MCM Birmingham Comic Con


Last weekend was MCM Birmingham Comic Con!!! Andrea and I got press passes (woo!) so go. This is only the second comic con I have ever been to, the other being New York Comic Con. Obviously the two were going to be pretty different. Getting there was super easy as the arena, The NEC, is right next to the airport so all we had to do was hop on a train to get there. The train was PACKED, and and you could tell who was going to comic con from what they were wearing.

Once we finally got there and picked up our passes we headed into the hall it was being held in. As expected there were a lot of vendors and it was pretty crowded. I think next year it would probably be a good idea to open up the space a little bit.


Anyways, there was not as many people in cosplay as I expected, but then again my frame of reference is NYCC. There was still some pretty awesome costumes going around though! Especially in the Star Wars department. We only got pictures of this fantastic Han Solo/ Chewie from Star Wars though.
There was also a lovely pair of Disney ladies that caught our eye...
And my personal favorite, sexy Sauron!!!


Andrea and I spent the first few hours going through all the different shops and generally spending quite a lot of money. I did buy a few gifts for people back home, so it wasn't all for me! There was this one vendor selling movie and tv scripts which was really cool. I bought one for The Two Towers. It is gorgeous. There were quite a few vendors selling these nifty little framed pictures from movies with pieces of actual movie real stuck in next to it! Andrea bought one for The Princess Bride and got Cary Elwes to sign it later!


Speaking of Cary Elwes, yes he was there. He was doing autographing, photos, AND two panels. The panel room was...odd. It came to be known as "the marshmallow". It was basically a giant white inflatable room that could fit around 300 people. Unlike with NYCC, which had a line going into its panels that sometimes reached 5,000 people, at this little temporary room you could literally just stand at one of the entrances and watch the panels if you did not manage to get a seat. There was also NO STAFF controlling the situation or telling people what they could or could not do. This worked out fine for the most part...except when Tom Felton did his panel, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Andrea and I waited outside the room for a half hour to make sure we got into Cary Elwes, and we managed to get seats in the second row! Not bad. Cary was funny and engaging. I really enjoyed his panel. It was a running joke throughout the hour long session about how hot it was in the room, especially for poor Cary who had all the spotlights on him. You could see him sweating. Apart from that he talked about stories from the set of Princess Bride, his favorite memories from his career, and other fan questions. There was also some touching moments involving children in the audience as well.

So immediately after Cary was the big guest of the weekend, Tom Felton. Andrea and I had planned for this. Due to my experience at NYCC I knew that if you wanted to get a seat at the biggest panel of the weekend you needed to be there early, and if they were not making you clear the room after every panel you needed to hang on to your seat for dear life. So needless to say we did not move an inch in between panels and retained our amazing seats for Tom Felton.

Now a bit of background information. Tom has been traveling around the US and the UK filming a documentary about fandom for the BBC. So his panel was unique in that he was asking the audience the questions for his documentary. He came prepared with a bunch of questions about what it was like being a fan and everything was filmed.

GUESS WHO GOT TO ANSWER A QUESTION? THIS GAL! I was holding my hand up for a really long time and Tom told the man with the microphone to give it to me. *swoon*. He was looking right at me while I was talking which made me so nervous my hands and my voice were shaking. A few minutes after I answered the question he came back to me and talked directly to me about my answer for like three minutes. It was heaven. *ahem*. I am okay. It was really a lot of fun, but also kind of painful because I literally wanted to answer every question. At least I got my chance and now I could potentially be in the documentary! wooo!

After the panel finished we cleared out pretty quickly because it was around 500 degrees in the room and we were dying. We headed over to where Cary Elwes was signing autographs and waited around for that. Now, at this point it was around 4pm and neither of us had drank of eaten anything since like 7am. We were started to crash...hard. This led to a somewhat awkward interacting between me and Cary when I went up to get his signature, I was so out of it I completely walked in front of the girl who was supposed to be before me and started talking to him. He was very polite but pointed out it was not my turn and I felt like a colossal fool. Sigh.

We left for the train after that and it was then things really started to get difficult. I was dizzy, exhausted, dehydrated, and could barely think straight. By the time we got into Birmingham I was a mess and Andrea had to guide me around the train station. Do not go without eating or drinking an entire day kids! It is not good at all!!! When we got home I took care of myself and all was well. I will not be making that mistake again, however.

It was really a fantastic day, despite my almost passing out, and it was an awesome first taste of comic con for Andrea. We are bound determined to go to London comic con in the near future. It is all part of the nerd life ;)

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