London Expo

So I went to the London Expo today. It's a strange little show... Been to a few now. It happens maybe a couple of times a year, at the ExCeL Centre in London's Docklands, and each one tends to be very different.

The first one I went to with my sister and a friend a couple of years ago. It was hugely disappointing, in that the 'star' guests mostly weren't, and the retail side of things was decidedly spacious. And looked mostly like a jumble sale. None of us were particularly keen on visiting another, despite overhearing quite a few folks saying things like "The winter ones are much better" as we wandered around.

But I have a habit of changing my mind, and eventually decided to give the London Expo another try. The last one I went to was pretty good - it struck just about the right balance between retail and display, and introduced me to a fair few online retailers who've had quite a bit of business from me since ;) It also served as in introduction to the world of British Cosplay, as there was a competition run as part of the show. Even this, however, does not explain the presence of a skinny guy dressed as a bunny girl. What really made it weird was the sellotape used to keep it in place. Surely he could have kept it low-key and used double-sided?

This one... Was kind of back to being a disappointment. Far more by way of display stuff than retail, in particular taken over by a huge number of upcoming videogames, most of them MMORPGs. The sad thing was, while there was a lot to see, there wasn't a lot that interested me. I don't follow videogames as much as I used to (Next Generation consoles started killing games back when the original PlayStation came out), The star guests weren't that fabulous (Matt Frewer might have been interesting), and the displays were often missed opportunities. For example, Hasbro were there, but only to market their tabletop roleplaying games... Why none of the new TransFormers? Why nothing about the movie? Maybe I'm griping because there was so little in the way of TransFormers to buy, but one would think Hasbro would take any and all opportunities to push as many products as possible while they were there.

What retail there was had mostly been crowded down in one corner near the entrance (though there was a little more on the walls furthest from the entrance, and leading up to the main theatre). Gundam Mad were there (and had a Masterpiece Starscream on display) but I managed to not buy anything from them (which must be a first...), and the only purchase I ended up making was from Spacebridge, who had a couple of this year's BotCon boxed sets just calling out to me to be liberated. At £275, it was technically heavily overpriced - the set was sold for about $275 at BotCon, but such price translations are the norm in retail these days, so why should independent retailers be any different at conventions? - but the guy was at BotCon as a panellist and bought them himself, and I've been keen to get one ever since I saw the first images of Optimus Primal in the Land Bullet/Crumplezone mold. Needless to say, that was my only significant purchase in the show.

Tokyotoys (who, for once, were not ALL wearing sexy maid costumes) gave up one of their exceptionally cute plushie Tachikomas for a mere £20, and I'm debating whether I could safely take it to work, or whether it'd end up getting nicked... probably safest not to try, right?

I did manage to convince a friend who attended with me to buy a muppet Angel (as in the David Boreanaz character from the eponymous TV show spin-off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, specifically from the 'Smile Time' episode) for a friend of hers. There was a certain satisfaction in that.

Cosplay was very much on the menu for this one. It seems to be becoming exponentially more popular over here... but then, so do these conventions. Quite a few exceptionally good ones and, true to the last year's, at least one very disturbing one: There was a guy dressed as a female version of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy:Advent Children. At first, it just looked like a Cloud costume... but when seen from behind, the stockings and suspenders were all too obvious. Since I occasionally pop over to cosplay websites, it was interesting to see one or two familiar faces.

And speaking of familiar faces, in one of the gaming areas, my friend ran into a friend of her husband's... who asked her to take photos of some of the cosplayers "because they'd slap me if I asked". This is actually probably not true, as most seem flattered if someone wants to take a photo, but who knows? Later there was much debate over the wearer of a pretty good Wonder Woman costume... who may actually have been male. I thought not... but apparently 'she' had a very deep voice for a woman.

When we left the convention finally - having spent quite a bit of time there, considering how little there was to see - we headed off to Brent Cross for more sensible forms of retail. One shop was offering free hand massages, and cards giving a 10% discount for today only... So I've picked up a housewarming gift for my sister's impending move to Swindon.

Back home, I'd received some post: A whole bunch of Megatokyo t-shirts and a plushie Boo, which was destined to become a surprise Christmas gift for the friend I'd been at the convention with... but I had to tell her about it when she mentioned them when telling me that she'd ordered the four Megatokyo books. Oh well.

I'll see about posting pictures of my London Expo haul tomorrow...