There were many super fun things this year at Kumoricon that really stood out to me, and were fun to see happening at the convention.
Lots of fan meet ups, even unofficial ones around the convention. It was cool to see groups of cosplayers from the same series posing together and making new friends. The photoshoots they were doing were great for people watching and people were making some pretty silly TikToks. The K-Pop Demon Hunters and the Love And DeepSpace groups were super fun ones to see and interact with. The LADS cosplayers were really playing into the characters and doing lots of “moments” from the game with fans.
This year trinkets seemed to be the new thing that people liked to give out to others, little keychains they made, photocards, and 3D printed goodies. This was very cute and sweet for people to give out and a fun memory for anyone who received them.
The other two big things I noticed being handed out were friendship beaded bracelets that people had made to give out to cosplayers or people who attend certain panels. I, myself, received two of these bracelets when I was cosplaying Rumi. They were both K-Pop Demon Hunter bracelets, and I love them so much. This is giving me ideas on what to plan to maybe do in the future, since I have a year till next year’s Kumoricon. The other big thing was ribbons. I’ve been seeing this mostly at Dragon Con, but lately PNW conventions have slowly picked up on this tradition and have started holding meetups to trade ribbons. Lots of times, just wearing a certain cosplay, or complementing someone else cosplay can get you a ribbon. The artists in artist alley also started giving away ribbons when a certain amount is spent at their booth, and most of the time you can pick among a few choices.
Lastly, the last biggest thing that stood out at this convention was all the Love and DeepSpace! There were three different stamp rallies, way more merch in the artist alley and vendor hall, more cosplayers, and an actual panel. The panel has got to be by far one of my favorite things I’ve seen this year for LADS. The panel was Love and GoonerSpace, and had a packed room. If you are wondering about the Gooner part of the title, well I’ll tell you three things. 1-There is an Urban Dictionary definition, 2- no I will not state it here, and 3- despite the actual dictionary definition, people use Gooner/Gooning in a different way/terminology. Besides this, everyone in the panel seemed to have a lot of fun playing Kahoot and trying to become number 1 Gooner for LADS. One person was way ahead of the rest for the majority of the game, but the first five winners did all receive a prize (a goody pack of their favorite guy of the five that was still left when they went up front).
So, so many things were stand outs this year at Kumoricon that brought something new to enjoy. I hope a lot of these things continue on to be a tradition at the convention and we get to see it again next year!
Did you go to Kumoricon? What were your highlights? Feel free to leave a comment below or chat with us on Threads at @theconventioncollective, or Bluesky at @theconcollective.bsky.social
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