends ended up getting covid and had to cancel the trip. Well, I figured I could still go together with the Oulu friend (at this point it was also unsure if Sallukka and her bf would make it) so I kept my plans intact, after all I already had bus tickets that couldn't be refunded...

Well, like a couple days before departure I get the news that said friend in Oulu was down with a case of covid as well and I had to find another place to sleep. Aw shit, here we go again with me old fine luck. So yeah, I ask my aunt (who lives in Oulu) if she could take me over and initially she said yes, although she warned that she had some very slight symptoms of an approaching cold. I tried to stay hopeful although I had a bad feeling about it. Friday morning came, the day of departure, and she sends me a message saying that she's sick and can't take visitors. So there I was with no place to sleep and my bus leaving in 8 hours and I literally knew no one else in Oulu who could help. The panic was real. I was so desperate I figured I'd try the only thing I could think of in that very moment – contact Kummacon itself through their social media channels. Yes I was that desperate and had exhausted all my other options and no, I wasn't willing to sleep in the station or some other spurgu 101 thing like that. 

So I reached out to Kummacon and by the time they saw my message and answered I had 45 minutes left before I would have to leave for the bus station at the latest. I was told I was welcome to sleep in their 'lattiamajoitus' as we say in Finnish (floor accommodation literally, or 'sovsal' as the Swedes say) if I could help with building the con on Friday, said sleeping accommodation was reserved for workers only. I of course agreed to this pseudo worker role, it saved my ass and my con trip. But then I had the horrible realization that I need to bring my own shit to sleep on! And I don't own a sleeping bag or even any kind of yoga mat or the like! And I had less than 15 minutes to come up with something, pack it and leave my humble abode. 

This was my panic solution: a tiny bean bag chair and two wool blankets.

The trip down to Oulu went somewhat okay, I got some motion sickness in the bus (and a shiny Halloween Pumpkaboo fled on Pokemon Go because the bus was moving too fast to catch it) but other than that it was bearable.

Once I arrived in Oulu the clock was 18:00 and I had no idea where to go. I looked up the school on Google Maps but it was very weird cuz it would change the name into something else starting with 'L' when you entered it, making me very unsure of if it was the right location. But Kummacon didn't answer my messages so I just had to trust Google to not be a jerk. I walked for roughly 30 minutes before I got to what Maps told me was the right place – it looked pretty dead. I walked around the building in the dark until I found a glass door type area where I could see people inside, people who clearly looked like con workers. I stood there for at least 10 minutes waiting for someone to notice me (door was locked) but even if someone did then everyone actively ignored me. This was quite anxiety-inducing and somewhat frustrating as I expected someone to at least have the courtesy to finger point me in the right direction as I'm not a local (evident by my big suitcase lol) and the school's layout was quite confusing to me. After a while I gave up and continued wandering around the building; I was quite exhausted by the time I found where you could slink in. I made sure to find one of the organizers and explain my situation and that I'm here now and I was told I could just drop my stuff somewhere and get to work.

I don't really remember much what I did on that Friday night once I arrived, I know I helped unpack stuff in the secondhand shop at least and that I moved some chairs around and texted on the doors to the Holmes and Poirot lecture rooms.

Yes, this is my handwriting. :>

Oh and at the end of Friday I upgraded myself from a pseudo unofficial con worker to an official con worker, especially as I was informed that Kummacon had in fact had several cancellations due to people getting sick and that they were a bit understaffed. I figured why not as I have plenty previous con worker experience anyway and now that I was alone and had nowhere else to go (except the con building) that I might as well do my part and be useful while getting green room benefits heheh.

 

I remember I had massive issues falling asleep on the Friday-Saturday night as my panic bedding solution was quite uncomfortable and made my lower back pains worse. I know I slept less than 4 hours that night and I constantly woke up because I was trying to find a position I could sleep in.

Saturday morning came and while I was still morning groggy I was tasked with going outside in the rain and putting up Kummacon posters nearby with painter's tape. Well at least that woke me up. xD 

Back inside I had breakfast in the green room and then I was assigned to 'yleisvänkäri' duty (general con worker, so I did a lot of random stuff) and just patrolled the con area, emptying trash etc and just offering a helping hand wherever needed.

