Contest rules that made you go "WTF"?

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  • Have you ever looked at the rules for a costume contest and found yourself saying "WTF!?" for any reason? Maybe you thought it was unfair, strange, or just made you wonder what the heck someone was thinking, or what had happened to make them implement such a thing?

    Here's one I found while reading the NYCC costume contest rules, and apparently one of the contests at Dragon-Con states something similar:

    You may not be eligible for accuracy points if the judges are not familiar enough with your character

    All I can say to this is "No, just no!" Asking contestants to bring a few references is okay, since nobody can expect judges to know every character out there. But a contestant should NOT suffer or lose points for a judge's lack of familiarity with their character. That, and such a rule really screws over a lot of costumes. It screws over a lot of older or obscure stuff, and completely bones anything original, whether it be completely original characters, or reinterpretations of existing ones. (Say if somebody decided to re-imagine Katniss's tribute parade costume from the second movie, which honestly sounded a LOT cooler in the books, the movie version was a huge let down)

  • Why is that an issue? I know original characters is your soapbox but like...look at this from the perspective of a judge. If accuracy is 25% of a score, and I can award 0-10 points for accuracy (these are just number I made up), and I've never seen or heard of this character or series before me, how do I score it fairly against something I know inside and out? If your OC is accurate because you made it, do you think you should get ten points for accuracy when another cosplayer is getting judged on that?

    If anything, not having to be accurate gives more obscure things a slight edge if accuracy points are awarded. Would you rather they just not allow original designs? (Of course not, because that's the thing you like to do)

    That's all kind of a weird thing to put energy into worrying about, though. If you have to worry about how many points you think someone else could b getting, you're not focused on YOUR work. You're not being judged against others, your version of that character is being judged against your own potential.

    But, if you don't like the contest rules, you don't have to enter it. Easy enough.

  • So, what. They don't actually tell you to bring reference?

    Bringing reference = judge can verify accuracy = no worries. That's a basic given. But if the rules don't at all mentioning bringing reference or, worse, discourage bringing reference and actually do rely on the judges to be familiar with everything under the sun? That's a bad. So, I'm not going to fret unless the latter is actually true. If this is a ham-fisted way of encouraging contestants to provide reference pics without actually saying "please bring a reference picture for the judges to see" then that's just bad writing and not bad rules.

    As a judge, I would never consider it fair to dock anybody points or score them lower for the sole reason of, I've never played Final Fantasy or Overwatch and wouldn't know their character from a hole in the ground. I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt that someone somewhere just assumes that people know they should bring a pic of their character, but these days you never know.

  • I think that unless the contest is very strictly themed around a specific franchise or fandom, the contest rules need to have a way of handling both recreations and originals- one or the other shouldn't be penalized just because of its origins.

    In the case of a contest that's got a very specific theme (Say it's based around a game like Overwatch or Final Fantasy XIV), I can understand restricting it to recreations of those characters only, and asking people to stick to the canon designs instead of reinterpretations, or mashups. But mixed genre cons and contests really shouldn't use "accuracy" as an excuse to push out or exclude originals or reinterpretations. I've heard of some contests saying that for that part of their scoring, they evaluate recreations on accuracy, and originals on design. (Does the costume have a cohesive design instead of being randomly thrown together, for example, or is the design of the costume appropriate to the character?) Either score counts for the same amount of points, and you get judged on whichever is applicable to your entry.
    (The thing with my own creations is that since they're based on real world structures, I could bring references and show how each found its way into my outfit.)

    As CapsuleCorp said, it's not fair to score somebody lower just because you don't know the game/movie/series their character is from, and that's what I took issue with when reading those rules. The wording made it seem that even if you did bring references, you would lose points if the judges didn't know your character, and that's not cool at all.

    After posting this, I remembered another "WTF" rule- I remember somebody here mentioning a convention costume contest that banned all animal products from competitor's costumes. No fur, no feathers, no leather. (I wonder if they checked everyone's sneakers, belts, and boots, as those are things that a lot of people buy) To me, that's WTF-worthy, because it smacks of somebody on the con board or masquerade staff trying to force their personal ideology onto all of the contestants.

  • [QUOTE=Amanita;5060387]
    After posting this, I remembered another "WTF" rule- I remember somebody here mentioning a convention costume contest that banned all animal products from competitor's costumes. No fur, no feathers, no leather. (I wonder if they checked everyone's sneakers, belts, and boots, as those are things that a lot of people buy) To me, that's WTF-worthy, because it smacks of somebody on the con board or masquerade staff trying to force their personal ideology onto all of the contestants.[/QUOTE]

    This would make me want to educate that contest organisators about the enviornmental damage the usual production of garments or plastics causes. We aren't at a point (yet) were fabrics are made without harm. (Saw a very informative german documentary about that once, there are alternative production methods, but they aren't used in the industry, yet for various reasons).

  • But what about contests that determine the winner....by applause? O_O

  • UGH MANGO WINS THE THREAD

    that chaps my ass so hard you don't even know.

