Sunday 17 May 2015

Warrington Market's Comic Con Style Event.

OK, so this was something completely different. The market in Warrington wanted to have a special, themed, market day and had decided to do a Comic theme, as comic book geekdom is the new cool... sorta.
We had absolutely no idea what to expect. No idea how professionally managed, how well advertised and certainly how well attended it would be.
But it was very local and so we thought we'd have a punt.
Well, truth be told, Colin did. I was less keen.
Well, we found a table with our name on it, which was a very good start and within minutes (we're old hands at this now) the table was set up and we could go for a wander and seek out a cup of tea.
We were quite surprised by the variation of the stalls setting up around us, and on talking to the stall holders found that they, like us, had absolutely no idea how the day would go.
As people started coming in at 10am, we began to realise that the people of Warrington had decided to come and see what a Comic Con was all about, and we got pretty busy.
Although there were a decent number of comic fans, a lot of our customers were people who, I sensed, had no idea that there were comics outside of Marvel and DC. Some bought a comic just to see what a small independent publisher could produce but a lot bought one as they wanted to try something different. A lot of people expressed dismay at the way DC and Marvel constantly changed continuity and reinvented their respective universes.
As they day progressed the people just kept on coming in.
One old lady asked us what was going on as she hadn't seen the market this busy since the good old days, I doubt very much that she bought anything but the site of the hustle and bustle certainly brought back fond memories and made her smile. Let's hope the Market holds more themed events like this.
So... there were no stars as such, although we did meet a local celebrity...
the host of Granada TV's Lost Treasures stopped by for a chat, but people were dressed up in as their favourite characters and the queue for a photo in the home-made X-Wing fighter was stunning. The whole thing had a great family atmosphere, more so than any Comic Con I've been to before. People were there to enjoy themselves and that's just what they did.
The event ended at 4pm, as billed, and we looked at the remaining stock and realised we'd done pretty well, and as we discussed the day over a larger we agreed we'd had a really enjoyable day.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a chat, let's hope the event is repeated.

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