Kummacon info desk. Notice the reindeer plush.

Kummacon mystery game. Solve the disappearance of their mascot.

This year Kummacon had a 'Noir' theme if you wondered about the mystery and detective approach, including the names of the lecture rooms mentioned earlier. 

Near the entrance was this black paper roll on the wall that visitors could draw on, I love it when cons do this as it's such a simple thing to add but it creates a lot of engagement and personality over the course of the weekend and it's fun to go back to it over time and check what has been added. I forgot to draw Buttman on it though, I'm so sorry I've stained the very legacy I promised to upkeep. ;_;

Notice the sunbathing seal at the very corner. xD

I've always liked Kummacon in general, it's a very low-threshold event for first-timers as there's never been an entrance fee to date and it has this comfy, tiny community feeling. It doesn't have all the 'oohs' and 'aahs' that bigger cons do in terms of content and spectacles but Kummacon has the classic con repertoire to keep you at least entertained through most of its duration: anime karaoke, board games room, Artist's Alley, merchandise and Asian sweets to buy, cosplay competition, panels, escape room etc. There wasn't a video games room (which usually is a staple at cons) but other than that I don't really felt like it was missing anything crucial. And I'm low maintentance.

Part of the main area where sponsored shops were.

If you wanted plushies Urumi had you covered...

... and if you wanted sweets there was Manga Cafe.

Sponsor area viewed from opposite direction. Notice Pelimies in the corner.

Opposite side of sponsor area was for chillaxing.

Artist's Alley was located in the corridors and back area.

Tuira's school as a host building wasn't optimal but decent enough to function. The layout of the building is kinda awkward, even for a school. It's very narrow and feels like it's 75% corridors lol. So needless to say there were a lot of situations when certain passages would get really crammed because people would pile up there and block the hallways due to walking into the area from two different directions simultaneously etc – the Artist's Alley was particularly notorious for creating bottlenecks like this as half of the tables were placed along a narrow reverse U-shaped corridor while some were lucky enough to be put in the tiny open area (as seen on my photo above) at the end of the building. At some point the issue was somewhat lessened by putting up signs showing the walking direction, although I lowkey feel like this should have been predicted and prevented already before the con started by putting up big arrow floor signs or markers etc. The papers were very easy to miss, to be honest.

I found someone sus.

There's one thing that really caught me by surprise though and that was the popularity of the second-hand shop, aka 'conikirppis'. For those not aware of how this works it's basically that con attendants can sign up prior to the event to leave items that they want to sell (price marked etc) and those will then be sold in the second-hand shop by some workers who have that as their responsibility. Unsold items will then be returned to the owners along with money gained. But yeah, what I was about to say was that already before it opened its doors on Saturday there was a clear line of people queueing in front of the door. And it kept getting bigger. And bigger. And bigger. And by the time it was time to open I saw that the line of people had grown so big that it ran across almost the whole length of the corridor, all the way to the Artist's Alley. It was crazy. People had to line up and patiently wait for their turn to have a chance of entering the second-hand due to it being located in a small classroom. I kept walking by the area many times due to being a worker and I noticed that the line was there and it felt like it didn't get any smaller for the longest time. There were even some con workers outside the door regulating the entrance to keep it from escalating into overcrowded chaos.

Found this funny. xD In the second-hand shop.

I realized I forgot to take photos of the merchandise hall as it was located in another interconnected building (you had to go outside and enter another building directly to the right and then left, if exiting from the school's courtyard) but yeah, this was where you could find the non-sponsor shops and booths. Some other conventions like Matsucon and Kazecon also had their information stalls here along with some book publishers and the local LGBTQ+ organizations. 

Oh and yeah, to fit with the mystery theme one could find these funny little "missing person" posters scattered around the con. These gave me a chuckle or two, there were more of them and I'm not sure I even spotted them all as I didn't venture into all the available classrooms to check.

I gotta say I'm happy things turned out the way they did in the end. Sure that the panic mode before departure was absolutely horrible, in every imaginable way, but I had some serious luck in misfortune and I ended up being a valuable asset for the Kummacon crew too – so it worked both ways!

