Our Cosplay Masquerade takes place during Saturday afternoon and is the place to be to see cosplayers strut their stuff and show us what they're made of.

We welcome entrants of all skill levels to the Masquerade, so don't be afraid to sign up and get out on stage! This is your chance to really impress the room and make sure everybody knows just how much work you put into your outfit — cosplay's a tough job, after all, and you deserve some recognition for all that effort!

Those who are serious about their craft, and really want to put their skills to the test, can also enter into the Cosplay Competition — this is a judged portion of the Masquerade that includes a pre-judging session to really drill into the details of why your cosplay goes above and beyond.

Whether you're set to dance the night away or you're a budding mime artist, we'd love to see what secret skills you've got hidden up your sleeves!

KGT?! takes place right before the Closing Ceremony on Sunday afternoon, and it's always a unique experience — we've had burlesque shows, opera singing, and many other interesting acts appearing on the docket, so nothing is too strange for the stage! (Within reason, of course.)

It's a game of life or death — sort of. Cosplayers take the place of the pieces on a giant chess board, and under the watchful gaze of two Chess Masters they must duke it out until only one side remains standing!

Play begins as normal, with pieces being moved to another space along the board — but when it's time for one piece to take another, battle commences! The attacker can use whatever ridiculous method they choose to remove the defender from the board, and once the losing piece hits the deck they're out of the game and play resumes from where it left off. The usual rules of chess apply, though — if a lowly pawn can make it all the way to the other side of the board, the Master can pull a defeated piece from the grave and put them back in play!

Each year, Kitacon welcomes some well-known faces from the anime merchandise world - as well as some of the finest artists around - to the Dealers Room, where they can peddle their wares to our wonderful attendees.

The Dealers Room is open for most of the day on Saturday and Sunday, so make sure you plan in some time to spend that hard-earned coin of yours and go home with some truly excellent purchases.

If there's one thing we here at Kitacon know what to do, it's throwing a great party — and this time is going to be no exception.

Each night there'll be a variety of DJ sets available to tickle whatever musical fancy you might have, as well as our staple Sunday evening event — the All-Genre Riot. It's a true clash of the titans as DJs line up to pull out their best picks, hyping up the crowds and ending the weekend with a bang!

Cosplay is always more fun with others, so we're setting up a cosplay meets schedule to help you coordinate with groups of like-minded folks!

Each meet will focus on a specific series or fandom, and will be given a timeslot and a location where you can get together to take photos, exchange social pages and chat about your favourite characters and plot points together. Each meet will be looked after by a primary organiser (the person who submitted the meet to us), and you'll have half an hour to get the perfect set of shots together.

During the weekend, we'll have three designated meet spots — the bottom of the steps outside the Student Union building, the lakeside close to the Scarman accommodation, and the red "3B" sculpture near the Bluebell accommodation blocks.

A staple event at Kitacon, the AMV showcase allows talented editors to showcase their art of combining kick-ass tunes with anime, TV, movies or video game footage to create a visual feast in the form of an AMV. We always get a great range of entries, and we’ve had some cracking winners in the past — 2024 promises to see more amazing videos created for Kitacon!

As in previous years, the competition will also include CMVs – Cosplay Music Videos! This is a chance for talented editors to show off their skills with cosplay themed music videos using footage taken from events they’ve attended.

There will be one grand prize across the entire competition, and the winner will be announced at the Closing Ceremony!

Each year, during the Closing Ceremony, we hand out awards to both our winners of the various competitions we run during the event, but also some extra-special ones that we hope will inspire and commend members of the community who have gone the extra mile.

It's our way of saying thank you to the amazing people who make Kitacon what it is — you, the attendees and members of the UK convention scene that make events like this possible!