2023-05-22- Dokomi 2022 (en)

French Note: Il y a une version française de cet article ici.

Here's an entry of blog about my experience of Dokomi. One of the biggest cosplay convention of Germany.

Note: It took me a while to write this blog entry, I am aiming its publication for may 2023. The writing of this entry started in september 2022.

The TLDR: Dokomi is a very good convention, also a good exterior with the park outside of the convention for photos and videos. This is one of my prefered public convention, opposed to private ones such as Volta, Pixelmania or Focus cosplay.

Dokomi is a convention which took place near the end of april each year before Covid. During Covid, contrary to other conventions, there were still editions that actually happened, in september 2020 and in august 2021. The 2022 edition took place in june. The 2023 edition was announced for July and will last three days, friday, saturday and sunday from the 30th of june to the second of july 2023 - source.

I went to Dokomi in 2020 and 2021, I had no ticket for these editions as they were sold out and I sticked to the park, I was very happy even if I did not enter the convention those years. For 2022, I asked for a press accreditation. The selling of tickets tickets for the 2023 edition started on the 26th of september 2022. For the people who want to go inside, I can only advise to buy tickets earlier as they tend to be sold out quickly.
Note: On the 27th of april 2023, only friday tickets are still available, probably due to the targeted public might be less available this day.

The convention takes place at the "Messe Hall" of Düsseldorf, a convention center, a modular set of buildings, which has several big halls and other more convivial structures that allows differents atmospheres, some being calmer. It's very big, but it's still inferior in size to Japan Expo in pure term of surface: 60000 squares meters vs 140000 square meters for Japan Expo. The number of visitors is near 55000 (vs 240000 for JE). All the available surface does not seem to be rented out.

For the cosplay contest and similar activities, a big stage was in a dedicated hall, with a somewhat loose and appreciable organisation from I've seen. I could set up my tripod to film the contests without any difficulties.There was a second stage in an amphitheater with other activities that I did not check much. The press accreditation did not give any advantage except the free entry, which was fine considering there were no restrictions on the organization level, unless some other conventions. I actually enjoyed that part and it's not really a critic.

There was also a 18+ area, that could be accessed only by people of age 18+, from my personal point of view, it was not exceptional (it's more or less my personal point of view, I am more or less myself 'located' on the asexual scale), except the thematic of the stand was adult / lewd / erotic. It was also forbidden to take photos inside of it. A wristband was needed to enter it, you could obtain it by presenting papers proving you were 18+ after applying to a local queue.

I am coming to the goal of this entry: How good is Dokomi ? What is its interest ? For me, it can be defended by two major points: a great number of amateur booths that were located (in 2022) in the hall 3 and a very big and very beautiful park next to the convention : The Nothpark, which is a good place to take cosplay photos and videos, without too much hassle and some conviviability, The park also offers distinctive areas, including a japanese garden, which tends to be crowded a bit much. For those two reasons, I'd place Dokomi as one of the best convention of Europe for cosplay photography. with Lucca Lucca in Italy et some past editions of Animecon (in The Netherlands) when they were at the World Forum de La Haye / Den Haag.

For the logistic costs, I took an hotel in the center of Düsseldorf, 3 nights at 50 euros each night. For the public transport, it was possible to benefit from the 9 monthly euros ticket. To that I had to add 110 euros of plane ticket from Nice (France) to Düsseldorf on the friday with a return on the monday and about 60 euros to go forth and back to Nice in train... If I am comparing to the other conventions I named, it is fairly reasonable. Lucca is really expensive for the side and a night of hostel in Pisa (which is 45 minutes by train from Lucca) can costs about 120 euro per night. Animecon is also more expensive in transport and hosting. Japan Expo costs me between 200 à 300 euros (train + hotel) not including the food.

This year (2023) the price for the hotel I took is around 110 euros per night. I don't know if there are other activities that time that might be affecting the hotel prices.

For reminder, I am near Toulon in the South of France, Düsseldorf is at 4 hours from Paris by car and can by reached by Thalys from Paris.

Last thing to add: if you plan on passing your time outside in the park, take an umbrella as it always rained at some point when I was there. There is not really any place that is safe from the rain in the park.

If all goes well, I will be at Dokomi 2023, I don't know yet if I'll enter the convention. Covering the video stages forces me to bring a dedicated tripod and honestly, it's a lot of work with no returns for me. I'll probably stay in the Park for the three days.

To give you an idea on how it looks, I am adding two links to my photos and videos of 2022: Videos : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI8fjobazE8hj_OfFVl6U8oZN65A5r3e_

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/styeb/albums/72177720299597479