Colossalcon East 2023 Convention Report And Gallery Part 1

I’d like to start things off here with a bit of a foreword before we get into my first article on Colossalcon East 2023. This will be the first of three articles on the convention, each accompanied by a photo gallery, as usual. The first article here will be a general overview of the convention, covering the basics of what the event is and what there is to do. For those of you that are already familiar with the event and are looking for a more in-depth editorial type of article, stay tuned for my next pieces. If I may borrow a quote from a Ric Flair promo — “Don’t worry. I’m gonna let this one build before I crank it up for you, OK?”

Colossalcon East returned to the Kalahari Resort & Convention Center in Pocono Manor, Penn., for their sixth annual convention on September 7-10, 2023. The convention expanded from a three-day convention into a four-day event this year.

It isn’t uncommon for some attendees to check in to the venue hotel of a convention the afternoon before it officially starts and take some time to hang out with other people that do the same. This is often referred to as “day 0” of a convention. With the activities being offered by CCE on Thursday, the first day of the convention this year, I’m inclined to think of it as sort of a “day 0.5”. When taking some time to get acclimated with the convention center layout on Thursday, I immediately noticed that the Artist Alley, Dealer’s Room, and Market Room were not open. There were, however, a decent number of panels scheduled for the first day, and the gaming room was available for attendees to enjoy, among other things.

In fairness, a single day Thursday pass was only $15 at the door according to CCE’s official website. A multi-day pass was $90 at the door. While I’m not sure what the pricing was last year, I’m fairly certain there wasn’t a huge price hike with the expansion to four days. All things considered, I would say that the additional day is a welcome and very reasonably priced addition for the convention. The only significant increase in cost for attendees would be staying an extra day in a hotel, should they choose to do so.

A wide variety of panels and programming were scheduled across the four-day event. This included fun interactive game show type panels, educational panels where attendees could increase their skills and knowledge in areas such as cosplay creation, social media posting, and photography, along with some more adult-oriented panels in the late-night hours covering topics such as hentai.

The Dealer’s Room and Artist Alley were open from Friday to Sunday of the convention. While they both could probably be considered somewhat small in comparison to other similar conventions, attendees could still find a nice selection of art, clothing, games, anime, figures, and other various collectibles for purchase there.

Colossalcon East’s Market Room was also open from Friday to Sunday. In this area, attendees were allowed to sell their wares, with different types of items permitted on each day of the event. On Friday it was host to the CCG & Gaming Market, where attendees could sell collectible card game cards, tabletop games, video games, and other related merchandise. Saturday was the Otaku Art and Craft Fair, where attendees could only sell items of their own creation. On Sunday, the Otaku Flea Market was held, where old anime, manga, video games, figures, cosplays, and more could be put up for sale.

A gaming room with numerous gaming cabinets was open throughout the entire event, all the way up until 2am on the first three nights. Arcade games available included Initial D Zero, Jubeat, Bishi Bashi Channel, BeatStream, and more. Console games were also running for both casual and tournament play. Games available for play included titles such as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Street Fighter 6, and Tekken 7.

Other events held during the convention included a formal ball, a Beyblade Burst tournament, karaoke (casual and competition), and an in-character cosplay contest.

The Kalahari’s vast water park is a very popular destination for attendees throughout the event. Billed as “22,000 sq ft, filled with wet, wild fun”, the water park is a location many attendees stop by to get photos of their swim themed cosplays, relax in the grotto hot tub, and enjoy the slides and other rides. While the water park can be considered sort of an unofficial part of the convention during the day, Colossalcon East attendees could purchase tickets to an after-hours late night swim event held on each of the first three nights of the convention, during which the area is more of an official part of the event. Tickets to this event were $40 per night or $99 for all three nights. This offers attendees that aren’t staying at the Kalahari hotel a much cheaper alternative than buying daily passes to the water park, which ranged from around $70 – $100 per day during the convention dates.

Overall, Colossalcon East offers a very unique and mostly enjoyable experience for attendees. The cost of attending the con can be quite high for many people, due to the high price of the venue hotel (which comes with many hidden fees), as well as the cost of travel and dining, among other things. That said, most attendees find it worth the cost in the end for the type of experience that you can only get at a Colossalcon event.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that everything went off without a hitch. Quite a few problems arose during the weekend, in particular at Kalahari’s water park. I’ll take a deeper dive into the confusion, inconsistencies, and other issues that came up during the convention in my next article.

Cosplayers in this gallery include niji.wav, kitakosu, _kellybu, jasmitazz, gamerayame, amber.bam_ber, nano.cosplays, tsukidaisukecosplay, andrewmrivera, Sakuraharunogirl, mizubimayhem, prllme, cussing.kaily, roses_bonescosplay, zadrabug, Majestic Misato Cosplay, drifblim, teh_lizzeh, sera_tonin_cosplay, piexv, gothicci_cosplay, eventidesky, 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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This was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, many of the characters being cosplayed here wouldn’t exist. Please consider donating to the Entertainment Community Fund here.