Several months ago we booked tickets to go to MCM comiccon in London for Kai’s birthday. This Saturday (28th June) it finally arrived. So I’m going to explain the day piece by piece.
We had to chase up our tickets the day before because they hadn’t been emailed to us. We should have checked that way before, but luckily after much pestering by both myself and Kai they finally arrived Friday night. We had bought them in March!
On the way there the rail staff were pretty good in directing where to go. Well done on that. Getting off the underground wasn’t too much of a hassle.
The long walk to not even the gates to get in. What in the lord fuckery was that. It was beyond a joke. I got a quarter of the way there before my body gave up and we had to call assistance. Just to clarify, this wasn’t the queue to get in but the detour round the building
Eventually we managed to get some assistance and each staff member was so helpful until we had to get to right at the end of the whole building for the help/accessibility desk, to be rudely told that I should have got there sooner (we got rushed in) or bought priority entry because they had run out of wheel chairs and if I wanted (WANTED; WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK) I should have been able to get there sooner. As I said, we had been rushed in, and it had only just started. Eventually after much arguing we got her to take our contact details and ten mins later she apologised because there was one or two wheelchairs for “emergencies”.
Ok so after all that bullshit, we could finally look round and see bits. The venue itself isn’t that bad, its pretty big, so you can imagine how tiring it was trying to get from the main door to the access door at the end of the building, when it took about 15 mins to get to. The Excel centre is like a giant mall with big concert areas. They were filled up with stalls and things. Honestly there was lots to see.
We got to meet Shawn from storage wars whilst we were going round the centre and he was a total babe. He seemed so happy seeing eveyone.
Going round was a total nightmare if I’m honest, I couldn’t see much and I hated being wheeled around. I was so upset that my body wasn’t working and it made me really fucking depressed that I had to use the chair to get round. I was constantly bashed and no one looks where they are going. So i was often stepped over or walked across.
I spotted two different acts of cultural appropriation happening by white cosplayers who were trying to make their look more “authentic”. Its fucking gross that people think its acceptable to do that. Unfortunately until the venues tackle this, it will always happen.
There were not enough staff at the venue if I’m honest. It was a nightmare trying to find assistance. I don’t think they had thought it through that 15,000 people were even going to attend. However the staff we did manage to find (apart from the one at reception) were really nice and helpful.
We had bought a photo with Warwick Davis and after what seemed like forever, staff managed to get us to where he was, and away from the rest of the crowds. There was quite a wait, this was due to the autographs being far too over subscribed. This was a huge issue with most of the stars of the day, and that in all honestly money was thought off far more then time constraints.
When we saw him, he was ok. Wasn’t really talkative, and the photo was quite rushed, which I understand because of time. Then there was the issue of getting our photos.
It was a total fucking disaster, there was no organisation and rather then having photos straight away, you had to walk round to collect them. Some people had been waiting 3 hours just for one photo. Then we saw the photo, they had made no adjustment for the wheel chair, and it wasn’t central. It had cost us £25 and I was quite disappointed in it. We would have got two prints for both our parents, but we were not wasting another £10 on them, when we were going to have to edit them to look good.
We then had to rush back down to the end of the building to hand the wheelchair over, before we got charged £300 for the use. Luckily we got there just in time and managed to look at a few stalls before we left.
Honestly it wasn’t too bad, a lot of my issues were stemmed down to the fact that my body was fucked the whole time. A lot of issues need to be addressed with accessibility and cultural appropriation but it was ok. In October, if I go again, I will bring my own chair if I need it, and do the whole weekend because it felt so rushed.
Tldr: Ok, but could do with less racist bullshit and a little more organization.
Tyler Charles Austen 