Quoted By:
[Vexpo Thoughts]
Back home, so my thoughts on Vexpo 1:
Location- People were worried that it would be a shithole as it's Birmingham, however that's not quite accurate. The NEC complex is like a walled off village on the outskirts of the city, like a white neighbourhood in Cape Town. Overall really nice venue; loads of space, hotels, food places, resting areas, staff, clean, etc.
Con size- Fairly small. Used 75% of Hall 8, which itself is only a mid sized hall at the NEC. Probably based on how many vendors they had, though I would have preferred if several areas had large boothes (like MOE who were perma filled). Still, a efficient use of the space, and the 3 stages were sized just about right.
Vendors- Decent amount, pretty much zero PC stuff though. Too much simping for corpos that werent there.
Corpos- Globie, PC, Astraline, Noa, and Vshojo. Globie had the biggest standalone booth (though PC was larger when adding MOE), PC was the most popular by far though; queues were long. I think those that came put in a good effort; Globie constantly had a talent greeting people at the entrance with a webcam+mic setup for the crowd. Phase owned the Mixed stage for Saturday and the booth was OK2.0 tier. Merry and his cronies were stalking the con, fun bunch. NOA booth improved my opinion of them, the head of the branch seems cool. Vshojo had some tiny signature booth in the corner, not sure who it was that came; they made up for it with their panels/concerts though, they brought their best.
Panels/Events- There were 26 of them, I went to 5. Honestly I should have done more, though due to Overlap the most you can realistically do is about 10. The one's I did were fun though.
Scuff- Very little, I heard the main stage had some issues for Idol, but the mixed stage was pretty much fine the whole way.
Turnout- Very good, was surprised by the amount of people (and PC fans) there. I heard they sold 90% of the tickets, I hope this is enough to justify a Vexpo 2.
Random things of note:
-I didn't realise till I got there, but my hotel was hosting a Troonsformers con, these fuckers prevented me from accessing the bar. Need to be more wary next time.
-Con needs water stations, theres a couple by the NEC entrance but fuck all around the actual Hall. Some jugs with cups would be good for next time.
-Cece cute, anyone who says otherwise either hasn't seen her or is a fucking liar.
Really enjoyed Vexpo, hope it returns even bigger next year. Otsucringe