Knoxville Barnes & Noble to host Get Pop Cultured cosplay event

Whether you're a cosplay expert or want to learn more about it, Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Knoxville will present an event celebrating the activity on Saturday at 8029 Kingston Pike.

Cosplay involves dressing up in costumes and accessories to portray certain characters from movies, TV shows, comic books, anime, video games and more.

The free cosplay event is part of Barnes and Noble's Get Pop Cultured celebration, which takes place at stores around the nation on Saturday, features different book sales and celebrates popular trends.

"Sometimes when people think of a bookstore, they don't think we're up on it, hip and cool and what's cool right now...but we definitely are, especially in Knoxville, because our customers expect us to know what's cool and what's trending, what's the next big thing they need to know about, so that's kind of our way to showcase what we know and what we have to offer as a community hot spot," said Amanda Goodwin, Barnes and Noble Knoxville's community business development manager.

The Knoxville store's event will begin at 11 a.m. with story time for children.

"We're going to read some superhero-themed books and empower all of our little ones to feel like they're superheroes," said Goodwin.

The event will continue at 5 p.m. with a cosplay workshop, where expert Wesley Payne will show how he works with foam and plastic to create parts of his costumes, offer advice and answer questions.

At 7 p.m., the event's cosplay prom will begin with music and plenty of folks donning costumes.

"No one ever takes me seriously when I say it's just like real prom, but it's just like real prom, like you'll have those few people who are crazy and will dance, but everybody else just kind of stands off to the sides and separates and like stays in their little groups, which is adorable," said Goodwin. "But after a while, everybody kind of loosens up and we all have a good time and grab some punch out of the cafe...and just hang out."

A cosplay king and queen will be crowned at the end of prom.

Goodwin said this is the third cosplay prom the store has held, and she decided to hold these events after seeing the cosplay talent of the Knoxville community.

"When we started Get Pop Cultured, I had no idea what kind of amazing cosplay community Knoxville actually has, and in the past few years in hosting these events and others, they have kind of crawled out and come in force, which is amazing, so a couple of years ago when I realized that we had this kind of audience, I was like, 'Well we need to have prom. We need to celebrate the fact that all these people like want to dress up and show off,' so we started it the first year, and it's grown every year since," she said.