The wonderful people over at Monopoly Events invited us down to their next convention For the Love of Sci-Fi after we attended the outstanding For the Love of Horror convention not too long ago. So we bring you our For the Love of Sci-Fi review!
For the Love of Sci-Fi Review
Bags packed, ready to go we headed to Bowlers Exhibition Centre for this year’s event.
Where is For the Love of Sci-Fi Held?
We touched on the subject of the venue in our last horror review. It’s a spacious events hall but as soon as the crowds flock in you quickly realize the venue just isn’t big enough.
The thing about For the Love of Sci-Fi is that the guests at the event were world-class. Whilst the Horror guests were also world-class, Horror is usually more niche and attraction a far less crazy crowd.
We heard various reports that Saturday was absolutely insane so we headed down on Sunday instead.
The venue on Sunday was much easier to move around, it wasn’t too crowded, you could get seats easily for the Q&A’s and it wasn’t all hustle and bustle like the usual Saturday service.
A big issue I wanted to highlight thou, however, was parking. There was parking outside the venue for £5 right next to the events hall which was the official parking.
Just around the corner, however, were unofficial attendants in high-vis vests charging people £10 to park in public car parks.
They were running an illegal operation and if you didn’t pay and parked up I imagine you’d be missing a tire or two.
It’s something the event really needs to address for future conventions. Security should be paramount for events like this.
For the Love of Sci-Fi VLOG
What Guests Attended For the Love of Sci-Fi 2019?
This year’s line up was simply breathtaking. Danny Glover, Jon Bernthal, Karl Urban, Sam Jones, Brian Blessed, Ray Park, Charlie Heaton. The list is endless.
Many cons usually have guests that when announced people are like… “who?!” but not at For the Love of Sci-Fi. These were top draw guests and as a result, the whole convention was tailored to autographs and photos with these guests as the main hall consisted of just that.
A giant space-ship and all the photo op areas for paid official photos.
The Q&A’s were a chance to get some first-hand stories from Brian Blessed donating all of his autograph and photo money to animal welfare to Jon Bernthal just being the uber-cool badass he always is.
Whilst the interviews in my eyes weren’t as detailed as they could have been (generic questions they’re no doubt asked a million times) it’s still great to get up close and personal with the stars and hear some cool stories.
What is there to do at For the Love of Sci-Fi?
Taking a different approach with the merchandise on offer For the Love of Sci-Fi had many stalls selling pop figures, toys, cushions, T-Shirts, etc.
I felt the Horror convention had a much wider variety of items on offer from the weird to the wonderful. Handmade creations, custom art pieces and more.
I think the Horror event stalls were of much higher quality. Whilst there were still many independent artists on display here everything was a sea of toys and pop figures.
It’s always nice to see variety but there wasn’t a whole lot of variety on offer with the stalls. Although I will say the stalls were much less cramped to walk through than they were at the Horror con!
The Catina bar upstairs is a funky place to wind down and relax whilst the craziness takes place below you. Perfectly themed for a science fiction event such as this.
It looked a bit out of place at the Horror con but being Sci-Fi themed this time around it was superb.
If you’re not there to meet guests there are still a few things to do. Nothing on par with the epic funfair that was at the Horror con but there were a few things.
There were upcharge attractions such as robot wars, archery, axe throwing and inflatable slides for kids but if you’re on a budget there’s Jedi training and a games zone.
On offer were free lightsaber classes where you can duel a Jedi or Sith and practice your skills. Certainly something cool for young and old kids alike!
If that’s not your cup of tea there was a line-up of retro consoles for you to have a gaming session with friends.
Outside there was a ring toss game, one kid’s fairground ride, and a burger van. It’s a shame they didn’t have a full funfair again but I can imagine this costs serious money. As a result, I did feel as thou things to do outside of meeting the guests this year were slim pickings unless you didn’t mind paying again whilst inside to do more things.
For the Love of Sci-Fi Review Overall
My first experience of For the Love of Sci-Fi was a positive one with a few niggles here and there. The parking issue is pretty serious and does need addressing but it doesn’t take away anything from inside the venue.
You just can’t go wrong with the guests on offer. Whilst, not the biggest show it’s certainly attracting the biggest guests.
Cosplayers were in their element and it’s the perfect event to visit with a group of friends. With the attention of the event directed straight at the stars, it does leave other parts of the convention a little bare.
With a bigger venue, naturally more can be added. Every year the con seems to get bigger and better and a new venue would accommodate this.
I think nows the time to look at other venues as this event has the potential to be the perfect all-rounder rather than a guest targeted convention.
Walker Stalker and Showmasters are guest targeted and they fall way short of the convention experience. MCM for us has it nailed down.
If Monopoly combined the con experience of MCM with the high caliber guests they’re attracting now then we have one hell of a show!
Thanks for inviting us and we look forward to visiting the next Monopoly Event!
For the Love of Sci-Fi review by Sean Evans
