Sask. cosplayers show off at Pop Con YXE

WATCH: Pop Con YXE provided an opportunity for many cosplayers to showcase their handiwork at Prairieland Park over the weekend.

Pop Con YXE provided an opportunity for many Saskatchewan cosplayers to showcase their handiwork at Prairieland Park in Saskatoon over the weekend.

“I think it’s just a chance to let go, be yourself for a few minutes and not have to hide your nerdiness,” said Peter Jelinski, manager of signature events for Prairieland Park.

“You see so many people walking around here in their costumes enjoying it, and everybody’s coming up to them and congratulating. It’s just a chance to let loose and have a good time.”

The event itself has been going on for a number of years, but just recently came under the Prairieland Park umbrella.

According to Jelinski, the Prairieland team opted to rebrand it to be geared more towards all forms of pop culture.

Kaitlyn Pawelko, also known as Gelnythe Cosplay, was one of the featured attendees over the weekend.

Pawelko said she began cosplaying a decade ago, as a way to improve her mental health.

“It kind of just turned into like a labor of love, because I make all these costumes of all these characters that I love, and it’s so good for my mental health afterwards and it’s just like a two for one special at that point,” Pawelko said.

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There was no shortage of cosplayers in attendance over the weekend. Many of whom were taking part in a competition. Those who spoke with CTV said that coming together to showcase countless hours of hard work is a rewarding feeling.

“Now we have a place to do that. We can dress up, come to the convention, nerd out of all of like all of our favorite things, we get to talk to each other and talk about all the things that we love and like people who are here for the competition have spent months or weeks or like years working on these costumes,” Pawelko said.

Barbra Elliott-Gomez, also known as Kiri Cosplay, was another featured cosplayer at Pop Con YXE. Originally from Chile, Elliott-Gomez began cosplaying in 2011, and has seen significant success.

With the help of a background in fashion design, Kiri Cosplay was named the runner up at the 2019 Chilean finals of the World Cosplay Summit.

“I think that is very, very important because people need creative outlets in their life. Life is stressful, but this is a way to show yourself and others like, hey, I enjoy this fandom as much as you do, and I enjoy what I do as much as you do,” Elliott-Gomez said.

Elliott-Gomez went on to share that events like this one are particularly important, because Saskatchewan has a very talented cosplay community.

“When I went to Toronto to compete, people were very surprised to see a Saskatchewan cosplayer...there are amazing people here. We need to work harder to hold everyone up to show that everyone here has something to show,” Elliott-Gomez said.

Pawelko said that the province has a lot of potential when it comes to the arts, and she’s excited to see the event grow in the years to come.

“I know when our film tax credit got cut, a lot of the arts kind of went away, which included conventions. So, I’m really excited to see how Pop Con is going to grow and how the Saskatchewan community is going to just really hopefully come together and be like, hey, let’s make this as big as Calgary or Toronto or even like San Diego in a few years,” Pawelko said.

The resurgence of events like this one are exciting to the Saskatoon cosplay community.

“It’s really cool. It’s so nice that it’s local because I travel to go to different shows in three provinces can be quite expensive...So having a local one is really nice for, for local people to be able to come and not have to go hundreds or depending on if you fly, thousands of dollars to other places,” Erin Peake said.

Peake, a Saskatoon based cosplayer, came to the event as Allicent Hightower, a character from the television series, ‘House of the Dragon’.

While the HBO show is known to have a hefty wardrobe budget, and full team of professional costume designers, Peake made her entire costume by hand. From the sewing, to the painted shoes, to the hairpiece, it was truly a labour of love, which she was excited to share over the weekend.

“They [other cosplayers] understand, the joy that goes into it and the creation and how much, how much fun it is, and also how much work goes into it...It takes a lot of work and not everybody realizes that. But other cosplayers do. They look at and they go, ‘that took you forever, and I can tell’”, Peake said.