Wales Comic Con Returns To Wrexham With Another Successful Year

Thousands of sci-fi and book fans gathered in Wrexham yesterday for the annual ‘Wales Comic Con’

Now in it’s sixth year, the event has gained a global following, with fans flying over from Japan, America and Switzerland

This year’s event saw some of the biggest names in television come to the down, with guests including Mark Addy, Shane Richie, Alison Mack, Danny John Jules and Jesse McLure.

As the event has grown in popularity over the past few years, one of the main problems has been the venue not being able to hold the large capacity of guests and stars. As with last year, the event spread the convention across various locations on the Glyndwr Campus, with activities taking place in the buildings and outdoors.

In previous years the bulk of the convention has taken place in the university’s sports centre. This year however the event was spaced out across the campus, using the William Aston Hall, the Catrin Finch Centre, the Sports Hall and even a lecture theatre or two.

Outside there was the chance to take part in the ‘Gamers Bus’ and play some old school style arcade games. Along with this there were a couple of well known cars, including one from the Transformer movies.

There was even a wrestling ring in one of the university’s car parks!

Fans queuing to use the Gamers Bus

Within the ‘main’ part of the convention in the Sports Hall, there were a number of guests signing autographs throughout the day. Along with this there were numerous stalls selling custom made jewelry, comic books, canvas prints and clothing.

As expected there were long queues to get into the building, however everyone seemed in relatively good spirits. Especially when a Jack Sparrow look a like stumbled out of the building.

Elsewhere in the university, there was a pop up Comic book shop, which sold everything from vintage comics to modern say, sitcom merchandise.

Throughout the day there were a number of Question and Answer sessions in the William Aston Hall with some of the guests, including the stars of Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit, Gremlins, Torchwood and our personal favourites of the day, Red Dwarf.

However it was arguably the Q&A with the cast of Game of Thrones that drew the biggest crowd of the day.

One of this year’s events biggest names, was television personality and comic book author, Jonathan Ross, who took part in signings throughout the day. We sat in on his Q&A session at the end of the day and must say we were quite impressed!

Some of the events were running behind 20 minutes or so, but this didn’t put a downer on neither fans or guests, who were clearly all enjoying every second of the Comic Con.

With the successful Focus Wales taking place in Wrexham just days before, Wales Comic Con continued to prove that Wrexham can play host to some great events.