Review: Film & Comic Con Manchester 2016

No. 2: Film & Comic Con Manchester 2016

Credit: ComiConverse

Information: As previously mentioned, there was no obvious map and to find out the time of the cosplay shows and panels you had to locate the cosplay stage, but this seemed to be the only place to locate the information. As a person trying to write an article on the event and give some good publicity, it was also frustrating that the organisers had not chosen a hashtag for the event which became a problem later when trying to find other people who had tweeted about the event. In my press letter I was told to use Film & Comic Con Manchester 2016 or FCCM when referring to the event. Thanks to the character limit I opted for #FCCM but others used #comiconmanchester or #FilmAndComiConManchester, which are much longer and #ComiConManchester can be confused with the MCM events which (I assume) is the reason behind my clear naming instructions. It may seem like a small thing but people like to know how to support their event and it improves quality of coverage and assess ability to feedback for organizers.

Food: Disappointing. There was one solitary area for getting food which sold an experience assortment of bottled drinks and soggy looking sandwiches. I am sure they had some hot pasties and drinks as well but in my quick walk by to establish the worth of queuing for it I saw nothing of great appeal. When hunger struck myself and many others opted to leave and find food elsewhere. I discussed this issue with some of the show insiders and they informed me that is was the venue, Event City, that insisted that only their food area was allowed to operate and had even complained about a stall using lollies in a raffle for stealing their business. This is hearsay, I cannot corroborate these allegations as fact but it would make sense since ShowMasters don’t seem like they would have turned down anyone wishing to set up a food stall if they paid the table fee. It was a shame because it created a noticeable lunchtime dip in the number of people inside the event.