Colossalcon East 2024 Writeup And Gallery Part 1
Colossalcon East returned to the Kalahari Resort & Convention Center in Pocono Manor, Penn., for their seventh annual convention on September 5-8, 2024. Let’s take a look at what the four-day event had to offer this year.
Panels and programming are a staple of any convention, and Colossalcon East had a jam-packed schedule from the beginning of the convention on Thursday, all the way up until the end of the event on Sunday. Panels covered a variety of topics including anime, cosplay, photography, video gaming, and much more. The late-night hours featured adult-oriented panels covering topics such as hentai. “The World of Internet Degeneracy” and “Everything You Wanted To Know About Tentacles” were a couple of the panels that attendees 18 and over could end their night with.
The dealer’s hall and artist’s alley offered a variety of games, artwork, figures, and other collectibles for purchase. The convention also featured an area that was called the “Market Room,” which was a flea-market type of shopping experience, where regular attendees (as opposed to dealers) could set up and sell their wares.
On Friday of the convention, part of the Market Room was set aside for a cosplay meet & greet. Cosplayers with both large and small followings were hosted there, including sakuraharunohgirl, lainey.cat, houndorable, elizawitchcosplay, cobaltcosplay, candescent_cosplay, venus_nebulous, and zirconmomotaro.
Frontier Pro Wrestling brought a unique experience to the convention for attendees on Saturday. In addition to a traditional professional wrestling event that was held, the organization also offered a couple of interactive experiences for fans. They kicked off the day with “promo battles,” where fans could compete to see who had the best mic skills. After that, attendees had a rare opportunity to jump in the ring for the “Create an Entrance” event. Fans could pick an entrance theme and make their way down to the squared circle as the crowd cheered them on.
A rave was held on Friday night of the convention, featuring music from ZOA, DJ Amaya, and Revolution Boi. Concerts were also held during the event by Lame Genie, the Triforce Quartet, and Bit Brigade.
Cosplay photoshoot/meetups were a big part of Colossalcon East, with more than 80 scheduled across the four-day convention. You’ll see a handful of photos from some of these meetups scattered across my photo galleries from the event, as well as separate galleries for the meetups I hosted myself — the Fighting Game Swimsuit Shoot, and the Baldur’s Gate meetup.
Karaoke, a formal ball, an Itasha car display, and a cosplay contest were some of the other features and attractions at Colossalcon East this year.
Venue and pricing
The venue itself is definitely one of the biggest draws of the convention. Billed as “220,000 sq ft, filled with Wet. Wild. Fun,” the Kalahari’s vast waterpark is a popular destination for many convention attendees. Guests staying at the Kalahari hotel are provided with wristbands for entrance to the waterpark during their stay, and visitors could purchase day passes for $70 – $100 per day during the convention dates. There was also an after hours waterpark party for Colossalcon East attendees held during the first three nights of the event from 10:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. each night, with tickets priced at $40 for a single night, and $99 for all three nights.
With four conventions across the country, and another one coming in the next few years, Colossalcon offers a unique experience amid a host of other anime conventions that often feel quite the same. If you’re an anime convention fan that is tired of the same old stuff, it’s definitely worth checking out one of the Colossalcon conventions.
Colossalcon East will return to the Kalahari Resort & Convention Center in Pocono Manor on September 4-7, 2025.
Among the cosplayers in this gallery are Majestic Misato Cosplay, piexv, ellevishh, girlonfirecosplay, thedarkdoe, shir0gami, jayythepisces, vanz0ffical, general_pierogis, kayluna_cosplay, styx.cosplays, cosplay_kay, niji.wav, peachyaki, _brierodriguez, kitbitcosplay, patrickjhiggins, toxic_wavesss, strawbunni.cos, wendellcosplays, xxkohbun, mizubimayhem, mallyboouwu, cosplaywithchristina, the_bearpaugh, katastrophecosplay, 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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