This may be an event you haven’t heard of—the first setup in 2018 was held in the Netherlands at one of their Centre Parcs near Eindhoven. It is advertised as a cosplay holiday where you can get photos taken inside a swimming pool area as well as taking photos in the surrounding area of the park.
I’ve been to all three editions of this event (*small intermission for the pandemic) and I have to say it’s probably one of my favourite events to attend. It’s so different from anything I’ve been to both in the UK and around the world. In a typical expo event, you are surrounded by concrete walls, it’s full of people, rows of stalls to buy things, artificial lights, areas not suited for photography, etc. Viencon is just so different, we take over Centre Parcs, there are so many areas to take photos, there is a small area of stall shops for people to buy things, as always there are panels for people to attend including a Beer tasting session, but the main attraction is the swimming pool sessions. We get exclusive time in the swimming pools where cosplayers and photographers shoot their cosplays in various areas of the swimming pool area, we had time both in the evening but also for the first time this year, we had a session in the morning to shoot photos which made photos looks so bright and sunny.
I think another great point of this event is that you can just treat the event as a holiday, you don’t have to do everything, you don’t have to attend everything. You can choose to take as many or as few photos as you want. You can just have a holiday and enjoy the company of people as I saw this year. There is such a mix of cultures, from the UK and around Europe as well as people from the local country.
With the event put on hold during the pandemic, the 2-year break just made coming to this event so much better, you can see the organisers are always looking to improve the event, with extended pool time, adding lights to an exclusive tree line area as well as to the bridge.
I am already looking to attend the event in 2023 between the dates of 25th-27th August. If what you have seen has made you interested in visiting this event, please do head to their website for more details. I’ve included a few photos which I took over the weekend. More photos will be edited and uploaded to both this website as well as to my social media pages.