Convention Report - May London MCM Comic Con!

Yeesh, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to calling it ‘MCM London Comic Con’! For the longest time this convention was called MCM Expo and that’s the name that’s forever stuck in my mind!

With another May over (hello, June!), it means that yet another London Comic Con has come and gone. For those of you who don’t know, London Comic Con (or MCM Expo) is the largest nerd con in the UK. It covers movies, television, comics and anime and it’s just getting bigger and better each year.

I’ve been selling my art there since 2010. I first started out in Comic Village, which is an area that used to be called ‘Artists Alley’ and used to be the place independent artists could sell their work. Over the years, as the con has morphed and changed, Artists Alley turned into Comic Village with a focus on independently created comics. A whole bunch of artists who sold mainly prints and crafts decided to move into the dealer’s area, and I have to say the move has been pretty favourable for me! The tables in the dealer’s section are a lot more expensive, but you certainly get what you pay for. The extra money buys you a table that is twice as large, and you get so much more room behind you for storage and movement (believe me, space at this con is a luxury!) The dealer’s section also gets way more footfall from people desperate to part with their cash, and - most importantly - you can sell pretty much whatever you like there.

My colourful little booth!

This was my second time behind a dealer’s table at London MCM. I wasn’t in the best location in the world (mainly because tables sell out super fast and we had to book mine while on the Eurostar headed for Disneyland Paris, woops!) but I did well despite that! The dealers I was next to were lovely - one even gave me a little Delorean toy car as a thank you for being such a nice table neighbour! And it’s always so wonderful seeing my friends again as they come by. (Another awesome thing about having a table at conventions is having a sort of ‘home base’ that people can locate and plan around!) Friday was quite scary as sales were very, very low, and I was so worried it would be a trend for the whole weekend. Thankfully, Saturday picked up and by Sunday I had actually had one of my most successful conventions!

As usual, I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I wanted to, I didn't get to leave my table much apart from to get lunch and attend a couple of panels while Luke kindly watched the table for me. Usually, I manage to escape to see the League of Legends cosplay meet, but this year it clashed with a panel for 'Being Human' which is a show I used to adore! And they had the whole original cast there, which was pretty neat! Sarah and I went to a panel for that, and then I also went to an 'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D' panel, terrified the finale might be spoiled (Moose and I haven't seen the last few episodes yet, eep!) Fortunately, the cast are all utterly professional and they didn't let anyone ruin anything for us (though a fan did manage to hint at what happens in the finale, which was annoying enough!)

This year's MCM was super smooth. Entry didn't seem like the mess it usually is, organisation was pretty much on point. Luke, Sarah, Moose and I all stayed in an apartment down the DLR line which worked out so well for us - we used to cram a bunch of us into a local hotel to keep things affordable, but the hotels have started cracking down on that and last year we got caught out. The apartment only took twenty minutes, door-to-door, and worked out not very much more than a hotel would have been. Plus, it meant we had somewhere to hang out and play games in the evening and somewhere to make bacon sandwiches in the morning. Brilliant!