Before the event, voices could be heard that this year will not break another record for the number of participants: this is due to the pandemic, due to the higher price of the event, or the June date, which coincides with the summer college session. And what? The 2022 edition gathered a record attendance: 56,404,000. participants. And this despite the hell outside (the temperature on Sunday reaches 37 degrees)! And you could feel these crowds (unfortunately, often literally) at every step, because almost the entire available area of MTP was flooded with pop culture enthusiasts.
You don’t have to be a fan of fantasy only . Everyone, I repeat ANYONE, could find something interesting.
From broadly understood pop culture, art, literature, to concerts, an impressive hall of exhibitors of all kinds (in which I missed a small fortune), to lectures on highly scientific topics … It could be a long list. There was so much going on in various MTP locations that I was making tens of thousands of steps a day!
The organizers of Pyrkon have already accustomed the participants to a professional level, and the latest edition has been further improved in many places. Gżdacze controlled the length of the lines (and here, I have to warn you, sometimes you had to wait an hour outside the room to enter the program) and the number of people in the rooms, which allowed us to avoid crowds and ramming in the corridors. Eventually, a sufficient number of different food trucks appeared, so there was no need to leave the convention area.
My only regret is that the organizers limited the competitions at Pyrkon so much. It has always been one of the most important aspects of this type of event for me. Especially that in previous years there were 2 separate competition rooms, while in this year’s edition of the knowledge books there is enough left that you can count them on the fingers of one hand. Fortunately, the Shrew quiz from the editors of The Last Tavern: Noxa and As provided the right impressions.
The 20th edition of Pyrkon was also nostalgic. A large part of level 0 in building 15 was devoted to reminding how a long way was a small convention organized in a community community center, and then in a school in Poznań Dębiec, to one of the largest fantastic events in Europe. A peculiar time machine came into being thanks to the Forbidden Planet, which recreated the appearance of a school room straight from primary school. Even a toddler chair appeared there, which I used to sit on! Together with the editors of Nox and As we looked at the archival photos with a tear in our eyes – because they were our beginnings in the fandom.
It was great to feel this atmosphere again: to hear “It’s already dark – shut up!” or to meet with random outbursts of applause and cheers.
We throw in a handful of photos summarizing our 3 days at the convention – enjoy!