London expo

[Project-2501]

The organisation this time seemed even worse than usual. The ticket hall was opposite the expo hall so there was a constant stream of people blocking central area. There were no 'entrance' or 'exit' signs, no indication of which side of the entrance was for re-entry or first entry and nothing to indicate that you should be queuing in a certain place. We got yelled at for supposed queue barging but there was no queue, just a mass of people trying to get back in.

Its no fault of the people on the ground, it seems that they were simply not provided with the required stuff.

 

[Litespeed]

Had a brilliant time, although nearly forgot tickets on the way there! That was a great catastrophe.....

Still, got in around 10ish and went straight to Beez to spend a load of money (£80 woo!) and then just went around and picked up some manga and 20th Century Boys. Also managed a few signatures, but couldn't find Craig Charles anywhere sadly

I think the one downside was the fight that broke out when some crazy person tried to beat up a kid for 'jumping the queue for Tekken 6' despite said kid being already there, and the other guy actually pushing into the queue. Some people are so friendly.

All in all, a great day!

 

[Durial666]

The Tekken area was far too busy for me even to attempt so I just played Fairytale Fights instead ^_^

I saw Craig but he isn't much of a celeb in my eyes.

 

[Truered]

Oh and for a series that hasn't been released in the UK there was quite a lot of Queen's blade stuff Of course I can't really talk, I may have got something...

Oh and talking of games, during one of my travels around the hall I saw two people at a character creation screen for what looked like an RPG. I think it was on the 360, but when I walked around I saw no signs/info. Anyone know what game it was?

Also bioshock 2 looked good, Borderlands grabbed my attention having been unsure over the art style, and L4D2 looked fun.

 

[Tachi]

@ Tachi - I hadn't realised you had posted the above message from the pub! The wonders of modern technology.

@ everyone - Thanks for your help with the extra questions, much appreciated..

Lol yeah i almost forgot i had my touch with me, thanks to hopeful monster 's example i decided to take advantage of the free wifi lol.

Things to note; the ques where overwhelming, my feet hurt too, but i managed to restrain on the spending....bought the dwvil may cry complete series for £15 (which i've took the time to watch completely, and to me was worth every penny) the cowboy bebop remixed complete series boxset (that i shall be watching through tonight with a few pints) for the bargain price of £25, and after hours of looking round, i got my kakashi hatake figure! For £4.50 i was more than happy to buy my favourite Naruto character

Was lookin at the £1 manga store, very tempted to buy a couple of titles, just for the sake of buyin em at such a small price, very hard not to get carried away

It was great to meet members, some real characters and we all had a good laugh. Should do it again sometime

The cosplays where pretty cool, ones to note, star wars; storm troopers an darths vader and maul, the alien and halo ones where cool (hopeful monster learnt a life long lesson...never stand behind the alien ) but by far the best cosplay i saw was a baby on its fathers shoulder, dressed as pikachu, by far the best cosplay

 

[hopeful_monster]

The cosplays where pretty cool, ones to note, star wars; storm troopers an darths vader and maul, the alien and halo ones where cool (hopeful monster learnt a life long lesson...never stand behind the alien ) but by far the best cosplay i saw was a baby on its fathers shoulder, dressed as pikachu, by far the best cosplay

Not unfortunately a lesson I can pass on to my children.
As for the baby pickachu he seemed to be having the time of his life.

 

[Black Haru]

I had an epic time for my first Expo! Bought loads of D Gray-man relatd stuff likes J-mini figures and cells. But what i really wanted was those Vongola Ring! ^^
I took loads of pics for like three hours then my cmera decided to die lol. I was only in the queue for like 15mins - i got there pretty early.
I was meant to meet with caos and tachi but silly me i missed a digit out on caos's number so i was doomed but hey i ran into the one piece crowd and hd fun with them troughout the sat!

Overall i say it was an ace Expo! ^^ but i would say i didn't actually see any wow cosplays, but many were excellent. (I was Gol D Roger by the way!)

 

[Ushio]

Death takes many forums, and exhaustion from Expos is probably one of them! =_=;

Was fun though, espcially today. Met Chaos, Zin5ki and Hopeful Monster - thanks for stopped by! (@Zin5ki: I'm so sorry I forgot your name dude! ^^; I'm always out of it at Expos, cons are better!)

Need epic sleep now...

 

[Yunagirl]

I was at the expo, though didn't make the AUKN meet >.< I was cosplaying as gunner yuna, right at the end of the day I saw and got pictured with a fantastic tidus cosplayer, this was majorly awesome XD. I thought the stalls were MUCH better this time around too~ :3

 

[Viral Sound]

One of my highlights at the expo was being able to play Left 4 Dead 2 at the EA stall. I waited for an hour to play about 10 minutes worth of the game and I'm glad I did, it has convinced me to preorder the game instead of waiting for my next pay day to buy it. The other game stalls were far too busy for me to bother with afterwards, I only got the chance to play some Bayonetta later on in the day.

The merchandise on offer was a lot better than last year, though not much of it appealed to me. In the end I bought a few bargain DVDs for under £20 and 13 pieces of doujinshi for... a little over £100, but I'm happy with it all.

I only bothered seeing a few guest talks in the end, the Ronny Cox gig was good but not the kind of music I can listen to for an hour though. The cosplay event at the end of Saturday was well handled but the sound engineer needs to get over his Mike Oldfield fetish and find some music more relavent to the event. The best cosplayer I saw during the event was a fully metal Iron Man suit. I doubt he can fly in the air and shoot bolts of energy from the plam of his hands, but it's one of the best suits I've seen so far. The crowd was more tolerable than before, but the free hug and meme people were more than a little annoying.
I think that covers it all for me this year. Next year I'm going to have to prepare for the amount of doujinshi and prices of DVDs on offer.

