London MCM October 2009 - Afterthoughts

Yesterday (Saturday the 24th) The Dark Knight and I attended the October 2009 London MCM (Movie, Comic, Media) Expo.

Below is a quick rundown of what we saw and who we met with a few pics to back it up.

Event Organisation

First thing I must say about the London MCM Expo is how badly organised the event is every single time we go. It's unbelievable to think that an event like this seems to have little to no pre-planning before the doors open, even down the point where the security don't know who they should be letting in and where, or the volunteer staff have no idea what's going on because no one has told them. It's a lack of fundamental foresight that we see every time we attend and simply can't comprehend. Every time we asked a member of the event staff a question they had no idea what we were talking about and said to talk to the info desk. When we asked a question at the info desk they had no idea either and said they'd not been told the answer themselves. Crazy...

The Entry

Because of this lack of communication and planning the event opened late again (as it always seems to do twice a year), not that that affected us as we had industry passes again and managed to get in early. As an example of the bad organisation we went to walk through one of the entrances and were told that we had to go through the other one to get our passes scanned. We went over to the other entrance 4 feet away and were told there were no scanners... We were just told to go in. Rubbish. Anyway after locating the signing desks for Terry Farrell and Kandyse McClure (the two lovely ladies we needed autographs from over anyone else) without the help of the useless maps that didn't tell you anything at all, we bought our smileys (vouchers for the autos), had a quick walk around the event floor (picked up a lovely big pic of Terry to get signed and a Warehouse 13 pic) and then came across the Left 4 Dead II demo booth.

Left For Dead 2 Played

Luckily the guy sorting out the booth saw there was a small grouping of people forming who were literally foaming at the mouth to get their hands on the preview code early and quickly sorted out the X-Box 360's for us to all have a go. The first four guys went in and about 5 mins later it was our turn. Once we were inside the dingy, dark little box-booth (separated into four mini cubicles with hanging limbs and blood everywhere) the guy rushed around and set up the 4 player game on a level I can't remember the name of... It was based in the streets of New Orleans, I know that much! Dark Knight chose Nick, The Gambler and Conman, I chose Coach the big bald African American baseball coach, and the other two guys (who we didn't really see) played as Rochelle and Ellis. As the level started we were all informed that the preview code was hyper-glitchy and that it may even crash as we played through, but luckily we didn't come across any problems on our turn. The level booted up and I grabbed myself a meaty shotgun and an electric guitar... Yep, that's what I said, an Electric Guitar! Great for battering zombie heads in. We played through the whole level and I ended up being the only one that was attacked by all the special infected in the level... Literally I was the only one that got jumped on by the Jockey, rammed by the Charger, covered by the Boomer and then spat on by the Spitter. It was all good fun and I can't wait for the real game. One of the highlights of the day!

The Autographs

After playing L4D2 we got our free tickets to the Warehouse 13 signing, got our autographs from Kandyse McClure on our funky "How to spot a Cylon" posters with the rest of the BSG cast signatures on (which she loved, they always do) then on to meet my all time favourite sci-fi babe Terry Farrell. She was absolutely fantastic with me and chatted me up playfully, making me reply in total gibberish. She still looked stunning to me, although I was shocked to see the long streak of grey hair she was sporting, and I'll be framing the big Dax pic she signed for sure! After grabbing some food and some collectibles for the kids etc we went on to meet the equally stunning Nicole De Boer (who was totally bored out of her brain as nobody was queuing up for her autograph, just Terry's) and then the legend that is Ronny Cox for my Stargate book and Craig Charles. If you remember I posted a huge complaint about the Red Dwarf con earlier this year that Craig never attended. I'd bought a big box-frame canvas of the whole RD cast which had been signed by everyone else there except him. When he saw the canvas and said "wow where did you get this" I coyly replied "at the Red Dwarf con this year" and he then realised and said "oh, was that the one I didn't go to?", "yeah, that'd be the one" I replied. He apologised and Dark Knight joked that I'd cried for a week when he didn't turn up, making Craig probably feel much better I'm sure!

Warehouse 13 Free Signing

We then queued up way too early for the last event of our day which was the free Warehouse 13 signing. Luckily although the cast of Eddie McClintock (Pete), Joanne Kelly (Myka) and Allison Scagliotti (Claudia) were supposed to be signing at 2pm they were 20 mins early and we were only about 6th or 7th in the queue so we were in and out quite quickly. Another cock up by the event organisers it seems, but a bonus for us. Another bad point about the show was that poor Allison Scagliotti had her name misspelled on her name board behind her head. She got up out of her chair and amended it with a black marker and didn't look too happy about it either! Allison was gorgeous nonetheless and very talkative giving us a few exclusive tidbits on her Smallville appearance later this year, Joanne Kelly was equally beautiful and very smiley, signing "You rock ass" on my autograph! Eddie was awesome and the kind of guy you expect him to be when you watch the show. He was talkative, jokey and the kind of person you'd be lucky to have as your mate. He also wrote on my autograph saying "You are cool".. Great people, all three of them. A good end to the day.

The End Of Our Day

By the time our day was over The Dark Knight and I had been walking and standing for 6 odd hours and were totally knackered from head to toe. We'd made about 3-4 trips back to the car down in the car park too to drop off and collect stuff in that time, which was extra walking we really didn't need. I have to say as well that come 11am that Excel hall was unbelievably hot and stuffy and everyone was complaining. On one of my trips back to the car I had to change my t-shirt from my blue Superman one to a white one as I needed to feel much fresher than I did at that point. Not a comfortable event when there's no air con, especially when there's hundreds, if not thousands, of sweaty pubescent teens (and cosplayers wearing thick, heavy-ass, costumes) walking about. No offense guys, it just stank in there!

All in all it was a mediocre event, as the London MCM Expo usually is, but everything went well and we got everything we came for, so there's no major complaints. Looking forward to the next set of events next year now!

Here's a small collage of pics that I took at the event. Bad quality on most as the lighting is crap, but you get the idea. Maybe you can spot yourself in there somewhere! Click on the collage for a bigger image.