Hello! This is my first blog entry about the COVID-19 or Coronavirus outbreak and how this has affected cosplay as social activity. I decided to write this small article now for posterity.

A small review: I currently live in Bogotá - Colombia with my husband, but I´m from Ecuador and I started doing cosplay there since 2008.  We currently have a cosmaking and propmaking bussiness called The dragon roost props. This blog is about my personal experience and reflects how the cosplay community has reacted.



The first approach I had about the virus was in December of 2019 when a friend who is living in Shanghai talked about the symptoms in a vlog. He handed me some articles to read and get informed. 
The next weeks in cosplay matter we met with friends to decide the teams for 2020 and in which events we planned our presentations-reveals. 
January 23:
Chinese new year celebrations were canceled and Wuhan was closed. In Latin America everything is fine, nobody is talking about that. Next week Ebay stops selling in a lot of stores from China,  from which we were purchasing wigs for the biggest convention on Bogotá: SOFA 2020.  Our friend in China is sharing a lot more vlogs about the situation in his city.

January 31:
Outbreaks are confirmed with positive cases in Italy. At this point Ebay is no longer ensuring that the packages from China will arrive until June. Stores start to do refunds. Now that the news is bigger, the cosplay community is starting to trade wigs and cosplays...some of us were expecting material and product shortages. China is the biggest producer of synthetic wigs and cheap cosplays among other products for our hobby.



February 9:
We are traveling to Ecuador to see my family, the airport control was a small desk on international arrivals of the Health Ministry. They asked for our information since we were wearing neoprene masks. It was voluntary and besides that we had no other contact with them. I brought with me some cosplay commissions to deliver.


February 23:
We returned home, there was no major control on the airports. We brought back protection masks and some cosplay materials. While we were in Quito we had our last cosplay photoshoot with our friends. We used Kimetsu no Yaiba cosplays (they were our 1st 2020 cosplays). We were receiving inquiries for cosplay commissions and we were ready to resume work.


March 1:
People on social media are encouraging the use of protection masks, it is more of a fashion trend than a precaution. We attended Matsuri festival and met with some cosplay friends. People were optimistic that day so we talked about the next conventions and more cosplay plans.
 March 11:
Cancelation day: concerts, massive reunions, conventions and events are getting postponed until June. On social media people are talking about how long the wait will be, on chat we are discussing that every plan should be re-evaluated. People are returning home from International events and conventions. With no events in near future we stopped receiving messages for commissions.

March 13:
We are buying art supplies and materials in case of quarantine, since we lived in Ecuador were we faced earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters we were adopting emergency precautions. Emergency states are active in Ecuador and some countries nearby. At this point social media runs wild with memes and fake news. Cosplay community is fairly active with reports from people in other countries (facebook groups, reports from famous cosplayers on Instagram). 

March 14:
Virus cases are increasing rapidly in Latin America, we decided to make self quarantine. There are some attempts of organizing online conventions worldwide. The cosmaking busines has stopped. Photoshoots are getting canceled.

That is for the time being, we don't know how long this situation will last but something is for sure our dear cosplay shop will stop producing :(. Luckily for us we still have other freelance work but many cosplay stores, event producers or artists are lacking work commissions. I encourage all of you to support this stores, some have come up with creative ways to subsist. If you can´t buy from them at least share their work. I know cosplay community will stand strong and we will phase this situation with optimism. 

Please stay strong, lots of love!
Cinnamon Annie

Credits:
Icons: Freepik, Vectors markers