Where can you cosplay?

If you’re someone who loves to cosplay often, then you might find the occasional Anime/Comic convention not enough for you. Maybe you’re looking for more opportunities to cosplay. If that’s the case, then this post is for you!

Where can you cosplay?

You don’t have to wait until the next Anime or comic convention in order to dress up and cosplay. Because cosplay is a mainstream hobby these days, you can always decide to cosplay in many other settings such as a park or in a private studio. Meanwhile, there are other events in your local area to cosplay as well. Put simply, you can actively cosplay all-year round if you wanted to!

In terms of where can you cosplay, I’ll give you 9 places where you can dress up and put on your best costumes. That way, you can enjoy this hobby to the fullest.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

1. At a park

Parks are wonderful places to cosplay!

One of my favorite places to cosplay! As I have mentioned in my cosplay park event guide, parks are some of the best places to take cosplay photos. The beautiful greenery, natural lighting and overall tranquility of a park is just picture perfect for cosplayers. I myself love getting cosplay photos taken at a park. I like to do so in the Spring or Fall, when the weather is just right and conventions aren’t happening anytime soon (most happen in the summer).

You can always decide to cosplay at a park and bring a photographer with you. You may have to purchase a photography permit to take pictures though, so be sure to check up on that first.

2. Inside your home

You might think it’s counterintuitive to cosplay at home when nobody can see you. But in fact, cosplaying at home is one of the best places to do so! With a nice home setup that includes a ringlight and backdrop, you can get some decent photos of yourself in the comfort of your own home.

For more info on how to get cosplay photos at home, click here.

3. Private studio room

Me and my friend doing a shoot in our own private kitchen!

Once again, you can take matters into your own hands and give yourself your own opportunities to cosplay! One way is to simply book a private studio room for a cosplay photoshoot. There are so many benefits to renting out a room for a shoot. You can control the lighting and props inside the room, and you can get some amazing photos.

Renting out a room is also great for setting up group photoshoots. It’s a lot easier to coordinate one when you have the environment under your control!

4. At a friend’s house

Joker Cosplay
Me and another friend exchanging and trying on our respective costumes!

So if you don’t want to cosplay by yourself, you can head to a friend’s house and dress up together! Making cosplay a social thing is always fun. You can do a lot of stuff together, including:

So you don’t have to wait until convention weekend to get photos with your friends! Make your own plans instead. 🙂

5. Cosplay-themed social gatherings

Who doesn’t love to dress up? In my experience, there are many events that happen where cosplay is involved. These days, cosplay is pretty mainstream and you’ll find plenty of events where it’s appropriate to cosplay as. Whether it’s a video game event, a Halloween party or a Renaissance fair, people love cosplay! So be on the lookout for events where you can take the chance to dress up and cosplay.

6. At a party

Senpai cosplaying at a bar for an event he hosted! Photo by bigtofuphotography.

This is related to the previous one, but as things get back to normal, you can party it up in the evening with your cosplay on! Again, since cosplay is now blended into mainstream culture, there will be many night events where you’re able to cosplay. Think of costume party events, geek night outs and Sci-Fi themed bars. I myself have found it easier to cosplay at night events such as raves or at a geeky/alternative bar. Of course, maybe you don’t want to wear full armor at a bar, or bring your heaviest props with you. But more casual cosplays definitely fit right in.

7. During Halloween

Halloween is the ultimate day to dress up in costume! For pretty much the whole day, you can cosplay anywhere you want: at work, on the street, during trick-or-treating and at a Halloween party. It’s too bad Halloween only happens once a year. But fortunately for us cosplayers, we get to do it for the entire year if we want to.

If you want to know the difference between Halloween and cosplay in general, click here to read my article about that!

8. In public

When I say in public, I’m talking about public places like at a mall or in a big downtown area.

So for me personally, I have mixed feelings about cosplaying in public. It will definitely get you a lot of attention out in public, which may be good or bad. If you’re not comfortable with that kind of spotlight, I don’t recommend cosplaying in public. So while I’d like to say that cosplaying in public is totally cool and you’ll be fine, but unfortunately I cannot. Again, it’s up to you on your comfort level whether you want to or not.

9. At a convention

Cosplayers at Otakuthon
There’s no better place to cosplay than at a convention. 🙂

Last but not least, the BEST place where you can cosplay is at a convention. I don’t think I need to go into the reasons why. But one major difference is the social aspect of cosplaying at a convention; you can meet so many awesome people and have great social interactions by simply dressing up. Nothing beats cosplaying at a convention. Period.

Summary

To summarize, if you’re looking for places where can you cosplay, here are 9 of them:

  1. At a park
  2. Inside your home
  3. Private studio room
  4. At a friend’s house
  5. Cosplay-themed social gatherings
  6. At a party
  7. During Halloween
  8. In public
  9. At a convention

And there you have it! I hope this gives you more opportunities to show your cosplay.

If you have any questions or suggestions, leave them in the comments below!

Sharing is caring!