(Radio Iowa) – It may look like Halloween arrived five months early when Des Moines Con opens on May 31st, as the event will bring some of the region’s top cosplayers to central Iowa, along with a long list of celebrity guests. Convention founder Ben Penrod says the three-day gathering always attracts some of the most sophisticated costume creators, whether they’re disguised as a muscle-bound superhero, a robotic Transformer or a fuzzy space alien.

“The level of craftsmanship that we see in Des Moines is second to none,” Penrod says. “It’s amazing and the people who really show up, who are very serious about their cosplay, it’s amazing and it’s something that doesn’t ever fail to inspire me to do better.” While many such gatherings are labeled as a “comicon” with its origin in comic books, Penrod says the Des Moines event is more of a pop culture festival.

“We celebrate all of pop culture and it starts with comics and radiates out from there,” Penrod says. “It’s about people who are big fans of things in pop culture, whether it’s comic books or TV, or anime, or maybe they’re just collectors and they like collecting toys or non-sports cards as a hobby.” Along with costume contests and Q-and-A sessions with special guests, there will be tournaments for tabletop and video gaming, along with a dizzying array of merch.

“We’ve got 200-and-some vendors and artists who each bring their own thing to Des Moines Con,” Penrod says. “We’ve got probably two dozen celebrities. I think we’ve got probably close to 50 hours of programming, panels and workshops, a lot of stuff that’s submitted by fans.” When pressed, Penrod guesses the longest lines for autographs and photos will be for “Blue’s Clues” host Steve Burns, who’s being joined by co-hosts Donovan Patton and Josh Dela Cruz, but he says there are many other actors, voice actors, cosplayers, authors and artists on the list. The long roster includes Grace Van Dien of “Stranger Things,” Alex Brightman from “Hazbin Hotel,” and Shantel VanSanten of “For All Mankind.”

“We’ve got four people who were in the Power Rangers TV series and the Power Rangers movie: Karan Ashley, Steve Cardenas, Jason Narvy, Paul Schrier, who are always popular,” Penrod says. “Power Rangers is something that’s been popular for almost 30 years.” Des Moines Con will run May 31st through June 2nd at the Iowa Events Center.

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