IMPORTANT NEWS:
Costume-Con 44 Deadline Extended!
The deadline to submit bids for Costume-Con 44 is EXTENDED to December 31, 2023! (Bids are normally due 180 days prior to Costume-Con 42.) Site selection will take place during CC42 (2024) in Aurora, CO. An Eastern location (south or north) would fit with tradition, as would a Canadian CC in any Province. For instructions on bidding, visit How to Bid for a Costume-Con Conference. If you plan to submit a bid for CC44, please contact us ASAP and let us know when to expect your bidding paperwork. We hope to have an announcement shortly after the deadline, sharing your bidding plans as we try to return to something resembling a normal rotation.
Costume-Con 42 Hotel Reservations are now available. For more information, visit: https://costumecon42.org/hyatt-regency-aurora-denver/
Costume-Con 39 took place in San Jose, CA in 2023. Photos are being processed and published and will be available in the Visual Archive as soon as we are able to upload and post them. (There was no CC41 because of the COVID pandemic.)
Archive News:
Thanks to a generous grant from the International Costumers’ Guild’s Marty Gear Costume Arts and Sciences Fund, the Costume-Con Visual Archives has added an Advanced Visual Archive Search. We’re working now on adjusting the tags for each image, so that you can search for costumers as well as costumes. Tags for the 12,000 images on the site will take some time to and we could use some help with this update.
We are also in the process of cataloging ALL of the print and digital collateral that is NOT on the website. This includes program books, Fashion Folios, and a whole lot more. That catalog will be published on our main Data Archive page when we have enough content listed to justify the post.
If you’re interested in volunteering to assist, send info to ccinfo@costume-con.org and we’ll provide you with login information and instructions for what to do.
Conference News
Costume-Con 42 will be in Aurora, Colorado!
Site Selection voting on the CC42 bid took place at Costume-Con 40 in Bethesda, Maryland.
- 3rd Place (1 vote): Baptistown, New Jersey (long live Toni Lay‡)
- 2nd Place ( 3 votes): Kevin and Andy’s Place
- 1st Place (32 votes): The Official CC42 Bid!
The conference will be headed by chairpersons Erin Card and Beverly Warner. Erin recently reported this news:
“We have a prelim contract with the Hyatt Regency in Aurora, Colorado for March 29 through April 1, 2024.” The hotel’s website is here: https://www.reservationcounter.com/hotels/show/614e41d/hyatt-regency-aurora-denver-conference-center-aurora-co/. Costume-Con 42 shall be backed and organized by Shiny Garden, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that organizes inclusive and diversity-friendly fan events in the Rocky Mountain region.
Watch this space as we update with website and social media information.
Costume-Con 43 in 2025 has a home!
CC43 will take place April 11-13, 2025 in Milwaukee, WI, at the Milwaukee Hilton City Center (same as CC28), chaired by Henry Osier. Memberships are now on sale @ $50 through Sunday, 7/16/23. Rates will be higher after that. Fees can be paid through PayPal to <CC2010Milw@cs.com> and you can find more about the conference here on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1240183233251099
FUTURE COSTUME-CONS
(click the links below for more information)
Costume-Con 42: Aurora, Colorado – March 29-April 1, 2024!
Costume-Con 43: Milwaukee, Wisconsin – April 11-13, 2025!
Bids for CC44:
-
None that we know of (Bidding ENDS December 31, 2023)
IMMEDIATE PAST COSTUME-CON
Costume-Con 39: San Jose, California – April 21-24, 2023
PREVIOUS COSTUME-CONS
Costume-Con 41: CC39 took the place of CC41
Costume-Con 40: Bethesda, MD – April 1-4, 2022
Costume-Con 38: Montreal, Quebec, Canada – March 13-16, 2020 (Canceled due to COVID-19 Pandemic)
Costume-Con 37: Danvers, Massachusetts – March 22-25, 2019
Costume-Con 36: San Diego, California – May 11-14, 2018
The Gallery Rebuild is complete. But wait. There’s MORE.
After six months of sorting through tens of thousands of records and almost ten thousand photographic image files, we have finished the visual and data migration to our new system, driven by NextGEN Gallery.
When we started this process, there were over 9,400 images stored in folders that were sorted and identified in ways that made it hard or impossible to identify the individuals who were captured during our 37 years of activity. These image files never disappeared, but the engine that displayed them broke. With a new system in place and a new file structure that helps us identify which images belong to which entries or people, we now have the ability to add images to existing folders, create new sections of the archive, and display all images dynamically.
There are now data pages for every type of data we track, whether we have that data in our archive or not. In many cases, especially for events from the last decade, we found content on the Web Archive site archive.org. Our WordPress theme includes a “Featured Images” option and we have selected a wide variety of costumes, dolls, and other exhibits that highlight our pages.
Searching the Archives
There are now TWO search functions. The sidebar Search function with the magnifying glass (below) searches our Data Archive. You can look for a name, a panel title, or other relevant data and pull up the relevant pages. To find content within the page, you can also choose an entire CC’s set of posts using the abbreviation for each CC. (CC14, for example, will pull up all of the data on file for Costume-Con 14).
The Data Archive remains a work in progress. We are cleaning up that content now and hope to add more as we assess the missing information and build the Data Archive Catalog.
The Visual Archive search pulls up photographs based on costume titles, costumer names or other data related to entries throughout the Visual Archive (e.g.: CC22-h, Kelly Turner). There are photos from official photographers, members in attendance, or screen captures of costumes from video recordings of the events.
Data Archive Catalog
Coming soon: A catalog of all video recordings and other collateral for each Costume-Con. We are actively searching for material to fill the gaps. This archive will be viewable at Costume-Con 40 in a special exhibit area devoted to our Archives. Check this space shortly for a link to the document and help us fill in the blanks.
See the News page for more information on the status of this project.
In Memory Of…
Our community has lost many people over time. Those we know are gone are indicated throughout the site with either an asterisk (*) or a double-dagger symbol (‡). The * symbol is not searchable. A new In Memory Of… page is now available. If you wish to remember Costume-Con community members (costumers and costume enthusiasts) whose names don’t already appear on that page, please let us know. We are replacing the * signifier in the Data Archive now.
The Unknown Costumer
Help us fill gaps in our data! Search on Unknown in either the Visual Archive or Data Archive and let us know what we’re missing. If we think we have a spelling problem, we are trying to use (SP) to indicate the problem. The ? symbol is a special character and searching for it causes problems. We have quite a number of images that lack details and others that have misspellings. We need your help to identify these missing pieces of information or to add photos we lack. Your assistance is greatly appreciated!
Help wanted!
If you have experience with WordPress, NextGEN Gallery, and data entry, and you want to join the site maintenance team, we welcome your help! At the moment, there’s really just a couple of us, and nobody else knows WordPress like we do.
Please get in touch with our Once and Future Costume-Con Archivist to volunteer.
Thanks so much for your patience!
This is the official web archive for information about Costume-Con conferences past. On this site are Costume-Con’s history, personal library recommendations, related events and materials. The Costume-Con Visual and Data Archives include photos and information for every past Costume-Con competition, including the rules, entry titles, awards and more.
Visit the Costume-Con Archives
In all, 40 years of Costume-Con’s history are represented within these pages.
Drop by often, and update us on new links to costume-related web sites and “real world” shopping places as you find them.