I live in Liverpool, and whilst MCM abandoned us during their great con purge, Monopoly Events decided to to take it on. I’d wanted to go for a while, but it being around MCM London time made that tricky as I’d usually be in frantic con crunch. No MCM for me this year, so time to check it out!

So, first up: tickets. Not a great buying experience with the ticket insurance page being deliberately designed to make it difficult to say no and then a £1 surcharge (on top of a 10% admin fee) to print your own tickets. They’re also fairly expensive, costing roughly the same as the equivalent ticket to MCM London this past May.

The con nearly start off minus one, as Lana was struggling to get to me thanks to the storm taking out most of the trains (I’d like to thank Lana’s friend Jess for giving them the lift up). Morning of con, I nearly made us miss the taxi (oop’s! in fairness I had only slept like an hour. Acursed sinuses!). With friend two (Nate) acquired (and a brief chat with some family also attending) we we’re able to get into the con super quickly. Barely any queueing at all!

Once we got in and had a wander it became clear that most of the con was dedicated to meeting guests. The main vendors/artists area was also about 60% generic drop-shipped geek merch, though there where a couple of really good ones we’d not seen before and a few that I’d seen at previous cons. There were two sides (blue and red), with a few more artists in the red building… and a lot more queues for seeing guests/getting photos. This is also where they had the sets for photos, which wile well built where always too busy and too show focused to really do anything with. MegaCon with it’s generic backdrops has me spoilt 😂

Breaking for lunch early, we terrorised (aka turned up normally) a nearby Costa in Albert dock in full cosplay (so many confused looks). I’m always a fan of going to places in cosplay, there’s nothing funnier than seeing Aloy drinking tea in a coffee shop. On our return we met up with another friend (Alex) and their friends, who seemed to share the same thoughts I’d been having so far on the con. The rest of the afternoon was the inevitable search for things we wanted to go back to check out a second time, meeting folks and taking photos. It was an early finish (around 3ish, after photo’s had been taken) as we’d run out of things to do.

Other random things from the day: Daleks going from building to building arguing and using the lifts will never not be funny; I nearly got run over by Warrick Davis on a segway while doing a photoshoot; Wearing Aloy this time round was much more comfortable, with only one minor breakage.

Final thoughts: Overall, I’m giving the con a solid meh. Sure, I had fun, but most of that came from donning Aloy again after a long time and hanging out with my friends. While it’s local, I doubt I’ll be attending again as it definitely wasn’t worth the same price as an MCM ticket.

Expect some more updates on my BOTW Link soon, it’s progressing very slowly but hopefully I can pick up momentum and get it done before January!

TLDR; Smaller cons are fun!

MegaCon? #

So MCM, the fools they are, decided that after lockdown that they weren’t going to be bringing back MCM Manchester. Very disappointing, but luckily only a few months later MegaCon announced they where doing one… in the same place and at roughly the same time as MCM would have. Power move.

I’d not really heard of MegaCon until this point, but they’d be running a few elsewhere so I thought… why not have a go?

Travel #

Usually it’d be easy to get to Manchester Cnetral, but of course Train strikes, err, struck! We had to get the coach on the Saturday, which involved us getting up at 5:30am. Lovely. The weather wasn’t great either, but I did get to use my poncho so I consider that a fair trade 😂.

Sunday was better, we where able to get the train and didn’t have to leave anywhere near as early. Still got stuck on the way home though, but that was a technical fault rather than the strikes (I’m wishing the government would stop faffing and accept the unions aren’t going to back down. Give them their damn pay rise. They deserve it!)

At the con #

Queuing was quick and the staff where super helpful when my friend couldn’t access their tickets. Inside it was… pretty much what I remembered MCM being! There were loads of artists and sellers I’d not seen before (or hadn’t seen in a while). The number of people selling the same stuff was almost zero, a welcome change from MCM London where you can easily get confused by stalls selling identical wares on aisle next to each other.

My thoughts of “oh I’m not going to be buying much” were thrown aside and I did end up with a lot of cool stuff.

