Em-Con 2015

Last weekend I attended the second annual Em-Con (East Midlands Film and TV Convention) in the Capital FM Arena, Nottingham. I had initially planned to put together some kind of Skyrim cosplay but life- and a lack of motiviation- got in the way, so I decided to put together a last minute Hermione costume. 

Hopefully Hermione would approve of my smug face

On a pumpkin juice break

The costume consisted of:

• a white work shirt
• a rather frumpy skirt I bought for my graduation ceremony and have not worn since
• a grey top/jumper that I wear for work
• my boyfriend's maroon tie
• extremely thick tights (in my defence, it was very cold that day)
• Dr Marten's shoes, again usually worn for work
• my homemade Gryffindor scarf
• a Gryffindor badge I found in a charity shop
• a timeturner necklace
• prefect badge from school (we all received one at my school. I was never a 'proper' prefect)
• an official Hermione replica wand
• a striped satchel bag from Topshop 

I spotted a few other Hogwarts students at Em-Con- including Harry, Ron and a tiny Hermione- as well as a few people wearing timeturners and Harry Potter t-shirts. I would have loved to get a group photo with them all but alas, the opportunity never arose.

There does seem to be a bit of a Harry Potter curse to Em-Con. Last year Jessie Cave (aka Lavender Brown) was due to attend but didn't turn up on the day and this year James Payton (Neville's father) pulled out a few days before the event.

Also, I managed to get attacked by a Cyberman:

If this isn't evidence of the curse in action, I don't know what is

It wasn't all bad though. Highlights of the event included real, moving Daleks:

I refuse to believe that any creatures offering cups of tea can be evil

The Impala from Supernatural:
 

Sam and Dean not included

And the 'Three Doctors': Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker and Peter Davison:

My photography skills leave a lot to be desired

There was also that perennial favourite: queuing. I queued to get in, queued to look at stalls, queued to walk past stalls, queued to get barcodes scanned for the Q&A sessions and queued to have my name ticked off a list for the Q&A sessions. I even had a conversation with Syvester McCoy about queuing while I was in a queue. It was the most British of events.

The majority of the stalls at Em-Con offered all the usual merchandise you'd expect- overpriced replicas, large men's t-shirts (perhaps with a tiny and inferior selection of women's tops) and signed prints- however I did manage to find one stall that sold Harry Potter and other geeky jewellery that I hadn't seen before! They were also very reasonably priced- amazing! The stall was called 'Harpys' and they have a Facebook page here.

I bought this amazing Harry Potter necklace, worn here just before I went on a visit to the British Library:

I also picked up a Skyrim necklace:

Definitive proof that I am the Dovahviin

There were many creepy costumes at Em-Con, including a man with entirely black pupils and some sort of demon. However, the hands-down winner of scariest costume for me was the guy that came as Keith Lemon with a lightsaber:

Intentionally blurry to protect you from the true extent of the horror

Next year's Em-Con is due to be a two-day event which I'm a bit unsure about. With any luck, twice the length means twice the numbers of ,and so maybe, just maybe, we'll manage to see a Harry Potter actor at last!