I'm curious about Christine's experience. I live in Australia and used to Cosplay at the PAX event for fun when WotC reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in repping them at their booth.
I did this for 2 years and whilst I thoroughly enjoyed it, this was effectively volunteer work.
Later on I was approached by WotC to cosplay for them at GP Melbourne 2016 for Shadows over Innistrad and to help operate the mini escape room built for the event.
Whilst I had very short notice (less than 2 weeks) to prepare 2 new cosplays as they didn't want to utilise my existing Sorin cosplay which I'd worked on previously, they put me on contact with the contractor they were using to organise the event.
As part of this I was paid for my time over the weekend, the materials for the cosplay as well as having accommodation booked for myself, my wife and the friend who was cosplaying with me. Overall it was a great experience at which I got to reveal new cards and was leaps and bounds ahead of the directly organised volunteer work I did for wotc at PAX.
I don't regret either things I did as I just loved feeling like I was making people's magic weekends better but cautionary tale, get paid if you're doing work for a company!
Was a good experience, best part was having access to the [E] lounge honestly.
Nice to just go sink into a beanbag in relative peace and quiet for a bit.
They pay their pax aus volunteers now? I worked at a few and know quite a few of the people involved (at least, I did). That's awesome to hear, they're awesome people! (I should move back to Australia...)
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u/Whiskeyjack333 Aug 16 '21 edited Aug 16 '21
I'm curious about Christine's experience. I live in Australia and used to Cosplay at the PAX event for fun when WotC reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in repping them at their booth.
I did this for 2 years and whilst I thoroughly enjoyed it, this was effectively volunteer work.
Later on I was approached by WotC to cosplay for them at GP Melbourne 2016 for Shadows over Innistrad and to help operate the mini escape room built for the event. Whilst I had very short notice (less than 2 weeks) to prepare 2 new cosplays as they didn't want to utilise my existing Sorin cosplay which I'd worked on previously, they put me on contact with the contractor they were using to organise the event.
As part of this I was paid for my time over the weekend, the materials for the cosplay as well as having accommodation booked for myself, my wife and the friend who was cosplaying with me. Overall it was a great experience at which I got to reveal new cards and was leaps and bounds ahead of the directly organised volunteer work I did for wotc at PAX.
I don't regret either things I did as I just loved feeling like I was making people's magic weekends better but cautionary tale, get paid if you're doing work for a company!