#narcon

Con technically starts today

Im sleeping in a sleeping hall and woke up now (it's 4AM for context)... should I just try to sleep more (without my blanket cuz we FORGOT it in the room i work in) or get up and style a banger full face of makeup or sum?? Help

TRIGUN MEETUP AT NÄRCON SUMMER 2025✌️❤️

Come meet and hang out with other Trigun fans!

Please retweet and share with your friends as this doesn't exist in Närcons schedule

In it Daniela (full time NärCon employee) explains they had “the best year ever” according to the feedback. It’s been pointed out by multiple people that the survey used lacked even basic options to provide constructive criticism. Anything negative was restricted to the last box of “anything else you want to add?”. So we cannot help but laugh at this statement. Everything looks good when negativity is discouraged and every person is an involuntary yes-man! There were also many concerns about the survey not being anonymous enough, which made many people openly state in their own discord that they would not be filling the survey out due to discomfort.

The problem with this is that they will simply never improve or fix their problems when they don’t get to hear about the things they can and should improve. If they don’t fix the problems while they’re small, the problem is going to keep growing each year until it’s fully out of control. It’s easier and less expensive to fix a 15.000 visitor convention, than a 30.000 visitor one. But looking good on the surface is seemingly their no. 1 priority, while the core is rotting from the inside.

Daniela goes on to tell everyone that they can’t fulfill every single request, naturally. We’re not strictly against them stating it openly as if the viewer is a literal child, because they know the viewers are very often literal children. Underage people are their core demographic. It does however raise the question if maybe they should consider having adult information outlets too, if they wish to maintain an all-ages event. The entire video is overall very childish and what you’d expect to show middle school children, we have to say as adults it’s a bit annoying to watch it as you are being talked down to as if you are a child.

An example of that is that she then laughs about how she can’t go through everything because it would take hours and neither party would like that. We and many visitors with us would very much like open transparency, so they’re wrong about that. We actually do want communication and information about our valid concerns. It doesn’t have to be a video, a simple blogpost with one to three sentences per statement would be optimal, cheaper and less time consuming.

Daniela brings up how people were upset about the sleeping halls. Specifically about people being “sad or confused” over why they had the electrical outlets and taps turned off. She says “the taps were off for a reason” that she does not elaborate further on, but that they’ll be on next year - but with clear instructions. The outlets were off due to fire hazard concerns over multiple power strips being used at the same time. This is of course a very valid reason,  but it should have been communicated clearly from the start. It should also be clear when people buy tickets to the sleeping halls that they likely can’t charge their phones easily and have to share a low amount of sockets. Again, they’re clearly aware their target demographic is kids. Kids who 1) do not think ahead due to natural developmental reasons, and 2) need to be able to reach parents using their phones in case anything bad happens. So this is important information.

Next point is signage. They state they will have clearer signage next year. Thank god for that. This point includes people not knowing where to get coffee. This is quite literally the most Swedish concern to ever exist. 

A few bullet points - They’ll get more decor for next year. - LED sound on the trailer outside will be improved - Splitting queues to Drakens Öga for shorter queues   Minor points, but should be positive changes.

On to Artist Alley. Will they mention the sexual content shown to kids they banned and bullied multiple concerned visitors over? (Spoiler, they do not.)

They will have fewer tables to reduce the overcrowded areas, and of course the change from first-come to having judges choose who gets to come to Artist Alley. Meaning the next time you see something inappropriate in Artist Alley you know for sure NärCon staff personally approved of it! AI art is for the first time stated to not be allowed, that is something artists have been waiting for them to do for years! We assume the statements that they’ll try to get stage performers to sell rather than artists was a simple case of so called “Swenglish”.

The absolutely garbage NärCon app is brought up. They are attempting to solve issues of it crashing and not loading. This has been known for years though, so we can’t give them too much credit for just admitting it openly. At least they’re planning to add water stations, microwave locations, and parking around the area to the maps, as well as informing people where the cosplay parade is. Very refreshing to hear the phrase “that was our fault” said by someone working for NärCon. We enjoyed this once in a lifetime moment.

Now there’s a jump back to sleeping halls, they’re going to have better information about how incredibly cold it gets in the sleeping halls at night. This again is good, but it’s still shocking it took them over a decade to figure out it’s worth mentioning it to the kids coming. Though it’s possibly just going to be in the app and not informing people of it while buying tickets/before arriving at the con and checking the app. It remains to be seen.

More audience choices will be added to for example cosplay performances. More cosplay intermediate added, and now you’ll have to submit beforehand what you plan to do, presumably to get selected by judges. More info is promised later. K-pop dance Swedish championship is to be held at NärCon. Cosplayers mention the lack of changing rooms so NärCon promises to have more next summer.

Lastly, they’ll get more buses to run to/from the convention (certain fairies want us to point out that she mispronounces the word östgöta which they found hilarious).

Overall, childishly delivered video. But again, it’s seemingly for literal kids. It avoids the controversies and doesn’t go into much detail. It’s still better that the video exists than not. She claims they appreciate all feedback, while their other staff members ban people for bringing up serious concerns so we have to say we doubt that statement.

It's worrying that they'll potentially expose kids to pornographic material yet again. Here we are again asking everyone to consider what kind of people knowingly allow the selling of literal porn in the presence of kids, and further what kind of person then encourages kids to come.

