DREAMHACK Winter 2016, Jönköping, Sweden

(All the good photos by Gabriel Kulig :D)

I'm still pretty ecstatic about the whole event, so excuse me if I make no sense in this blog post xD....

So last weekend I happened to go to DreamHack! DH is a gaming festival and the world's biggest LAN party, taking place in Jönköping, Sweden. It was expected to welcome over 50 thousand visitors over the weekend... So, yeah, it was pretty big :D

I decided I was gonna go only two weeks before the event and also wanted to take part in the Cosplay Championships and since I didn't have a decent costume, for some reason I thought making a new one was a good idea. I had a couple of "candidates" and in the end went for the Project: Ashe from League of Legends. The reason being it was a tricky and quite a unique cosplay, since I haven't seen anybody do it. Because I'm hipster like that :D

Tickets booked, everything sorted and I only had 10 days to make the costume. I bought some materials online and kind of lost a few precious days waiting for the materials to arrive. Soon after I started making the costume, I realised why it hasn't been cosplayed yet, lol. It was actually trickier to make than I thought, but I'll explain more in another blog post ^^

On wednesday morning I got up at 5 am to make some progress on my costume before going to work and when I came home, I went back to it right away and it was still nowhere near being finished. So that night I didn't go to bed at all. In the morning I went to work and after I got home to pack my stuff and take the train to the airport. And then there's me getting super unlucky with public transport for some reason -_- Everything that could go wrong, just went wrong and I missed my flight by 6 minutes (well, I missed the check-in by 6 minutes, the plane was still there, but I wasn't able to board it)... The following events were also super stressful and I was beginning to think I'm never getting there :( but thanks to my super awesome friend Morgan, I was able to take the next plane to Sweden. And I was so excited! And exhausted. In the end I haven't slept for about 48 hours, but I was so upset about missing the plane, I was also mentally drained. Anyway! I got there and finally got to sleep :3

The next day we were finally on the way to DREAAAMHAAACKKKK :D woot woot! And like I said.. it was pretty big, but I didn't expect it to be THAT BIG. Computers everywhere >.<, the festival itself was huge, plus they also had several stages with gaming competitions going on at the same time and an exposition with a number of companies presenting their products. There was just so much to look at. And we got to see the Royal Swedish Army Band performing music from video games!

Friday night we stayed at a super nice hotel, but I unfortunately can't remember the name :( so that's my future travel plans ruined! Forever :D And Saturday morning I was trying to fix my costume a little bit... Since it got damaged on the plane... Let's just say I was quite upset :D At least my bow was ok, which was my main concern, since I had to make it so it fits in my suitcase and I was worried it will break and I won't be able to put the three bits together. But it was just a piece of cake, the worst bit was my armor pieces falling off the suit, because where I glued the velcro on, it didn't hold very well. Lesson learned, next time, I'll just stitch it on >.<

When we got to the venue I had a few hours before the competition, so I went to get ready. And then... I bumped into eSuba Pigi and GE GE GE GERMIAAAAA! Germia is a pro gamer and also an amazing cosplayer from the Czech republic. Until then I've only heard about her and seen her photos, so I was so happy to have found her. We were chatting (speaking Czech, haha, yippee) for a while and I realised how incredibly nice she was and also so humble! :3 There was so many amazing costumes, I literally fell in love each and every time! Soooo goooood :') After we got ready, each cosplayer got "pre-judged", the organisers explained what's going to be going on, made sure we all understand what we're doing and then we walked all the way behind the main stage. The whole event was really quite interesting, there was a performance of the Wild Bangarang in their awesome leggings :D And then we went onto the stage in three groups of 10, each one finished by a performance of one of the cosplayers.

All the costumes were amazing, so I can imagine the judges must have had quite a hard time finding the TOP 3. In the end in the 3rd place ended up "Stickweeds crafting and cosplay" and his full metal Empire Soldier from Vermintide, 2nd place Meruna and her Wraith King from DotA 2 and in the FIRST PLACE went toooo... GERMIA!!! :) Well done girl, you were amazing! I also want to mention all the other amazing people - Marugitto Cosplay, Saltybird Cosplay, The Only Fashion, Sekyla, Tokah Cosplay, Ciwiel, Paxby Cosplay, Nimdra Cosplay, Elybi Angeleyes, Addie's Cosplay, Cosplay And crafting by Pauline, Fanny Cosplay, Lukahult Cosplay and others :3

^^ SO MUCH HYYYYPEEEEE!!!

Big shout out to.. everyone! Thanks guys for making this event so awesome! I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it (well, apart from the nerve wrecking couple of hours just before the competition xD) <3 Much love and see you @ DREAMHACK SUMMER 2017!!!

#videogames #cosplay #events