And I gotta admit that I had a lot of fun and that the co-workers were all really pleasant and fun personalities to deal with although I'm in awkward potato mode quite often lulz. 

The Green Room had some really wild discussions going on at times, like I remember walking into some deep talk about condom-flavored ramune that escalated into playful lobbying for a 18+ version of Kummacon that should naturally be called Kuumacon (literally Hotcon). I had to excuse myself at that moment and leave the room before I died. It was hilarious.

The secrets that lie inside the Green Room...

Oh and I gotta say that I slept the Saturday-Sunday night so much better and guess why? I got to upgrade my bedding! There was this other con worker who also slept in-location and after I happened to spill the beans about my uncomfortable last night's sleeping ventures I was told that I could borrow the megasized bean bag chairs that had been in use for visitors to sit on during the day. Well, needless to say I went to the chill corridor and grabbed one and dragged it into my lair!

Panic bedding 2.0

It's not that visible on the photo but the blue one is easily twice the size of my emaciated black one and had so much more stuffing. Obviously I slept like a rejuvenated king considering the original situation, almost. :D

I couldn't stay the full day on Sunday. As I had prebooked my bus tickets already before I had any idea that my original plans would fail it of course meant that I was limited by those times. So on Sunday I left the con building around the 15:00 mark after doing some last minute Artist's Alley gift shopping for friends and relatives. 

My treasure haul for myself. The shirt was a worker bonus.
(gifts for others not pictured)

All in all I had a great time at the con and left with a warm and fuzzy feeling in the chest. I will definitely keep on attending Kummacon as it feels like a safe place to be, it's relaxing, moves at its own pace and the people behind it work hard to keep it free and inviting for everyone. It's not perfect but you can tell that the organizers do it with their hearts; it's a passion project that has endured over the years and for that it deserves a round of applause. I would definitely be interested to go as a worker in the future too.

That's it for this time, thanks for reading!

~ Shiro Samurai out.

Matsucon 2019 – I play Pokémon Go everyday

Hello geeks!

Matsucon came and went and it went really fast. So for those not in the know Matsucon is an anime convention in Oulu, Finland. This was my second time at Matsucon (the previous time was at 2017) and just like last time I went as a con worker again. Matsucon was held during 3-4 August and just like all previous times (as far as I know at least) it was held in Pohjankartano, which is a great building to hold a con in.

Let's go!

Matsucon banner next to the info desk.

I went to Matsucon alone this time. I was supposed to wake up early as fuck on Saturday morning (4:30 Swedish time) but of course I had somehow not heard the alarm go off so, err, thank god I had not put on the airplane mode overnight like I usually do cuz mom called me 5:30 like "are you coming? I've been waiting outside for 5 minutes" and I was like oh fucking shit I was still sleeping! So the morning was stressful. Thank lord I had prepped everything the previous day so I basically just had to take all my stuff, feed the cats etc and then I was done. 

So I got a ride to Kemi train station. When we arrived I noticed there was no train already waiting on the rail, which seemed a bit weird seeing we were behind our schedule and the train should have been leaving within like 15 minutes. But then I looked at the actual train time table thingy and had an "of course" moment; VR (the Finnish train company) is jokingly often abbreviated to Venaa Rauhassa which translates literally to something like "wait in peace" or more freely "take your time". Almost every Finnish person knows this joke and most of us have experienced it too.. and so did I this time. Tbh I don't like joking about VR too much because my late maternal grandfather worked for them his whole life as a safety equipment installer, so it's a bit emotional for me as, when his memory failed him because of Alzheimer, the few things he would remember and talk about was his work.

Late train, supposed to originally leave at 7:25 local time.

Luckily the late train didn't screw up my work shift as I had the first shift as a ticket seller at Matsucon, which meant I had to be there at 10 for the briefing and information. The con officially opened at 11 if I remember right.
So when I got to Oulu the clock was like 9 something and I went straight to my aunt's place to eat some breakfast and dump some stuff that I didn't need at the con. I also noticed that the nearby park next to where my aunt lives had three gyms extremely close to them on Pokémon Go (I didn't play when I last visited) so I popped my mons in the gyms and then headed for my aunt's apartment. I quickly ate some breakfast (didn't have time at home) and then walked towards Pohjankartano, which was only like a 5 min walk from there.

