London Film and Comic Con Weekend

 Background

The London Film and Comic Con was held at Earls Court on the weekend of 19th – 20th July 2008. This was the second time I have attended the event the first time was last year when I went to the Heroes World Tour.  This year, unlike the previous year I got myself a Gold Pass allowing me to jump the lines and see who I wanted without much hanging around.

Friday

I left work a little early and caught the direct train to London, once I arrived I went straight to my hotel, I was contemplating going to see a West End show, but with less than an hour to check in, freshen up then buy tickets etc. I decided to stay in the room.

I was staying in the Radisson Edwardian Grafton, in a single room, which was very, very small, but at least it was clean and convenient.

Saturday

Woke up reasonably early got ready and left the room at around 8:00am to catch the tube to Earls Court, it took less than half an hour so had to wait outside for another 30 minutes which was not to bad.  As I had a gold pass it meant that I did not have to arrive in the small hours of the morning to guarantee meeting the guests I had come to see.

Once we got in I walked around for a bit as because I did not need to get virtual tickets like everyone else, then when the guests arrived I got there autographs.  I started with Karen Allen followed by John Landis how was very friendly followed by John Hurt and Christopher Lloyd.  I also got autographs from Claudia Black, Paul Freeman, Margot Kidder and Carrie Henn.

Throughout the day there was also a number of talks taking place and I attended the Goodies, Indiana Jones, Aliens, Claudia Black and Finally the David Anders ones.  I have to admit some of these were quite badly run, especially the Aliens one.  As soon as the guests arrived on stage and sat down the guy who introduced them just walked off and left them to it without asking anyone in the audience if they would like to ask any questions, Christopher Henn one of the Aliens people even asked what do we do now and there was just silence which lasted quite a while I felt really bad for them, in the end Holly De Jong another one of the cast took charge and started asking questions to the over actors before they got some more from the crowd, the same thing also happened during the Indiana Jones talk.  At these type of things there needs to be someone who works there to start the ball rolling like they usually do at other events.

I also had a number of photo shoots as well with Christopher Lloyd, John Hurt and Claudia Black.

That night after I left the event I went to the West End to watch a play called “Fat Pig” about a guy who starts dating a fat girl and the pressure he feels from his friends because of it.  It was a good show with really good performances from Robert Webb, Kris Marshall, Joanna Page and Ella Smith.  After the show I went to the stage door and got there autographs and some pictures with them.

On the way back to the hotel I also walked past the Duke of Your theatre just as Catherine Tate and Chris O’Dowd were coming out so had my pictures takes with them as well and got Chris’s autograph, unfortunately Catherine could not sign as she had damaged her wrist but talked to people for a long time.
 

Sunday

Had a bit of a lie in today, as did not need to be at the show until 10:00am (I heard some people had been queuing since 6:30am).  Quite a slow day really all I needed to do was have a photo shoot with Karen Allen and an autograph from Patrick Stewart. The rest of the day was spent attending talks by Rick Yune, Brad Dourif, Jason Mewes and Patrick Stewart (where even John Landis attended and asked questions). I was luck enough to have front row seats for all of these.

I finally left by 16:00 and went to Oxford Street to buy Sarah some clothes before returning to the hotel to pick my bags up from the concierge and catching the 18:01 train back to Chester.