EGX Comic-Con London 2024 – A blockbuster UK game and pop culture festival

Last weekend I attended EGX/Comic Con at the Excel Centre, Docklands, London, UK. The event combined EGX with Comic-Con. Prior to this event, EGX was its own, separate event.

Comic-Con occurs about every six months to every year at the Excel Centre. These kind of events are relatively new to me, as I’ve never been to an EGX and have only been to one other Comic-Con. However, I have been to a few “Anime and Gaming”conventions over the years. They are similar, and like EGX have loads of people in Cosplay. EGX, Comic-Con, and the “Anime and Gaming” Conventions are the biggest public videogame-related events in the UK. I also attended a New Scientist event at the Excel venue a few years ago (it had little to do with gaming but was a celebration of scientific progress and helped me become familiar with the location and venue).

Despite my limited experience with these kinds of events, I won’t hesitate in stating that EGX Comic-Con London 2024 is the gaming event that had the coolest cosplayers, the best panels, and the widest and biggest range of videogame experiences available to try (both new and retro) that I’ve ever attended. The vibe was good, everyone was friendly and willing to chat, and there were also career and networking opportunities. Read on for a short run-down on EGX Comic-Con London 2024.

Vibe

I attended all three days of EGX Comic-Con 2024. On Friday as the venue opened you began seeing the ornate and masterfully constructed outfits on people. There was an air of excitement and friendliness that was clear even if you just had a small talk with a random visitor. The buzz started to grow through the morning and around 2 pm hit its peak. Families, couples and groups of friends made up the vast majority of this year’s cohort.

There were also many solo independent artists, developers, and content creators mingling around trying to network and meet new people. Outside of the main arena there was a courtyard-like space and for a lot of the time this area was packed with cosplayers. There were so many people that I wondered how the event hadn’t sold out much earlier. Although it seemed over-capacity, at the panels (where developers talked about their products), there seemed to always be a few spare seats. I guess the masses of people were soaked up by the arcade machines and the new tech that people were trying for the first time.

UK universities also had a small presence at the event with stalls advertising their art and computing courses. Linked to this, there was career advice, and portfolio reviews available for visitors.

Cosplay

Another striking thing about EGX this year has been the diversity of events in general. As the event is now combined with Comic-Con, it seems that this has drawn more people, around half of which were dressed up either to represent a character from a videogame franchise, or an anime. The varied events I’ll discuss in a bit, but I noticed that Star Wars had a strong cosplay presence, as well as Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, the Mario series, Marvel franchises, and various hard-to-identify anime.

As you can see from the pictures that I took, people didn’t mind having their picture taken, and the costumes were always a good conversation starter. The Sora, from Kingdom Hearts, cosplayer looked particularly great. The costumes looked professional and the elf ears were very popular. There were many elf-like cosplayers from series such as Lord of the Rings and Legend of Zelda. I noticed a great cosplayer who was dressed as Link when he had to where female garb to enter Gerudo town in Breath of the Wild. The insight into the series represented was clear in the details of the outfits.

Events

The Excel Centre is comprised of a long central passage and huge spaces on either side of this passage. At EGX Comic-Con 2024 the passage itself was full of fast food outlets, as well as streams of visitors, many in cosplay, walking in both directions. The passage is so long that it takes around seven or eight minutes to travel from one end to the other when an event is busy.

The side areas are where the events are held. Panels and stages are set up in some areas, others areas are full of independent artists selling their goods, or videogame developers showcasing their games. There is also a huge wealth and diversity of old videogame consoles to play, and old arcade machines from Donkey Kong, to Street Fighter 2, to Pac-Man and more. New games are also being promoted in these side areas, by indie devs. There’s also experimental experiences, many including virtual reality. There’s a reason that EGX is often labelled as the E3 of the UK, and it’s because of how impressive the diversity of the exhibitions are.

On top of the experiences available, there was also great panels giving insights into multiple games and shows. There were panels for Donkey Kong Country, Baldur’s Gate 3, Pokemon anime, Gladiators tv series and much more. EGX Comic-Con 2024 really was a site to behold in terms of new and old gaming experiences.

EGX Comic-Con: A Great Weekend

Overall, EGX/Comic-Con 2024 was a successful hybrid event where the trade show that was EGX has been successfully combined with the more fan-focused Comic-Con. The event had a wide range of games to play, interesting panels to watch, career advice, and the event was absolutely full of people in cosplay.

The event was bigger and better than previous EGX’s and Comic-Cons. Excel itself is a large venue near London Docklands that was often basking in the early morning Autumn sunshine. The weather held up this year, and for this reason the “courtyard” was like a magician trick, hiding an unfathomable amount of dressed-up visitors.

EGX Comic-Con is a great event for families and young kids will love the variety of video games available to play. Let’s hope the next year’s version lives up to what has been set with EGX Comic-Con 2024.