The Queen City Anime Festival (AniFest) returns for a third year to celebrate all things that make up nerd culture, with a heavy focus on anime, cosplay, and video games.
The Conexus Arts Centre in Regina will host the anime festival on Saturday, Aug. 24 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. It costs $20 to enter for anyone older than age 13, while anyone under age 12 can enter for free.
One of the guests in attendance will be Saskatchewan author Edward Willett. Another is Odette (SweetyDollyLove) Lynn, a cosplayer with five years of experience of dressing up as different characters from various anime shows.
The full schedule for QCAF can be found at https://www.qcanifest.com.
The Queen City Anime Festival began three years ago because several people thought there wasn’t much to celebrate nerdy culture in Regina and area, explained co-organizer Sabrina Volman. For people who enjoyed anime, board games, comics or video games, it wasn’t always possible to meet others with similar interests or even find such groups with whom to participate.
“It was all word of mouth, very underground kind of thing,” she said. “So we wanted to do an event and say, ‘Hey … Regina has these groups too. It’s not just Saskatoon that’s got the big community.’”
This past spring was the first time the Saskatchewan Entertainment Expo visited Regina, a massive two-day pop culture festival that was “for nerds of all stripes,” Volman said. QCAF is not duplicating what that expo did since the anime festival is much smaller in size. It also focuses specifically on anime, cosplay, and video games.
The QCAF is run by volunteers and is a non-profit group, which means it has a much smaller budget. Volman pointed out there are not many places in Regina to hold an event such as AniFest, especially when it comes to parking. With a chuckle, Volman added that Evraz Place and the Brandt Centre were just out of the QCAF’s budget range.
The anime community in southern Saskatchewan is slowly growing, Volman said. Interest in anime and nerd culture has been most evident based on attendance during the now-defunct Regina Expo and the Saskatchewan Entertainment Expo.
“Clearly there is quite a group around who are interested in those sorts of things,” she continued. “But there’s just really no place — no event — where we can come out and celebrate that. So I’d like to think there is a pretty substantial underground community.”
Last year 292 people attended the second annual AniFest. This year Volman hopes at least 500 people attend, which would signify positive growth for the QCAF.
“If we get more than that, perfect,” she added.
For Volman, what she likes most about anime are the stories. While they are animated, most shows are geared toward teens and adults.
Many anime stories are also told in graphic novel form. She noted that most graphic novels in the Western world are all about superheroes, while the stories from Japan are about real people and their daily struggles, or even being dropped into another world and dealing with that.
Volman plans to dress up in a cosplay outfit for AniFest. She is basing her costume on the TV show Cells at Work and will attempt to look like a red blood cell from the human body.
She encourages everyone to come out, even if you don’t have a cosplay outfit.
“It’s a great way to find other people who, not only are (they) sharing the same interest, but maybe there’s even a group in Regina you might join … ,” she said. “So a little bit of something for anyone’s who’s trying to dip their toe into some aspect of nerd culture.”
