Monopoly Events: Liverpool Comicon - The Review
Now take a minute and sit right there I’ll tell you how I went to the con in bel ai.... um Liverpool.
So last weekend I attended my first Monopoly Event: Liverpool Comic-Con and here is my review.
I have been looking forward to this event for some time as my all time must meet guests Peter Cullen and Frank Welker we’re finally coming to the UK.
Leading up to the event I had 17 photo shoots planned !! Crazy I know but it had a very solid guest list. Sadly leading up to the event there were several cancellations so I did lose 5/6 of the guests I wanted to meet. But they were soon replaced from my maybe list.
I arrived a bit later than planned at about 8:30 and joint the medium sized line outside the arena - thankfully for this time of year it was a nice sunny day unlike the event the weekend before.
Doors opened about 9am and the line went quick and I was inside within 10 minutes. The hall is a decent size with things spaced out well. I had a wander around to get a lay of the land and to see where everyone was seated. Then my first Trek was to the photo booths to see how to buy tickets on the day. It’s cash at the table but as we wanted to pay on card they directed us back outside to the ticket office. I was expecting a large line but nope was just walk up and pay.
Photo shoots:
My first photo shoot was Shannon Elizabeth at 9:40.... 30 mins went by and she still wasn’t here . . She finally showed up about 45 minutes late - getting me all agitated as was on a tight schedule and this was wasting my time. Thankfully this was the only real delay of the day and due to the cancellations they did manage to catch up again by about lunch time . The problem to me generally with the way the photos worked is that they have 2 sessions and you can go to either. But there is no way to know how busy each session maybe , wish some sessions being as short at 5 minutes it is a concern that you will miss a shoot due to a clash or because too many people are going to one session and it not being capped. The onto time this was really an issue tho was the first shoots for David Harbour and Elijah Wood as they were at the same time and the lines went out of the photo area and deep into the event itself. I was ok one of these lines but had to give up as was just too long and knew we would get cut at some point.
Due to the Corona virus people were unsure how the photos would go as other events have limited physical contact. There were no signs or warnings from the photo staff as you walked in but you could tell by the guests manor if they were happy to touch or not. Some were some weren’t but they were all still friendly about it and I don’t think it’s overly noticeable in the shoots and it didn’t feel awkward at the time.
One negative was the photo collection . It was instant prints but the collection was so close to the exit of the photo shoots themselves that it often bottlenecked and the photo shoots needed to pause and wait for it to clear. As the day progressed they did change the layout a bit to allow people to leave the lines and come back later for the prints and this helped a lot. The only way to really fix this would be to move the printers/ queue further away from the exits.
Other than a few niggles and the delayed start the photo sessions were good. The staff were friendly and although I think there should have been a few more volunteers to help manage the lines, especially when they were outside of the pens I got all my photos taken and printed.
Though the back ground for the photo shoots is dire - I absolutely understanding an event long on display to promote the event but it’s just very jarring and dark.
The guests :
I didn’t get many autographs at the event so many or my interactions were in the photo shoots only.
Shannon Elizabeth - the photo shoot was brief and she didn’t want to touch so she did the hover hand arm around pose. I did also get her autograph on my view askew figure and we discussed her work on the Jay and silent bob movies. She was nice enough but insisted on personalising my figure which I didn’t want. I’m not a fan of my name on my figures and when I’m paying I do feel it should be my choice.
Chris Klein - he no touching in the photo shoots and had his hands firmly against him so you could see how it was going to be. But he was still warm and friendly. I went to his desk for an autograph for a friend and he was really lovely, taking the time to discuss and talk. We spoke about his role on the flash and he asked what my favourite part was - so we discussed the father/daughter dynamic. The about the American pie films and how it was weird to see the characters grow up and return for the reunion sequel. As with Star Wars it’s always weird to see characters grown up and you see what happened after the credit roll.
Chris Owen - really fun and warm. Didn’t care about the touching, had a quick interaction about being the sherminator and his brief role in can’t hardly wait.
Melissa Joan Hart- was a brief interaction but she seemed nice.
