ICL qualifying competitions

(Solo & Duo) Mandatory Pre-Judging

You will have a pre-judging before the show where you will meet the judges who will look at your costumes and ask questions. You will receive more details via email about exactly when this will take place, but the full pre-judging is:

• Time: 10:00–14:00, where Solo participants will be judged first.
• Location: Hall E1, downstairs.

(Duo only): Interview during the show and mandatory rehearsal before

After your performance, we will want to ask you some questions during the show. We will tell you more about this during your mandatory rehearsal, where we ensure that everything about your performance works as it should by letting you try it out a few times. For this you will receive an individually booked time via email, but the entire rehearsal is:

• Time: Sunday, June 1st 09:00–11:00
• Location: Heroes Main Stage

The qualifiers are intended to follow the rules set by ICL as closely as possible. Below is a brief version of their rules with the most important details that apply to this qualifier. Full rules for the finals can be found here.

• Contestants must be a Swedish citizen or have permanent residency, be 18 years old on September 10, 2025, and be able to travel to Spain during September 2025.
• Participants must attend the pre-judgment before the show and have their costume reviewed by the judges.
• The character that the contestant cosplays must be based on an official published popular culture source and must have at least one reference image. Some examples of popular culture works are comic books, books, films, musicals and video games.
• Contestants may not cosplay based on fanart, doujinshi, live action or genderbends. Original characters are not allowed.
• Costumes that have previously won international qualifying rounds or awards in international competitions such as NCC, WCS, etc. cannot participate in the competition. If the participant has been selected as second in an international competition, the costume is allowed to compete in the ICL qualifiers, but the performance may have to be changed.

• Max 20 competitors. Interested parties register by registering using this form. It is a first come, first served basis where the first 20 who submit a complete registration are allowed to participate.
• Competitors must have made their own costume.
• On stage, the participant performs a catwalk. This must be done alone without any help.
• Changing costumes during the catwalk is not allowed, one costume per competitor.
• Only craftsmanship is judged, no performance.

• You compete as two people, not as an individual or a group of more people.
• Max 8 competing pairs. Interested parties register by registering using this form. It is first come, first served, where the first 8 pairs who submit a complete registration are allowed to participate. Only one registration via the form per duo pair is valid.
• Scoring: 40% in craftsmanship and 60% in performance.
• During the show, the competitors must perform a performance that is between 90–180 seconds long.
• Only the two competitors in the duo are allowed on stage during the participants’ performance, any assistants must leave the stage before the start of the performance.
• The competitors must submit sound and any graphics when registering. Microphones are not allowed and any voices must be pre-recorded.
• Both pairs must have cosplay costumes from exactly the same source. Example: If the couple cosplays characters from “How to train your dragon”, it is not allowed for one to cosplay from HTTYD 1 and the other from HTTYD 2, the costumes must be from the same movie.
• Props, if any, are used, are not judged in advance. These must be at least 50% created by the contestants.
• Participants can help each other in creating the costumes. However, each participant must have worked on at least 50% of one of the costumes, one of the participants cannot create both costumes themselves, but both must contribute.