No Winx Club merch at the Milan Games Week

Ciao amore,

the Milan Games Week is right around the corner (November 24^th to 26^th) and Winx Club finally has announced that there will be the final event of the Cosplay Contest.

Before I dive into the topic, here’s a brief summary of last year: Winx Club announced on November 7^th 2022 that they will be at the Milan Games Week having the finale of the Winx Cosplay Contest with none other than Iginio Straffi in the jury. I took this chance and planned a very spontaeous trip to Milan. I got to meet my dearest friends and Mr. Straffi. That event will remain a unique experience in my 19+ years as Winx lover!

The only information Winx Club gave in their Instagram post on Saturday 11^th is that the contest finds place at 3.30 p.m. on November 25^th with the finalists from all over the world.
Today I decided to check out the milangamesweek.it website to see if there is any program information. Luckily I find some which says that there are eight finalists from all over the world coming and that the event will take place on November 25th from 3:30 pm to 4:15pm hosted by Giorgia Vecchini and Luca Panzieri in Hall 11. Luca was the moderator of last years contest and Giorgia was part of the jury alongside Iginio Straffi and Monica Toniolo.

So far so good – I searched for a floor plan of the Games Week to get a better idea of it where the event will take place since I also read something about the “multiverse stage” on the program. After I found the floor plan of the buildings at the fair, I understood that last year’s event took place in hall 8 and this year in hall 11. Nothing too exciting, right. But subconsciously I was immediately feeling off since after Rainbow changed halls at the Frankfurt Book Fair, their booth was literally nothing compared to the previous ones.

A week ago I send an e-mail to a Rainbow contact who I made due to last year’s convention – I wanted to get more information about what they have planned for this year. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we all were hoping for Iginio Straffi to be there again but due to trusted sources I already knew since quite some time that there is a high chance that he is not joining this year’s event. And this is now the case. We all can probably deal with that – at least we’re getting a convention full of Winx!

Bad news. Just today I received an answer to my e-mail from last week saying that: “This year our presence at the MGW will be “less busy” than last year. We will be there for the final of the Winx Club Cosplay Competition, on Saturday afternoon. We will be glad if you could come by to say hi! No other activities, or selling, have been scheduled for this year.”

It took me some time to process this information. Not only have I thought and dreamed of that this years Milan Games Week would be similar to the one I experienced last year, but I think of all the fairies who weren’t able to come last year and put all their hope into this convention.

But I also got to know that Rainbow and other companies seemed to have difficulties with the organizer – so probably it wasn’t their decision to keep it small this time. At least I would have wished that Rainbow would address the situation because I bet everyone was hoping for a similar event like last year. Well, it are still some days left for them to give us all more information.

Even if I’m sad I will definitely make the best out of it! I think we, the ones who are coming to the convention, will be able to still share a magical time together. c: