Lessons Learned From The Cagayan De Oro City Festival Parade 2012

Cagayan de Oro City celebrated its 2012 city fiest in honor of Saint Augustine of Hippo, the city’s patron saint on August 28, 2012. On August 27, 2012, a citywide parade was held in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines as an opening for the city fiest. What made this year’s city parade different is that there was a cosplay entry. Around 20 cosplayers were in attendance and together, they braved the long walk from Gaston Park to the Velez Streets and finally to the Lim Ket Kai Mall. They marched from point A to point C under the scorching heat of the sun. All were not smiles, however, once the feedback came in and here are some points that people shared.

1. The organizers thought that this was an easy event to pull off. Well, they were wrong. The first problem that could be identified here is the fact that they only had a few weeks to prepare; they announced their plans on joining the parade some time in July already. The parade could have been pulled off IF they already planned everything perhaps a few months before to make sure that everything is okay, especially the well being of the participants. Proper planning could have even lead to a back up or an alternative plan considering the number of organizations and companies that joined in on the parade. On the event proper, the cosplay entry was moved from 60 to 70* due to the number of entries that had to be prioritized for the parade.

2. Some of the participants in the cosplay parade were not cosplayers. This is a slap on the face for cosplayers who portray their characters passionately. One participant invited a couple of friends to don the said person’s costumes. When interviewed by the media, one of the invited people who wore the costume answered that she had no idea who she was cosplaying. “To those persons responsible, they should know that cosplay is knowing the character inside-out and not some meer fashion limelight stunt. The owner of those costumes however doesn’t really seemed to even portray her character well and no prior knowledge on the personality as observed by some of the participants.” An observer commented.

3. Cooperation was missing from the group. A parade observer has this to say: “Some of the participants didn’t seem to cooperate. While some are showing themselves in the highway in the city’s parade, some were just in the vehicles and not walking together with the others. Where is the togetherness and the camaraderie of the cosplayers in that? Those who had medical conditions were exempted to join in the walk but at least there is this cosplayer who nailed it by interacting with the audience with a sweet smile and a wave of a hand.”

4. The weather wasn’t taken into consideration in the planning. While plans went underway, the organizers failed to consider the raging, unpredictable weather. A few days before the parade, Cagayan de Oro was pelted with torrential rains and biting heat. During the event, the participants experienced sun burns and some even had heat strokes. The health of every cosplayer was on the line on that day.

Despite the problems encountered during the parade, this cosplayer brought a smile to everyone’s face.

The cosplay parade entry for the Kagay-an 2012 fiesta was, simply put, something that could have been better if it was planned at least 3-6 months prior to the event. This year’s attempt now serves as a lesson for a bigger and better cosplay parade entry for next year’s festival.

*an estimate only