There was plenty of places to take photo’s as well, I really liked the multitude of backgrounds you could use. The outdoor space was pretty good as well, a lot less busy than MCM ever is. Photo’s will be coming later! I managed to get a few done by a fantastic photographer my friend knows so I’m looking forward to seeing them too.

Food and drink #

As usual the choice for vegan’s was limited when it came to hot food, though the cold food selection was surprisingly good! Luckily we’re in Manchester city centre so we just popped out to nearby coffee shops when we needed to.

I do love a con where you can easily leave and come back, certainly added to a much more chill mood through the day.

Costume troubles #

No costume issues at all! Fantastic, loved not having to worry if something was about to fall off. I didn’t end up taking Aloy because I didn’t have the energy to get up and do the makeup so Rincewind came out again. And of course coated me in red fluff. Vax was great, the hooks I added to the jacket front really improved the look of the costume in photos by keeping the front closed.

What’s next? #

I took a ton of photo’s this time around, so I’ll be putting them up soon. Liverpool Comic Con is coming up so I’m hoping to do a day (or maybe two? depends on the price) since I’ve always missed that and it’s literally down the road from me!

Given how well MegaCon Manchester went, I’m also going to hopefully be going to MegaCon London in January. It’s going to be cold, but I’ve done early Feb events before and made it through!

TLDR; Some last minute changes and poor planning on my part led to chaos, but the con itself went great!

Con crunch, a classic tale #

Man, am I really bad at time management 😂. I started my Vax cosplay with what I thought was plenty of time to complete it without rushing, but loosing a couple of long weekends (to fun things, I have no regrets) meant that I ended up with work piling up and barely enough time to do it. I’m real glad I factored in that overflow time now!

I was also trying to get fixes for Aloy done, something I definitely should have started earlier as they did add to the chaos, switching between costumes.

Pack mule I am not #

I was packed, the night before I set off for con and in front of me sat a large wheeled case, duffel bag, rucksack, camera bag and tote bag. Oh. Oh no. I need to take that all on the train.

Cue me staring dead eyed at the pile, some frantic thought, and a last minute swap of Aloy for my Rincewind. It is 11pm and I’m doing a quick wash and hoping that the cosplay is still in good enough shape.

I repacked as much as I could, ditching the tote bag and big duffel bag and hoped things would be dry in the morning (Nope, I had to use my heat gun to help dry them 😂).

Con day one #

Skipping ahead to the Friday of the con, I was happy to find that my Rincewind cosplay was in decent shape! I spent the morning coating it in hairspray, which I’m glad to say did reduce the amount of red fluff that came off it to a manageable amount and mean I didn’t shed over everyone else like last time!

The con itself was great, the weather wasn’t too hot and I was convinced to get a lightsaber (which tbf was not that difficult at all). No regrets!

My friend Ben brought his camera which means I now actually have more than a couple of grainy in con photos of my as Rincewind!

Con day two #

Vax came out and immediately there where issues. I’d forgotten to do a few fixes the night before and it became quickly clear that the hot glue had not adhered well at all to the faux leather. I had to head to the cosplay hospital twice to get things re-glued, big thanks to the woman who I kept bothering for superglue!

Between myself, Lana (as Keyleth) and Daisy (as Vex) we had a small Vox Machina comic book group going and where able to take some good group photos, as well as participate in the big Critical Role meetup. It was way too busy to hang around for long which was a shame as I was looking forward to chatting with folks.

As we where leaving the con I did come across some very cool automated wings that convinced me to make winged Vax. Wings are cool!

Things to take away #

• Hot glue is terrible on faux leather. Superglue is effective though, I’ll bear that in mind when working with it. Thread is by far still the most effective way of keeping it together.
• Pack in advance to check you can fit everything in without requiring 76 bags and a team of baggage handlers.
• Don’t leave repairs until the last minute - get them done well in advance of any con to save stress.

What’s next? #

I’m hoping to get the photo’s I took edited, as well as get the ones of me in costume off Ben and the lovely photographer I was introduced to.

Next up for cons is MegaCon in Manchester at the end of July. I’ll be hopefully taking Aloy and Vax; I’ll be wearing the costumes from home to the con so don’t have to worry about packing.

Hope to see some of you there!