Comic Con Northern Ireland

Comic Con Northern Ireland is a fan convention held once a year in the city of Lisburn, near the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom attracting 18,000+ attendees across the large venue Eikon Exhibition Centre situated in Lisburn, that celebrates films, cult television, video gaming, anime, cosplay and comic books and which is organised by UK based events company Monopoly Events.

History and organisation
Comic Con Northern Ireland began its annual run of events in 2022 when the obvious need for a large pop culture convention in the Northern Ireland area arose. Monopoly Events CEO Andy Kleek sourced a venue large enough to not only launch a first event from, but also house future expansion plans for the event to make a substantial event for the people of Northern Ireland to be proud of and to bring economic drive into the community. The first event which took place in September 2022 sold over half it's entry tickets more than a year before the event itself took place such was the desire for a fan convention in the area over four years after the last event of this kind took place.

Monopoly Events is a Manchester-based event organisation company that specialises in events held in the north west of England and Scotland. Along with the Northern Ireland event, they are also responsible for organising Comic Con Liverpool, Comic Con Scotland, Comic Con Wales, Comic Con Manchester, Comic Con Scotland Aberdeen, Comic Con North East, Comic Con Yorkshire, Comic Con Midlands, For the Love of Wrestling, For the Love of Sci-Fi, For the Love of Horror, For the Love of MMA, For the Love of Cosplay, For the Love of Darts and plans for further expansion across the UK including into London with For the Love of Fantasy in August 2024. They also plan on organizing Comic Con London, Comic Con South West, Comic Con South East and Comic Con East Anglia in the future.

A two-day long event, the convention includes celebrity guest appearances from various film, television, video gaming, anime and comic book series including Stranger Things, The Vampire Diaries, The Goonies, The Lord of the Rings, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Walking Dead, Twilight, The Originals, Red Dead Redemption 2, Sons of Anarchy, The Originals, Star Wars, Gotham, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Grand Theft Auto IV and many others.

The convention is run across the whole of the Eikon Centre, and includes both the Logan Hall and the Eikon Hall inside the venue. the smaller Logan Hall features a large dealers zone selling movie, comic, and science fiction related memorabilia, artwork, and collectibles as well as celebrity guest professional photoshoots and autograph sessions, cosplay events, and other displays. The larger Eikon Hall contains the large Q&A stage where guests answer questions from fans live on stage, various film props and sets (something for which the Monopoly Events is famous for, making their event experiences very different from others like them within the UK), vehicles from different franchises, video and table top gaming experiences, live wrestling and more. There is also a funfair, food trucks and various attractions stationed outside the venue as well.

2023 SAG-AFTRA Strike
The SAG-AFTRA Strike of 2023, affected many fan conventions worldwide. During the strike, SAG guidelines for appearances at fan conventions had to be followed by both guests and the convention organisers. While appearing at any event, guests were unable to discuss any past, present or future work projects as they would normally do when meeting fans, they were also unable to answer questions regarding work projects while on stage during Q&A panels. Event artwork had to be altered significantly so as to not display anything other than the actors actual facial likeness instead of including images of characters played while other issues included the actors not being allowed to have character images to sign for fans on their tables, and instead headshots were used. All of these changes marked a significant change from the normal comic convention experience.

Celebrity guests
As with many other fan convention events, celebrity guests from past and present popular media are regularly invited to Comic Con Northern Ireland and are an extremely popular part of the event, posing for professional photographs with fans and providing autographs as well as giving fans the chance to meet them and chat in person. Monopoly Events is well known for bringing first-time guests to the UK, as well as guests that are from older cult film and television shows of past decades such as the 1980s and 1990s. Sometimes the celebrities involved will use their appearances to raise awareness and funds for a charity or cause important to them, while others use the opportunity to promote upcoming projects such as new films or television shows.

Often guests will choose to visit famous landmarks or attractions in the hosting city, in 2023 Comic Con Northern Ireland guests Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Bernard Hill visited the famous Titanic Belfast museum as Hill previously portrayed Captain John Smith in the 1997 film Titanic.

Celebrity panels
Most, if not all, of the celebrity guests at Comic Con Northern Ireland appear on stage at some point throughout the course of the event, answering both host and fan questions alike.

Photographs
Comic Con Northern Ireland includes a professional photoshoot area where fans can have their photo taken with their favourite guest or guests before collecting them at the exit of the area. Some headliner guests (such as The Vampire Diaries stars Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder in 2023), have their own exclusive area for photographs and autographs, this prevents queuing time and size issues and timeslots are issued for fans to be able to meet the guests.

Autographs
The event also includes an autograph area where celebrity guests from film and TV sign items for the public and spend a few minutes chatting with their fans.

Cosplay
A large part of the event is devoted to the cosplay hobby where members of the public are allowed, and encouraged, to take part in dressing up as characters from popular genres such as film and television. Cosplaying has become one of the most popular parts of many fan conventions around the world and can be used as a platform to showcase the costumer's latest handywork, to show devotion to their favourite characters or engage in role-play with other cosplayers in the same series, as well as to meet new people with mutual interests as themselves. The Comic Con Northern Ireland event, like all of the Monopoly Events shows, hosts an annual cosplay competition across all of the Comic Con events, with both adult and child participation encouraged and prizes given for the best costumes, this includes a Cosplay Masquerade on both days of the event with the local heat of the annual competition on the Saturday, the finalist from the Northern Ireland heat goes through to the finals which takes place at Comic Con Liverpool each year.

Prop and set exhibits
Monopoly Events is famous for providing a vast array of props and set builds for its visitors to enjoy, with Comic Con Northern Ireland being no exception, visitors can find exhibits such as the Tardis from Doctor Who, the DeLorean Time Machine from Back to the Future, a full-sized Peterbilt Truck from Transformers, a talking Falkor head from The NeverEnding Story film which guests could sit atop of and have a photograph taken as well as the Swamp of Sadness from the same film and Del Boy's flat from the cult British television show Only Fools and Horses and much more.

New props and sets which have been introduced since the 2022 event include the Mystic Grill from The Vampire Diaries, the Cobra Kai dojo from Cobra Kai as well as the Myagi-Do dojo, the Fiat Cinquecento from The Inbetweeners and more, many of these being used with celebrities in photoshoots.

Retro gaming area and other attractions
Comic Con Northern Ireland has a large area dedicated to retro gaming consoles for visitors to play, this includes tournaments and big-screen battles and races between gamers. There are also areas offering the public opportunities to play tabletop board games, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer and more.

Trader zone
Within the main exhibition hall, there is a vast trader zone that contains 100s of dealers selling film and television, comic and science fiction-related memorabilia, comics, games, artwork, toys, and collectibles. As of the 2023 event, a smaller "Artists and Makers" zone was added to the event, featuring arts and crafts for sale in a smaller area by independent artists and small businesses specialising in small handmade items.

Artists alley
The event has a large Artists Alley section which is situated inside the main hall, where the public can meet published comic book artists and authors, and buy pieces of their work.