MCM Comic Con in London is one of the biggest social-get together for lovers of all things film, comic-book, video game, merchandise and much, much more! Each year, retailers, fans, special guests and more come together to celebrate all things Pop-Culture, at the ExCel Centre in London. It’s a nice venue by the River Thames – with easy access on public transport! Before I joined the Podcast, I had been a couple of times – but this year, I decided to go ahead and visit the show to see what Jurassic Park and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom things we could find going on.
Before we jump into the article – I wanted to say a massive thank you to @RaptorChaser17, @dyingcorpse123 and @SamHModel for being cool enough to hang out with me all day! I had a great time with them and recommend paying them a visit – they are cool members of the community! Anyway – my day started off with checking out some of the basic retailers. I saw some un-licensed Jurassic artwork which was interesting but not official, and then I also had the opportunity to swing by Forbidden Planet International – who had a bunch of Pop! items on show. They may have had some Jurassic Park ones – but if they did, they were certainly popular and had vanished by the time I visited the store! I then also got to move onto Funko Europe – where I got to meet the lovely Charlotte again and got to check in with my friends at Funko! Their stall was popular (As always!) and they had lots of Jurassic Pops flying off the shelves. It was great seeing them again – and we’re excited to work together in the future as Fallen Kingdom draws closer!
After getting an initial feel for the event, I decided to head over to Smart Arts Gallery – the awesome guys selling the Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary coins. We had a chat to Anthony at the stall, and looked at the new Jurassic Park T-Rex coin, which debuted at MCM London and was available at the show for £10. The guys were also giving away an awesome free print (I unfortunately misplaced mine!) which will be available to purchase on their website after the show, and had a beautiful graphical use of the T-Rex Logo we all know and love. It was so lovely getting to catch-up with the team and see the assortment of different Jurassic Park artwork that the group produce. Whilst their coins are certainly the most popular thing now, they do also produce an assortment of another amazing artwork – so I strongly recommend checking it out! Visit them online to see all their Universal Pictures collection.
Moving on from the excitement of merchandise, I went to the Universal booth, where I group got to take part in a VR experience. This was the cool "Blue" VR experience which got released a short time ago, and it was nice having an opportunity to check it out as someone who does not own a VR headset! The experience is wonderful – allowing us to get an up-close look at "Blue", whilst also gaining a sense of the impending doom which almost certainly faces Isla Nublar! Upon exiting this experience, we were presented with a chance to get a cool photograph on a Gyrosphere which was next to "Blue". This was a fantastic thing for Universal to setup at the event – and it seemed to prove popular with audiences who got hands on with the photo opportunity! It was super cool getting to see a Gyrosphere in person, and the statue of "Blue" which accompanied it was also super-beautiful and looked really, good.
Lastly, I had the opportunity to meetup with a group of UK-based Jurassic Cosplayers to do a fun photoshoot at the Universal pictures booth! This was a fun opportunity. It was lovely meeting so many new faces, and getting entrusted to shoot some of my favourite characters from one of my favourite films! I had a blast getting to know everyone, and I think we got some cool photos which we are all super happy with. If you want to find more about the cosplayers I got to meetup with, visit the Facebook group. We then finished our day by travelling out to City Hall – where we found the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom T-Rex statue which had been placed alongside the River Thames. It was a beautiful model, and it was nice getting to see so many members of the public stopping to talk about the Jurassic franchise! I must say as well – the plain-clothes representative on station to look after the model was polite once he made himself known, and was very informative on the model! I’d like to think he was there from Universal, as he was well informed and was absolutely a fantastic representative! It was so fun getting to see this marketing masterpiece after missing out on Waterloo Train Station – and I am glad I could make the time to see it.
So – that wrap ups my day at MCM! Lots of awesome Jurassic Park and Jurassic World merchandise on show. What do you think? Check out the gallery below, and our video content on YouTube.
