Tracon for International Guests
Tracon is a convention for role-playing game and anime/manga enthusiasts. The 11th annual event will be held from Saturday, September 3rd to Sunday, September 4th 2016 at the Tampere Hall in Tampere, Finland. The expected attendance is over 5,000 people, making Tracon the largest convention of this kind in Finland.
Tracon caters to two different but partially overlapping fandoms:
- Role-playing games (including table-top, live action and online RPGs); board, card and strategy games; medieval times and history re-enactment
- Anime and manga, cosplay, J-Rock, J-Pop and the language and culture of Japan
The theme for Tracon 11 is Mysteries which will be reflected in various programs and events.
Guests of Honor
Our role-playing guest of honor for 2016, Jennifer Brozek, is an award-winning freelance writer, game designer and publisher. Her credits include work for Dragonlance, Serenity, Shadowrun and White Wolf SAS. She has published a number of fiction and short fiction stories and recieved several awards including the Australian Shadow Award, two Origins Awards, the Ennie Award and the Scribe Award. At Tracon, Brozek will tell us about her work and join our role-playing game room as a GM.
Our anime guest of honor for 2016 is Xavier Guinchard, better known as Nostromo. Nostromo is an AMV artist who has received awards from various anime events. His videos are well known for their use of uptempo electronic music and wide spread of anime sources: in his work, he places special emphasis on aesthetics, detailed transitions, smooth editing - and 60 fps interpolation. At Tracon, Nostromo will join the judging panel for our AMV competition.
Our previous guests of honor include
- 2015 Jun Awazu (Japan), jim pinto (USA) and Eat Your Kimchi (Canada/South Korea)
- 2014 Rino Mizuho (Japan), Darrell Hardy (USA), Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo
- 2013 Ross Watson (USA)
- 2012 Yasuhiro Nakura (Japan) and Sandy Petersen (USA)
- 2011 Yoshihiro Takahashi (Japan) and Mike Pohjola
- 2010 Oscar Garza (USA) and Matthijs Holter (Norway)
World Cosplay Summit 2017 Preliminaries
The World Cosplay Summit 2017 Preliminaries for Finland will be held at Tracon 11. This competition will see the best cosplayers of Finland competing for the opportunity to represent our country in World Cosplay Summit. World Cosplay Summit is the most prestigious cosplay competition in the world. Held annually in Nagoya, Japan, the competition gathers skilled cosplayers from all over the world to compete in performance and costume-making.
Program
Tracon offers an interesting program that includes, among other things,
- competitions and tournaments
- concerts and shows
- workshops and community meetings
- presentations, lectures and panel discussions
The program schedule will be published well before the event.
There are also various interactive activities for the participant to take part in, such as rhythm and video games and table-top and live action role-playing games. Tracon gives you the perfect opportunity to spend your weekend enjoying the company of friends and like-minded new acquaintances, listening to interesting lectures on roleplaying and anime or taking part in a multitude of competitions.
The event runs overnight. Most of the program is in Finnish. English-speaking program is marked as such in the schedule.
International Sponsors
We welcome international sponsors in our bazaar and advertising. Detailed information about the sponsoring options will be published on this website in spring 2016.
Please note that we do not tolerate sales of counterfeit goods in the bazaar.
Tickets
Ticket sales begin in spring 2016. Tickets can be bought from our webshop by everyone with a Finnish bank account. If you don't have an account, please contact our ticket sales team at liput@tracon.fi. Tickets can not be purchased at the event, so please make sure you have one before traveling to Tampere. Tracon is sold out for the current year so there is no tickets available anymore from web shop or elsewhere.
Contact us!
Should you have questions, suggestions or something else you’d like to discuss with the event organizers, don’t hesitate to contact us! If you are a member of media (author of a popular blog, news writer, etc.) you can contact us for media passes for the event. We can be reached by email at viestinta@tracon.fi and by phone at +358 45 8919 141 (Tiina Uusi-Rasi, Head of International Relations).
