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MCM London October Overview

Three of Seven recalls her time at the October MCM Comic-Con in London, which a few other UFP members there.

By Three of Seven Fri 02 Nov, 2018 2:54 PM - Last Updated: Mon 04 Mar, 2019 6:06 PM
Having covered the May Comic-Con earlier this year, I returned in October, joined by Sammygm, Jonathan F-G, and Ben Hurley. You can listen to us talk about much of the experience on the recent Midas Array Podcast, to get that feel of conversation! As with my article earlier in the year, I shall split it into each day. Unfortunately, Charlet Chung (D.Va) was unable to attend at the last minute, which was a bit sad.

Friday
Everyone grouped up at London St Pancras ready to head out on an adventure to the convention, for some, it was the first time going to a convention, and for all but me, I believe the first time going to one of this size. Checkin for the hotel was not open until 2pm on the day, but they took all of our bags safely, stored them, and we would later collect them with no problems!

The first thing we did after getting our entry into the convention, was to head to the Creator Stage, and visit the panel Shades of Vengeance Presents: How to be Creative, which provided some interesting ways on how to get a project moving, or how to deal with it when it stalls. These panels are always worth visiting if you are ever planning on creating a project, what was said could have been applied to any medium of creative work, from games, to novels.

After this, we headed to the Shades of Vengeance stand, for a custom game, which had Star Trek influences in the story, unfortunately, I wasn't able to take part in all of it, as I had my own tattoo appointment within the convention. Ink Fusion Empire made their way to London for this convention, it was all very well set up, and mine was done by Tori Robinson, a very good experience, and as someone who has never had a tattoo, she explained everything thoroughly, and a little blank test of the needle, it doesn't hurt.

We all then regrouped, and headed to a prebooked escape room, provided by Breakout Manchester, this was the first I had done with a team of people I knew! The sample escape room only had 25 minutes to solve, but we managed it, even falling for some of the red herring items! After that, the last thing of the day was the UK Championships of Cosplay, London Qualifier, which seemed to be ending, just as we got in, there were only 4 contestants on the stage, so it was a bit of a disappointment, but some nice costumes were on display.

Before the end of the day, we did go around looking for a foam D.Va pistol, to go with my costume, as the nice on I had ordered online did not arrive in time for the convention! So I needed it for the next day, and if you are wondering, this pistol will be given away to a lucky (or unlucky) UFP member! It is signed by myself, Sammygm, and Jonathan F-G!

Saturday
Name:  koin.png
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Size:  136.0 KBThe main thing to do at the start of this day was to head over to The Koin Club and get the free MCM Exclusive coin, with 1,500 being handed out each day, getting there early would secure a nice memory of the event. Having priority tickets here also helps, as there was around 2 hours roaming before the general entry people could start coming in. We all managed to get one of these coins, despite Bens tardiness, and the quality of this was quite nice, the other coins they had on sale were also very pretty, well painted, and would make good collection pieces.

Following this, we did a fair bit of looking around, shopping, and seeing if anything would catch our eyes for the final day, should we wish to purchase anything. This was all leading upto the EuroCosplay Championship Final, which was set to take quite some time. But before that, there was a panel for the new Sky Original programme, Curfew, which seems to be an amalgamation of many ideas, all rolled into one. Did it look good? Not really, not from my perspective, maybe if you like high action and cars, you might get something out of it. Although, the filming, and casting is of high quality.

Then we got to something we were all looking forward too, the EuroCosplay final, which had a lot of good entries, each of the entrants also had to make a little show, some had more intense choreography than others, or more effects, but each did very well. I may end up doing a separate article about the cosplay, even though I missed half of it, what I did see looked very good. Photos for all of the finalists can be found on their Facebook page here.

Sunday
The last day of the convention, when you just don't want it to end, you don't want to go home, but it arrives. This final day was spent just going around all of the stalls, picking up anything we really wanted, like for me, I got a wonderful tiara from Serendipity London, who were very helpful in finding the right fit, for a princess like me!

Looking round all the stalls lets you see the variety on offer, some people were selling old, retro items, from consoles, to LEGO sets. Others were stocking trading cards, which you could buy individually, and then you have the sellers with a smaller market, like the tiaras, or one selling BDSM wear. There were also some big chains, and sponsors, like Funko, who had bigger stalls, selling items. It was a very good mix of big sellers, and small sellers, some of which could be likened to car boot sales.

We did plan on going to the UK World Cosplay Summit and Clara Cow Cosplay Cup Qualifiers, however the queue for this was massive, even bigger than the previous days EuroCosplay! So instead, we retired to the Live Stage, with the MCM Staff Q&A, I asked a bunch of questions, some not very serious, none I can remember either! I'll have to find those out again, but Sammy and Jonathan F-G both went to find some lucky bags, full of, stuff. We also got some free bags, very helpful for packing for the trip home.

Final Thoughts
It was a good event, although, with Critical Roll making an appearance for this one, there were possibly numbers that the event staff did not quite plan for, and this really showed with some of the queues, and delays for getting to parts of the event. This will be something they will no doubt learn from, and improve, as they have managed over the years.

It was also very good to meet up with some of the people I have come to call friends in this community, defiantly a great experience, if there is anyone you feel like a close friend to, maybe plan to meet up at a convention yourself.

WRITTEN & EDITED BY Three of Seven - rena.hobden@ufplanets.com
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