I took a trip down south to London town to go to the MCM (Movies, Comics, Memorabilia) convention there. It’s not the first time I’ve been. In fact I’ve been to the last 3 in a row now. This was however one of, if not the, worst organised comic cons that I’ve ever been to. I’ll talk quickly about the main things that went wrong.
Queues
We all expect long lines when we go to a comic con especially to one as large as MCM. What I don’t expect is to purchase a weekend priority pass ticket only to find that when I turn up on the Saturday with my wristband on that I have to queue with people who’ve no tickets. It’s not really a priority pass at that point is it.
The initial queue could have been forgiven. However the new system implemented cannot. For those of you who have never been to MCM London the system is usually as follows:
See that big entrance there? You can normally enter and exit through those doors. It’s that simple. You go in and out smoothly no queues no problems.
This wasn’t the case this year. This year you had to exit through those doors and then re-enter the queue of people waiting around the outside of the building if you wanted to get back in. You could only get in around the side of the building. Let me show you the length of the building.
It’s pretty big and seems even bigger when you’re walking the full length of it all day.
Want to go out for a smoke? Have a queue.
Want to go to a shop to buy a drink or food so you can avoid con prices? Have a queue.
Want to view the cosplays in the sun? Have a queue.
To make matters worse at one point a thunder storm rolled in. It only lasted 15 minutes and wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that security didn’t let people in through the front doors and instead made them queue in a thunder storm outside. This destroyed 2 of my friends’ cosplays.
There was really no need for this system and whoever thought it was a good idea should be sacked.
Lack of details and directions
Another issue that I had was the complete lack of maps showing people where things are. I know that maps were available online prior to the event but these were quite low res and hard to read. It would have been much easier if a few were put up on the walls in the halls to help people get there bearings at such a large event. The same could be said about the time of events and such.
Fake goods
Once again there were unscrupulous dealers trading fake goods at the con. The same dealers that have been complained about in the past for selling fake goods. This just confirmed a suspicion of mine that MCM really don’t care if the dealers there are selling cheap fake items. Fake goods are a pet hate of mine.
Complete lack of security inside of the convention
Inside the convention itself I didn’t see a single security personnel. While this didn’t affect me personally couldn’t help but feel sorry for the dealers. I saw someone walk up to a stall grab about £60 worth of goods and just run off with them. I appreciate that security can’t be everywhere but a few wondering around may have helped curb the thieves.
Overzealous security outside the convention
Outside of the con the security was the complete opposite. They seemed to be everywhere. That would be fine but they were stopping people who had bought swords, blunt replicas in cardboard packaging, and removing there wrist bands so that they couldn’t re-enter the con hall. Luckily this didn’t affect me or my friends but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for people who had bought full weekend passes only to have them removed for buying something.
Good things
Despite all of my bitching, overall I enjoyed the con. There was allot of Touhou cosplayers there and I managed to get a group photo of most of them.
There was also a dealer selling Touhou remixes for £9 a pop which I thought was a really good deal. To make things even better one dealer was selling Touhou doujins for £5 for 2. This was due to him going out of business, which is a sad affair really, but this allowed me to pick up some up cheap.
Goodsmile also made an appearance selling figures. I picked up the yukata version of Madoka for £80.
The con was also used as an excuse for me to do some general sightseeing in London and I managed to visit the K-On! Café which was cool.
So overall the con was good but it has allot of areas that it needs to improve if it wants to stay the top con in the UK.
Anime Tech and Touhou 