Taking an 11 year old and all his friends to Comicon? Is it... hell?

[woeface]

It is, isn't it?

Not sure geeky stuff is the right topic for this but orf to MCM Comicon London at Excel tomorrow morning at 9. We have Early Bird tickets. I gather by 'early bird' they mean 'queuing for only an hour and a half rather than three' to get in.

Any other tips?

PS. DS is dressing up as Conor from Assassin's Creed. We have bought a costume off of that internet.
PPS. Despite considerable pressure from same child, I'm not dressing up as Catwoman. Though I appreciate his absolute conviction that 45 and size 14-16 (ie 16) would work well with the size 8 costume he found at last week's car boot sale.

why would it be hell? Have you no inner Geek to channel for the morning?

We went last year and the year before. If you did squeeze into that size 8 catwoman costume, I can assure you, you wouldn't be the only size 14-16 woman in the room who's rocking that look. You would be in the majority!

My DC adore Comicon. It is geek heaven. DC can enter the cosplay comp for best dressed child (though it usually goes to a home made costume.) Two years ago, they met Stan Lee and got his autograph. Nothing has quite compared with that. But they now have some favourite comic book artists who really aren't that well known, so they go and chat to them, (they man their own stalls) and get them to sign all the comics. It's a very friendly place. Lots of freebies - badges, sweets, postcards, zines.

The cosplay men in particular have a slight BO problem so bring perfume.

Make sure they bring phones and organise a meeting place. We lost DH and DS1 last year and spent about an hour looking for them. Tell them not to be shy of taking pics. The cosplayers just love being famous for 15 seconds, and some of the costumes are spectacular. It's hell, but quite a fun sort of hell. (However I did, after two years running, 'forget' to book tickets this year.}

Let us know how you got on.

Ach sorry, I didn't mean hell because of geekery in particular - more the queues and general massively-overcrowded-event horror. Tho the BO did cross my mind I confess

Notagiraffe that was a brilliantly useful post - I will report back. DS speaks in hushed tones about 'when Stan Lee came to Comicon' - how brill that yours got to see him!

Right. I've got DP to take his proper grown up camera to snap the cosplay chaps. So however hot and grumpy I get, I have the satisfaction of knowing that he is having to say "lookatthecameralookatthecamera and... radiate!" to men in lycra.

If you knew my DP like I know my DP, that a year's worth of comedy gold.

Notagiraffe or anyone else still up - are the queues as grim as they sound? Is food insanely expensive? Will they let us take own sarnies? And will 8 year old dd, who isn't really into comics yet but likes to dress up

DS2 would be at the assassin's creed costume. He tried to buy one on Ebay for the last comicon but Ebay intervened and said they didn't trust the seller, and that we should ask for our money back. All a bit odd.

You'll have found out by now that the queues aren't terrible and you can bring your own sarnies. Sorry, I went off line last night and have only just found your other posts. Hope you had a great time.