I'm not sure how well this would work out on a larger scale or with the current time-frame available, but for one of our anime club events that we had here in Lexington was a super speed cosplay event. A few of my friends and I went around our garages and attics collecting old clothes and linens and random things that we didn't need or want anymore and couldn't manage to sell during garage sales, but were in either good condition, or still quite useable and functional.

We boxed everything up into big bins, stored it away for a few weeks before our club event, and when it came time for the 5 minute cosplay contest.. we set up about 10 big wide boxes for the clothes and material stuff, some of the boxes had old toys in it, and the rest of the toys and random items were set up on the table and covered with cloth to keep them "secret"..

Beforehand, we took cheap envelopes, printed out a small picture of an anime character with the character's name on it, sealed them up, and then handed them out to the participants (we ended up having 17 for our event, which wasn't too bad of a crowd for the space we had).

We explained that the rules were.. No total destruction of the clothes, assured them all clothes were cooties free (and we did make sure.. >D), and the items that were not clothing related were fair game, just don't make a mess and try to keep the toys intact, because everything was going to goodwill after we finished.

THEN! We started a timer, everyone ripped open their envelopes, took their assignment, and it was a mad dash for the supplies..

I believe one of the most hilarious results was this one guy getting Maya Natsume from Tenjho Tenge, who ended up snagging a basketball and a soccer ball for "enhancement", and made "hair" out of a long bedsheet. The winner ended up being a guy who got generic mecha envelope and used two toasters as jet thrusters, a skate helmet as the headgear, and a wiffle bat as his arm gear.. plus the results were just really neat for the outcome.

Only a few things got severely messed up during said cosplay event, but all the toys, clothes, and random stuff that was still useable got donated to Goodwill later on the next day, and the top 5 costumes won randomness from ADV (since they do in fact.. rock out when it comes to supporting anime clubs).

It's just an idea, and I can't imagine the insanity that could go down at a larger event like this, but if it was planned right it could serve a dual purpose of collecting stuff for Goodwill. The only problems I see with it is that if it was announced beforehand and donation requests were made from congoers, I don't think many people would want (or be able to) bring an extra bag of donation items along with them to the convention.

I think it would need to be something arranged a month or two beforehand and the people running the panel would need to do the majority of the collection, and then when it was all said and done, they would need to make multiple trips to a Goodwill/Salvation Army donation center most likely since there could possibly be a metric crapton of stuff left over taking up space from other events.

The logistics of everything seems shaky for a larger con, but I assure ya' it's a freakin' blast to watch the mad-dash up to the supplies and what comes out of it since the character selection is completely random for everyone and nobody knows who they have to cosplay until the very second the timer starts counting down.

Opinions? Suggestions? Thumbs up? Thumbs down? OMFGgettheFouttahereBurn4Srsly?

Basically it would become Iron Cosplayer I think.

Is that a fairly regular event at cons? I mean, I -think- I've heard of that specifically mentioned before, but I've not seen an Iron Cosplay panel discussion before so I didn't know precicely what it entailed.

We basically got this idea from a Livejournal community called "Ghetto Cosplay" where they had characters or concepts of the week and everyone did the ghetto cosplay thing with things around the house.. there were specific rules about not sewing anything, and coffee filter chii ears were to be expected from at least one cosplayer a week. Just random goofiness like that.

Do you go to UK or something?

Yeah, that sounds like Iron Cosplay, which isn't at AP but various other conventions in the US (Anime Boston runs a pretty good one).

Honestly its fun and a cute idea, but we already have a lot of "Iron ___" panels. I'm thinking that if we did something like this, it could be an Atrium activity, since it doesn't require much time or space. I see it working out better in those regards. ^_^

Actually, no. But practically every friend that I have down here does. And I got to be active with the anime club there for a few months straight before the issue with spoilerrific attitudes couldn't be curbed in some of the attendees, nobody was really doing anything about it, complained.. president at the time was like blah blah blah it's your fault you haven't seen it cause it's been out forever blah. So, I kinda cut back on my going, like. completely.

I felt really special to have managed to stay in the dark about Cowboy Bebop for so long until I got a little over 3/4th of the way through it when random guy X yells "OMG I *insert obnoxiously loud spoiler about Cowboy Bebop*.." right in front of me in the auditorium >.<.

the event I reference was a smaller get-together that ended up being just as big as the normal parties a little while after the departure of the previous "It's your fault you don't watch anime 24/7" president.

Oh, I see. Yeah, I hear the UK anime club is full of drama and that not too long ago they had a sort of coup where they ran off the officials that weren't students or something. Which makes sense to me, but, I dunno. I've never been-- but from what you're telling me, it sounds like a waste of time.

I was just curious...

It's the responcibility of all citizens to shape the governments they are governed by. Finding out your schools anime club is lame is all the more reason to join it and with you bring change!

This cosplay thing sounds like a fun idea, though I'm not sure how we would get all the resources together. As Burnside said, I don't think we could rely on civilians to bring in stuff, but at the same time I don't think anyone on staff wants to coordinate this. I'll definitely write this one down though, and if it suddenly becomes feasible in the future I would love to go for it. AP was founded on quirkey little panels and events, before we got into being hardcore and intellectual. I think it might be nice to bring back some of the simpler and sillier events sometime.

Alternatively, we could save those for one of our side events, like a party or Fieldcon or something.

Heh, yeah... No.
I agree, but my heart's just not in it.

I think it would be good for Fieldcon. XD

(Just putting my nose into the convo.)

I'd be willing to organize it Mike. If you want to do it that is. I know for a FACT that my mom has a storage unit full of old junk and clothes that she wants to give to good will anyway. I don't think she'd mind some of us sorting through the garbage bags of stuff. Besides, even if we DO save it for fieldcon it'd still be a good source of materials ;)

OMG I would sooo wanna get in on this!

not only does it deal with cosplay but its also like PROJECT RUNWAY!! :nyan:

OMG PROJECT RUNWAY!

That just gave me an awesome idea that'll never happen!! Crap!

Idea being: What if like for the cosplay contest, we could do this separate thing where the judges could come up with a theme (like.. "Spice up Naruto's outfit" or something), and then omg we could do a Project Runway thing at the end of the contest and the winner would be included with all the contest winners. I seriously just wanna "Auf" someone I think.

Oh snap that'd make me Tim!

I guess I oughta add I'm all for this idea!

That sounds awsome, even if its too late for this year, it should totally be on next year!!

Really? I'd say you were more of a Michael Kors. ^_~