Wednesday 23 July 2014

London Film and Comic Con (& YALC) Recap



I was lucky again this year to be able to attend Film & Comic Con. Last year I went to the Winter one, but I was thrilled to be going to the Summer one, firstly because there would be so many actors attending from one of my favourite shows Game of Thrones, but also YALC would be taking place: The UK's first YA Lit Con. I was hoping to attend on Saturday, but wasn't able to, so had to make do with the slowest trains ever on Sunday and on top of that I hadn't purchased my entry ticket. Last year I bought my ticket on the day and was inside Earl's Court within a few minutes, even though the line was pretty long, but when I was checking Twitter on Saturday night, I read about people who had no ticket, waiting for hours and not getting in. So you could say I was a bit worried that I wouldn't get in at all, (doors opened at 9 and I would be arriving on the slowest train ever!). But when I was randomly going through #LFCC tweets on Twitter, I saw that someone had an extra earlybird ticket that they would be selling. This guy was super sweet too, as he went inside and then came back out to meet me, so I could buy his ticket! So I was able to go straight in! 

Queues inside for tickets weren't too bad, being the organised person that I am, I planned my schedule thoroughly, I had a nice mix of a GoT talks, cast meet up, with author panel chats and signings. So before my schedule was about to start, I had an hour or so to walk around and see how things were. This year I ended up going to Comic Con myself, so of course I had to man up a bit and actually talk to the cast myself. I saw Gethin Anthony (Renly Baratheon) from Game of Thrones and quite literally came to a standstill, I do admit to having a little crush on him in the show, but my gosh in real life, I was lost for words. But I took my friend's advice and actually approached his table, he was lovely to chat with and actually thought my name was lovely, I admit that I don't actually remember much of what was said after that! I also got to meet with Finn Jones (Loras Tyrell), Ellie Kendrick (Meera Read), Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) and see Kristian Nairn (Hodor), Sibel Kekilli, Kate Dickie (Lysa Tully) and Ian Beattie (Meryn Trant). 


 


So you can imagine I was in Game of Thrones heaven! The panel with the cast was also pretty amazing too, actors Finn, Gethin and Kristian were pretty hilarious. I have included a video of the panel which you can watch below!





The YALC part was also pretty amazing, they had a pretty neat corner just for them. There was also a cool book swap shelf, where you could take your old books and swap them for other books that people had left. They had publishers handing out awesome freebies, a little sitting area, where you could sit back and relax and workshops and authors panels throughout the day.



I was able to attend the I'm too Sexy for this book panel with James Dawson, Cat Clarke, Non Pratt and Beth Reekles. And having not picked up a book by these authors, this panel definitely made me want to. Here's a couple of tidbits from their talk:

Process behind writing love scene:
Beth's sex scene was more romantic, Non tends to write scenes that she likes best first, so scenes such as fight, love and drunk scenes. Cat tends to use Sex as a weapon, and she also keeps a sexy times playlist, which she made from her followers on twitter. She asked what got her followers in the mood and found a lot of people mentioned Prince!

All the authors would not put age ratings on books. 

Cat has been lucky, as she's never had to take a scene out of her book, she thought that a particular line in Undone would have to be taken out.


I also was able to meet Lucy Christopher (whose book Stolen I adored) and Sarra Manning for the second time, she actually remembered my name too! I was also lucky to meet many fantastic bloggers, such as Jess from Jess Hearts Books, (I loved how we bumped into each other so many times), Debbie from Snuggling on the Sofa, Kayleigh from K-Books, Lucy from Queen of Contemporary and Faye from a Daydreamer's Thoughts


Me and Jess.




Me and Lucy Christopher

Overall I had a fantastic time at the London Film & Comic Con this year. I was grateful to have met so many people, but wished I could have met the many more bloggers that I missed out on. But here's to next year or the Winter con if you're going!


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh you sound like you had a FANTASTIC time, Jasprit! I sort of felt like I went through the entire experience just from reading your post. I don't watch GoT, but I can imagine how excited you must have been to meet all these wonderful actors from the show. I would totally forget what was said to me by a celebrity crush who thought my name was lovely too! :P Haha! :D

The book swap is a neat idea! That's something I wish I could have done too. And the panel sounds like it was awesome. It seems like they talked about a lot of interesting things.

I'm glad you had such a fun time, Jasprit! :) Thanks for sharing the experience with us.

Shooting Stars Mag said...

Sounds great. I've never seen Game of Thrones but I know some friends that would be SO jealous of you seeing and meeting various cast members. The YA LIT part sounds really fun too. Love the book swap idea. :)

-Lauren

Mary @ BookSwarm said...

Love it!! I would have been right there with you in the GoT panels. I love that the characters are so serious but the people playing them seem to have great senses of humor (Peter Dinklage kills me!). The "I'm Too Sexy For This Book" panel sounds like a lot of fun, too!

Unknown said...

I am so happy you had such a great time. But....Ohmygosh, I'm so excited you met Renly Baratheon! He was my favorite character and I would have just lost all my thoughts if I'd met him. Thank you for sharing all the photos and recap!

Siiri said...

Hey you! I remember you telling me and Rashika in our vid chat about that guy who gave you the ticket. YAY. So happy you got it :) Hahaha! Did you tell him you have a crush on him? :D DID YOU? :D I bet you didn't, but you should have :D Lena Headey plays Cersei to a T imo (the whole cast is brilliant actually) so I'd be like.. awestruck to meet her. Oh! Thanks for the panel vid :) As for YALC, it's like a little BEA only even better since workshops and all! (though idk if BEA has workshops; maybe they do O.o) Wow! That's a compliment to Cat that she hasn't been asked to do that. Eeep! You and Jess look so cute :) Btw! I love your shirt :) I'm glad you had a great time and I hope you get to go back, my love.

Keertana said...

I've been seeing your pics with the GoT cast on Instagram and AHHH so jealous! But I'm thrilled you got to meet them and this event seems to have been a fantastic one all-round, so thanks for sharing it with us, Jasprit!(:

Carina Olsen said...

Ack! I love this post. <3 Thank you so much for sharing sweetie :) So happy for you that you got to go to this. <3 But also so jealous, lol :D YAY for Game of Thrones. <3 Love all the pictures too :)

Wendy Darling said...

Aw, first UK Lit Con--how exciting! It sounds like an amazing event, Jasprit, I'm so glad you were able to attend so many cool panels. I've enjoyed following along vicariously through IG, but it's so nice to read the official wrap up post, too.

Wendy @ The Midnight Garden

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