My 2900th Blog Post

 

The Great London 
Film And Comic... con

My 2900th Post 

For my 2900th post I thought I would like to bring to light the current escalation of the actions (some might even say crimes) committed by the London Film And Comic Con, which I used to love going to every year until the dreaded day that they did this (back in 2014). Since then, I’ve gone pretty much every year (as it’s the excuse I need to take the day off work when the blooming ‘Staff Barbecue’ is held) and, the list of egotistical celebrities just keeps getting bigger and bigger (I wish they wouldn’t invite ‘guests’ to these things at all if this is what happens) while the amount of choice on the stalls keeps getting smaller and smaller. I’ve seen a number of my regular dealers from other film fairs stop attending this one for pretty much the same reason... the wrong kind of audience being attracted by the dubious celebrities and treating the once main attraction, the stalls of merchandise, as a secondary add on. 

But I still like to go because the few different kinds of stalls they have there are usually quite unique when compared to the other, far superior, film fairs I attend every year (where else would you find pink, knitted Daleks and homemade Alpacas?). 

So once again, this year, I bought my advanced ticket to the 2026 show. Now I found it strange that, instead of the usual early July date (with, once again, what was always the best day of the show, the Friday, when the stalls have not been ransacked by other attendees waiting until the Saturday) being suspiciously absent once more... they’d replaced it with an early, Saturday or Sunday only June date. Okay, I could live with that and, once I’d seethed and raged quite a bit, I could also live with the bizarrely expensive increase on the ticket price, gone up another £6 this year to a staggering £31 entrance fee (for just the stalls, which is the ticket I always buy and which, before they got so pseudo-popular, always used to cost around a fiver). And, so it was booked and I didn’t have to worry about it again.

Except I did. 

A few weeks ago I received an email from the organisers of the London Film And Comic Con which started out with the very diplomatically worded phrase... “Sadly, we have had to take the difficult decision to postpone London Film and Comic Con 2026 to August 2027.” No people, if you postpone something until a date taking place even after the next annual event was supposed to happen... it’s not a postponement, it’s a cancellation! And, of course, rather than straight refund people without a lot of tomfoolery in trying to contact them, they decided to keep the money and just reassign the ticket to the new August date. Because of course they would, that’s how certain organisations like this operate I guess (and don’t get me started on theatre ticket, non-refund expectations during the pandemic). 

Reasons for this postponement/cancellation listed in the email used phrases like “airline costs rising sharply and ongoing uncertainty around flight availability”, “unfolding global issues”, “increasing energy shortages” and “rising cost of living”... that last specifically talking about the fact that they have the audacity to charge for autographs and snaps with the celebs! 

And I’m really not happy about this. All the decisions made here are to do with the string of guests they wanted to attend... many of which usually seem to be of the ‘third stormtrooper from the right’ in this film, ‘fifth Ewok from the left’ in this film, someone who ‘dressed up as a Dalek once’ variety... amongst the smattering of bigger guests who charge even more money for the privilege (if you care to call it that).

But what about people like me? 

I don’t give a hoot about the celebrities! I just want to visit the stalls. C’mon... what about remembering the real value and atmosphere of the ‘event’ of the humble Film Fair? Not what it seems to have unfortunately mutated into, in the hands of some certain showrunners. 

Once again the organisers seem to be getting away with it but, food for thought, my main concern after reading their email (asides from being cheated out of a day in London, shopping for unique merchandise) is... who is to say it won’t also be cancelled next year? Will there even be a London Film And Comic Con still standing or will it just sink into bankruptcy because of rubbish decisions like this?

Anyway, thought I’d spread the news here so people who were thinking of going again this year... and who are scratching their heads when they find next year’s dates on the website, know about it... well at least you’ve been informed somewhere, even if it’s just on this blog, that the show isn’t going ahead in 2026. It might have been nice to put that up on the landing page of their own website though. This is nuts!

So that’s my latest rant and my 2900th Post. Thanks so much for reading, always grateful. Normal reviewing service will return on my next post.