Milton Keynes Vs Bristol – comic death match of the century.
No unfortunately this post isn’t to report an on going war between two cites, fighting to the death in a no holds bard slogfest where one will fall to the dirt crushed beneath the boots of the glorious winner… Although after writing that intro I really wish it was.
This is going to be my handy comparison between Collectormania and the Bristol comic Expo, in this article I will be supplying our loyal readers with my dark and dirty knowledge of the cities to make your lives easier for future cons!
Here is part 1!
Travel.
Travelling to Milton Keynes can be very hit and miss, speaking from the point of living in Cambridge. To take the train to MK you have to travel out to London and the pretty much back in the same direction, the journey being up to 4 hours and costing almost £120. The trains were frequent but they do run out of room fast, I’d advise pre-booking as you are assured a seat and more importantly it makes it cheaper!
For people like myself who live nearer to MK check your local bus depot, I discovered much to my frustration there is a bus that cost only £6 and can only take an hour, seriously worth checking for. The train station is central enough to the area that you should be at most 5 minutes from any hotel near the event.
Hotels.
There are plenty of hotels in the area, in fact you could probably live in a different hotel each month for a year and still not have tried them all. But unfortunately I couldn’t afford that adventure (after the cost of the train tickets) so settled for the Premier Inn, as Lenny Henry suggests in all his commercials. The place was quite cheep for everything we got. Two nights and a full all you can eat breakfast was only £150!
The Premier Inn was amazingly well situated for what was needed. At just 5 minutes walk from the Centre MK where Collectormania takes place. It is also 2 minutes from Xtreame an indoor ski slope with a cinema and lots of restaurants.
Collectormania.
The convention itself was inside The Centre MK and down by John Lewis. It became obvious why they cant charge for this event as there was no way to police the people walking in and around the shopping centre.
Friday was a lot quieter, with hardly any one dressed up and almost no one shopping at the booths. I would suggest if you want to do some shopping on all the stalls and not feel rushed this would be the day to do it. You can browse, talk to the shop owners and generally have a lot more relaxing time.
More importantly you also get first picks on all the goodies and trust me there’s a lot of em! You could easily blow a grand there, from replica weapons, cosplay costumes, old rare comics to figures and toys.
The Stars.
It’s a little intimidating when you turn up at the areas separated for the guests. They are sat in a separate section, which is almost entirely walled off to the rest of the con, above them hangs huge pictures of the performances that landed them convention seats. These posters gaze down onto the cattle grid of queue lines that snake away filled to bursting with screaming and fainting fans. I imagine it's just as intimidating being the guest looking out into this sea of heaving bodies.
But when you finally reach the front of the lines you are greeted by a wonderful smile and a fun conversation from some one who is happy to be there. The best advise I can give you is use your common sense. Be there early so to avoid the main queues, treat the guests like people, yes tell them how much you loved them in a movie/tv show, but don’t sit there spanking you’re one eyed snake and dribbling, that gives us fans bad names and helps perpetuate the stigma surrounding dorks and geeks everywhere.
Part 2 coming soon...
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