Sci Fi convention Malmö 2011

Went to the Sci Fi convention with a group of friends today, many of them joined in for the first time. The thing is however, that the convention seemed to be a flop this year with few visitors. We arrived 15 minutes before opening time and were like alone with 5 other people! Previous years it had been a line with hundreds of people waiting an hour before it starts. I was thinking "what the hell!?" , and instantly felt that something was off. It had to be the swap of locations, from the “Malmömässan” near the train station to the shitty place in central Malmö at “Stadionmässan”- which is much harder to get to and choice of building was very weird as well. It was perhaps a slightly larger room than during those previous years and maybe one or two more vendors than usual - but damn everyone looked so sad and depressed. I overheard a conversation between two people discussing the lack of visitors, they were completely clueless - it will be really interesting to see what happens next year as I feel the convention took quite a economical hit this time around. They do the convention in Stockholm and Göteborg as well but Malmö has always had the yearly Sci Fi convention, and it seemed that they had a streak of getting decent guests the last few years as well.

We went there early since it has always been packed with people the previous years and I always try to go there as early as possible to avoid standing in a long line for a signed photo. This year they didn't even bother with the number system they had a last time I was at the convention, where you got a number and they called a group of numbers over the speakers so you didn't have to stand in line for hours. The vast and almost empty space in front of the guests was really depressing, "Gruber" from Allo Allo tv series looked both pissed and disappointed. Reminded me of one year when Lou Ferringo was the guest and all attention was stolen by other cooler celebrities. But at least that year there was a lot of people visiting as well.

Not to end this entry in a boring way, I can tell about the fun stuff. There was a lot of stuff you could buy, and as always you end up spending all your money without really knowing how or on what you spent it. I trawled the various vendors for movies, I bought some for myself and a couple for my dad. Of the more odd movies that I had to get there was "Aliens vs Zombies" - I've read about it and just had to buy it. It came at a OK price, 80 SEK. Then I bought some weirdo horror movies that I've never heard of but they seemed like fun judging by the cover lol. "The Locals", "The Rage" and "the Prodogy". I also bought "Black Death" as I had seen it a few weeks ago and found it to be quite a decent flick - like a better 13th warrior style movie. Bought "Day of the Dead" for my movie collection, "2012" and "Predators" for my dad as those are his kind of movies.

I also got myself a signed Lando Calrissian photo, Billy Dee Williams was there. Got a photo for fellow Lead adventure forum member Preedh. It was quite fun since Preedh wanted "Welcome to the cool side of the pillow" written on his, and BDW didn't understand what the hell I was talking about. One of his aides had to explain the Family Guy reference. If the signed photos weren't so expensive (250 SEK) I would probably get one from Guy Siner as well. Linda Blair, who played the possessed girl in The Excorsist was also one of the guests, she and Billy Dee Williams attracted most fans attention.
Real damn shame about the stupid change of location for the convention this year.


Other pictures from the convention, as usual there were the Star Wars reenactors from the 501st Nordic Legion. There was also a girl dressed up and with makeup to look like a Twi Lek girl - I think she posed with everything and everyone at the convention, immensely popular and was kind enough to let a lot of nerds take her picture or pose with random stuff handed to her. My favorite picture was a quick snapshot at the guys dressed up as Darth Vader and Chewbacca while they were discussing something. And the Sand People marauder just looks hilariously batshit insane on the picture where they were all posing together LOL!

Video with all the pictures if you don't want to click each one individually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BppNNMvZGwg