Thought the National Express from Cambridge came in at London Victoria? At least it did back when I used to use it.

The route runs through Stratford on the way to Victoria, I ended up missing it and boarded the tube to West Ham a few stops later.

 

[chaos]

I took loads of pics for like three hours then my cmera decided to die lol. I was only in the queue for like 15mins - i got there pretty early.

Early is the trick. What time did you get there, if you don't mind me asking.

I was meant to meet with caos and tachi but silly me i missed a digit out on caos's number so i was doomed but hey i ran into the one piece crowd and hd fun with them troughout the sat!

glad you got sorted =) In the end, I was running around most of the saturday. But the meet up was good this time around. The pub is definitely the way to go for these meet-ups, as way less busy than the main excel hall.

Overall i say it was an ace Expo! ^^ but i would say i didn't actually see any wow cosplays, but many were excellent. (I was Gol D Roger by the way!)

I didn't see this Gol D Roger cosplayer, but I agree. The overall quality of the cosplayers is increasing, but there was nothing that blew me away.
The stands aread was a lot better this time around, but the tickets / entry of people still have a long way to go.

 

[Kaede]

My thoughts on the expo....

Got there at about 11am to find an horrific queue to get in, so I decided not to bother and went shopping up town for a bit. Got back for around 4pm to find no queue whatsoever and after getting my tickets, walked straight in.

I had a walk round all the stalls, I enjoyed the Sweatdrop studios stand and the section where the artists were selling their comics. Got talking to one girl who did some really lovely ink paintings. Gonna check her webstie out as I picked up a flyer. I also picked up Sword of the Stranger from the Beez stand for £10 which I thought was very reasonable.

I really don't think there's much to keep you there longer than an hour unless you want to pour over every single stand to see what's for sale and gawp at the cosplay people....which I really don't understand at all. I chuckled at a few people on the train home dressed as Bleach/Naruto characters, they looked quite sheepish as soon as they were on their own. Some of them.....I felt quite sorry for. Especially the guy dressed as Master Chief who'd been accosted by a group of chavs outside the pub by the station.

All in all I don't think I'll bother again with the expo. There weren't really enough bargains on the stalls to make the trip worth while for me and I think I'm maybe slightly to old to be surrounded by badly dressed, hyperactive teenagers for an afternoon.[/grumpy]

Regards,
K

 

[Black Haru]

I took loads of pics for like three hours then my cmera decided to die lol. I was only in the queue for like 15mins - i got there pretty early.

Early is the trick. What time did you get there, if you don't mind me asking.

I got to the place at 8.20am! I was so grumpy lol so sleep deprived! but Lucozade tablets fixed that!

 

[chaos]

All in all I don't think I'll bother again with the expo. There weren't really enough bargains on the stalls to make the trip worth while for me and I think I'm maybe slightly to old to be surrounded by badly dressed, hyperactive teenagers for an afternoon.[/grumpy]

should have joined us at the pub then =)

 

[Jaymii]

Kaede, I think the fact that you walked in at 4 might have been the problem, that's well after all the good bargains are snagged. People are just tired around that time and, it might just be me, but a lot of the buzz has died. Grabbing an early ticket from the site might be the way to go for you if you ever go again.

Also, I look at every stall. There's something of interest at every one I find.

 

[JamesX]

I can't even remember exactly what time I actually got in. I went to say hello to Chaos and everyone first when I got there and then went to get tickets and I was waiting for a while. I think I finally got in about 1:45. Then spent loads of times looking at all the stalls and buying stuff. ^^

Shame I didn't get to see you lot again after the pub, we seemed to be in different places all the time.

 

[evangelion rocks]

Had an awesome time although I'm super exhausted right now!Best expo yet by far with lots of great cosplays and stands!.The saturday night party was brilliant aswell.Over the course of the weekend I've learnt a few things:
1.It is possible to survive off Pocky for two days(just not advisable)

2.Over high-fiving people can lead to serious wrist cramp

3.Regardless of the temperature outside on the day,NEVER wear three layers in cosplay.

and finally:London Expo is the happiest place on earth!.

 

[Zin5ki]

Kaede, I think the fact that you walked in at 4 might have been the problem, that's well after all the good bargains are snagged. People are just tired around that time and, it might just be me, but a lot of the buzz has died. Grabbing an early ticket from the site might be the way to go for you if you ever go again.

Indeed. Hopefully they won't use UV stamps next time, which should prevent horrible entry/re-entry queues from forming. Of course, being up with the larks allows one to avoid any initial queuing whatsoever, and give you first dibs on whatever it is one is looking to acquire.

As I understand it, certain people were able to reserve copies of some of the more desirable products beforehand. I wouldn't know how one would go about doing this, however.

 

[chaos]

I was at the expo, though didn't make the AUKN meet >.< I was cosplaying as gunner yuna, right at the end of the day I saw and got pictured with a fantastic tidus cosplayer, this was majorly awesome XD. I thought the stalls were MUCH better this time around too~ :3

Hey, I think I've seen you there... I did see the Tidus guy for sure though.
You should have come to say hi to us

Anyway, I agree that the stalls was better, if only they sort the queues, things will be a lot better.

 

[chaos]

As I understand it, certain people were able to reserve copies of some of the more desirable products beforehand. I wouldn't know how one would go about doing this, however.

Begging pretty please?
Also, in the case of Monster, he requested his poster about three years ago and I'm not sure he finished paying for it yet - he might need to re-mortgage his house to do that.