Well if you've read my blog before you probably know that I'm into superheroes and comic books etc. as are some of my friends. A few of us ended up going to comic con which was being held in Belfast for the first time. To be honest, it was a bit of a disappointment. We had gotten priority weekend tickets which were £20 each, given the name it means that we got in much quicker than those who were buying their tickets on the day. Despite being there after the doors were meant to open we ended up having to stand in the queue for quite a while, this on a day with heavy rain. We eventually made it in and we were immediately met with the sight of stalls selling stuff, it turned out that the majority of the space was given over to selling stuff. The problem was that in my opinion most of the stuff would be what I would call impulse purchases and you could see the exact same stuff being sold at different stalls which seemed a bit pointless. The rest of the con wasn't that great either, there were some special guests, none of them really interested me I only knew James Cosmo from GoT and the guy who played Winston Churchill in Doctor Who. That said even if I was interested I don't think I'd have bothered waiting in a long queue to pay £15 for an autograph and a few seconds talking to them. The "next-generation gaming" bit was just a few PS4s, the only games I saw people playing were Lego Hobbit or Fifa not exactly inspiring. There were some talks but we didn't go to any. Despite the name I barely saw any actual comics being sold, I think I saw one stall selling some but it was too awkward to see what was there due to how cramped it was, it was too small a venue for the event and it ended up being quite hot and uncomfortable. The comics village section had a number of comics/graphic novel artists selling completed work and commissions while I probably wouldn't have bought anything anyway it would've been nice if the artists had actually looked up or initiated conversation rather than just sitting there while we looked at their work.
I understand that its the first year and they maybe didn't realise how popular it would be but I wasn't impressed and didn't bother going back on the sunday, I think only one of our group did. It seemed like an exercise in making money, you pay to get in and then are immediately met with stalls of stuff to buy, as well as the cost of food and drink. A lot of the reviews on the official facebook page give it five stars because they had a fun time dressing up and seeing all the other people dressed up as famous characters. As much as that was cool and probably wouldn't have happened without comic con, the event itself was not up to scratch in my opinion. It is apparently returning next year but it would need to be much better in my opinion.
Thanks for reading.
