Crystal Sparkly Dreams: Day Out to: Wales Comic Con 2016

Hi everyone, firstly so sorry for the lack of post last week, between being ill, having a horrible Fibro flare-up and having what seemed like the busiest 2 weeks possible, I've just had no time to work on this post, which I knew would be a long one!
*Just to warn you, this is a very picture-heavy post!

So just over 2 weeks ago, me and one of my bestest friends took ourselves off to Wales Comic Con 2016. Neither of us had ever been to a one of these conventions before and it was definitely a whole new experience!

I've been reading a lot about going to 'cons' over the past couple of months and finding out all the do's and don'ts, because there is a big one coming up next year in London which I am desperate to go to. And so for a newbie con-goer, I thought it best to find out some tips, I've even made a few new friends online along the way which has been great!

I first heard about this comic con at the beginning of April on facebook and thought it looked fun. I searched for tickets and was amazed to see they were only £10 each (because I now know some conventions can be really expensive). Sadly my other besty couldn't go which was such a shame, so I just got tickets for me, my friend and her little boy. We've already started making plans for next year so we can all go, can't wait!

The doors opened at 11 and finally after queuing in the longest queue ever for about an hour, we got in, got our wristbands and started looking around, camera constantly in hand! There was so much to see and I don't honestly think we even saw everything there, as I now know there was a tent outside with owls and reptiles which we didn't spot. There were various marquee's, with merch for sale and a large gaming area too. In this one was also an amazing selection of replica swords from loads of different shows, including Highlander, Game of Thrones and Michonne's beautiful Samurai from The Walking Dead :-D This of course was my favourite, and I was more than excited to get a piccy of me holding it too!! I absolutely love swords, so this was a real treat for me :-)

We were desperate to go and meet James Marsters and Amber Benson, but my friend was also very much looking forward to meeting Michael Socha, who has starred in shows like The Aliens, Once Upon a Time and Being Human, among others. I can honestly say he was really sweet and a pleasure to meet, and my friend walked away beaming and very happy :-)

We eventually found the room where James and Amber were but the que was huge. Everyone was given a raffle ticket and basically told to come back much later or even the next day, and for a while we were worried we wouldn't get to meet them at all.

We went off to look around again and found a small tent where you could have a go at shooting different guns, I've always wanted to have a go at something like that and it was quite cheap depending on what type of gun you chose. Sadly the que took forever to go down but it was worth it in the end. I choose a semi-automatic handgun, which I think was £3 for 15 rounds. It was only shooting little pellets not real bullets of course but you still had to wear big safety goggles and shoot at a target at the far end of the tent. I didn't do too bad, had a good laugh and got some unexpected zombie apocalypse training in for 10 minutes lol :-D

How cute is he!! :-)

There were loads of great stalls in the main 'meet & greet' room, selling lots of fandom themed items, which I could have easily spent too much money on!

I only ended up buying one thing, this Walking Dead keyring for £5, but I couldn't be happier with it :-D

One other thing that I really enjoyed, was seeing all the amazing cosplay costumes, they were so well done, so elaborate and looked so good. We even saw a guy, quite a butch guy dressed in a big pink frilly princess dress with a headdress! It really was a case of 'anything goes'. I walked past so many brilliant ones that I would love to have photographed but there was just so many people and sometimes you just caught a glimpse of someone and then they were gone. I saw several Willow's (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and a Buffy, several Negan's (from The Walking Dead) and so many more, but the Starwars ones were probably my favourite, they were really amazing!

Find Cosplay Clement (Negan) on - Twitter. Facebook. YouTube. Thank you for the pic :-)

At about 5.30pm, we finally got to the front of the que to meet James Marsters, I was feeling pretty nervous by then and as expected, my mind went blank and I couldn't think of a thing to say! He shook my hand and signed a picture for me, it was one I had from home but I wish I'd have gotten one of the photo's that he had at the table now as they were a lot nicer, I wish I'd have had him sign it with my name on to, but I didn't so oh well :-/

Next I move over to Amber Benson's table and honestly, I just liked her straight away. She was immediately welcoming, friendly and chatty, and really genuinely lovely! She even told my friend it was ok to take a few pictures of us meeting, even though we weren't really allowed to! She gave me a lovely hug and I told her how much I still love listening to the Buffy Musical cd that she sings on. She was a real pleasure to meet and I thoroughly enjoy the experience, it was definitely the biggest highlight of the day :-)

All in all, it was a really great fun day. I can't wait to go to another con and I'm saving like crazy for the one in London next March. It's called Walker Stalker, is mostly for all us zombie / Walking Dead fans and it's my one and probably only chance to meet my all-time crush Norman Reedus (aka the sexy crossbow wielding, zombie-killing biker Daryl Dixon) ***

So watch this space for updates and I will most certainly tell you all about it. I will leave you today with some more general pics from Wales Comic Con 2016, a very fun day and I can't wait to go again :-) I hope you liked this post, please let me know in the comments if you've ever been to a con before, who did you meet and where did you go, were you brave enough to go in cosplay?! Let's chat about it below :-)