The third annual Marysville Mini Con is ready to kick off this weekend.
The convention, also known by its nickname as the “Marysville Comic-Con,” is held each year at the Marysville Public Library. It is a free event that will be held at the library from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, with a cosplay contest starting at 1 p.m.
Youth services librarian Jordan Kirian said this event helps unites the community in the celebration of comic books and pop culture, as well as still being family-friendly.
“I think we have a growing community that’s into comics and pop culture, like video games, anime and movies,” Kirian said. “This is a chance to get together once a year to celebrate that and also show a sense of community in general.”
Kirian said the event offers this community a chance to gather and play board games, which will be the emphasis for this year, purchase local art and discuss all things pop culture.
The event was first held in 2016, and for that, Kirian needed to get a lot of his connections to help him with securing prizes and vendors to come in. He modeled it after the other conventions he attended in the past, but took to offering his tables to sellers for free.
Despite planning it “at the last minute,” the event proved to be a growing success. From last year, he saw about 300 people throughout the day walk in and out of the convention, as well as having 13 vendors and 25 to 30 people for the cosplay contest.
“I didn’t think it was going to work in an area like this, but we had a lot of good turnout,” Kirian said. “It kind of went off well, maybe a little too well, because I was really nervous about it the whole time.”
Then in 2017, he started seeing more people from the area flocking to his convention. That year, he was able to get more vendors and artists to come to his event, as well as getting a cosplay belly dancing group known as Final Form Fusion to become an event fixture.
Since the event’s inception, Kirian said he’s seen a “big number of families” attend the convention, and they’re very interested in the comic book themes.
He said the biggest draw is the cosplay contest, where people represent characters in movies and television, video games, anime or other media through costume. With the convention, he said this has offered the local cosplay community another venue to show off their work besides having to go to Columbus.
“(Local cosplayers) jump at the chance to come to this,” Kirian said. “When they hear, ‘oh, there’s something in my hometown, I have this cosplay and I live in Marysville,’ we’re kind of catering to that… People hear that and say, ‘wow, I can do this five minutes away from my house.’”
Kirian said the convention has proven to him that the local community can and will gather to celebrate their interests in movies, comics and video games.
“It’s a great feeling for me to be able to know that this works and to give something like that to the community to embrace,” Kirian said. “I will plan it as long as they let me, and I hope to bring more people back each year. It’s been great, and it’s what I’m really passionate about myself.”
With many future conventions on the horizon, Kirian said the event is getting larger every year, but it’s not “too big” yet. He’s looking into further expanding into the other parts of the library to accommodate the burgeoning attendance.