Amin Abbas

DUBAI: Middle East Film and Comic Con (MEFCC) organized an engaging and exciting cosplay workshop on Nov. 18 in Dubai, featuring rules and categories for the cosplay competition at MEFCC 2024, a Q&A panel, various competitions, and more.

Taking place at Paramount Hotel Dubai, the first part of the workshop was an introductory insight into the exciting world of cosplay by Khalid (UAE Cosplay) and Paris.ae (MEFCC Ambassador), where they talked about the definition of cosplay and the challenges of taking the cosplay hobby to an expert level as well as a profession.

“It’s wonderful to have this workshop to meet up with friends and people from the pop culture community who want to know about the world of cosplay and the challenges that the cosplay community in the UAE is facing to show their passion at various events,” said Khalid regarding the event. 

The second part of the workshop was representing the rules and categories (Kids, Best Performance Onstage, Best Craftsmanship, and World Cosplay Summit (WCS) 2024 Preliminaries—Team UAE) for the cosplay competition at MEFCC 2024.

“For the cosplay competition at MEFCC 2024, we have made a list of requirements and regulations for each category, including the limitations of the participants for the cosplay competition, in order to highlight the best cosplayers at the competition and represent their best performance and craftsmanship on stage,” Ayman Alkaily, Lead Content Manager at MEFCC, shared. 

The third part of the workshop highlighted the journey of Essa (Erim Cosplay) and Alex Can Cosplay, who won the WCS 2023 preliminaries and represented the UAE team at the WCS 2023 Finals championship that happened last August in Nagoya.

“It was an exciting and unique experience for me and Alex as we went through the preparations for the championship by creating the cosplay costumes, rehearsals and skits, team collaboration, and practicing for our performance at the stage for the World Cosplay Summit Championship,” Essa said about her participation in the WCS 2023 championship. 

At the end of the workshop, there was a Q&A panel between the presenters and the attendees to share ideas and suggestions about the creation of the cosplay costumes and the challenges of working on the skit and other elements of the performance on the stage, as well as a quiz competition that featured various questions from various pop culture categories.