Colossalcon East 2022 Event Report And Gallery Part 3: The Wrap-Up

We now come to my third, and final article and photo gallery from Colossalcon East 2022.

In my previous article, I mentioned some of the issues that attendees encountered with Kalahari staff during this year’s event. I’d like to make one thing very clear about my intent. I wrote about these things not because I want to “bury” Colossalcon East, but because I want the convention to improve. This is an event that I have called my favorite convention in the past and promoted perhaps more than any other event I’ve ever attended.

I want to have that “warm and fuzzy” feeling that when I attend Colossalcon East, I’m going to have a great time with no major problems. Although I had a good time overall at this year’s event, as did most attendees, I left the event with concerns about next year’s convention.

I’ve privately speculated in the past that the Kalahari Poconos does not have a particularly good relationship with Colossalcon management, at least in comparison to the relationship between Kalahari Ohio and Colossalcon. Between the events that occurred on Sunday in 2018, and what went down this year, it’s fairly clear that my speculation is warranted. There are other, smaller things that led me to have these thoughts as well. For example, why are attendees not offered discounted day passes to the water park? That has been in place for many years at Colossalcon Ohio. Granted, CCE has not been around nearly as long as Ohio/Prime, but the convention is now in its fifth year, so it’s well past its startup phase.

The biggest difference between the conventions at these two locations is that Colossalcon East does not draw enough attendance to book all of the rooms at the Kalahari during the event. As a result, there are some “normies” staying at the venue during the convention, who may be unpleasantly surprised with the high attendance during an off-season weekend that they anticipated as being much quieter and more relaxed. This can and does lead to complaints from non-attendees that are uncomfortable with things at the venue.

Ultimately, it’s up to Kalahari management to properly deal with such complaints. Some convention attendees do unfortunately push rules to the limit and beyond, and valid complaints should certainly be addressed. Likewise, it’s important that invalid complaints are rejected as such.

It’s important that Colossalcon East management fights to maintain the privileges that we have, and not fall back. If I may be a bit dramatic and quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: “The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!” At the same time, it’s important that attendees that break rules are dealt with properly. This is very much a “party con,” but it’s important that things do not get out of hand, because when they do, we risk further restrictions.

I hope to see this relationship improve, and that the convention continues to evolve. I hope to cover Colossalcon East once again next year and get my “warm and fuzzies” back.

In this final 2022 gallery you can find cosplayers rottonsushi, subifan05, nicoblukitteh, phoking_minou, martel_cosplay, _secret.girly_, ralenta, Still Talking to the Voices, tayosauruscos, smirizarry, endless.skies, tempestys, arsenicarmageddon_, kirliara, 2d_dey, djpebbles07, dalgonlily9, Sakuraharunogirl, shanem201, cin_von_quinzel, lilystitches, and many more.

We now use SmugMug to present cosplay photo galleries and will post all photos there, with a link to each gallery in its own gallery article. This will allow us to give you higher resolution images to download — still for free.

To view the entire gallery, just click on the image below. If you are pictured in any of our galleries, feel free to download the images and use them non-commercially on social media, with appropriate credit.

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