We went to Dutch Comic Con!! We had a weekend tickets, so 2 days of fun. Here's what we thought:
Getting in
When we arrived on Saturday, there was a HUGE line. Waiting time was quite long (For what we are used to). There were extra safety measures, all bags would be checked. Which is fine by me, but the queue was long. Mainly also because there wasn't an organised queue. Everyone was all over the place. Which resulted in jumping the queue. People didn't join at the end of the line, but often somewhere in the middle, or on the side. So that didn't help. No I don't understand why it is so hard to put down some crowd control barriers or some retractable belts (you know the airport thingies), so you can keep control of the line.We properly joined at the back of the queue, but you would be surprised about the amount of people who just don't give a sh#t. Bag control was actually nothing special. On saturday they only touched my bag, didn't look into it at all. At the moment we passed the bag controltable everything went very smooth. We got our wristband and we were in! On sunday there was no queue (around 10). We could walk in directly. Now, they did look into the bags.
Panels
Way better than last year! I loved the way the panels were set up now. Last year there was this big space before the stage: you would stand to see the the Q&A. There was a lot of unused space.Last year you had to face the darkness and struggle your way through a big space towards the light of the stage. During the Q&A you would stand closely together, to see as much as possible. This year, there were seats and it was in a different room. Funny enough, it felt like there was more space, though the room was actually smaller. The audience could ask a lot of questions. You just needed to line up before the mic. This was a great system. Same chances for everyone and it was clear when it was your turn. Yup, this was a big improvement. Hats off ! The new set up made it a lot easier to go and ask a question and it's much easier for the people on stage to look you in the eyes when answering your question. It made the panels feel more personal. For me, a disadvantage was the light. I had trouble making nice pictures because often the light was blue. Which resulted in some smurf-actor pictures. Not the way I wanted it haha. Luckily there were a few moments with better light as well! (As you can see on the picture). For me the only disadvantage was the background noise, wich at some point made it difficult to hear what they were talking about on stage. But most of the time it more than ok. So why am I complaining any way. The new panel setup was a big plus!
Autographs and selfies
The artist alley was also improved looking at last year. I was happily surprised to see it was very approachable. You had a clear overview of all the artists sitting there and it was easy to talk to them. The lines for autographs were pretty short, so that was a big plus. We waited the longest for Ian Beattie, who was doing an interview when we got in line. I think we waited for about 30 minutes. And it was worth the wait! It was a pity that it wasn't very clear how much each autograph cost. Luckily it was on the website of Dutch Comic Con, so I knew. But it wasn't set at each table. I think that's out of their hands. The management of the actors set the prices. Because of that, I doubted in the beginning whether it was possible to ask for a photo at the table. But I saw some people do it and I made a dance of joy! And oh the joy that dance gave me. I can't even describe what you did, but I'll try. You screamed: They do selfies!, while flapping your arms . Your legs looked like they were marching, but you didn't move forward. Does that make sense? Oh well you had to be there it was hilarious. I was really glad to see that they also made selfies.No? Really? That was not clear at all! Though I didn't talk to every one of the actors, I believe they all would make a picture at the table when you asked. We got an autograph and picture with Seth Gilliam, Ian Beattie and Eugene Simon.
Props
This was a lot of fun! There was a lot to do and see this year. We really enjoyed this and made a lot of pictures!
I really loved that you could sit on the iron chair of Game of Thrones and got a picture from that! The Iron throne was great. But when I got off of it, I looked like I fought with a troop of bunnies. The cape had left a lot of fluffy things on my (black) blouse. And there was a lot more: Making an Outcast picture (We hadn't seen this at first, but FOX sent us a tweet about this), Star Wars props (Always great!!), making a picture for team Iron Man or team Captain America, The Ecto-1 and much more. Go Team Iron Man! It was spread out over the convention, so it was a lot of fun to discover everything that was there.
Merchandise
This was the biggest improvement compared to last year. The merchandise area was a lot more spacious and there were a lot of stands. I can't tell you how many times I wished I had won the lottery, while walking through it. Last year the merchandise area was smaller and it was very crowded, but this year you could actually take your time at all of the stands. I loved it! Of course, we'll write about what we bought this week!
Cosplay
This year, there was also a cosplay contest, same as last year. Great thing! During this weekend we've seen so many cosplayers! It's lovely to see how much work everyone put in their outfits. Some were really impressive!! I always like Star Wars cosplayers and in particular stormtroopers :). But there was much more variation. I saw the Arrow, Harley Quinn, Carl (TWD), Spiderman, even the Smurfs and much more.
Food
In one sentence: Lots of choice and well devided over the convention. I felt like there were many different types of food available and that there was always a foodstand nearby. This made it easy to grab something to eat fast and not waste too much time on it :). Prices were fine considering you're on a convention. Only the queue for ice cream was always long, that was a bit of a pity haha.
And some suggestions for Dutch Comic Con for foodnames next year:
- Star Worst
- "Han"Burger
Photo-ops
Last year we stood in line for more than an hour to buy a photo op ticket for Michael Cudlitz. This year photo op tickets were available upfront (big improvement). Nevertheless I bought my ticket at the convention and compared to next year it was a walk in the park. The tickets were available at the DCC-merchandise stand and the ticket for my photo op with Billy Dee Williams was in my pocket within a few minutes. The actual photo op was organised very well (just like last year).
Conclusion
I had a great time at DCC last year, but I loved it this year. The organisation really seemed to have done something with the points of criticism from last year. Keep up the good work and see you next time! Maybe this winter?
Cheerio
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