Beth Broderick - I made her blush by telling her she was my teenage crush and yes she’s still got it.
Jenna Leigh Green -she really doesn’t seem to have aged at all. Nice and have a warm greeting
David harbour - tbh he was my weakest meet of the weekend. He was a non touching guest and although he did have a brief chat I don’t feel like I met him as much as I did with others.
Elijah wood- I have met him a few times but this was the first time I had managed a photo shoot. He wasn’t touching people but was up for fun poses. He’s always very sweet.
Frank Welker - the most famous voice actor of all time and one of my all time want to meets. He was lovely . No touching but he was so warm and sweet. I had 2 photos with him and he lived up to my expectations. He liked the items that I got him to sign as they were rare and already signed by the late Leonard Nimoy.
Peter Cullen - the first thing I noticed was how tiny he is . He has always had this deep towering Optimus prime voice and he was just small. But ever so lovely and great to meet. He signed my transformers figure and then the lady sitting with him saw my tattoo ( transformers quote) and he loved it -he took my figure back and wrote the quote on it as well.
Peter and frank duo photo - we went for a fun pose but frank didn’t do it - still looked fine for me but after I left they called me back as frank wanted to join in he just hadn’t realised.
Lori petty - she was kinda what I expected totally crazy but fun - no touching. But insisted on getting the right pose so we had a retake.
Noah Hathaway - one who didn’t care about not touching - big hugs and handshakes for all, I also had a brief chat with him at the falkor prob about how to scale to was and how he has changed a bit since the film and the merits of casting a depressed horse.
Tami Stronach- she was adorable and very sweet. She loved my friends print that she signed.
Karyn Parsons- was a quick meet as I had met her before but she was nice and appreciative.
Autographs
I only had to get a few autos and I preordered them as I knew my day would be tight and the event advertises that those who have preordered are able to jump the queue as a priority.
I had no issues with Shannon, Chris’s and Tami’s autos as they didn’t have big lines but I had some issues with getting frank and peters autos.
They had long lines and wasn’t sure what the process was . I walked up and down the autos area multiple times and couldn’t find any volunteers as to what the procedure was. A friend spoke to one venue staff man with a head piece and he said that could join either peter or frank and then after you got one you could then move straight over to the other. But then when I did also find a man with a headset he said that the queue jumping priory was only before 12am. That if I didn’t manage to get through the lines that day I would be refunded.
So with conflicting information I queued for Peter as he had the shortest queue. The meet was lovely but then when we tried to move over to frank we were stopped by the man working their line - we explained what the other man had said but was told that was incorrect info. Luckily a friend was already in the line so I managed to get him to help me get stuff signed as I wouldn’t have had the chance to get through Franks like before they had finished and they were the main reason I had attended and I didn’t want to fight for a refund.
Overall this autograph experience was a negative for me due to conflicting information and lack of volunteers to get info from.
I thought preordering the autos would help speed things up but in the future if I can’t get the the guests before 12 due to photo shoots again I don’t think I will risk it and just pay on the day.
Props:
It was good going to an event that has props and fun interactions that you were not charged to interact with. The never ending story bits were cool but I still can’t work out of the Falkor was great or creepy looking , the Star Wars section was cool and the ED 209. I didn’t bother with the transformers vehicles as I have seen them many times before.
Sadly I heard that the hobbit hole set was unable to be there which is a shame as would have been cool to see.
Overall:
I enjoyed the event, the guest list was the best for me of all the spring signing events, it was varied with many uk firsts and the prices were mostly reasonable . The event itself never felt overly busy so there was room to move, especially in the last hour or so. The stalls seemed good but I didn’t really have any time to really look around.
The only concern for me was lack of volunteers and people to ask for information. But overall I had very few issues.
I liked that the panels were shown on the big screens in the main hall so could still experience them and not miss photo shoots etc , tho the volume was a bit high at times especially for Brian blessed’s panel he does like to shout.
I given the event 8/10 and from what I have seen online from previous events Monopoly are an event that learns from each event and are a real contender for being a top tier signing event.
