*EveryWear Skits and Photoshoots Past Con Reports & Picture Galleries

Anime Festival Orlando 6

August 5-7, 2005 at the Wyndham Orlando Resort.

Here's 175 photos from the Cosplay Contest that happened Saturday night. Thanks to Joe and Dottie for the photos.

Check out 140 photos from the Costume Contest that took place on Sunday.

By Mara-chan

We were only able to attend Anime Festival Orlando for one day this year, but it was still a lot of fun. AFO's hallways seem smaller again this year as more and more people crowd into the hotel for the festivities. Like many people, conventions have become more than just a place to cosplay, watch anime and buy stuff in the dealer's room. They've become places to meet old friends and make new ones. AFO was no exception as the halls were filled with people chatting and showing off their costumes.

The Cosplay contest was different this year. Instead of the judges scoring secretly and deciding a winner at the end, they scored the contestants live on stage. Each was give a dry erase board and graded the entries on a scale of one to ten. This sped up the results, but I did feel it put more pressure on the judges to score higher in order to not offend the audience or contestants.

Luckily, most of the skits were of a better quality than what we've seen at some past conventions. The audience really enjoyed the skits... That they could hear. Cosplayers need to learn to use microphones or project their voices better, even sitting in the front row we had trouble hearing at times.

The hosts did a good (and loud) job keeping things together, although their "It's a family show" motto was lost after the first few skits. After a little trouble adding up the scores (some judges liked to use decimal points to keep things interesting), winners were picked in several catagories: Best Musical, Best Comedy, Best Gaming, Best Drama and Best of Show. Some skits could have been in several catagories, but they were allowed to pick which one to be judged in. Best of Show was given to the highest overall score with the second highest in their category taking Best Musical.

Overall the costumes were quite good and the show was a lot of fun.

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