Starcom / Comic Con Gent 2016

The second year of the Starcom convention, and it keeps going by it`s monicker of being not your average convention... and it`s true.

Starcom / Comic Con is a one day, smaller convention with a very friendly and chill atmosphere, and like in the first edition, BeLUG was present and had the first stand when you walked in.

But the story begins on an early sunday morning.

After a drive, we arrived there and the set up of the convention was in full swing.

So it was time then to prepare our BeLUG stand, and we had a 9-man team this year, a great improvement from the "dynamic duo" last year.  Presenting our blue brigade where Saskia, Zwits, Inge, Kris, Geert, Matthieu, Wilfried, John and myself and with guest appearanced by Joris and Michael (thanks mate for aiding in the breakdown at the end of the day).

And then the doors opened...

I personally brought some thingies along, mainly Star Trek, but my Oberth quickly moved from the BeLUG stand towards the BVC one (Belgian Star Trek fanclub).  They will also display my mosaic of a Federation Commbadge at FACTS this year.

Like with any convention, there was the regular plethora of traders.  Now, Starcom had a real nice selection of traders this year, a lot of vintage toys and hard to finds.

There was also the necessary eye candy stuff, ranging from the A-Team van to Star Wars walkers.

A couple of activities where there as well, ranging from participation games to classic arcade games.

This year, they also had guests, with the attendance of the british actors who playes the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, here seen during their Q&A.

I also bought an autograph from one of them, Andy Herd (second from the left on the picture above), who also played the Goblin at the counter in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

And due to the arrival of Pokemon GO, and the venue being an actual gym in the game, a lot of the little beasties where hunted as well in the surrounding parc.

Of course, no convention is complete without cosplayers, and many fine dressed up characters could be seen.

I asked this Goa'Uld cosplayer to hold my Daedalus, I thought it a rather nifty and very cool picture for the Stargate franchise.

Now, another thing about StarCom is that it runs a Superhero Burlesque show, for 18+ attendees, near the end.  It wasn`t easy to make a film or pictures with the flashing lights and mistcannon, but I did try it.

Another great event for sure, and one I will definitly be back for the third time next year, as BeLUG has already commited to the organisers again.  And at the same, excellent spot near the door, VERY welcome when temperatures outside climbed to 30 degrees today.

But until then, Live Long and Prosper (together with one of the Burlesque dancers :-) )

The Loot

Yep, I did find some little things this time around.  Apart from the signature shown above, there was the convention Event brick to go on the badge for this year.

But apart from that, I found a Birthday Cake polybag, for about half it`s current value, and a real bargain on a NECA Cherno Alpha.  I love Pacific Rim, and I adored the russian jaeger, it`s a shame there isn`t enough pale green elements in Lego to build one. 

But these guys tend to go on ebay around the 30 to 40 mark, and he had all sorts of the Jaegers lying on hos booth, but only one priced 15, the rest had no prices on them.  I asked if Cherno was as much, but the boss passed by and said I could have it for 10 because the clamshell had had it`s best time.  DEAL, it`s for referencing anyways :-)