• Billie Piper (Rose Tyler from “Doctor Who”)
• Pearl Mackie (Bill Potts from “Doctor Who”)
• Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”)
• Emma Caulfield (Anya Jenkins from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”)
• Tony Curran (Vincent van Gogh from “Doctor Who”, Datak Tarr from
“Defiance” & Markus from “Underworld: Evolution”)
• Chris Rankin & Ness (Percy Weasley from “Harry Potter” /
Girlfriend extraordinaire)
Two quick
notes before we get started...
1) If this is your first time on "Shangel's Reviews", I'm
currently reviewing every single episode of "Buffy The Vampire
Slayer" and "Angel" in depth. A list of all the reviews I've
written so far can be located here. Yes, I haven’t written one in a while due to my
Master’s degree, but I am starting up again really soon now that the Master’s
degree is over.
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With that being said, let’s dive in...
Once again, starting a review with an apology….I. Am. So. Far. Behind.
On. Everything. I intended to get this review up a fortnight ago. I intended to
get the “Em-Con: Worcester” and “Film & Comic Con Cardiff” reviews up ages
ago too. Alas, I’m a very busy man. Two jobs, lots of personal life changes,
and many, many cons over the past couple of months has meant that everything
else has taken a back seat…but I will catch up over the next week or two, I
swear!....Still need to finish those Buffy and Angel reviews at some point too.
Does anyone know how I can clone myself?
Before diving into my review of “Em-Con: Nottingham”, I just want to
address something. This review is from my
perspective. I went Sunday. Just Sunday. Some people I know had issues on
the Saturday of the event. I will briefly talk about them, but I won’t go into
detail as I wasn’t there! It would be unfair. So I’m just going to talk about
things from my perspective – and from my perspective, it was an excellent day
out and a very enjoyable convention. So, before I left my house on Sunday
morning to travel to Nottingham, I did some research….what was the feedback for
Saturday like? What issues could I face? Preparation is key, people. While most
of the feedback I was reading was positive, a handful of issues did catch my
attention (every convention has issues, no shame in that). Firstly, my friends
Natasia and Adam bought VIP passes for Pearl Mackie. One of the perks of these passes
was priority seating in the first couple of rows of the “Doctor Who” panel.
When Natasia and Adam entered the panel about 10 minutes before it was
scheduled to start, they were told that the VIP seating was “full” and that
they’d have to sit at the back. Big no-no. If you’re paying for VIP perks, you
should receive those VIP perks. The other complaint I saw crop up a few times
was that the space used for the guests wasn’t sufficient – guests’ queues
merging into one, David Bradley’s impressively long queue covering the queues
of the other Potter guests, etc. As I’ve been to Em-Con a few times before and
the layout looked the same as the previous year, I was unconcerned by this
personally as historically the Sunday of the event has been much more relaxed
than the Saturday. Always, always go on the Sunday of any convention if you’re
only going one day and the guests you want to meet are there both days! It’s
usually 20-50% quieter, more time to talk to the guests, less people, less
fuss, more fun! In the case of Em-Con, it actually worked out in my favour too
as one of the guests I wanted to see (again) the most was Billie Piper, who
happened to cancel her appearance for the Saturday and was now just attending
on Sunday. Phew! As far as negatives go, that was basically it. The only
negative I saw pop up a few times was the space used for the guests. Everything
else was either the odd complaint or personalised to one or two attendees. So
kudos to Lee and the team for organising a show that had positive feedback
greatly outweighing the negative.
The Motorpoint Arena is still a terrific Comic Con venue overall. One of
my favourite things about it is the amount of available seating there is in the
stands. If you go to an event like “London Film & Comic Con” and you’re
knackered, and really need to sit down, it’s almost inevitably going to be an
uncomfortable ass-ache on the concentrate floor. So having thousands of free
seats surrounding the main arena at Em-Con is very helpful. I still think the
space in the main arena can be used better though. The first year I attended
the Nottingham show, some of the guests were out in the main part of the arena,
which seemed to work way more efficiently. I’m not sure why all the guests were
moved to the alcove part, but it might be worth looking into moving some of
them back into the main section of the arena for next year. Another positive
from Em-Con is that the entry queues were very efficient and on time. Doors
opened at 10:00am sharp and we were inside the main arena by 10:02am. Always
helpful for people like me that have my day mapped out in 15-minute intervals
because I always inevitably have a thousand things to accomplish. The crew are
also tremendous as well. There’s a good blend of old-school, battle-hardened
convention regulars like Kev and Clare that have been in the deep end of
massive-scale events like LFCC, coupled with existing crew that have been
around Em-Con for a few years, mixed with newbies that can learn the ropes from
the old guard. They seem to function really well as a team, which is always
helpful. If someone is struggling, they jump in. As I write this review, I’m
two days removed from attending “Collectormania” at the NEC and during my time
there, Robert Englund’s autograph queue was a catastrophe. The V.Q. tickets
were handed out like they should be (“1-2-3-4…”) and at some point the crew
member started handing them out from the back instead (“500-499-498-497…”), so
it became a clusterfuck. By 3:00pm, after signing for almost 6 hours, Robert
was still on V.Q. numbers 0-75. This is partially because he’s a slow signer as
he likes to chat to everyone for ages, but it’s also because of the V.Q. mess.