Matsucon main entrance.

View when standing outside, facing away from the main entrance.

As a con worker I entered through a side door, not the main door pictured above. The merchandise sellers etc were still putting up their booths and I went to look for the person responsible for the ticket workers. I found my target and soon enough got my volunteer badge.
After some information on what to do at my work station I was left with another person to handle the ticket sales. Tbh I had a nightmare about this a few days before the con but luckily it was nothing like that. xD

Matsucon entrance view after opening.

I learned later that I was seemingly the only ticket/entrance volunteer as the only other person had cancelled. I also heard that Matsucon had fewer con workers this year than the previous year overall but that they still managed to run the con sufficiently; this explains why pre-con the volunteer recruitment closed and then opened again and how people were added even on the last days before the con – they really needed anyone they could get and thus I'm happy I came to help!

I was never alone at the entrance by the way, as one of the "yleisvänkärit" (general volunteers, basically workers who were put at whatever station that needed them) was always there with me, so we were 4 people during the first hours of Saturday and then 2 on the other, less active hours. The biggest rush was during the first hour of the opening on Saturday – we sold out all Saturday tickets during that first hour and it became evident very quickly that probably the double would have been needed as long after they were sold out we still had customers who would have preferred to buy just the Saturday ticket instead of the weekend ticket. And I even heard that this year more Saturday tickets were available than last year and still it was far from enough – and we actually had a lot of excess/unsold weekend tickets. :/ I can wholly understand that Matsucon wants people to come on both days and thus most available tickets were weekend tickets but to be honest, at every con there will always be a lot of people who only have interest to go on the main day for whatever reason (even on big cons, not just small ones) and often one day is enough to experience a convention to a satisfying degree (basically the "I've now seen everything and gotten a general idea/feeling of the event" feeling). Especially smaller cons like Matsucon, Kummacon etc can be "seen" in as little as a couple hours if you don't plan to attend any programs and just want to check the merchandise and the general atmosphere of the con. I'm not saying this with any ill intent, I'm just being realistic because this is typical human behavior and can be seen even on concerts, festivals etc that people just want to go on the day that they deem is either the best or fits their schedule. I'm guilty of it myself. ^^"
So yeah, I actually felt bad having to tell customers many hours after the Saturday tickets sold out that "sorry we don't have one-day tickets for Saturday anymore, they sold out already on the first hour". Many were visibly disappointed but bought the weekend ticket anyway (despite only being able to attend on Saturday) and others walked out, not buying a ticket at all. I often had to mention that the price difference is only 5 € to get a customer to buy the weekend ticket instead of just leaving. It was especially noticeable on younger people (children) because there were a few, if I remember right, who seemingly couldn't even afford the 5 € price difference between the Saturday and the weekend ticket; they most likely had been given exactly 12 € by their parents and they expected there to be one-day tickets (not gonna lie, I would have expected the same) and then suddenly didn't have enough money to even get inside. :'( Imagine if it would have been their first con...

This was my workplace for the weekend. Mikael was great company!

Our job was also to sell Matsucon merchandise.

On Saturday I had little time to actually explore the con. My only free time was more or less just enough to go see the Valitut Lapset (lit. chosen children) Digimon stage play, which I really wanted to see. Quite frankly it was the only program that I didn't want to miss and so I'm really happy that I was given time off to go see it. You see, Matsucon was the only convention in northern Finland to which the Valitut Lapset play even came to, the rest was in the far south which is out of my range. So aside from helping out as a volunteer my main reason to go to Matsucon was for the stage play.

The Digimon play lasted from 13-15 and it was in the main ceremony hall. It was forbidden to record or photograph the play so I have obviously no photos of it, but if the play is eventually recorded and uploaded on Youtube I will add the link here!
I was actually wearing a Digimon themed shirt during Matsucon (yep, I didn't cosplay and just went casual for comfort's sake) and it was funny because one of the volunteers watching over the hall's entrance actually commented on my shirt being very fitting. xD The play was really good, I loved every second of it!! It follows the story from the first season of Digimon up to the point where Angemon defeats Devimon for the first time. Of course a lot of things was omitted out of time restrictions (two hours) but it was very easy to follow, well-made, genuinely funny and just extremely nostalgic for all of us 90s kids who watched it on television during the good old days, lol.