  • [QUOTE=CapsuleCorp;5060409]UGH MANGO WINS THE THREAD

    that chaps my ass so hard you don't even know.[/QUOTE]

    Worse yet if they don't have separate kid/adult divisions, because kids will ALWAYS get the most applause no matter how craptastic the costume is compared to a grown-up's (I've seen this a lot with Renfaire contests. A kid with a towel cape, tinfoil crown and a toy store sword over a t-shirt and shorts still always wins over someone in the SCA who hand-hammered a real HA plate mail suit...)

  • [QUOTE=CapsuleCorp;5060409]UGH MANGO WINS THE THREAD

    that chaps my ass so hard you don't even know.[/QUOTE]

    Omg...they did that sh*t at the Supernatural convention I went to (there was a couple there I thought deserved to win WAAAAY more than this other pair, but the other pair were popular characters.)

    Though, in all honesty....nobody is really there for the cosplay contest anyway and it was just a time killer. Still....it was irritating AF...

  • I don't do bar and club halloween contests precisely because most of them are applause judged. And yes, putting kids and adults together with no division between them is a horrible idea all around, for a lot of reasons.

    One of our local geek events still can't get its ass in gear and hold a decent costume contest- I'm taking about the Time Traveler's ball that gets held every New Year's Eve. One, even being allowed to participate is dependent on the right person seeing you and liking your costume enough to even let you out on the floor. And they insist on audience applause to decide the winners.
    This past year I showed up in full regalia, layers of hand made costume complete with a scale mail apron. I wasn't even picked. The people around me were actually YELLING at the M.C, while pointing at me and saying "Pick her, pick her!". The five people who did get picked were nowhere near as decked out as I was, wearing much plainer costumes. Yeah, I was kinda ticked. On top of that, they asked the contestants questions which had sweet fuck all to do with their costumes or characters, just totally random shit, and the audience was asked to applaud based on who gave the best answers. So it was some sort of weird trivia thing overshadowing the actual costumes. What the actual fuck? The MC referenced a quirk of Nova Scotia law that requires a skill testing question for games of chance, but that was pure bullshit. That law only applies to random draw contests, games of pure chance. It was never meant to be applied to contests where you actually have to do something other than send in a game token. (I used to see it when a local potato chip/snack food company had contests where you could find entry tokens in the bag- the kind of thing where you scratch them to see what you won- to claim a prize you had to fill out the info on the little card, including that "skill testing question", which took the form of a laughably easy math problem) Costume contests in any case are not games of chance. Somebody asks me for a skill testing question while I'm in costume, I'm going to fan out my layers of hand made clothing and say "I've got your test of skill right here!"

  • Must not show up at the con in the competing costume before the contest.
    Can't remember which con but will never forget hahaha.

  • ^I've heard of that, and I honestly wonder what the rationale for it is. I wouldn't appreciate it much at all, since I prefer to get dressed at home as much as possible and don't like carrying armfuls of stuff around.

  • The New York Cherry Blossom Fest has this rule. If you're competing you may not be out at the fest in costume before the show. And it's not even a competition it's just a fashion show. If you're not in the show, though, you can go in costume. Like ???

    Oh and you have to go to Brooklyn on a weeknight for rehearsals, even though it's just a walk on.

  • Possibly the WCS ones? They say they don't admit cosplays from any series seen in Shonen Jump and Soujo Beat because apparently Shūeisha has a terrible relationship with WCS organization.

  • Whoa I didn't know that about WCS. Not that I'd ever enter but welp there go all my One Piece costumes.

    As for the "don't wear the costume before the competition," I have actually condoned that rule and there are REASONS. It's 50% safety, 50% wow factor for the audience. Safety-wise, if you're wearing your costume all day (or all weekend) and then plan to compete it, you stand a much, much higher chance of ripping, staining, or otherwise ruining your costume before you even stand in front of a judge. And do you really want to stand in front of a judge with the paint flaking off your craft foam, your makeup a total mess, and the train of the dress all dirty and stained from people stepping on it? No, no you do not. You may also run into unexpected problems wearing it and be unable to actually wear it any longer (weight, heat, etc) and have to drop out. Not fun.

    And then there's the wow factor, which, even if the audience's reaction isn't part of the judging per se, it's part of the show. It's why you go out on stage! If the audience and their appreciation of your costume isn't important, then why don't we all get judged in private and have an announcement flier posted the next day with the winners? I have directed, emceed, and judged in competitions where people come out on stage in the costume they've been wearing for two days already, and it really is sad to see the audience offer up lackluster applause because they've seen this costume already. It's not fair to the cosplayer, because they probably worked really hard on that costume, but by the same token you can't expect the audience to muster enthusiasm for something they've already seen walking back and forth in front of them all day long and already photographed.

    When I directed it was worded less as a rule and more as "we STRONGLY recommend" but it was meant to give the competitors a chance to stop and think about what effect their choices have on their presentation and on their judging. And it became even more imperative after Costume-Con 32 where someone had to drop out because they posed for photos with a live snake earlier in the day and it pooped on her gorgeous dress. Now, I'm not saying everyone is going to get the chance to pose with live animals who will poop on your amazing competition piece, but...seriously. Accidents happen.