When people were all congregating around Robert’s queue and getting annoyed,
Showmasters management scooted over and started being rude to the attendees
(according to people I know that were there receiving the rudeness, I wasn’t
there personally). It just goes to show that a solid, unified crew can make or
break the experience for many, many attendees. You need a solid crew.
Another positive about the event was the solid line-up of guests that
were attending. Headliners included Billie Piper, Pearl Mackie, David Bradley,
Sam Jones, Jason David Frank, Nicky Brendon, and Emma Caulfield. Now, for
people like me that have been hovering around the con scene for a decade, most
of these names will be people that you’ve likely met before as they are
semi-regular convention names in the UK, but if you’re newer to the con scene
or don’t go to that many shows, there are some big names contained within the
list above. I swear, every time I see David Bradley at a convention his
autograph queue is getting longer and longer. The only newbie for me to meet
was Pearl Mackie. However, I still wanted to go and see my friend Nicky Brendon
and my friends Chris (Rankin) and Ness. I still needed a better photo with
Billie Piper as my last photo with Billie was taken at ‘MCM Birmingham’ and MCM
are shocking when it comes to professional photos. Firstly, they always zoom
out really far, which is annoying. Secondly, they don’t offer digital copies
whatsoever. So if you wanna crop it to make it look more like every other Comic
Con photo in the UK, you end up with a pixelated mess. I also wanted to go and
get another autograph from Tony Curran and have a chat because the man is
simply delightful. He always takes his time talking to everybody that goes to
meet him. Finally, I wanted to get a…erm, shall we say, ‘appropriate’, duo
photo with Nicky and Emma, Xander and Anya from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. I
got a duo photo with them both at “Wales Comic Con” a year earlier, but Nicky
was a little off the wagon and so the end result is that Nicky is mimicking
pleasuring me with his hand in the duo photo. As much as I love that photo (it
is one of my favourites of all-time), I also wanted one where my penis remained
metaphorically unviolated.
(cropped to keep it PG)
Finally, as always with “Em-Con”, it was apparent that they were trying
to give the attendees as many ‘additions’ as possible, such as replica vehicles
outside, a TARDIS inside, a Monsters Inc. photo opportunity, etc. I always
appreciate any and all ‘above and beyond’ type exhibits. “Em-Con” seems to
always have pretty reasonable prices overall, especially if you’re comparing
them to some of the other UK prices in 2018 (I’m looking at you, American
companies!). Another thing to remember with the professional studio photos is
that the digital copies are free. With most other Comic Con companies, they’re
£5 each. As I always get the
digitals, I can basically knock £5 off the photo price in order to compare it
to most other conventions. I love free digitals. “Em-Con” are the only big UK
convention company that offer this to my knowledge (update: since writing this, Em-Con have announced that moving
forwards digitals will not be free for the Nottingham show…aww, man!).
It’s now time for the play-by-play section of the review. This is
usually the part that determines whether the review will be 8 or 9 pages, or
whether it will be 30. In this case, it won’t be that long simply because I had
a handful of autographs and photographs as opposed to my usual 15-20! Hence
there is less to write about. Everybody ready?
Myself and John left Gloucestershire at 07:30am on Sunday morning. The
drive from Gloucester to Nottingham is about two hours, so that gave us time to
get there, park up, and get to the Motorpoint before doors opened at 10:00am.
Barring unforeseen traffic, it should be a pretty smooth start to the day. It
was. No traffic. No issues finding parking. We were in the entry queue by
09:30am. I love it when a plan comes together.
Photos are usually pretty straightforward. They’re at a specific time in
a specific location. So as long as you get there on time or 5-10 minutes before
it starts, you’re gonna be totally fine. This takes almost all the pressure off
of photos and places it all on autographs…will I get the autograph completed?
Will the line be too long? For events like LFCC, for the headliners, there is a
real possibility these days that you might miss out on the autograph entirely
if you aren’t smart and don’t get a low virtual queuing number. As my priority
for Em-Con was predominantly Pearl Mackie, I headed to Pearl’s autograph queue
first. She wasn’t at her desk yet (arrived about 10:30), but no matter! I could
see a handful of people I knew that could keep me company. Plus, just to my
right was Chris and Ness, who both came over to have a cuddle and say “hi”, and
catch up after they saw me…I say ‘catch up’, I actually saw them a fortnight
earlier at “Wales Comic Con”! It’s always great to see them though. Two of my
favourite people on the convention scene and two people I consider to be
extended family. I won’t go into detail about things we talked about because it
was personal stuff, not con stuff. After chatting to Chris and Ness, and Wales
Comic Con crew/friends of mine, Heather and Ben, Pearl got to her autograph
table and started signing.
