ARCHcon, Cebu’s first and longest-running hobby convention, is set to hold its 15th iteration this year. What started as an open-to-the-public school activity of the then Sacred Heart School — Jesuit “Alternate Hobbies Club” has grown to cater hobbyists from Cebu and the Visayas region.
ARCHcon, short for “Animation, Role-Playing Games, Comics, and Hobbies Convention,” an event of what is now the Sacred Heart School — Ateneo de Cebu “Anime Manga Trading Cards and Gaming (AMTG) Brigade,” started as an open event for table-top and trading card gaming competitions. Nowadays, it has a cosplay competition, an art competition and even an esports competition. Aside from these, they have toys and collectible displays and comic artist appearances.
ARCHcon has its own annual themes such as retro-gaming (2016) a combination of Aztec and Technology (2017) and this year they will have a mixture of medieval and magic they refer to as ARCHana, honoring one of their late founders Mark Ranel who is into the table-top roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons.
In a press conference last August 30 at The Company co-working space in Mandaue, Cebu, ARCHcon Head Organizer Jolu Escano, External Secretariat Claire Codilla, and alumni Adrian Montuerto laid out what’s in store for this year’s event.
The cosplay guests for this year’s ARCHcon are our very own Guy Singzon (who I understood is the oldest cosplayer around, citing Cosplay.ph’s Pablo Bairan), Singaporean cosplayer Drefan and Malaysian cosplayer Ying Tze.
As an event for a cause, ARCHcon support the Ateneo de Cebu Blue Plate project which in turn supports organizations such as Kythe Foundation, Cancervants (Cebu Chapter), DOTA Deaf-Mute Community and the animal rescue volunteers from Island Rescue Organization.
On a side note, they along with their partner Cebu eSports United made news that was rejoiced by Cebu’s hobbyist community — to quote The Freeman’s Odessa Leyson, “Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña has allowed Cebu Esports United and ARCHcon Cebu to execute their anti-drug program for the youth dubbed as ‘Anti-Drug Program for the Cebuano Youth through the integration of Esports and Cosplay in Education’.” The Mayor is game for something like this!
ARCHcon Cebu will be held at the Oakridge Pavillion Mandaue City on the weekend of October 27–28, 2018 from 10:00am to 6:00pm. Oakridge Pavilion is around half an hour by car from the Mactan-Cebu International Airport.
Tickets are now available at La Tegola at The Terraces of Ayala Center Cebu and on-site. Check their Facebook page and website for more information.
Special thanks to Gary Montejo for the info — looking forward to future collaborations with our Cebuano counterpart.