Comic princesses and movie monsters in the halls of Messe Basel
Published: Thursday, May 9th 2024, 14:50
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The three-day pop culture trade fair Fantasy Basel opened on Thursday. It is the largest trade fair for fantasy and science fiction themes, computer games and comics in Switzerland.
Anyone who walked through the halls of Messe Schweiz shortly after the doors opened would have had no doubt about the statement made by the exhibition organizers, who are expecting a record number of over 80,000 visitors at the tenth edition.
This should bring the guest fair very close to the most successful in-house fair, Art Basel, which, however, welcomes its public over six days and not just three.
Festival der Cosplayer
And even if you can find extravagantly dressed people at the art fair, this is nothing compared to Fantasy Basel, which is a huge festival for so-called cosplayers. These imitate fantasy characters from a movie, manga, anime or video game.
In addition to visitors with rather marginal disguises, such as a Pokemon plush cap on their head, there were some extremely elaborately dressed figures wandering through the halls: for example, orcs from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy alongside Disney princesses, knights and a strikingly large number of heavily armed US soldiers and many "Stormtroopers" from the "Star Wars" series dressed in white.
They all put themselves on display or visited the numerous stalls selling games, films, tattoos, comics and cosplayer paraphernalia. These included many stalls with swords and other weapons that are omnipresent in fantasy comics, games and films. Anyone entering with a weapon - and there are a lot of them - has to pass through the weapons checkpoint at the entrance.
Cosplayers will have the opportunity to meet actors and actresses from fantasy films on the days of the fair. Or to step into the epidemic escape tent of the aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières, which has been very happy to take advantage of the organizers' hospitality for several years, as one of the attendees told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
©Keystone/SDA
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