Pearl Mackie: The first
thing I noticed is that the mannerisms and personalities of Pearl and her
“Doctor Who” character counterpart, Bill, are strikingly similar. The excitable
puppy-esque characteristics of Bill definitely originate within Pearl herself.
At this time in the morning, I knew Pearl would be pretty busy so my time with
her wouldn’t be that long. That’s fine. Sometimes all you need is 30 seconds,
some eye-contact, a smile, and some politeness to leave feeling great about the
experience. As James Marsters says, “it’s so easy to make people happy at Comic
Cons!” Of course, to get a better conversation, the recommendation will always
be to go later in the day. Between 3-5pm is always going to be optimum. Less
people = less queue = more time to talk. However, the risk you run there is
that if you leave it too late, you
run the risk of the guest leaving early because their autograph table is dead.
Even though Pearl was busy, we still had time to chat about her one-season run
on “Doctor Who”, as well as her time on stage for “The Birthday Party” and the
mechanics of theatre vs. television acting in general. Considering Pearl was
the major draw for me personally for “Em-Con 2018”, I was delighted that I
managed to get a decent conversation and really enjoyed the experience. Yay! Guest Type = Responder.
(Regular readers, you can skip this section)
“Shangel, what’s a ‘Responder’?”
I’m glad you asked. Many years ago, after attending numerous
conventions, I devised a system whereby to categorise my experiences with
guests and their level of interaction in order to compare the quality of my
experiences across conventions and time. I have O.C.D., shut up. The following
three types were found :-
· The Responder: This type of guest is often polite and friendly. If you ask them a
question, they’ll happily answer. If you comment on something, they’ll respond
or smile gratefully. However, they won’t carry the conversation forward, you
have to. These are the most common type of guest, and this is what you expect
when meeting someone at a convention. This is a great category to be a part of.
· The Groucho/Big Guest: There are two aspects to this category.
Firstly, you have the groucho. The groucho is there for monetary purposes or is
generally just having a bad day, or is a bit of an ass. If you meet enough
people, one of them is bound to be an ass! The grouchos aren’t interested in
conversations above a few words. They’ll say ‘hi’ (sometimes they don’t bother
with that), sign, say ‘bye’ (sometimes), and you’re on your merry way. Of
course, in certain situations this is relevant and expected, which brings me to
the second part of this category, the ‘big guest’. Some guests are going to be
insanely popular. Such as Stan Lee at LFCC ‘14, who had an entire building to
himself basically. When you get a huge queue like that, the guest can’t take a
lot of time with everyone. If they did, many people would go home disappointed
at not getting to meet them at all. Therefore, the convention company and the
guest want to get through as many people as possible. You cannot have a huge
guest and expect to get above a minute with them, which is perfectly fair.
· The Conversationalist: This is easily my favourite type of guest.
They’ll answer your questions with a smile, ask you questions in return, and
are happy to chat for an extended period of time (extended = above 2-3
minutes), regardless of where the conversation leads or how long you’ve been
talking. Obviously, there has to be some cut-off point if there is a queue
behind you, but you leave the experience feeling euphoric and like you gained a
lot more than just the autograph you queued for.
Feel free to let me know your experiences with guests in the comments
below or on social media!
Tony Curran: I first met
Tony a year earlier at “Collectormania” at the NEC in Birmingham. During my
time meeting Tony at that event, two things struck me: 1) His queue moves very
slowly, 2) Because he loves to talk! Every interaction I’ve ever seen Tony have
with a fan goes above and beyond what you’d expect from an autograph table
experience. He genuinely cares about people and genuinely wants to get to know
people. We caught up about everything that had transpired in the year since I
had last seen him – his filming projects, my Master’s degree result
(distinction!) and new career, etc. I also joked that I hoped he’d slept more
than he did the last time I saw him as the night before Collectormania, the hotel
fire alarm was going off at 3:00am and he had to go to a fire assembly point outside.
Ouch. We talked about “Outlaw King”, a recent project of Tony’s that resolves
around the 14th century Scottish ‘Outlaw King’, Robert The Bruce.
