FANTASY FEST: Once the domain of male geeks, the annual Supanova pop culture expo today attracts huge numbers of females and families who love dressing up.

 – By JIM SCHEMBRI

Now in its 17th year, the Supanova festival filled the Melbourne Showgrounds over the weekend with more than 30,000 people, many of whom enthusiastically indulged in the practice of ‘cosplay’ – that is, dressing up as a favourite character from a movie, comic  book, cartoon, TV show, web series, game or any other form of entertainment that transports people into a fantasy world.

Founded in 2000 in Sydney as Comicfest and rebranded in 2002 as Supanova, the event celebrates all forms of popular culture with international guests that this year included David Boreanaz (Buffy; Angel) and Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man; The Fall Guy). The expo is held across the year in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Far, far away from the cliche of the spotty, socially isolated geek, the event now draws a wide range of people, with a notable increase in recent years of females and families.

While roaming through the colourful, costumed  crowd of this marvellous exhibition of exhibitionists – cosplayers love getting photographed, especially when posing with awestruck kids – we caught up with a very busy Daniel Zachariou, who runs Supanova, and grabbed a few comments. (Please excuse the wind noise; it was unavoidable!).

Please enjoy.

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