Cosplaying at Comiket
I've been meaning to do this writeup for a while, and Ayu asked for it, so here we go 
11:40:02 <@Ayu> furinkan: i need cosplay advice for c79 11:40:09 <@Ayu> i'm starting on it now 11:40:17 <@Ayu> i think am going to do the 'love is war' version of len 11:40:35 <@Ayu> hopefully it's not too cold, but i remember last time in the afternoons it felt warm enough 11:41:04 <@Ayu> but anyways, they have changing areas right 11:41:10 <@Ayu> and how complicated in the cosplayer check in 11:41:32 <@Ayu> and there was a lot of cosplayers out there late on day 1 last time, doesn't the changing area close 11:41:53 <@Ayu> what did you do 11:41:56 <@Ayu> etc. 11:41:56 <@Ayu> w
Hi Ayu, glad you asked! Comiket was a heady experience, this is what I learnt from C75.
The catalogue has a small section (about half a page) in EN for cosplayers to give you a rough idea of how it works. Unlike western conventions, you don't turn up in costume. Whether this is out of consideration for fellow commuters I'm not sure, but it's just not done.
There are two separate areas for cosplayers, split between boys/girls. At C75, the girls' area was down the escalators below the main entrance area. The boys' area was all the way up the top, up the hueg 3-storey escalator.
P.S. please don't walk on the escalators, just let it take you there - I had an attendant wave at me frantically when I did
As I was also there to buy doujin, I had a lot of stuff to carry - camping out from 4am is very cold, meaning you need to bring a lot of extra clothing. When you get changed, you need somewhere to stash all that clothing. Thankfully comiket operates a cloakroom, I recall it had some nominal fee like 500yen, which is well worth it. Plenty of cosplayers take their stuff with them to the "stage" area though, which may or may not be workable for you.
TBC
- bring warm clothes (if they're compact that's even better, like merino wool)
- checkin/rego is easy, I stumbled through by telling the guy I speak EN and only very little JP
- cosplay sorta finishes around 15:00 or 16:00, I forget
- so I went along, got changed, walked around, saw people, changed back, etc. all pretty straightforward. follow the beeline of other cosplayers heading to the show-area
- remember that the location of cosplay can change between days (top-deck balcony, or carpark)