Matsucon had this information/advertisement screen.

It showed a map of the con building, for example.

First floor view, near the entrance and stairs.

View from the stage in the main hall, first floor.

View of the main hall, seen from second floor.

All merchandise sellers were in the main hall on the first floor, just like is usual at cons held in Pohjankartano. It's the best place for merch booths, no doubt. The area is very well lit because of the massive glass windows and it's roomy because of the open design. I didn't have time to check all the merch sellers thoroughly but I noticed that there were several sellers which I had either never seen before or sellers which I recognized from bigger cons but that rarely, if ever, attend small cons. Positive surprise! I also felt like there were more merch sellers than average for a small con?

This was a local specialized tea company, never seen before!

Helmets, props and such. Not sure if info booth, commissions or display? xD

Bard & Jester leather shop, not a common sight in the north!
(I remember seeing them at big cons like Närcon)

That happy Gengar was really cute, not gonna lie.

Can we like talk about how much I secretly wanted that Magikarp?

... and that Growlithe.
But I have so many plush dolls already I'm running out of space lol.

More plushies. I heard some of the Ginga plushies are soon sold out.

Urumi had a lot of figurines and collectables as usual!

There was a table filled with keychains, gachapons and such.

Lisan Otuspaja was a new sight!

The booth above was super cool and featured dog ears, dragon tails and mermaid headpieces etc for sale. I ended up talking with Lisa, the owner, a lot and she does fursuit commissions and was really nice to talk to! Her booth was only at Matsucon on Sunday as on Saturday she was part of the Digimon stage play and that was seemingly the reason her booth even was at the con. Thankful for that, I'm heavily considering to commission her at one point as I've been wanting to try fursuiting for years now! Such a nice person. ♥

And here were mostly figures and merch of sci-fi, fantasy and video games!

No con without Pocky. Except I feel that Pocky is overrated. xD

Manga Cafe is a regular, Asian sweets and drinks.

All my purchases this year was from the Artist's Alley, which was located on the second floor in one of the, err, can I call it a corridor? There was a lot of pretty things for sale at the AA, just like always. It's often the first place I go and check once I get to a con, but because of work I only had time for a proper look on Sunday as I arrived a bit earlier to the con and thus could do my purchases before my shift started, which was at the con's start but luckily some sellers had their tables ready and could sell those 30 min before the official opening. x)

Artist's Alley general view.

SaQe-Art's table, I've bought from this artist many times over the years.
Always a pleasure to see at Artist's Alley!

Close up of the table. In love with the new unicorn merch!

A part of Elontaival's table. That Thanos glove thou.

Matsucon had a green room for all volunteers and panelists etc. It was located on the third floor. Whenever I felt hungry I went up there to eat some bananas, I almost lived on bananas tbh because for some reason I don't really like eating bread (and there was nothing I like to put on bread anyway) when at cons. The green room was pretty okay but I kinda wished there would have been candies and/or chips too and not just bread and fruit because sometimes you didn't want to actually eat but just wanted something sweet or salty. Thankfully some biscuits came later so that made my day! Olen häpeilemättä läski. :'D
I didn't see any warm food either, I think Matsucon 2017 had micro burgers? It's not a big deal but something quick and warm would have been nice because, as I've implied I had like no work breaks (save for one to go watch the Digimon play) during Matsucon's most active hours so I could not go out to eat in town either as it would have taken too long. I still managed to not be hungry though as I went to the green room to chug bananas whenever I felt the hunger start to kick in. I understand I got long work shifts (in comparison to the con's total open hours) because of the lack of volunteers so it's totally understandable but it was a bit meh to only have free time on both days during the "con is almost over for the day" last couple hours as this made it so that I felt like I had to stress, fearing some booths might start closing down before I get around to them etc. Luckily this didn't happen though and so I'm pleased enough with what free time I got, although it would of course have been sweet to be able to roam around when there was a lot of buzz, hype and cosplayers walking around.

