Pyrkon 2025 - First Con Experience

Some context

I'm 19 (at the time of the trip and writing this), Polish, shy and never went to any convention.
So knowing that Pyrkon was coming up soon and I had free time, as I finished school recently, I decided to go.
Also while I was there I was running at only 5 hours of sleep.

Preptime

So, I started preparing on Friday.
Kinda late considering that it was happening on Saturday and I had to wake up early for the train.
Nonetheless, I went to the store to buy stuff I needed. Went back home, procrastinated.
And at like 10pm I actually started packing and changing my water bottle filter.
When I was done it was already 12am. So yea, I'm very bad at time management.

Train Ride to Poznań

Skip if you don't wanna hear me talking about the toilet

I went with 2 guys I knew from school. One of them already went before, while for the second one it was a first time.
There wasn't a lot of people yet, so we secured some seats very easily. Can't really complain about the ride.
My only problem was that I needed to go to the toilet really badly. I checked if there are any toilets.
On the back couldn't see one. In the front there was one, but it said it was out of order.
So I went back to my seat in defeat. Later I asked and turns out there was one on the back afterall.
Guess I'm just stupid. After that my kidneys hurt as hell, another debuff of the day. Also the tap was pouring out boiling water, like wtf, my hands :( .

First hours

After reedeming our tickets for the entrance passes, we entered the convention.
We kinda went in without a plan, for the start I just followed the experienced guy.
They did some stuff I was just tagging along.
After some walking I decided to split from them.
We don't really have the same interests, so if I continued walking with them it would just be boring for me.
Besides I already planned to split from them, originally I didn't even expect to be going with them.

Alone trip

I started exploring.
I think where I went first after splitting was pavillion 7, which is basically connected to 7A, 8 and 8A.
I was planning to go on some workshop but my timing was off, also I had no clue where to go or how all of this worked.
When I was in the connector I saw someone cosplaying Tung Tung Tung Sahur.
I wanted to take a photo, but didn't really know how to approach it (this is gonna be very common thing here).
Luckily some guy came up to me and offered me help with taking the picture, so I gave him my phone and came up to Sahur to take the photo.
Ngl I'm very thankful to that stranger, also I guess it kinda started to crack my shyness shell.

Ok now here I kinda forgot the order of things, so I'm just gonna say what I did.
I saw one cosplayer I noticed before, so I finally broke the shell and asked if I could take a photo, he agreed and I took one, it turned out kinda blurry tho, but what can I do.
He was cosplaying Solemn Lament from Limbus Company. Even though I'm new to Project Moon games, I still wanted to take a photo.
Also got picture with Stelle from Honkai: Star Rail, while exploring. If you've seen my Discord you could notice that I'm a huge Stelle fan.
So I'm really happy about getting those.

My true calling

I'd say this is a part where the true fun started. While walking around the anime section.
I saw that that one of people working in that section was running a "Ultimate Anime Tier List".
It worked like so: there we're few anime on a magnetic board placed on tiers from S to E, any person could come up to it and swap 2 animes with eachother.
It was so interesting watching what happened. I saw few people doing crimes against anime kind in there, like: putting Highschool DXD in S tier or Frieren being really low.
Honestly I didn't watch some of those, but knowing general opinion about them, was enough for me to have fun watching what is happening.
But the thing I cared the most was my true and only goat of animes: Oshi No Ko. My first and probably 2nd swap was putting it in A tier.
I was strategic about it, I analyzed my options, as to not hurt the position of my goat. Also I didn't want to swap places of other goats on the list.
I didn't want bounty on my head, lol. I even clapped once for someone putting Oshi No Ko higher. Probably my favourite part of the entire trip.
Also here's the state of the tier list before I left:

Easy rage bait ngl.

Trip ending

I took some more photos with cosplayers. Got one with with Castorice from Honkai: Star Rail, Kana and Akane from Oshi No Ko and Izutsumi from Dungeon Meshi.
Everyone's cosplay was so cool. Honestly I wish, I wasn't that socially anxious and asked some more cosplayers for photos.

I was kinda thinking about going to Takanashi Kiara's and Nerissa Ravencroft's panel, but then I remembered my one true oshi, Tung Tung... I'm joking.
In reality I already saw people lining up like hour before it and I didn't really care that much, I didn't even watch them, only saw few clips.
I went shopping though and bought a Stelle Acrylic Stand and 2 chibi Oshi No Ko plushies of Mem-Cho and Kana(idk if it was during the same trip to shopping place, acrylic stand was definitely later).
While leaving the shopping area I participated in a Pyrkon tradition where you shout "ZARAZ BĘDZIE CIEMNO!!!" (IT'S GOING TO BE DARK SOON!!!) and everyone shouts back "ZAMKNIJ SIĘ!!!" (SHUT UP!!!).
When I did that I only got reply from 2 girls, mainly because I was shouting in the direction of the door instead of the people.
I heard them talking about them being the only ones to reply, so I said "Test zdany" (Test passed). Ngl, it was kinda funny interaction, it makes me smile.
And after that I went to the train station, got on the train and waited for those 2 guys I traveled with.
From what they told me, they left the convention and went on a side quest in Poznań. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When they got back one of them got cat ears as a gift, so I asked him to give them to me. Kept them for the entire ride back (gave them back after tho). I wore them proud and loud.
Only later did I realize that I was wearing them, while the ticket guy was checking our tickets. Kinda embarrasing, but also funny.

Final thoughts

It was fun. I am happy with how I spent my time, even though it could have been better. My only regret would be not taking photos with some cosplayers I saw and
probably not taking more photos in general. Also I could have interacted more with activities that were run there. Only at the end did I somewhat start doing stuff.
Despite that I'm still thankful for the time I spent there and to very nice people I met.
It showed me that not everything in the world is that bad, even if it feels that way being on Internet.
Also for the future now I know that nothing bad happens if you ask for a photo (I sure do love to overthink).
Another thing that would be good to do in the future would be mapping out the area. It would make it easier to find stuff.
Splitting sooner is also something to do, if I go with someone that doesn't share my interests.
I should also get better at taking pictures, one of the photos was blurry, because I took it :| .
But I think that's everything, if I think of something else I'll probably update this post.
Also I think I'll share the photos I took, but first I need to cover up my face for privacy, if I upload them I'll add a link here.
But for now it's probably it, bye.