We attended our first MCM Comic Con at EXCEL London (May 24th-25th 2019)
As one of the largest and premier pop culture events in the UK it offers attendees a wide range of attractions, opportunities and experiences covering a wide range of interest areas.
Special Guests at this years event included:
- Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier/MCU)
- Stephen Amell (Arrow)
- David Harbour (Hellboy/Stranger Things)
- Misha Collins (Supernatural)
A special Clerks 25th Anniversary reunion featuring Jason Mewes, Brian O’Hallaran, Marilyn Ghiglioitti & Scott Schiaffo
Plus many more guests!
Areas and attractions included:
- Autographs & Photo Ops available to purchase with the special guests.
- Free Promotional Photo Ops for films including Annabelle Comes Homes, IT: Chapter Two, X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Child’s Play.
- Stage Panels featuring special guests on a variety of topics on the Main, Centre, Live, Creator, and Studio Stages.
- ‘Cosplay Central’ dedicated cosplay zone including the ‘MCM Championships of Cosplay & Masquerade.
- ‘Pop Asia‘ an area incorporated within MCM London Comic Con offering a fusion of Japanese, Korean & Asian culture.
- ‘The Treehouse’ family orientated activity area.
- ‘Gaming’ area including modern & retro gaming, arcade games & board games for all to play.
- ‘Comic Village‘ a dedicated comic book area featuring special guest writers, artists and small press.
- ‘Authors Corner‘ featuring many authors attending over the weekend panels with panels & signings taking place.
- ‘The Studio‘ powered by Summer In The City, featuring a host on bloggers, vloggers, artists and makers.
And much more!
There was also stalls selling a wide range of merchandise and other items with major brands such as Forbidden Planet, Zavvi and Funko offering exclusive products, discounts and giveaways.
Overall Con Experience
Being one of the UK’s largest events the entrance queue was quite long but we found this to be very well managed as the queue was in sections of Bag Search, Ticket Check and Wrist Band Issue/Entry. This is the first event we have attended at Excel and we found the layout was very well spread out and the venue also offers a central mall area with Cafe’s, toilets and cash machines/cloakroom facilities as well as offering seating areas. In addition to this there was also a food truck style catering area offering many enticing options for attendee’s. The photo op, autograph and main stage areas were also well managed.
What really stood out for us about this event was the amount of activities available beyond autographs and photo ops; many of which were free such as the panels and promotional photo ops for upcoming films. And the range of fandoms and interest groups that event caters for is quite incredible; it is possibly the closest event we have in the UK to San Diego Comic Con.
We thoroughly enjoyed our first MCM experience and hope to come back again!
On a personal note it was an honour to meet the cast of my favourite film clerks on it’s 25th Anniversary and talking about our upcoming project ‘KevHeads‘.
