Geek It! Sydney Supanova Expo 2014: Cosplay, Exhibitors, Syfy FanCam, Hanabee Maid Cafe

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Suz in Anime, Geek It!, Out&About, Spotlight // 3 Comments

Ctrl+GeekGirl recently attended Sydney Supanova Pop Culture Expo 2014 (June 13-15) and it was definitely one of the best Supanova conventions yet! Read on for highlights of the convention!

Cosplay

Despite the ever-changing weather, fans in their thousands still managed to rock up at Olympic Park Showgrounds, braving the harsh winter weather whilst wearing epic cosplay costumes. From popular anime series such as Pokemon and Naruto to video games such as Assassin’s Creed and Mario, many joined in the cosplay spirit with great enthusiasm.

While there is nothing particularly unusual about this year’s cosplay costumes, we do see the usual favourites such as soldiers from Attack on Titan, Vocaloid, Dragonball Z, Harry Potter wizards, Pokemon onesies and many more. Much to the delight of many popculture fans, there were a few popular characters that clearly stood out in the crowd including feminine Avengers, Frozen sisters Elsa and Anna, Maleficent, RWBY girls, and Sailor Scouts (from Sailor Moon). Check out some of the cosplays from Sydney Supanova below!

Exhibitors

This year, Sydney Supanova sure decked out a lot of space for this year’s three-day convention. Whether it is panels, workshops, guest signings, Artist Alley booths, merchandisers, comic illustrators/authors … the variety of booths and events opened to the public is absolutely amazing and definitely a fanservice for many of the convention-goers. Fans seem generally enthusiastic about the booths — although getting through the packed crowd proved a little difficult at times. Check out the photos below of some of the exhibitors at this year”s event!

Syfy FanCam 360

A major feature at this year’s convention was Syfy Australia’s Syfy FanCam 360. Celebrating the Defiance Season 2 premiere (June 20), Syfy FanCam 360 steals a moment in time to take a complete 360 degree photo of you and/or a group of friends which then gets stitched up to make a short video clip. Not getting the image just yet? Try to imagine creating a scene from something like the Matrix. And because of this, Syfy FanCam 360 was a fun, interactive booth that garnered a lot of interest from Supanova fans.

Ben from the Syfy FanCam 360 team mentioned that “a lot of effort was put into the massive project” as the team spent most of the weekend constantly uploading videos onto the Youtube page and sharing some of the best videos on the Syfy Facebook page.

“Syfy FanCam 360 is certainly a unique experience that fans get to take away from this year’s Sydney Supanova convention — for free as well. A few of the special guests have also joined in the fun, including Yuri Lowenthal (also known as the voice-actor of Ben 10) which certainly attracted a lot of fans’ interest to the Syfy FanCam 360.”

Check out the video below to see the unique setup and awesome Syfy moments!

Hanabee Maid Cafe

Another popular melting point was Hanabee’s Maid Cafe. For the first time at Sydney Supanova, fans were able to experience an entirely new aspect of ~Japanese popular culture, and this was done by none other than having a RWBY-inspired Maid Cafe.

For Otakus, many would be accustomed with the concept of Maid Cafe but for most Western pop-culture/comic fans, it would have been a unique experience for them, especially the idea of maids and butlers serving high tea-like treats and entertaining customers at the same time. We were lucky enough to have a quick chat with one of the maids, Umi, where she gave us an insight into the background of the RWBY Maid Cafe.

Q: What do you guys hope to take away from having a Maid Cafe at Sydney Supanova?

This is actually the first Maid Cafe at Supanova this year, and because of this, we are trying to establish a place where people can hang out, relax and enjoy the Maid Cafe experience at a large convention. In the past, there have been Maid Cafes at other conventions such as SMASH! and Animania and since the concept of Maid Cafes have been very successful with those conventions, we want to bring that experience over to Supanova as well.

Q: Why has RWBY been chosen the theme for Hanabee’s Maid Cafe?

Sponsored by Hanabee, the Maid Cafe is generally to promote the release of RWBY Volume 2. In addition to this, we’ve also got Rooster Teeth’s Lindsay Jones and Michael Jones as major guests at this year’s Supanova which ties in perfectly with our Maid Cafe. For those who don’t know, they voice the characters of Ruby and Sun on the show, and their presence is a real treat for many fans of the show.

Q: Tell us, what are you doing to fulfill this RWBY-inspired Maid Cafe?

At the moment, we’ve got exclusive footage and previews of Volume Two on the screen. We’ve also got a menu that consists of four dishes inspired by the main characters of the show. Ruby (the main character) is red so she’s got a waffle stick and strawberries and cream. Weiss is a white-coloured character so she’s got classic lemon sugar pancakes. Blake has a black and white monochrome theme so she’s got a drizzled hot chocolate waffle stick and because Yang is yellow coloured, she’s got banana caramel pancakes.

Q: How are people finding the menu?

We have had many people come into the Maid Cafe saying that the whole experience has been worth it. The most popular dish of the weekend is probably the Blake-inspired dish — maybe it is because that it’s the most classic dish to try at our Maid Cafe. We’ve been seeing a lot of people coming back for another two-three times just to try the remaining menu which is pretty good to see.