Maybe not a rip-off but the Comic Con After Party was certainly a let down, according to Alessandro Carrara.
It was already raining when I began my journey to East London’s Excel Centre. But my high hopes for the After Party – the Saturday night shindig at MCM Comic Con – kept me in a sunny mood. As I changed trains at Canning Town, I envisioned a venue full of eclectic nerds dancing and going wild.
When I arrived at 9pm, an hour after the advertised start time, I expected the party to be in full swing. I flashed my ticket and followed the sound of music to a full-on nerd-rave. Some hope. Instead I found a room with people in costume, just standing around.
Not a good start. But it’s early yet, I told myself, as I joined the queue for the bar. A drop of the hard stuff will enliven the evening! Forty agonising minutes later, I walked away with one drink in hand and £11.83 out of my wallet.
The music blasted by the DJ at the far end was your usual mix of unintelligible dubstep and modern mainstream songs. Occasionally, a remix of a popular game song would come on, such as the Super Mario Bros main theme. The crowd got more excited at these tracks than anything else.
Eventually the dance floor did become a colourful spectrum of cosplay characters, all dancing and having a good time. It really was something of a spectacle, and being right in the middle of numerous costumed characters was a truly surreal experience.
But still there weren’t that many of them. The problem was that the actual number of people who showed up to the event, was a far cry from what I had expected. The room was downright empty at times, and felt quite tame in comparison to the pulse-pounding occasion I was hoping for.
Perhaps it was the price of entry – a hefty £15 – which kept many punters away. This was on top of the main event’s weekend ticket price, which could set you back £50.
Here’s hoping that a price reduction will help raise the roof of future after parties.