View of the green room.

Biscuits, yum! My day was saved lol.

Still extremely thankful though that I got the last hour off from my second Saturday shift because it collided with the start of Pokémon Go's Ralts community day (which was revealed on extremely short notice when compared to previous community days), which is incredibly precious because of how meta-relevant Gardevoir is and the rarity of Ralts in the wild to begin with. So the last 3 hours of Matsucon's Saturday I spent chasing Ralts in Oulu city and thus almost all the photos, shopping and exploring had to be done on the last hours of Sunday instead.

During the community day I went quickly to my aunt's to eat warm food, drop off my bag and then I headed back out again. It was really fun to play a community day event in another city because everything was new and I actually saw a lot of PoGo players in all different ages and it was really refreshing to see how accepted it was to play in Oulu centrum. No kids screaming at me how I'm such a nerd and loser for playing Pokémon. It felt like every second person who walked past me was also playing PoGo and it made me feel all fuzzy inside, aaaaaah~

The rest of the day I watched my aunt play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Wii U until like midnight and then we went to sleep. It was so cozy!

Sunday morning I woke up with some time to spare. At least I got to sleep more than 4 hours like on the night before, lol. When I was preparing to head out I saw that there was a Rayquaza raid starting at the nearby park so I headed there before going to Matsucon. When I was done I saw another Rayquaza about to start at a gym near Matsucon so I ran over there and raided that one too with the locals, as it hatched just in time to allow me to play it and then head straight to Matsucon to start my shift.

There was a Matsu Cafe.. somewhere outdoors seemingly.

Saw this sign but have no idea what it was? Seems nice though.

Sunday was a lot more chill than Saturday but we still sold over 100 Sunday tickets, which seemed to be a new record as the ticket sale responsible was mega excited. xD There were actually surprisingly many visitors even on Sunday, a lot more buzz than I initially expected there to be! It's nice to see that even smaller cons can keep visitors interested to come on the lesser day of the two.

Matsucon had a karaoke room. Of course people were singing
the Digimon opening after the play ended. xD

Video game room. Would have liked to play a bit but oh well.

CRYO's roleplaying game room.

On the second floor was also the secondhand shop, it's basically that congoers take with them stuff that they want to sell and then the shop sells them during the con. I've thought about bringing stuff there too as I have quite a lot of items that I should sell and shortage of space is a real issue, lmao.

Matsu's secondhand booth. "Kirppis" as we say in Finnish.

The amount of uncommon Pokémon plushies in this box
surprised me! Was hesitant to buy though because not sure if fakes or real.

Once my Sunday shift ended I took the last open hours of the con to snap all these photos and check the merch sellers. At this point a lot of people had already left and so it was pretty quiet – the general con excitement mood was vanishing as I saw people packing. Well at least it made it easy to scout the shops as I didn't have to elbow my way forward or peer between people's backs. Once I was done shopping I left the con as I felt like I was too tired and out of energy to really feel like a visit to the video game room anymore.
My train left 18:30 and this time it wasn't late at least.. in fact I almost missed the train because I underestimated how long it took to walk there! I saw the train arriving to the station when I was quite far away and I was like "oh shit" and ran a fair amount of the distance. Luckily I made it on time with like 5 minutes to spare but still. That was sweaty.
Also, the train was filled to the brim with young men doing the military service. I've never seen so many on a single train at the same time, it was stupidly hard to find a free seat and even harder to find a person who wasn't wearing green camo gear. xD

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As my closing words I want to say that Matsucon is heading in the right direction. It's a really pleasant and safe-feeling small con that doesn't feel all that much like a small con. Despite the shortage of volunteers I didn't run into nor hear of any obvious shortcomings regarding the overall quality of the con. I'm hoping that Matsucon will stay for a long time, especially now with Kitacon seemingly gone for indefinite time it's important that the north holds on to the remaining cons that we have! I will definitely attend as a con worker in the future too and help out in any way I can. I might not be as active of a congoer as I once was but at least the local events I want to support. ♥

My con loot! The items on the right side are for friends.

Thank you for reading my summaries! Take care~

Shiro Samurai out.