Amin Abbas

The Middle East Film and Comic Con (MEFCC), an annual pop culture convention, which brings together film, television and comic book fans will take place from March 5-7 at the Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC).

In preparation for the event, MEFCC hosted a cosplay workshop with the support from UAE Cosplayers, 501st legion and Speedy Comics, on February 22 at the Rove Trade Centre Hotel, Dubai.

The workshop featured an array of topics related to the comic and pop culture genre such as, the fundamentals of cosplay costume creation, a brief introduction about the 501^st legion, an international fan-based organization (professional costuming club)  that specializes in the construction and wearing of villains from the Star Wars universe, a discussion panel with international cosplayers who participated in World Cosplay Summit (WCS) in Japan last year, and a presentation on the details of the upcoming Cosplay competition that will hold the World Cosplay Summit 2020 preliminaries at MEFCC.

“The reason for this workshop is because I went to World Cosplay Summit last year in Japan and got engaged with many cosplay communities that came from 40 different countries and they were great.  I wanted to replicate the same thing here in order to connect people who love such content and share a passion for Cosplay with each other, in hopes of aiding people to take their passion to the next level and become professional cosplayers,” MEFCC Marketing Executive and Community Manager, Ayman Akaily said.

“We are excited for the cosplay competition this year as many cosplayers are diligently preparing to showcase their skills and performances to represent the UAE team in the upcoming WCS 2020 as well to win valuable prizes at the event”, Akaily added.

In a discussion with one of the attendees, Khalid Abdul Rahman, Founder and Manager of the UAE Cosplay Facebook Group said, “Our group has different members from UAE and other Middle East countries since it was started in 2012 and now we have over 2700 members which is great for us”.

“The workshop was very informative and the main reason we did it because we are running the World Cosplay Summit 2020 preliminaries at MEFCC which is very important for us to pick the UAE team who will represent us at WCS 2020, so we brought the previous UAE team who participated last year to share their experience and recommendation to all Cosplayers at the event,” Abdul Rahman added.

Members from the WCS 2019 UAE team shared their experiences with Arab News.

“I started cosplaying since 2008 and I was pleased to represent the UAE team at World Cosplay Summit last year which was a great experience for me. We are looking forward to prepare the UAE team for this year’s World Cosplay Summit and hopefully we will be there to support them and encourage them to do their best,” a member from the WCS 2019 UAE team, Salim Mohammed said.

Another member, Maru, elaborated on the teams experience, saying, “Our experience at WCS 2019 was amazing as we met many Cosplayers from different countries as well as big figures such as Takashi Kawamura, mayor of Nagoya. The workshop went very well as we were answering the questions from people, sharing our experience in previous events and giving advice regarding the upcoming cosplay competition at MEFCC”.