AFTER six years, Durban’s premier geek culture convention, ICON, is back.

The event takes place on Saturday, October 4, and Sunday, October 5, at Westville Girls’ High School. It was last held in 2019.

Northglen News recently caught up with Durban North resident and director of ICON Durban, Shelley Kirby.

Among the highlights at the event are paint demos for miniature figures, the Fight a Knight arena with demos, as well as other vendors and exhibitors.

Also read: Greenwood Park father and daughter bond over cosplay

“There has been an exponential growth in geek culture and fandom for popular culture in years gone by. We began ICON Durban 10 years ago and the first year we ran the event from a school hall. We had around 700 people and it doubled every year since then. The last time we hosted the event in 2019 we had 1300 people. This year we are hoping for even bigger numbers at a new venue.

“We actively encourage people to come in their cosplays. We aren’t doing an official competition as it’s our first year back. We really wanted to focus on the social aspect of the event and encourage new cosplayers that might be a bit too anxious to visit. While we are a few days out, based on the response we’ve seen online we plan to make ICON Durban a permanent fixture on the calendar and go bigger and better every year. I would love to see more than 1000 people visit over the two days, that would be amazing. It’s hard to judge as we haven’t run an event in six years but there has been an amazing response from our community,” she said.

Backed by her team, volunteers and the Big Bang Store, the organised play sponsor, Kirby said there is a lot to look forward to.

“We will have a number of games on offer, including Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), Warhammer, Pokémon, Magic the Gathering and One Piece. We also have some professional painters come from all over South Africa to help with painting miniatures. We also have 40 vendors which is a promising sign. Our record before this was 22,”
she said.

Kirby said the event is children friendly and she encouraged families to visit as the event was open to all.

• Tickets will be on sale at the door, R80 a day or R120 for a weekend, and the cost for four weekend passes is R450. Entry for children U6 is free.

For more from Northglen News, follow us on Facebook , X or  Instagram. You can also check out our videos on our YouTube channel or follow us on TikTok.

Click to subscribe to our newsletter – here