Now take a minute and sit right there I’ll tell you how I went to the con in bel ai.... um Liverpool.
So last weekend I attended my first Monopoly Event: Liverpool Comic-Con and here is my review.
I have been looking forward to this event for some time as my all time must meet guests Peter Cullen and Frank Welker we’re finally coming to the UK.
Leading up to the event I had 17 photo shoots planned !! Crazy I know but it had a very solid guest list. Sadly leading up to the event there were several cancellations so I did lose 5/6 of the guests I wanted to meet. But they were soon replaced from my maybe list.
I arrived a bit later than planned at about 8:30 and joint the medium sized line outside the arena - thankfully for this time of year it was a nice sunny day unlike the event the weekend before.
Doors opened about 9am and the line went quick and I was inside within 10 minutes. The hall is a decent size with things spaced out well. I had a wander around to get a lay of the land and to see where everyone was seated. Then my first Trek was to the photo booths to see how to buy tickets on the day. It’s cash at the table but as we wanted to pay on card they directed us back outside to the ticket office. I was expecting a large line but nope was just walk up and pay.
Photo shoots:
My first photo shoot was Shannon Elizabeth at 9:40.... 30 mins went by and she still wasn’t here . . She finally showed up about 45 minutes late - getting me all agitated as was on a tight schedule and this was wasting my time. Thankfully this was the only real delay of the day and due to the cancellations they did manage to catch up again by about lunch time . The problem to me generally with the way the photos worked is that they have 2 sessions and you can go to either. But there is no way to know how busy each session maybe , wish some sessions being as short at 5 minutes it is a concern that you will miss a shoot due to a clash or because too many people are going to one session and it not being capped. The onto time this was really an issue tho was the first shoots for David Harbour and Elijah Wood as they were at the same time and the lines went out of the photo area and deep into the event itself. I was ok one of these lines but had to give up as was just too long and knew we would get cut at some point.
Due to the Corona virus people were unsure how the photos would go as other events have limited physical contact. There were no signs or warnings from the photo staff as you walked in but you could tell by the guests manor if they were happy to touch or not. Some were some weren’t but they were all still friendly about it and I don’t think it’s overly noticeable in the shoots and it didn’t feel awkward at the time.
One negative was the photo collection . It was instant prints but the collection was so close to the exit of the photo shoots themselves that it often bottlenecked and the photo shoots needed to pause and wait for it to clear. As the day progressed they did change the layout a bit to allow people to leave the lines and come back later for the prints and this helped a lot. The only way to really fix this would be to move the printers/ queue further away from the exits.
Other than a few niggles and the delayed start the photo sessions were good. The staff were friendly and although I think there should have been a few more volunteers to help manage the lines, especially when they were outside of the pens I got all my photos taken and printed.
Though the back ground for the photo shoots is dire - I absolutely understanding an event long on display to promote the event but it’s just very jarring and dark.
The guests :
I didn’t get many autographs at the event so many or my interactions were in the photo shoots only.
Shannon Elizabeth - the photo shoot was brief and she didn’t want to touch so she did the hover hand arm around pose. I did also get her autograph on my view askew figure and we discussed her work on the Jay and silent bob movies. She was nice enough but insisted on personalising my figure which I didn’t want. I’m not a fan of my name on my figures and when I’m paying I do feel it should be my choice.
Chris Klein - he no touching in the photo shoots and had his hands firmly against him so you could see how it was going to be. But he was still warm and friendly. I went to his desk for an autograph for a friend and he was really lovely, taking the time to discuss and talk. We spoke about his role on the flash and he asked what my favourite part was - so we discussed the father/daughter dynamic. The about the American pie films and how it was weird to see the characters grow up and return for the reunion sequel. As with Star Wars it’s always weird to see characters grown up and you see what happened after the credit roll.
Chris Owen - really fun and warm. Didn’t care about the touching, had a quick interaction about being the sherminator and his brief role in can’t hardly wait.
Melissa Joan Hart- was a brief interaction but she seemed nice.
