So today I headed down to London with Tabby and my mum to go to London Film and Comic Con. Normally, we go down for the full weekend, but this year we only went for one day. For us, it was a 6am start with getting the 7:05 train to London Euston, a shortish ride on the tube to Shepherd’s Bush and then a 15 minute walk to Olympia to get there at almost dead on 9am, when the event started. Fortunately for us, from then it didn’t take that long to get inside, with a quick zig-zag along the snaking queues and then we were inside. I’ve since heard that some people were stuck outside for ages, with some not getting in until the afternoon, which sounds like an absolute nightmare and judging from how busy it was inside in places I feel they oversold it.

After we got in we headed upstairs to where all the guests were and got a lay of the land. The main guests this year were David Harbour and Joseph Quinn from Stranger Things. I don’t know who Joseph Quinn is, as I haven’t watched the latest season of Stranger Things, but he was incredibly popular. It genuinely felt like every other person we saw was wearing a Hellfire Club t-shirt, and there were a lot of people dressed up like Quinn’s character (I don’t even know the character’s name, it’s just a good thing my mum was there to keep me updated). I didn’t see either actor up close as their queues and crowd around their area was immense. So many, hopefully, happy people crying after meeting their heroes. There’s also a lot of horror stories online about the management of the queue and overselling that I’ve seen on social media. That just seems to be part of the convention experience, it feels like every one I go to is oversold and too crowded.

Pretty much everyone I wanted to see had cancelled in the last few weeks, but there were still a couple of Star Trek actors that I hadn’t seen up close. I’m a big Trekkie, and have a nice collections of all the actors we’ve met from the various shows, from the original series to modern Trek. Today we added Santiago Cabrera from Piccard to our collection, who seemed really nice. The main reason we went though was for Christopher Lloyd, who Tabby has tried to meet several times at previous shows before his queue was cut-off. This time around we kept on coming back and getting sent away, until later in the day where everything seemed to just die down massively and we were allowed to stay. Tabby’s favourite film is Back to the Future 3, and it was a big moment for her to be able to say that to Doc Brown himself.

The other big reason to go to conventions, at least for me, is to find some cool stuff on the stalls. I bought a book that I’ve wanted to read for a while, Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare. I’ve been a fan of his YouTube channel for a while and I’m sure his book will be good. I also bought a Dragon Ball figurine, pretty cheaply, of young Goku and Bulma, and Tabby has gotten me a Godzilla figure that will be my birthday present next month. I have a shelf above my writing desk that’s slowly being filled up with Godzilla and Evangelion figures, and I’m looking forward to adding this one to the shelf.

Overall I would say that it’s been a pretty decent day and we did everything we set out to do. We didn’t get back home until almost 10pm, so it’s been a long one, but something to remember.

Thanks for reading and until next time,

Ashley