Finally, the week where students can release their inner geek with others is coming. Kennesaw State’s “Geek Week” is bringing forth events that include costumes, video game tournaments, movie screenings and pie.
Geek Week will start Monday, March 12, with the meme art gallery and bacon reception, which will be hosted in the Social Sciences building on the Kennesaw campus and at the Atrium building on Marietta campus. Events also include geek trivia, a cosplay contest and the newly introduced OwlCon.
This year’s cosplay contest will consist of four categories — children aged 12 or younger, called Squires, beginners or those who purchased store-bought costumes, called Novices, those whose cosplay is 50 percent handmade, called Journeymen, and those whose cosplay is 100 percent handmade, called Experts.
Each winner from those categories will be awarded trophies, and the “best in show” and “people’s choice” winners will receive four-day passes to this year’s MomoCon.
OwlCon, the largest contribution to this year’s Geek Week, will come in the form of a convention that will display many of the condensed events into one day. OwlCon will include cosplay, video game tournaments, demos, panels and tabletop gaming. It will be held March 17 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the student center on the Kennesaw campus.
It is also confirmed that “special characters” will be making appearances on both campuses to promote Geek Week.
Geek Week is an adopted tradition with grassroots that trace back to Southern Polytechnic State University before the merger, and this year will be the fifth year that KSU hosts “Geek Week.”
“Ron Lunk brought the idea back from a conference where he learned of the Rutgers [University] event and felt it meshed well with the culture of SPSU,” said Drew Harvill, associate director of student activities. “The basic concept was a series of ‘geeky’ programming, all centered on March 14 of every year.”
Having started with events like the pi-mile run, live action role play and local area network tournaments, Harvill said that Geek Week has grown into a widely-accessible event.
“We’d like to think that we’ve created something for everyone, regardless of how ‘geeky’ you see yourself,” Harvill said. “We anticipate a fair number of costumes and cosplayers.”
All events are free for students and $5 for non-students, and most events include free food and prizes. Students can volunteer to assist with OwlCon or the other events of Geek Week.
More information, including sign-ups, schedules, guidelines and the volunteer form, can be found on the Geek Week website.
