I attended the event on the Saturday but had low expectations about what to expect I imagined it would be a few little stalls and the guests would only stay for a short period of time, but other than that I had no idea what to expect as I’d never attended an event like this.
I got there quite early as friends of mine had early bird entry we had to queue for a while but once it got moving we got in quite quickly, I had a wander around looking at all of the stalls and there was a lot to see with all of the independent sellers selling everything “geeky” you could think of with portraits, masks, hats, badges, memorabilia weapons. Some of the guests that were there on the Saturday are listed below:
Film/TV Guests
- Danny John-Jules, the Cat from Red Dwarf
- Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann, the seventh and eighth doctors
- Carl Weathers who played Apollo Creed in the Rocky series
- Stargate’s Christopher Judge
- Lord of the Rings fan favourite John Rhys Davies
- Julian Glover from Game of Thrones
- David Prowse who played the iconic Darth Vader in Star Wars
Sports Guests
- Legendary boxer Frank Bruno
- Football legends Peter Beardsley
- Gordon Banks
- Jeff Barnes
- Frank Clark
So after having my picture taken on the Throne from Game of Thrones I then met with Carl Weathers where I got a personalised picture and had a little chat, we then went to listen to the Predator talk I could hear it okay but I felt they needed to maybe have some speakers behind us instead of just down on their stage as people were struggling.
We then had another look around and we began buying things from the stalls a couple bought anime portraits and childhood mementos a couple of us bought swords from film, TV and games, then it was time for the Star Wars talk for which we got a better seat so the audio was much better I thought the talks were good but I did feel the speakers were 
bored at this point and had answered all of these questions before, they are only human I after all so it’s probably to be expected.
All in all I feel that Showmasters put on a great event people were happy I seen people asking each other for photos who had dressed up people were excited about meeting the guests and seeing things like the yellow Camaro bumblebee and some great Cosplays like Darth Vader, Umbrella agents, Alien and Predator and many more who I think were on behalf of Showmasters.
There was a lot publicised in the media about complaints of waiting for long periods but from what I gathered these were people who hadn’t purchased their tickets in advance and Showmasters expected the early birds to leave before the main opening, they tried to make things better for the following day and issued an apology but personally it’s their first real event at that venue and there was bound to be teething problems, I definitely intend on going back because we really enjoyed it we are looking to attend London Film and Comic Con to see how an established event compares.
(Photos included are from Showmasters website)
