What happens at a cosplaying convention?What if you wanted to plan one?

[misstsukino]

Start small. A convention is a little bit too much.

You could either start a Cosplay Club or organize a single party or event. A good example of an event might be a Cosplay tea party or a Cosplay Dinner, Lunch, Brunch or Breakfast. Maybe everyone meets in a park for snacks and tea or you organize it at a restaurant. You could charge people a fee. Maybe $5 if it's just a tea and snack thing in a park, maybe as much as $20 if it's at a restaurant and includes food. Maybe you don't charge anything and just make it a gathering where everyone pays for their own food. You could also do a dance, but you might need to find a place to host this event, which could cost money. Or you can just start a Cosplay Club. Start a monthly or weekly club that meets up and talks about cosplay. You can get together to do a group cosplay, to see if you can get all of the characters out of a series.

A whole convention is a lot of work. If you start small with little events like I've mentioned above, then you can move on to doing bigger events and possibly even a convention. It costs a lot of money to run a convention. You don't know how many people would be interested, so it's best to start off small and if you get enough interests, go bigger. Also, if you're under 18 you can't legally sign a contract. If you're young a lot of people might be hesitant to do business with you. If you do anything that would involve a contract you should get someone older to help you. However, if you start off doing the smaller events and can show them that you've been doing these events for a set amount of time and they've been successful, then they might be willing to work with you.

I'm not going to answer some of your questions about running an actual con because it is a lot of work and I think you should start small. You will also need to front money for it, in which you hope to make it back by attendance. You should see how many people would be interested in it before you make such a big commitment.

Questions I will answer...

How far in advance you plan it depends on what you decide to do. If you had a gathering set at a restaurant where people pay for themselves then you could get it together in a month. You set up an evite or an event on Facebook or on some sort of site where people can sign up. (Meetup.com is a good site, but they charge you.) Send it out to people you know and people locally would be interested in it. You might also create flyers that you could post in local anime shops or on bulletin boards at school (if they let you). If you are going to provide food or try to get a deal at a restaurant then you'll probably need over a month, maybe two. If it's a small event you need to give people at least 3 weeks notice. Any extra time would be time you need to prepare.

Also note that wherever you hold it that you make sure people know how to find you. I guess it's kind of obvious with people in cosplay, but you should be specific. If it's in an country park, that is big, you may need to tell them it's over by the picnic tables to the south of the lake. If you're in a big restaurant you may say that you'll be in the back right corner. Maybe you have balloons or signs set up (if possible).

Unless you can rent out a part of the school or if it's a private school event, then I would advise against holding it on a school compound. If you tried to tell people to meet at the courtyard of your school it could cause trouble. Some schools don't allow outside people and some people might not feel comfortable going on school grounds (especially if this is High School.) However some schools might rent out an auditorium or gym for events.

Hopefully this helps you. Good luck!! ^_^