CRM @ PortconMaine 2019

Written by Aesthel

The Cosplay Realm team recently attended our favorite local convention PortconMaine! Portcon holds a special place in both of our hearts as our home convention, and we always look forward to it every year. This year, Portcon was held on June 27th - 30th at the Doubletree by Hilton in South Portland. The theme for 2019’s convention was <3 (love), making everything extra cute this year!

I have been a part of the PortconMaine staff since 2013, so I got to the convention a little earlier than most attendees to help set up. I’m a part of the Photography staff, so I usually spends a lot of the weekend staffing the free cosplay photobooth room, covering events, and taking photos of cosplayers and attendees throughout the con! Some of my favorite events that I took photos at this year were the Lolita Tea Party and the Idol Fest. I totally wish I was just attending the Lolita Tea Party, all of the food looked SO good at it, and all of the people in their lolita coords looked super cute!

I also spent the entire weekend cosplaying while staffing too. My lineup consisted of Asra (The Arcana), K/DA Ahri (League of Legends), Star Guardian Soraka (League of Legends), Bulma (Dragon Ball), and Rukia (Bleach). That’s a pretty packed line up compared to what I normally do at a con, but since I had a hotel room right at the convention itself I was easily able to go upstairs and between them when I wanted to!

Emily Rey was also at the convention the whole weekend. She spent the con cosplaying, hanging out with friends, and taking LOTS of photos. She cosplayed as Black Cat Symbiote (Marvel), Julian Devorak (The Arcana), and Link (Breath of the Wild). Something really exciting for Em was getting to cosplay with Pashavixen and shoot their Breath of the Wild cosplays together!

Speaking of photoshoots, we both had a ton of really exciting shoots this year! Em and Pasha did a shoot as Link and Zelda, and I did a really exciting shoot with a full K/DA group! We also did a shoot together in our Arcana cosplays! And since Asra and Julian had a relationship in the game, we went super shippy with it. Of course we both took a bunch of photos of eachother outside of our scheduled shoots too, and with the cosplay photobooth we were able to get some really nice clean studio shots of our cosplays too!

Photos from the PortconMaine Cosplay Photobooth. Find more pictures from the Photobooth in the PortconMaine Social Facebook group!

Between staffing, cosplaying, and just generally hanging out I also recorded a full vlog video! Check out the video below if you’d like to see more of our adventures from PortconMaine 2019!

We were really excited to see some media presence at our favorite convention this year! While at the con we noticed lots of news crews reporting on the event, and that made us so happy to see the con getting that kind of recognition! Some notable points of coverage we saw was the Maine CW setting up a green screen backdrop and camera gear. In this little makeshift studio they were recording greetings from cosplayers at the con that are set to air on the channel between shows over the next few months! There was also some (very early) morning news coverage of the convention that I actually got to be interviewed for! I got up sometime before 5 in the morning to get up in full cosplay and be set to be interviewed by 6:15. It felt really special for me to be able to have that opportunity to talk about my favorite convention and what it means to me. I hope that interview convinces someone to check out the con next year!

Something that was pretty new for both of us was attending a cosplay meetup! I had been to some similar events at past conventions, but none of them have ever really been like this one. The Arcana fandom is just so kind, it was so welcoming and we both made a lot of friends at this meetup! After we all took a bunch of group photos together, everyone just hung out and chatted about the game, our cosplays, and our favorite characters. It really reminded me what I love about conventions. Conventions are all about finding similar people that are just as passionate about that crazy thing that you love so much too.

Photos taken by Dr. Lindsay Robusto

Portcon especially has such a tight knit community, for me it really is a second family. Between some of my closest friends who are almost all on the con’s staff, my friends that are attendees, vendors, and artists; this con really does feel like my home. As many conventions as I attend, none of them hit that same post con depression quite like Portcon does. It just makes me look forward to the next year’s event even more though! And luckily Portcon runs a lot of community events throughout the year to gather everyone outside of the convention too!

The theme for next year’s PortconMaine is D20, or Dungeons and Dragons! We hope to see some of you guys there next year!