Beth Broderick - I made her blush by telling her she was my teenage crush and yes she’s still got it.
Jenna Leigh Green -she really doesn’t seem to have aged at all. Nice and have a warm greeting
David harbour - tbh he was my weakest meet of the weekend. He was a non touching guest and although he did have a brief chat I don’t feel like I met him as much as I did with others.
Elijah wood- I have met him a few times but this was the first time I had managed a photo shoot. He wasn’t touching people but was up for fun poses. He’s always very sweet.
Frank Welker - the most famous voice actor of all time and one of my all time want to meets. He was lovely . No touching but he was so warm and sweet. I had 2 photos with him and he lived up to my expectations. He liked the items that I got him to sign as they were rare and already signed by the late Leonard Nimoy.
Peter Cullen - the first thing I noticed was how tiny he is . He has always had this deep towering Optimus prime voice and he was just small. But ever so lovely and great to meet. He signed my transformers figure and then the lady sitting with him saw my tattoo ( transformers quote) and he loved it -he took my figure back and wrote the quote on it as well.
Peter and frank duo photo - we went for a fun pose but frank didn’t do it - still looked fine for me but after I left they called me back as frank wanted to join in he just hadn’t realised.
Lori petty - she was kinda what I expected totally crazy but fun - no touching. But insisted on getting the right pose so we had a retake.
Noah Hathaway - one who didn’t care about not touching - big hugs and handshakes for all, I also had a brief chat with him at the falkor prob about how to scale to was and how he has changed a bit since the film and the merits of casting a depressed horse.
Tami Stronach- she was adorable and very sweet. She loved my friends print that she signed.
Karyn Parsons- was a quick meet as I had met her before but she was nice and appreciative.
Autographs
I only had to get a few autos and I preordered them as I knew my day would be tight and the event advertises that those who have preordered are able to jump the queue as a priority.
I had no issues with Shannon, Chris’s and Tami’s autos as they didn’t have big lines but I had some issues with getting frank and peters autos.
They had long lines and wasn’t sure what the process was . I walked up and down the autos area multiple times and couldn’t find any volunteers as to what the procedure was. A friend spoke to one venue staff man with a head piece and he said that could join either peter or frank and then after you got one you could then move straight over to the other. But then when I did also find a man with a headset he said that the queue jumping priory was only before 12am. That if I didn’t manage to get through the lines that day I would be refunded.
So with conflicting information I queued for Peter as he had the shortest queue. The meet was lovely but then when we tried to move over to frank we were stopped by the man working their line - we explained what the other man had said but was told that was incorrect info. Luckily a friend was already in the line so I managed to get him to help me get stuff signed as I wouldn’t have had the chance to get through Franks like before they had finished and they were the main reason I had attended and I didn’t want to fight for a refund.
Overall this autograph experience was a negative for me due to conflicting information and lack of volunteers to get info from.
I thought preordering the autos would help speed things up but in the future if I can’t get the the guests before 12 due to photo shoots again I don’t think I will risk it and just pay on the day.
Props:
It was good going to an event that has props and fun interactions that you were not charged to interact with. The never ending story bits were cool but I still can’t work out of the Falkor was great or creepy looking , the Star Wars section was cool and the ED 209. I didn’t bother with the transformers vehicles as I have seen them many times before.
Sadly I heard that the hobbit hole set was unable to be there which is a shame as would have been cool to see.
Overall:
I enjoyed the event, the guest list was the best for me of all the spring signing events, it was varied with many uk firsts and the prices were mostly reasonable . The event itself never felt overly busy so there was room to move, especially in the last hour or so. The stalls seemed good but I didn’t really have any time to really look around.
The only concern for me was lack of volunteers and people to ask for information. But overall I had very few issues.
I liked that the panels were shown on the big screens in the main hall so could still experience them and not miss photo shoots etc , tho the volume was a bit high at times especially for Brian blessed’s panel he does like to shout.
I given the event 8/10 and from what I have seen online from previous events Monopoly are an event that learns from each event and are a real contender for being a top tier signing event.