Stewarding at MCM Comic Con 2021
Hello! Last Saturday, I volunteered for the first time at MCM Comic Con. I had been before just as a general visitor because of my friends – I’m going to be completely honest here – I’m not that into the majority of the things, like Star Wars or Avengers. I do think they’re cool, though, don’t get me wrong.
*All opinions are my own.
The Application:
On my gap year, I had planned to revisit comic con with my friends, but we all know why it got cancelled. Thus making me more determined to go in 2021. As I’m always wanting to save my money, I added up how much it’d cost me to attend and how much the train ticket would be (cheaper than driving and paying for parking). It would’ve cost me around £30! I would then be tempted to buy things – mainly Christmas presents for my boyfriend, totalling the cost even more. I really wanted to attend, especially after last year got cancelled, but I also really wanted to save my money. Then I had the fantastic idea of volunteering! It would look good on my CV; I’d get free entry and a free t-shirt (and who doesn’t want free things?). So, I found the application form, filled it in and waited…and waited…and waited. There were about 2 weeks till the show, tickets were selling out FAST, and I still had not received any confirmation. A few days later, I finally got an email saying I had been accepted, along with my shift time. I was so relieved.
Comic Con Day!
Show day quickly came along, and I was very excited. None of the stewards knew what colour the t-shirts were or what they would be doing until show day. I woke up at 5:45 am and went to the train station for my train at 6:30 am. I was worried that the train could’ve been cancelled as it’s happened before, but luckily it wasn’t. Finally, I arrived at the show and then came the challenge of finding where to go. I got sent all over the place and finally found the registration area…unfortunately, the door was locked, and the next time it’d be open was 1 pm! Around 5,000 steps later, I found someone who could let me. He gave me my t-shirt, which was purple (yay!) and my role, which was on the priority wristbands. All I had to do was greet people and give them their wristbands. It was a lot of fun, and the people were very nice. For instance, I got lots of compliments and no rude people – which, as having worked in customer service for more than 2 years, I was shocked at. I guess that shows that when people are doing something they love, they’re way happier. I occasionally found it a bit hard to clip the wristbands on some people, but it wasn’t a major issue.
As time progressed, the influx of people slowed down, which gave me some time to talk to the other stewards, who were also very nice! Eventually, many other stewards moved over to the ‘general entry’ area, so it was only me, and another girl left where we all started. We started talking, and it turned out she lived semi locally; we had the same interests, went to university too and was around my age. She didn’t have anyone to go around with either, so we agreed to go around together. We also started talking to another girl with who we also went around and had a lot in common with.
There were lots of interesting stalls, and we took many photos with a lot of people and props. I even bought a cute handmade Shiba bowl from a Japanese stall. Below are some photo’s from the show, in case you’re interested. I highly recommend you consider volunteering if you want to save money. All in all, I spent around £14 that day, which is half of what it could’ve been, as well as having fun and doing something that could benefit me in the future. Be warned: your feet will hurt at the end of the day! Let me know if you’ve ever been to comic con, or even if you attended this one!
