As a teenager I was very interested in Japan and Japanese culture; gaming, food and manga – you name it. Not all of my friends shared the same deep interest for Japan, even though we all thought it was a cool country. When I went to my first convent, LinCon, in the Swedish city Linköping it was a mindblower. Never had I been surrounded with so many people who shared my interests. After LinCon I got very eager to create a similar event in my hometown Örebro, but which also included my interest in Japanese culture. With the help of people from school and the scouts, I founded NärCon. I remember biking around all over town, putting up posters. It was hard sometimes, but it was all worth it when the convent opened!

NärCon is a nerd festival – and paradise! It’s a series of cosplay and gaming festivals held in Linköping twice a year. The main event in summer attracts over 10 000 participants from all over Europe. NärCon actually became Scandinavia’s largest gaming and anime event already in 2012 when we received over 3500 visitors. NärCon is a platform for all kinds of popular culture, where of course Japan is at the center, but also recent phenomena such as Star Wars, Marvel and Minecraft have a place.

The magic behind NärCon is the people. We have participants in all age groups, mainly between 13 and 30, and over 800 volunteers – “pandas” – helping us create NärCon Summer. Our passion and vision is that when people gather around a common interest or goal, magic happens. NärCon happens. In the future, I hope that we can attract even more visitors and become a center for popular culture in Europe, like the big Japan Expo in Paris.

It would be a lot of fun to put more Japan focus and features of this year’s NärCon! We usually invite Japanese guests, like gamers, cosplayers or artists. One idea that I have is to arrange more lectures on Japanese society, food, culture and history. I’m so happy that NärCon and my passion for Japan has become a bridge between our countries. I want to make use of the platform we created to show even more of Japan to even more people!