At Florida Supercon, Cosplay Is Serious Business

Sam Geist spent 900 hours on the costume that won her first place in the Cosplay Crown Championship at last year's Florida Supercon. For the U.S. cosplay championship at C2E2 in Chicago, she spent an additional 509 hours improving the costume and adding props — Geist dressed as Viking Eivor Varinsdottir from the video game Assassin's Creed Valhalla — bringing her total to 1409 hours.

Just because Geist made the Eivor costume herself doesn't mean it came cheap. She estimates she spent nearly $1,200 on fabric, foam, paint, rubber, Worbla, and urethane.

"To be doing cosplay on this level, you have to love it. You're not spending over 1,400 hours doing it if it's not worth it to you," says Geist (AKA Dovah Design), who used the time-tracking website Toggl to keep track of the labor hours.

Geist won't compete at this year's Cosplay Crown Championship at Florida Supercon, organized by ReedPop June 30-July 2 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Instead, she will serve as one of the three judges for the championship, which takes place on July 1. The winner gets $1,000 and a paid trip to C2E2 in 2024 to compete against the winners of other ReedPop comic conventions.

Geist has been competing in cosplay — which involves dressing up as characters from the world of pop culture — ever since she won the first contest she entered at Atlanta's Dragon Con in 2014. The Orlando resident previously worked in graphic design but has shifted her focus to her Dovah Design online shop, which sells cosplay props and trinkets.

What is it exactly about cosplay that she finds so appealing?

"I feel like it's currently my biggest sense of community," Geist says. "It's what I open up social media for and look for. There's this sense of belonging and friendship with a lot of people around the country. We all like this weird, nerdy thing. And it's also a creative outlet. I made this cool thing and get to walk around in it [at conventions] and feel cool. That's always very exciting for me. It makes me feel like a mini-celebrity."
While Geist participates in the competition and costume-making side of cosplay, some, like Miami resident Adi Rodrigues, the co-host of the cosplay contests at this year's Supercon, focused on the content-creation side. When she isn't working as a real estate agent, the former personal trainer dresses up as various superheroes for her 100,000-plus followers on TikTok and Instagram.

"It's almost a full-time job," says Rodrigues (AKA the Super Adi) of cosplay. "I take a lot of my own photos. I edit my videos. I do make money on it, but I have to reach out to people. Opportunities come from networking. If you're not involved, people don't know who you are. You have to stay up to date with trends. I do a lot of work with [DC Comics], so I have to stay up to date with what's going on with DC. If I don't know, I'm not going to get the invite."

DC invited Rodrigues to appear at the Miami premiere of The Flash in May dressed as Supergirl alongside actress Sasha Calle who plays the superheroine in the film.

Unlike the most devoted cosplayers, Rodrigues doesn't make all of her costumes. Instead, she prefers to dedicate herself to the performance side of cosplay and hires vendors to turn her ideas into costumes.

"You can spend $100 to $5,000," Rodrigues says. "Sometimes $10,000 if you're talking about an Iron Man suit. You can spend $3,000 for a suit like my Man of Steel Supergirl suit — that can cost you a lot of money."

Rodrigues says her cosplay origin story is typical: She always liked dressing up for Halloween. After attending Florida Supercon in 2017 to meet actor Jason David Frank from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, she opened her eyes to a world where she could dress up year-round. Rodrigues also credits cosplay for introducing her to some of her best friends and fans who inspire her.

"To have little girls looking up to you because you're dressed as their superhero, that's a huge motivation for me," Rodrigues adds. "Everyone does cosplay differently, but I believe in empowerment. To have girls saying, 'Thank you so much for not exploiting a certain avenue' is everything to me. They see that they don't have to do certain things to do what they want."

Rodrigues only cosplays characters she can connect with; she prefers characters "who like to save the world and not destroy it."
Recently, online gaming platform Hearts Land released a study that found that most cosplayers prefer to dress as comic book superheroes and antiheroes. According to the survey, which searched for Instagram posts with the hashtags "cosplay" and "costume," the most popular cosplay costume is Harley Quinn, followed closely by Spiderman, Batman, the Joker, and Deku of My Hero Academia trailing distantly behind. Rounding out the top ten are Wonder Woman, D.Va from Overwatch, Deadpool, My Hero Academia's Shoto Todoroki, and Poison Ivy.

If you're surprised to see Japanese manga characters on the list, you obviously haven't been to a comic convention lately.

"What we've observed the last few years post-pandemic is the significant rise in popularity of anime — especially with the younger demo," says ReedPop content manager Chris D'Lando. "When you come to Florida Supercon, you see a lot of anime cosplay. Supercon has a pretty heavy anime bend."

D'Lando says the most popular attractions at Florida Supercon are the celebrity guests, followed by anime, manga, and cosplay. This year's celebrity guests include Shazam! actors Meagan Good and Jack Dylan Grazer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-stars Charisma Carpenter and James Marsters, and Kristian Nairn from Game of Thrones.

On the cosplay front, cosplayers of all levels can participate in the Cosplay Costume Showcase on July 1 and 2. And no worry if your costume comes apart at the convention — head to the repair lounge to get it fixed. That's right, Supercon has a cosplay fix-it shop.

Geist says it's now easier than ever for people to cosplay. She credits the increase accessibly to the countless online cosplay tutorials and the availability of materials to make costumes from. When she started, Giest often had to order expensive materials from overseas.

But those aren't the only changes she's noticed.

"I think cosplay is getting more and more competitive," Geist says about the contests. "But everyone wants all their friends to win. You build each other up. I didn't win at C2E2, but Stephanie [Slone] won and absolutely deserved it. And now I know her, and I can message her, 'What tutorials did you use?'"

"But it's really getting competitive," she continues. "May Jean [Cosplay] incorporated real blacksmithing into her costume. She's like, 'I'm going to work with real metal.' I pushed myself with leatherworking for Eivor. I made my own shoes — I'd never made shoes before. You know everyone is coming in with new techniques, so there are just weird things you do now for a competitive edge."

Florida Supercon. Friday, June 30, through Sunday, July 2, at Miami Beach Convention Center, 1901 Convention Center Dr., Miami Beach; floridasupercon.com. Tickets cost $12 to $325 via floridasupercon.com.