Cosplay Participation Rules
GENERAL RULES
J-Zone3 will take place on 23th and 24th of April, 2022 at the Creative Hub (Kultuurikatel) venue in Tallinn, Estonia.
Exact time to be announced!
REGISTRATION
To register for stage competitions, please fill an application form and submit it no later than the 20th of April, 2022.
In addition to the application, it is important to add your prepared background music as an MP3 file .
Please design your background soundtrack (music and/or dialogue and sound effects ), save it as a single MP3 file and sent a link for your music to us. We prefer if you use a Google Drive media folder with your name, but, in exceptional cases, we are ready accept your sound design by e-mail too ( jaff@animefest.eu ), don’t forget to mention your stage name!
RULES:
You can cosplay any characters from an official published source of entertainment. Manga, games, comics, anime etc. Original characters or fanfiction characters are also welcome.
Stage performance:
- It is forbidden to use obscenity, profanities, gestures encouraging violence, and pornography. Performances going against cultural and/or social norms will not be let on stage.
- Please make sure your performances are ethically and aesthetically appropriate for a young audience.
- Things that break easily and pyrotechnics are not allowed.
On stage
- On stage it is forbidden to use glitter, liquids, or other substances that are difficult to remove (anything that takes more than 1 minute to clean and cannot be swept with a brush). If you want to throw something into the audience, please be careful what you throw.
- All props used on stage must be safe and cannot be used to cause bodily harm (blunt/soft blades and other weapons*). Additionally, all organizers reserve the right to confiscate any knives, knife-like objects and other cutting utensils that can cause bodily harm.
- Realistic-looking weapons (including fantasy weapons) may be allowed in your on-stage performance, but cannot be carried in the halls of the venue among the general public as part of your costume. The decision on whether a prop/weapon is allowed will be made by the cosplay stage crew, and can be appealed to the cosplay event manager, whose decision is final.
* Weapons are all items that are regulated by the Republic of Estonia Weapons Act (firearms, gas weapons, pneumatic weapons, throwing weapons, cut-and-thrust weapons, and electroshock weapons).
If you have any questions about costume guidelines, please contact us.
As organizers we reserve the right to restrict the number of performances.
We are aiming for up to 50 performances in total. If the number of submissions is much higher than this, we reserve the right to use the information on your submission to choose who gets to go on stage.
For this purpose, we would greatly appreciate it if you can upload a video with your character to Youtube or Vimeo (for private use only – feel free to make it unlisted) or a cloud storage service such as Google Drive, and send the link to us at jaff@animefest.eu. Photos about the work-in-progress are acceptable too.
We will try our best to give every applicant an opportunity to shine on our stage!
J-Zone3 will have following categories of competition:
CATEGORIES
| Category name | Mostly about… | Maximum people | Maximum length |
| Défilé | Costume quality | 1-2 | 60 seconds |
| Stage show | Choreography and your original creativity | <7 | 5 minutes |
* Detailed info below
In addition to the categories above, we will also award special prizes, including:
- Audience Favorite – voted directly by the audience, usually a “best fanservice” category. Note: stay within the stage rules!
- Best Debut – our judges will select the best performance by a cosplayer who has never before performed on stage at a major convention (e.g. JZone, AniMatsuri, UniCon/WinterCon, GameOn/ComicCon Baltics).
All our categories are available for Non-Estonian residents.
Our international guest jury will judge all categories except the Audience Favorite. The judges will also have the opportunity to award special prizes at their own discretion.
MORE ABOUT CATEGORIES
Défilé: This is mainly about your costume and your ability to present it on stage as well as you can within approximately 1 minute. The performance must be between 50-70 seconds. You can perform solo or as a duo.
Stage show: Compilation between great costumes, story and choreography.
Audience’s favorite: special prize which will be selected by the festival’s visitors through a secret vote. The audience favorite’s voting is not divided by categories.
PRIZE POOL
Total Prize Pool of all J-Zone3 competitions will be announced not later than the 15th of March, 2022. Also, we expect more non-monetary prizes from our partners, sponsors and funds.
PRIVATE DATA USAGE
What we count as your private data: your name, email, phone number, citizenship/place of residence and age) as well as photos and videos of you.
Data provided during registration
The only people with the access to your private data are the Head Organizers and Cosplay Competition Organizers .
During and after the festival
Either while walking around the venue or being on stage, you may be captured in a photo or video about to JAFF and J-Zone3, by a private person, a company or the festival itself.
The official photos and videos from JAFF and J-Zone3 will be uploaded to the festival’s social media channels. Official photos will also be used on JAFF and J-Zone3’s website and social media to introduce what is going on at the festival. Official photos and videos can also be used for advertisement/promotion (social media, the press, television etc).
Stage competitors must purchase a full ticket to the event (subject to their own applicable discounts for age, etc.). A 50% rebate on the price of the ticket will be given to stage performers at the venue, after the cosplay competition.