Once Upon a Time, at Dragon Con...
Many years ago, at DragonCon 2003, in the Hyatt International Ballroom, Dragon Con's Comic Book Track celebrated costumes and cosplays of the best comic book characters in the Page to Stage Comic Book Pageant. Hosted by Peter David and the late great "uncle" George Perez, Dragon Con attendees brought out their greatest tributes to heroes and villains alike. The contest ran on the convention's Saturday evening main programming and attracted large crowds to view the costumes and skits that talented attendees brought to the stage every year.
In 2017, the Page to Stage Comic Book Pageant was replaced with a new event at the Georgia Aquarium called "The Chosen". When content at Dragon Con began to reach a critical mass of high demand from attendees, the convention allowed limited content to run on Thursdays, and thus, Thursdays became the new Friday.
Cisca Small, a visionary and the Fantasy Literature Track Director, had an epic plan to revive the Page to Stage as a literary costuming contest. Together with CosInternational President, Mera Rose, and an army of experienced International Costume Contest volunteers, they brought the Page to Stage Costume Contest back to the Dragon Con's International Stage in the International South Ballroom of the Hyatt on August 31, 2021. Sponsored by Prop House 42, the contest brought attention to literary characters in a unique way that no other contest has ever done in international competition.
The annual celebration of literary prose brought to life on stage, The Page to Stage Costume Contest, now has two separate divisions, an Open Division that costumers and cosplayers can enter with any character based on a literary work, comic book, manga, comics, etc., and an Invitational Division that challenges 20 costumers who have been selected by a committee to create a character from a list of 40 characters from fiction, comic books, and manga while competing for status among the elite and prizes sponsored by Podium.