Cosplay: CLAS:H/ICGP 2017, Regional Edition

Now here's a cosplay event that's (mostly) really all about cosplay. CLAS:H is short for Cosplay Live Action Show: Hybrid and is a series of events around Indonesia designed to find the hottest cosplay talents around the nation. Since ICGP (Indonesia Cosplay Grand Prix) has similar aims but with the added objective of sending winners to the World Cosplay Grand Prix, it was folded into this series of events some years back. I went to one of the regional editions of this event on Sunday, and I had a great time; I chose to go as Ash in his classic outfit.

I'm unfit for the CLAS:H/ICGP-specific competition - they have a stringent list of requirements, for which I and my costumes hardly qualify - but fortunately they do have a general cosplay competition in the form of a cosplay parade or walk, which I took part in, something that I've done since last year with Pokémon costumes. Unfortunately, so did the nearly 200 (!) other cosplayers who also took part in, and this made for a long parade or walk. It's safe to say that with such an immense number of cosplayers, there were problems during the event, for the cosplay parade and otherwise.

One of these problems is that when the organizers told us to stand by on the right 15 minutes before the parade, they meant the stage right, not the audience right. As a result, a number of cosplayers (including me) who misunderstood the instructions had to trudge across the audience to the other side after being told as such during our supposed standby time. And during the parade, as the CLAS:H parade always has everyone on stage at the end, we were all herded and penned in a (perhaps too) small space before we were all brought back for the finale. As an aside, I didn't win anything, as did approximately 190 of the others; the judges only chose the top 10 of what they were impressed with, so the chances of winning from the start were small and got even smaller with the growing number of participants.

The event itself had a few other problems. The venue was smaller than previous years due to a drastic shift in locations, but did sidestep weather problems, something that quite played a part in previous years. However, the weather did cause the immense number of cosplayers and the burgeoning number of visitors to be crammed in the small venue, something that was less of a problem in previous years. In addition to cosplay, there was a small bazaar, and unique to this year, a computer game tournament and a card game tournament; it is clear that these too occupied space, leaving even less space for cosplayers. A corollary of Parkinson's law (not related to the disease) for cosplay events is that "cosplay events expand to fill the venues allotted to them", and that is definitely true in this case.

As mentioned, this event series is for finding great cosplay talents, and so the winners from here will get a chance to participate in the national edition which will be held in May. I only saw one of the performances before I had to go home, as this year the event-specific competition was held much later in the day. You can imagine that the competitors for that event had to struggle to stay all day until the moment they have to perform.

While I'll likely remain unfit for the CLAS:H/ICGP-specific competition, I will still come in later editions and cosplay, in particular take part in the general competition, as that is the heart of the event. Hopefully I can take away something next time while in my Pokémon cosplay.