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Armageddon weekend in Auckland is one of sheer awesomenessness. Some humans think it is a sci-fi and fantasy expo, but actually it is a celebration of all Pop Culture, which sci-fi and fantasy is a part of. Armageddon also has gaming and wrestling and and trading cards and comics and Cosplay and manga and cartoons and carnival rides and lots and lots and lots of totally cool amazing shopping. (Check out the photos we took at the Friday night Preview.)

Armageddon Expo is now the biggest expo in New Zealand, bigger than the House and Garden Show, Big Boys Toys, or any other expo. Over the weekend 70,000 people visited Armageddon. Look at that seething mass of humans pouring through the doors on Saturday morning. Per capita, Armageddon Expo is now BIGGER than New York Comic Con , and closing in fast on San Diego Comic Con !!!

New York Comic Con:
151,000 attendees. Population of New York: 8,405,837. Attendance rate: 1.79% of population.
San Diego Comic Con:
131,000 attendees. Population of San Diego: 1,345,895. Attendance rate: 9.73% of population
Armageddon Auckland:
70,000 attendees. Population of Auckland: 1,418,689. Attendance rate: 4.93% of population

LEFT: A rather large mass of humans waves up at Ferhad Junior.
MIDDLE: The audience at Main Stage waiting for Jenna Coleman's panel.
RIGHT: Hee hee hee ... can you spot the odd one out amongst the humans?

One of our favourite things about Armageddon is the Cosplay. It is AMAZING to see what some of the humans come up with, and the amount of work that goes into making the costumes is mind-boggling.

This year the Auckland Cosplay Contest was won by Kealy Thorpe, who did the most Totes Amazeballs Cosplay of Katniss Everdeen. It was so totally awesome that she also won the Trans-Tasman Cup. When she did what she did from 0.52 on in the video the audience went even more nuts than when Jenna Coleman or Richard Dean Anderson were introduced.

Ferhad Junior managed to get his photo taken with some of the awesome Cosplayers over the weekend. Humans always seem happy to pose with a small giraffe. In fact, one Stormtrooper became very excited ... who knew that Stormtroopers could be so passioante about giraffes? Of course, Ferhad Junior is exceptionally cute.

If you want to see some more awesome Cosplays, check out these great Armageddon photo albums by humans:

Colin McCormick's photos on flickr
Danielle Donselaar and Antony Ross's photos on Facebook
Caitlin Smith's photos on Facebook
Milliamp's photos on Facebook
David Watson's photos on Facebook

All Facebook albums are public access. And if you like Steampunk, also check out David Watson's photos from a couple of weeks ago. Ferhad Junior was very excited by this album - he interviewed Garnet from Kraken's Lair earlier in the year.

Of course, many humans (and some young giraffes) also go to listen to, meet, and get autographs from the celebrity guests.

We have found that the guests all have things in common:

1) they are really lovely people
2) they LOVE New Zealand
3) they have some really interesting stories to tell

Here's a collection of some of the coolest videos from Armageddon Auckland 2014, plus RDA on TV3

RDA on TV3

RDA @ Armageddon

Jenna Coleman @ Armageddon

Cosplay Parade

Kamehameha Contest

The doors open

If you have never been to Armageddon, you really have to go. Next year will be EVEN BIGGER as it's the 20th Anniversary, and the organisers have lots of BIG PLANS. We usually go every year to Hamilton and Wellington. We're a bit sad that we can't go to Hamilton next year. The stupid Cricket World Cup means that instead of Hamilton being in May, it's been moved to March to the same weekend as Womad, which we go to every year. But we might go to Wellington instead, and we will DEFINITELY be going back to Auckland!

For further information, visit the official Armageddon Expo website.

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