Kawaiicon 2026

A couple decades ago, a hundred or so people turned up to Pipitea Campus for the weekend to learn and hang out with their online mates and make poor life decisions in good company. The people that would become the Crüe were relieved; they hadn’t been sure if anyone was going to show up at all.

Over time, the venues changed as the audience got bigger. It became clear to the then-Crüe that the audience wasn’t just hackers or corporate security teams trying to get out of work for a couple of days. Instead people were coming from all sorts of backgrounds because they thought this information security thing was interesting.

Like us. So the ‘con changed - or we changed the ‘con, because we wanted them to be welcome too.

Another change was going from Kiwicon to Kawaiicon. We’d never expected the ‘con to stick, but it had, and so had the name; but it didn’t seem very representative anymore. We wanted black t-shirts and lasers, but we also wanted a petting zoo (still waiting on that).

Between the original Crüe and the newcomer Crüe we try to create a low-barrier-to-entry space to bring together various groups of people that are involved with or interested in infosec. With glitter fountains. Black t-shirts. Cutely.

Previous Cons

Credits

Kawaiicon is brought to you by The Kawaiicon Crüe, our selfless volunteers, our speakers, everyone we managed to talk into helping us along the way, and last but certainly not least whoever gives us sponsors cash.

Code of Conduct

We have a code of conduct. We enforce our code of conduct. But not with a SecUnit. We wouldn’t want to interrupt its shows.

Charity Status

We are officially a charitable company, registered on the New Zealand Charities Register! Our registration number is CC64038. Now you can feel EXTRA warm and fuzzy next to those sparkle pyro pots.