Amin Abbas

DUBAI: Middle East Film and Comic Con (MEFCC) organized an engaging and exciting cosplay workshop on Jan. 25 in Dubai, featuring rules and categories for the cosplay competition at MEFCC 2025, a Q&A panel, various competitions, and more.

Taking place at Rove Healthcare City, the first part of the workshop was an introductory insight into the exciting world of cosplay by Ayman Alkaily, Lead Content Manager at MEFCC, where he talked about the definition of cosplay and its importance for communicating and gathering the pop culture community.

The second part of the workshop highlighted the journey of Mars Cosplay and Outlaw Cosplay, who won the WCS 2024 preliminaries and represented the UAE team at the WCS 2024 Finals championship that happened last August in Nagoya.

“It was an exciting and unique experience for me and Outlaw Cosplay 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,” Mars Cosplay said about the participation in the WCS 2024 championship.

“It’s very important to prepare everything in advance when you take part in the World Cosplay Summit Championship, as the judging at the championship is very strict; you have to make everything from scratch and be creative and accurate about it. Also, you are representing yourself, the community, and the country that you are from at a global stage, and that’s why you need to be at your best behavior,” Outlaw Cosplay said about his participation in the WCS 2024 championship.

The third part of the workshop featured a session by Tidal Idols about the basics and challenges of creating an idol dance group and performing on stage.

“The group was founded in March 2020 and it was an unfortunate time for everyone as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in a very unforeseen way. We went through a lot of challenges and we have become who we are today thanks to the support of the community and we are all looking forward to doing our best in upcoming events,” said Kalypso, founder and head manager social media content manager of Tidal Idols. 

The fourth part was the Quickfire Cosplay Challenge, where the different groups of the attendees challenged each other by making their own cosplay with basic materials in a limited time to win prizes.

The fifth part was a cosplay wig/make up tutorial by Mars Cosplay and Alex Can Cosplay, where they shared the basics and methods of arranging the make-up and wig for cosplayers.

The sixth part of the workshop was representing the rules and categories (Kids, Best Performance Onstage, Best Craftsmanship, and World Cosplay Summit (WCS) 2025 Preliminaries—Team UAE) for the cosplay competition at MEFCC 2025.

“For the cosplay competition at MEFCC 2025, 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 and we are bringing an amazing list of judges for this year’s competition,” Ayman Alkaily, Lead Content Manager at MEFCC, shared.

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.

“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 getting details of the cosplay competition and activities at MEFCC,” said one of the attendees at the event.