ETSU-Con celebrated its 10-year anniversary this past weekend on March 29 and 30. After being run by mostly the same group of people for the past several years, the 2025 convention welcomed a new group of staff including many new members who are passionate about ETSU-Con and conventions.
The staff has been hard at work since the beginning of this academic year to both keep the staple items that attendees have loved in the past, as well as working to bring in new entertainment options.
“ETSU-Con is ETSU’s very own comic con convention,” said Samuel Cowsert, ETSU-Con manager. “It’s all kinds of fun stuff wrapped in one big event. We have a lot of vendors come in who are selling their own artwork, games, comic books, manga—all types of stuff. We have voice actors from all types of anime or video games. We have a lot of food trucks on campus, and we have a cosplay contest for students.”
This year included one of the largest vendor halls with nearly 90 different vendors. Several of the vendors have been at the event in previous years and have become favorites of the attendees. There are also many new vendors to ensure guests have the opportunity of finding new items and shops to enjoy.
ETSU-Con had four voice actor guest appearances this year: Maggie Robertson, Amanda Hufford, Marissa Lenti and Sean Chiplock. Robertson is most known for her roles in Resident Evil, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Smite. The other three all had roles in The Amazing Digital Circus, a newer animated show on YouTube and Netflix that quickly gained popularity. Hufford is also known for Genshin Impact and Warframe, Lenti is known for Borderlands and Dragon Ball Super and Chiplock is known for Genshin Impact and the Legend of Zelda.
An autograph room allowed attendees to receive autographs on items they already own or purchase merchandise, such as prints or posters, for signatures.
The voice actors also hosted panels where guests learned about voice acting and other topics related to their roles.
“We usually have a Voice Acting Olympics where we get people from the crowd to come in and the voice actors will give them a prompt. They’ll try to perform the best they can and then they’ll give them little coaching updates,” said Cowsert.
The cosplay contest took place on Saturday with prizes and trophies. This year, the contest was reworked to help highlight more of the effort that cosplayers put into their craft. Before the grand show, a pre-judging time took place to allow judges to see more of the small details and intricacies. This allows judges to better appreciate the craftsmanship and accuracy.
After pre-judging, cosplayers walk on stage. Other attendees were able to watch and cheer the cosplayers on as each contestant and their character are announced and they get to show off their work on stage. Afterwards, the champions and runners-up were announced, and they received their prizes.
There are also different panels that are cosplay oriented, such as teaching about different methods of craftsmanship including sewing, 3D printing and hot gluing.
ETSU-Con also featured gaming tournaments, with its most popular being the Smash Tournament. Attendees were able to participate or watch as other guests play in the games.
Several card games were available throughout the event, including Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon tournaments. Free-play sections offered Magic and Dungeons & Dragons, along with interactive game panels, such as game shows and trivia.
Performance panels were hosted to offer entertainment for attendees or to teach them something new. Some of these included a K-Pop dance group and a musician playing a piano medley from Resident Evil.
“It’s been challenging this year, but it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve made something that we’re really proud of and that we can say is ours with minimal outside help. So it’s been a lot of fun doing that,” said Cowsert. “If you’re a student on campus, we’re a student organization so you’re absolutely free to join. We would love to have new people.”
For more information, check out @etsucontn on Instagram.
