MCM Comic Con Belgium - 6.11.2016
The first Sunday of November (the 6th), Lora and I went on an adventure (anything including that much public transport is automatically an adventure) to visit MCM Comic Con Belgium.
And lo and behold, it was totally worth all that travel!
I wrote a proper review about it on The Gatehouse, so if you’re interested in that, click here.
This is just a regular write-up that is much more personal of course.
Brussels is our capital, but Brussels Expo, where the event was, is not actually in Brussels but in Laeken, a town just outside Brussels. It is also often called “Den Heizel” because of the Heizel stadium which is pretty near to the Expo buildings. But even though it is still pretty much all the capital area, it takes me 2 trains and the metro (underground/subway) to get there. Which takes about 2,5 - 3 hours in total. Not fun.
Thankfully, the second train I have to take stops in the town where Lora lives, on it’s second stop, so I don’t have to spend most of my journey alone, which makes it SO much better. Hurrah for travelling together!
We hopped off in Brussels-Midi (south station) because that was where we needed to take metro (line 6) to Heizel (the metro stop is really called that) for Comic Con. Because it was nearing noon when we got there (note how my first train was at 10.19am) we ambled around the station to see about food, eventually settling on grilled sandwiches at Panos (I love their Caprese, so much). Before buying metro tickets at the service desk. I love how they still have manned service desks, rather than the automatised underground in London (the people that are there to help you are ace though, but it’s just not the same). The lady selling us tickets was also super friendly which was a total bonus. Good on you MIVB.
I don’t much like the metro. It is very rickety (I’m sure it seems more rickety than it is) and in general, people are very rude. The price isn’t too horrid I suppose at € 4,20 for a round trip Midi-Station --> Heizel, considering it takes about half an hour. But it’s definitely not a pleasant or comfortable way of travelling.
It’s worth noting that at this point, Lora and I still thought that Comic Con was going to be this giant affair, and we were both hella surprised that we seemed to be the only people going to the event on the metro.
Imagine our surprise when only ONE person wearing J-fashion got off at Heizel with us. Who turned out to be Maria, so that was cool!
She told us the convention was tiny, and didn’t seem too happy with it, but Lora and I didn’t mind. Lora and I can entertain ourselves pretty much anywhere and everywhere, as long as we’re hanging out together and have something to do.
Maria looked, and I regret I didn’t see her at the con again to take her photo. Sorry we missed you Maria!
At the con which was at super sad palace 7 (well it is super sad compared to the other halls, which are each called palace, supposedly because the royal palace is also in Laeken, but your guess is as good as mine). We first picked up our press passes, and I accidently landed myself an interview with Enver Gjokaj. For which I was not prepared (which he thankfully didn’t care about) and which you can read here, on The Gatehouse. I may also publish it in BCM, but I don’t know yet, I feel it doesn’t really belong there, even though we do a lot of pop culture, and Marvel is mega popular globally. We’ll see I guess.
After that we literally spent hours hanging out at the con, looking around, browsing shops, watching the cosplay competitions and the cosplayers (to admire their costumes obviously), stuff like that. It may have been a small convention, but it was super varied, so Lora and I found it very easy to spend the entire afternoon there. I think that a lot of people are upset that it was so small, but us it definitely didn’t bother.
I feel like this is the perfect representation of McMonsanto.
When we checked out we spent some more time talking to the super friendly people from the press staff (hi Steffi! ^^) and went back on our way. I think the metro we had going back had less stops, because it certainly seemed like a shorter journey. But it may just seem like that because it was much less crowded than when we went the other way. We still had about half an hour before our train went, so we stopped at Panos to get a snack, because the convention didn’t offer much in the way of food, and browse the Bodyshop (which was opposite our train’s platform) because why not? Plus it was warm in there.
When I got to Louvain, I popped by Starbucks for a gingerbread latte, and lamented the amount of choice with a random very friendly guy, who had the same choosing issue. I spent some time talking to him after I got my drink before we both needed to catch our train, because you know, he was a genuinely, legit, nice person, and it’s a lot more fun spending your time talking to people like that than sitting on a platform by yourself ^^.
And that basically was my day at Comic Con, I had tons of fun, and I would definitely go again next year. But I’m not taking Bert, because he’d probably be bored out of his skull after half an hour. I’m so taking Lora again haha :).
All my photos of the convention are here.