Magic & Mayhem August 2025 edition: our thoughts
By staff writer
The fifth installment of one of Cape Town’s renaissance/fantasy faires, Magic & Mayhem, was a fine addition to my annual event calendar. A welcoming venue, fun activities and games, and plenty of cosplay made for an eventful quest.
I first went to Magic & Mayhem in March this year since it was just down the road from my place. A quick jump in the car and I was able to browse some of the familiar local merchants and take in the cosplay and the sword fighting. I didn’t stay long and thought next time I should make the day of it.
Using our chronomancy, we fast forward to the 2nd of August, where my fiancé and I reworked our Velma and Shaggy cosplays for the fantasy aesthetic and followed the marker on our maps.
The world of Magic & Mayhem
Parking in Cape Town is parking in Cape Town. Your faithful steed is going to struggle and you’re going to hate every second of it. But we knew we were heading in the right direction once we saw the hoards of magical cosplayers.
Voortrekker High School worked as a location. I found that having three different locations (an indoor vendor spot with DnD, more vendors and outdoor games next to the main stage, food stalls and the HEMA tournament) had its advantages. Not perfect, but being closer to nature and out in the open means not as stuffy as indoor locations and gives you a nice break from the crowds while not removing yourself from the event entirely. If one area is busy, you can venture somewhere else and come back later with minimal traffic thanks to the wide walking spaces.
There was a bit of crowding around stalls and lines at the food and drinks but where is that not an issue? The allocated space didn’t really give much room for people to gather and view the merch. However, this bottleneck led to the perfect mini game, with plague rats infecting you with plague stamps as you tried to leave. By the time the cosplay contests rolled around, most of the audience had to raise their dying hands in shame to admit they had caught another once-in-a-generation pandemic-causing disease, myself included. My fiancé was fine, further adding to her theory that eating dirt as a child really does help the immune system.
I struggled with the layout when I first got there. Maybe I missed social posts with the map or was supposed to get a map and programme somewhere and failed the perception check to see where. When they announced there would be a cosplay contest on the main stage, for example, I didn’t know when or where that would be. There was a stage but was it the main stage? Was there another somewhere else? We could only guess.
Dinner and a movie
Hear ye, foodies, one of the school fields held a wide array of food options for peasants and lords alike (thank you to Cape Town nerd events having at least one vegan option). While there were no comically-oversized turkey legs, there was something for everyone.
Then we ventured to the grandstands, where we could sit down and enjoy the weapons fighting tournament, brought to us by Table Mountain Fencing and HEMA. You might get brought out of the immersion slightly by the train tracks in the distance, but if you’re not like Wizards of the Coast and you can embrace artificers, flavour this as magical science. I assume we can add magic to words like how they add quantum to concepts in sci fi movies which they can’t explain. Once our bellies were stuffed, it was back to the main stage for the cosplay contest at 3PM. I multiclassed my rogue Shaggy into ranger so he can use the sun to tell time, don’t @ me.
The cosplay
Magic & Mayhem tickets are discounted for attendees in costume. I can’t say for sure how unique this is, but I can confirm it added to the atmosphere and the audience participation came out in full force. I think it’s quite a gentle way to ease the shy and more casual visitors into a life-long love of cosplay.
For the cosplay competition, there were multiple categories: kids, fantasy and medieval, constructed (over 70% of the costume being handmade), and original character, along with a prize for overall best. Again, a real strong showing from the Cape Town nerd community that amazed us all. A viking, an armoured knight, and Moonknight walk into a tavern. They win their respective cosplay competition categories and get a goodie bag with cool prizes. Makes me think I should really get back into cosplaying. I can’t keep rehashing my story of winning the audience favourite in the casual competition at Stelcon almost 10 years ago.
Final verdict
There is no “final score” or pros and cons list when it comes to events in Cape Town like this. Our final verdict is always going to be that you should attend. If you want to rate the event, there was way more magic than mayhem (plagues included). The school location worked well with foot traffic not becoming overwhelming with the different sections, even if walking back and forth makes us long for fast travel.
I know it’s a bit cliché to say that we just want to grow the scene, but after this successful event, I’m excited to see where they go next and how they grow within the events landscape.
See you at the next one, adventurers. Keep dungeon delving and watch out for mimics.
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