For a brief moment last weekend, Florida Atlantic’s Student Union hosted over 1,000 cosplay, comic and game enthusiasts for Geek Fest Florida. Doors opened at 10 a.m. on both Saturday, March 26 and Sunday, March 27.

“I love the idea of having a con on a university,” said Chris Helm, a freshman studying multimedia. “To me, it’s very fun because I live in the dorms. I can easily get here since it’s not that far away and it’s really fun to hang out with friends here.”

There were 131 booths of vendors, selling everything from comic books to collectables.

For the first time in Geek Fest history, The Burrow became a part of the convention. The restaurant was were open to all participants, with the stage being open to different events every hour, such as an improv comedy show by Halo Kitty.

The second floor of the Student Union featured panels such as the “Geeks of War: Anime & Game Trivia” in the Palmetto Palm Room, and a “Your Voice and Experiences Matter Cosplay Bullying Panel” in the Sugar Palm Room.

The Live Oak Pavilion was also open to the convention. Room A was the designated gaming room, where they held “Street Fighter V” and “Super Smash Brothers U” tournaments for cash prizes. Room B featured costume workshops and photo booths throughout Saturday and Sunday.

Gaming

After a security check — flashing the green bracelet to on-duty staff members — con-goers were immediately greeted by two dozen booths before they reached the staircase. One booth in particular was run by FAU’s own video game organization, College Gaming League.

“[We’re] trying to advertise for some events for game night, it’s our weekly thing, and a co-program we’re doing with Fifth [House] Ensemble at FAU Music Department,” said Kyle Wehrs, club president of CGL.

Wehrs and the club were looking for student gamers interested in playing the Playstation game “Journey” on stage accompanied by a live chamber orchestra. The Fifth House Ensemble, a Chicago-based group of musicians that tours the country, received a copy of the game from Sony without the music, and plans to perform the soundtrack live while it’s played.

“So what they do is, somebody plays the game on stage — it’s projected on stage for the whole audience to watch — and the events in the game that normally trigger music, instead trigger sheet music that’s on their music stands,” Wehrs explained. “And so if you go into a new area [within the game], then their sheet music changes and they’ll actually play live music to whatever is going on in the game.” By the end of Saturday, CGL found two FAU students interested in performing — Djordje Minic and a student who preferred not to be named.

The CGL booth wasn’t the only gaming-themed hotspot;  Live Oak Room A featured games throughout Saturday and Sunday, hosted by Level 3 X Factor Cosplay and Microsoft.

The room had a cleared-out center with gaming setups all across the room; Microsoft provided 11 stations of Xbox Ones, including a “Just Dance” Kinect setup, while Level 3 X Factor provided eight total gaming stations between Wii U, Playstation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and two GameCubes.

“For me, I love playing video games and what I’m trying to aim for as well is being a video game designer,” said Helm, whose favorite part of the convention was the gaming room. “I love cons in general because it lets me get a better idea of what other people think.”

On Saturday at noon, eight players participated in a “Street Fighter V” tournament. The entry fee was $10, and the first place winner, Justin Dunbar, took home $48 while the rest of the prize money went to second and third place. Later in the day, 13 players participated in a “Super Smash Brothers U” tournament, with one of the tournament organizers, Keith Nochimson, taking first place.

“It was great,” said co-organizer Kevin Carignan, who wasn’t concerned that his co-organizer won first place. “[Keith] paid his fee like everyone else.”

Panels and Events

In preparation for the burlesque show at 8 p.m. on Saturday, cosplayer and burlesque dancer Ruby Rapture hosted a Q&A event at the Burrow at 1 p.m.

Although there were only a few questions from the audience, Rapture spent most of the time sharing anecdotes about her cosplays.

At a previous convention, after she revised a Poison Ivy cosplay several times, Rapture replaced the plastic leaves with real ivy to impress judges at a costume contest. Unbeknownst to her at the time, the ivy had been in contact with actual poisonous ivy, causing inflammation on her thighs and buttocks.

After the Q&A, Rapture called up two men and two women from the audience to the stage. She taught them dance moves — pin-up-style poses — on the floor of the stage while the audience laughed.

While Rapture answered questions at The Burrow, another panel one floor above discussed bullying in the cosplay scene.

“That was actually my first panel. After my mom passed I decided to do panels to try to help others,” said “Your Voice and Experiences Matter Cosplay Bullying Panel” organizer David Harvey. “It was a bunch of stuff about bullying like what can we change for the community between conventions and outside of it as well.“

When Harvey was growing up, he was subject to bullying due to his weight gain and asthma. He became depressed, but when his mother died of stage 4 lymphoma cancer, Harvey decided to “make a change, for myself, to help others,” according to his Facebook post.

In addition to bullying, his panel also addressed sexual harassment, which can be a problem at conventions.

“[Sexual harassment] is one thing that I wish the conventions would take into consideration … most conventions don’t care.”

Later in the day, fashion and costume designer Angela Sophia of Yuniiku Designs organized a “Steven Universe” fashion show, where cosplayers modeled the outfits that she designed and sewed by hand.

It began with 12 women in outfits based on “Steven Universe,” a Cartoon Network show. They each posed on the stage before leaving. Then, Sophia brought up models in “Pokemon” costumes.

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Sophia said about the “Pokemon” portion of the show. On the event and panel schedule, her fashion show is only listed as being for “Steven Universe.”

“Pokemon” battle music played as six models individually approached the stage. There were three men and three women, each paired together by outfit.

After each model took the spotlight, they were arranged in pairs to simulate a “Pokemon” battle. Each couple proceeded to do several action poses on the stage.

The costume contests took place in The Burrow on Saturday and Sunday and included cosplays from video games, superhero universes and more. Saturday’s first place winner was a purple spartan from the video game series, “Halo.”

There were prizes for first through third place, as well as special awards by the judges — Jason Evans, Ai Tenshi Misha, Ivy Cosplay and Carrie Marie on Saturday’s contest, and Knight Kids, Star Kat, Ellei Marie, and Seraphima & Kyleigh for the Sunday contest. Cash prizes for the entire weekend totaled $1,000 and additional prizes included certificates, T-shirts and toy bundles.

After the official convention ended, there was a “Superhero MasqueRave After Party,” which included the “Orion Slave Girl Revue” — a belly dancing performance — by Hips of Destruction and a burlesque performance by Cupcake Burlesque.

Turnout

The convention opened up at 10 a.m. on Saturday, and had about 70 guests and vendors at the event by 10:30 a.m. About one-fifth of the vendors had not arrived, but by noon the booths were full and the area was crowded.

According to Irving Santiago, one of three main organizers for Geek Fest Florida, the convention was filled by 4 p.m.

“From our front entrance passes, [there were] well over 1,000 [people],” he told the UP. Santiago is known for having one of the world’s largest G.I. Joe collections assembled by a single person.

Despite continuing the event on Easter Sunday, the halls of the Student Union were still packed with students, staff, guests and vendors — to keep with the spirits, the convention featured an Easter egg hunt and photos with the Easter Bunny.

For students like Helm and other con-goers, the event was a positive experience.

“Having a good time at the con in general and I’m just loving it here.”

Brittany Ferrendi is the features editor of the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet her @BFerrendi.