It was our first ever visit to Comic Con, so we didn’t really know what to expect. I had read all the info on the website for first time visitors, so we knew to wear comfy shoes, take refillable water bottles and wear deodorant (no really, that is mentioned on their website), but we haven’t lived in London for quite a while, so we were a bit unprepared for just how busy it was. Possibly Saturday is the busiest day, and there is a priority slot at the start of each day which we missed, which was probably quieter. We opted to drive and arrived at midday and there was still (free) parking available, and plenty of stewards to assist with everything, so the necessary infrastructure was all in place to deal with the crowds, we were just a bit overwhelmed to begin with, coming up from the sticks and all. We followed the stream of Mandalorians, Pikachus, Black Widows, Boba Fetts, She Hulks, Pimons, Jokers, Scream Masks, Spidermans (all male and female versions, and I refuse to spell check all of those) from the car park up to the Excel entrance and we were inside the venue within a couple of minutes, which was again due to fantastic organization. We queued behind Frank Skinner, but were too polite/cool to take a sneaky photo. We then went into the concourse and realized that queuing for the first set of loos was probably unnecessary, when there are so many toilets on site, so we made our way to the second set of toilets near the Star Wars section and Frank had the same idea – again we didn’t take a photo – still trying to be cool about it. After that we went to the Dr Who section first and queued for a photo in front of the Tardis behind, yes you guessed it, Frank Skinner. By this time we were no longer polite or cool and he almost certainly thought we were intentionally following him, so we took a photo, it seemed to break the curse and then we could all get on with our day and go our separate ways.
We did then tend to stick to sections we were all familiar with, which meant a lot of Star Wars and some Dr Who and Harry Potter. We love dressing up, so we visited the Cos Play section too, with the coloured wigs and the wings and the horns, and then we happened upon some great blasts from the past like Labyrinth, Buffy and Angel (ask a grown-up if you are from the Roblox generation). The stands were super busy, so we could have come away with a lot more merch, as there were loads of really cool t-shirts and a lot of Nightmare Before Christmas stuff that I loved the look of. Even with the crowds we still bought plenty of Star Wars and Harry Potter stuff and the kids felt that it was really fun and cool seeing so many people in costume, and that there was loads to look round and that it catered for all ages.
I think next time we definitely need to attempt at least some sort of costumes to really enter into the spirit of things, or at least wear less layers, as it is really quite warm in the areas with the stands, but it was a lot cooler where we sat down to have our picnic in one of the empty exhibition spaces. I imagine Frank would probably prefer we don’t stalk him quite so much next time either…
Elizabeth Wickenden
Director – Grapevine Media Group Ltd
Buy tickets online for today, Sunday 30th October.