The cast list for the movie is staggering – Chris Pine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson,
Stephen Dillane, James Comso, Tony Curran….of course, inevitably, we also
discussed Tony’s breathtaking one-episode stint on “Doctor Who” as Vincent van
Gogh, which then led us into a very deep conversation about mental health and
suicide. I must have spent about 10 minutes chatting to Tony overall and it was
easily my favourite guest encounter of the day. I’m so happy that Tony will be
joining us for “Wales Comic Con Part II” in December too. The more Tony is
around the UK convention scene, the better, as far as I’m concerned. I grabbed
a table picture with Tony too for £10. Guest
Type = Conversationalist.
After a little chillin’ in those glorious arena seats, it was time for
the professional studio photos to start. First up: Nicky Brendon and Emma
Caulfield’s duo photo at 13:30 in ‘photo B’. After I got to the front of the
queue and stood between Nicky and Emma, and the photo was taken, Nicky turned
to me and said, “I prefer your Funko Pop to my own!”, which was very amusing to
me. How had he seen it?! To be fair, my custom Shaney Pop does look better than the Xander Pops. He’s all scowly and
arms-folded in the Xander Pop. I later found out that Nicky’s agent (and friend
of mine), Theresa, had shown him the picture of Shaney Pop. As Nicky was
telling me all of this, he was holding my hand. We clearly have a very special
budding bromance blossoming, which is hilarious to me as he was one of my
childhood and adolescence heroes…life is strange. Wonderful and spectacular,
but strange. I’ve always felt connected to Nicky, much like I did to Xander
growing up. I connected to Xander because he was the dorky, insecure one
without superpowers. I connected to Nicky over the past 4 years or so that I’ve
known him because we’ve had similar challenges and obstacles to overcome –
depression, self-harm, covering pain with humour, addiction. Back in 2015, when
Nicky came to Wales Comic Con, I arranged a massive collection of cards and
gifts, and words of positivity for Nicky via my Buffy page on Facebook. I gave
him this bag containing hundreds of letters and words of encouragement from
fans because Nicky was struggling a lot at the time. I always love seeing
Nicky. I consider Nicky a friend.
Soon after, it was time for Pearl’s studio photo at 14:00, then Billie
Piper’s at 15:00 in ‘photo A’. I love Billie a lot. She’s so great. She made an
effort to have a little chat with basically everyone before the photos were
taken, even though she had hundreds to get through (all of the photos sold for
Sunday, plus all the ones sold for Saturday before she had to cancel and change
her appearance to Sunday only)! Such a pro. and class act.
At 15:30, it was time to leave the Motorpoint Arena briefly in order to
meet Susie outside. With a grand total of 90 minutes to spare before the end of
the convention weekend, Susie had arrived in Nottingham! Woohoo! Re-entering
the venue commenced and then we spent the next hour perusing the merchandise
stalls. It’s very rare that I have the free time to merch. hunt and buy cool
shit, so I always take the opportunity to look around and enjoy that aspect of
the Comic Con experience if time permits. At 16:30, Susie wanted to get her
Xander Pop signed by Nicky. Alas, Nicky had left his autograph table and gone
home (all his 8x10s were gone too)….or had he? I spotted Theresa hovering on
the edge of the guest area, so I moseyed over and asked Theresa if Nicky was
still around as Susie wanted to get her Xander Pop signed. Theresa said that
Nicky was outside having a cigarette before heading back to the hotel. She said
to leave it with her. A couple of minutes later, Theresa returned and took me
and Susie outside to the little section of the arena that the guests and crew
have to themselves to have cigarettes or catch some fresh air. Theresa had a
beautiful blue Sharpie on her. Nicky chatted to myself and Susie, and signed
the Xander Pop! Aww! I’m so glad I managed to get that sorted out for Susie. It
meant so much to her. I gave Nicky a couple of cuddles and told him to look
after himself and stay strong, and that I’d likely see him again later in the
year. Emma Caulfield and Billie Piper were also outside with Nicky, so I said
goodbye to them too.
Overall, I had a
terrific time at “Em-Con”! I didn’t have as much to do as I would ordinarily,
as I’d met a lot of the guests I’d usually go and meet before, but it was great
to meet Pearl and it was great to see Billie, Nicky, Emma, David Bradley, Jason
David Frank, Tony Curran, and Chris Rankin (and Ness!) again. People like Nicky
and Chris are extended family by this point, and people like Billie and Tony
always make you feel like the only person in the room with them when you meet
them. The event was well organised overall. I know some people had issues on
the Saturday, but I wasn’t there so cannot judge it. I can only judge what I
saw and experienced, and I had a tremendous time. There’s a reason I’ve been to
three Em-Con: Nottingham’s in a row and four Em-Con shows overall – because they’re
a good outfit with a stand-up organiser. I would be very surprised if I didn’t
see myself back there again next May for round four! With Jason David Frank,
Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, and Sylvester McCoy already announced for 2019’s Nottingham show, it looks
like “Em-Con” is going from strength-to-strength.
Stay strong, stay safe, and stay happy!
-
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Shangel
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