NärCon have announced a small team of 3 people are going to judge all artists coming in (or not coming in). These people are: Linnea of Feefal Art, Sora Naglitsch, long term Artist Alley organizer at NärCon, and David Fallgren, Main Organizer of NärCon Sommar.

We know Sora Naglitsch is one of the staff members who is of the opinion that squeezing boobs is "non-sexual" and that naked butts posed seductively and wearing jockstraps are both fully appropriate for small kids. Sora thinks banning visitors over questioning these opinions is justified.

David Fallgren approved and supported that visitors who merely questioned Sora's aforementioned opinions got unfairly threatened and banned from servers by NärCon's resident bully moderators. As the main organizer he had the option to set things right, but chose not to. So we have very little confidence or trust that at these people have the competence to be fair and just judges.

Något vi har tänkt på är att det skulle vara hur lätt som helst för någon att smuggla in riktiga vapen till NärCon då de i princip inte har någon säkerhetskontroll alls. Med tanke på hur illa NärCon behandlar besökare som har problem och hur dåligt deras rykte redan är skulle det kunna finnas personer som är sjuka nog att vilja skada NärCon, även besökare.

Det går inte att dölja att NärCon attraherar en del speciella typer av människor, en del med mentala svårigheter som skulle kunna övergå till våld om de känner sig kränkta och illa behandlade. Skolskjutar-typen av person. Vi har redan sett NärCons personal erkänna att pedofiler kommer (och att de är fullt välkomna på NärCon), vilka andra sjuka grupper kan tänkas komma dit som de inte bryr sig om? Det räcker att en enda sjuk person kommer in för att någons liv ska kunna förstöras för evigt. Ni kanske har märkt att efter första dagen kollar ingen personal banden på besökare när de går in och ut från konventet under NärCon sommar. Speciellt inte om personen har cosplay och dolt identitet (så som mask över ansiktet), det bara antas att personen måste vara konventare för att den har cosplay på sig. Vi testade NärCons säkerhet. Genom att med flit dölja våra band under cosplay, långärmade tröjor, väskor och dylikt ville vi se om NärCons personal reagerade. Först när vi går in på konventet, sedan under konventet, och till sist på vägen ut. Notera att detta var efter första incheckning, vi hade alla band. Fairies går heller inte i grupp på NärCon utan i flera olika sammansättningar av personer: ensam, med en vän, i grupp med flera vänner eller familj av olika antal.

På väg in: En enda stoppning under första dagen. Tröjärmen bads dras upp för att visa band. Resterande gånger under hela konventet stoppades ingen från att gå in trots att banden inte kunnat verifieras. Under konventet: Flera tog medvetet av sig bandet och gick sedan öppet utan band på sig hela dagen. Som extra test pratade en person direkt med NärCons personal för att se om den märkte något. Detta agerande fick ingen reaktion någonstans. På väg ut: Ingen stoppades, varken de med dolt band eller de med öppet bara handleder.

Good question Anonymous. We're by no means experts in law, however there is a crime called "uppvigling" (incitement). Which means that it is a crime to incite and encourage others to break the law - be it through violence or discrimination. This can get you a fine, or jail up to 6 months. So short answer is that, no, it isn't legal to promote violence in Sweden.

Basically there are three conditions that need to be met for it to fall under uppvigling: 1. It has to be a message* aimed at the public. 2. It should contain incitement. 3. The action the incitement is for should be something that breaks the law. All three have to be met. Btw "the public" in this case can also be a small closed group, so discord qualifies. And the "message" can be just an image and doesn't actually need to contain words. We don't know exactly what you're referring to so we're going to make up some examples. A message that fulfills 1 and 2 (but not 3) could be "Speak out against NärCons unfair actions!". The 3 is missing as there is no crime, so despite Närcon's protests this is a fully legal message. A message that fulfills 1 and 3 (but not 2): "I wanna fuck some punks up!" physical abuse is mentioned but there's no incitement of it. A message that fulfills 2 and 3 (but not 1) would be telling a friend in private "The people who run NärCon are so fucked up, let's go punch them in the face!". As it's just a private message to a friend, it's not public incitement. (To make it super extra clear we do not in any way condone punching anyone in the face, this is just an example.)

So all of those do NOT fall under uppvigling. Let's try to make some examples that do fill all three conditions: "Punch all tiktokers you see at NärCon!" posted in for example discord, we believe this incites violence. "Cut up (members of a political party)" on a knife shaped sticker - we believe this incites violence. "Art print of blooded fists, with a symbol for a group of people" we believe this could also be inciting violence by implying "beat up/kill this group". Also take note that even if it doesn't fall under uppvigling/incitement, an image like this could reasonably still be seen as a threat of violence made to create fear. Threats are of course also illegal. Even if they don't intend to go through with the action, the threat is a crime in of itself. We think a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself "if this was directed at an oppressed minority group, would it be seen as violent and illegal?". If the answer is yes, then it's likely yes for other people too. Sometimes people forget that all people are people and it's not legal to threaten anyone with crimes. Even if you personally think that group of people really sucks. (There's also going to be exceptions, such as comedians making obvious jokes, but we don't think that would apply in these cases.)

We would also like to take a moment just to say that we think it's super fucked up that NärCon doesn't stop it if there is long time ideologically based violence on their platforms. What's even more worrying is that for that to be the case there have to be, as you called it, "acceptable targets". There should be NO acceptable targets, and there should be NO talk of committing or wishing of violence. That is just not how a safe community works.