Nowadays PR firms, corporate events organizers, and advertising agencies invite cosplayers to add color and fun to their events. In exchange for the cosplayers’ attendance, they are given goodie bags, meal vouchers, gift certificates, movie passes, and even cash allowances.

However, before you accept an invitation to cosplay for a corporate event, here are five things you should keep in mind.

Ask for details before you agree.

Before you give your answer to the organization or company that invited you to cosplay at their event, ask questions. When will the event be held? Where is the venue? What is your call time? Will transport be provided to and from the venue? What are you expected to do while at the event?

Don’t stop asking questions until you feel comfortable with what you know. And if the organizer refuses to give straight answers, take that as a warning sign and decline the invitation for your own good.

Get to know your handler.

Someone at the event is tasked with taking care of the cosplayers — this person is your handler. Get to know your handler ideally before the event, or during the event if time constraints prevent you from meeting beforehand. Ask for a name, some contact information like an e-mail address and a mobile phone number, as well as the name and contact info of an alternate or subordinate in case you cannot get in touch with the lead person.

If you have your handler’s name, try asking around the local cosplay community if this person is good to work with. If this person has an unsavory reputation, a laundry list of past failures, or is a complete unknown, you can again take that as a sign that you’d be better off passing up on their invitation instead of saying yes.

Bring a costume appropriate for the event.

Ask your handler what kind of event they are inviting you to, where it will be held, how long you are expected to be in costume, and what you are expected to do. When you have this information, you can then make your costume selection — something light and easy to walk in for parades and walkabouts, something flashy and elaborate for night events, and something that covers you up and is not too figure-hugging for family-friendly gatherings.

If the event is a product launch — say, for a videogame, an MMORPG, or a toy line, ask your handler which franchises you are allowed to cosplay. This is a very sensitive matter, since you wouldn’t want to show up dressed in something from their biggest competitor now, would you?

Expect to do some promotional activities.

The main reason cosplayers are invited to a corporate event is to help create some buzz for the event — this includes flyering, posing for pics with guests, or doing a parade or walkabout. For some cosplayers this sort of thing is okay, while for others it just isn’t their cup of tea. If doing this sort of promotional work is something you do not enjoy, then the smart thing to do would be to decline any invitations for events like these.

Volunteering for a gig like this and then complaining on message boards and blog posts that you were asked to do promo work is plain old stupidity. Nobody forced you to sign up, so you have no one but yourself to blame if things did not turn out like you expected.

Do not demand freebies or a talent fee for your efforts.

Last but not least, under no circumstances should you demand for a talent fee or freebies. While some organizers are nice enough to appreciate the effort that cosplayers contributed to their event and give out tokens of appreciation in the form of cash and gifts, not everybody can be expected to give the same big-ticket items all the time — they also have a budget to consider.

Compensation for volunteer cosplay participants is strictly up to the event coordinators and company management; just because you cosplayed for them it does not give you the right to demand whatever the hell it is you want from them. If you’re not happy with what you got, just chalk it up to experience and decline any succeeding invitations from the same organizer.

Better yet, decline all corporate invitations and simply cosplay for fun — not for profit. If you do, then there will be absolutely no reason to read this list, and everybody will live in harmony harmony OH LOVE!