On Friday 8th July 2022, I finally went to my first ever comic con – London Film & Comic Con! It was quite overwhelming going to such a big convention having never been to one before, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it was such a fun experience!
One of the most stressful parts of the day was actually finding the entrance to the con, which was being held at the Olympia. I was nervous that I would get lost on the way, but a nice couple on the train noticed my cosplay and told me that they were going to the con, too, which was reassuring to hear.
Once I got there, the second stressful thing happened, which was figuring out how to collect my Christopher Lloyd diamond pass. Thankfully, I found the collection point, but I had missed LFCC’s email with the barcode I needed to bring with me on the day to collect my pass. Luckily, they were able to use my name and the QR code on my ticket to print my diamond pass for me, which was a big relief!
Then came one of the most stressful parts of all – finding my friends. For those of you who haven’t been to the Olympia, it is HUGE. Trying to navigate that place with all the different stalls and displays everywhere is a hard task. We were all trying to stay in contact with each other, but with everyone in different places and arriving at different times, it was very hard to find anyone. Thankfully, I bumped into my friend Sylvester, the wonderful Doc Brown cosplayer, upstairs, and from there we managed to find the others, which was when I could finally relax and the fun started!
In addition to seeing lots of close friends and familiar faces from my trips to Back to the Future: The Musical last year, I also met some new people at the con, and we all had so much fun posing for photos together!
Our friends Fernando and Kelly even brought some wonderful, lifelike, large E.T. figures with them, which were so cool!
After we all found each other and took some fun group photos, it was time to head off to our photo shoots. My first one was Christopher Lloyd, since I had a diamond pass. Even though I had seen Christopher Lloyd in person last year on press night of Back to the Future: The Musical, this would be my first proper time meeting him, and I was so nervous. But everything went great, and Christopher Lloyd was so lovely! He is very shy and doesn’t talk much, but when I started really fangirling and said “Great Scott! I love you!” to him, he smiled so much and hugged me tightly for the photo! I was over the moon, it felt like a dream!
Next up were photos with Claudia Wells, Jeffrey Weissman and Donald Fullilove. When we were in the queue for Claudia, she noticed me at the back and shouted “Jennifer!”, which made me so happy! When it was my turn to have my photo taken with her, she hugged me tightly just like Christopher, and complimented my eyes and my Jennifer Parker cosplay! She was dressed as Jennifer for the day, too, but she said she liked my floral jeans much more than hers, so I told her that the ones I was wearing were the exact same ones she wore in the movie and that I would email her the details for them. She said, “promise?”, so I told her I did!
Donald Fullilove was so lovely to meet. He is such a fun and positive person, and of course I said “maaaaayoooor!” many times to him throughout the day!
It was amazing to finally meet Jeffrey Weissman. I had been friends with Jeffrey over social media for a long time, and we’d worked together (remotely) in the past. I was so excited to finally meet him. He was so lovely and called me, Sylvester, Charlie and John back for a few more photos afterwards! He then gave me a print out of one of them as a belated birthday gift, which was so kind of him.
Next up was the Back to the Future panel with Christopher, Claudia, Donald, Jeffrey, and also Frances Lee McCain, who I didn’t get a photo with this time but will for sure next time she’s over here! Since I had a diamond pass, I got to sit in the front row. Jeffrey gave BTTF Project 85, which we had worked on together back in 2020, a shout-out, which I was so grateful for! They were taking questions from the audience at the end, and I put my hand up, but they ran out of time to get to mine. Then, Claudia said “I saw Poppy had a question! Poppy, what was your question?”, which was so sweet of her. I asked her if she was sure it was okay, since they were out of time, but she told me it was and that she wanted to hear my question, which was “out of all three Back to the Future movies, which was your favourite and why?”. I said that Claudia’s was probably Part I, since it was the movie where she played Jennifer in, which she confirmed was indeed the case. Then, Christopher said that his favourite was Part III since it had horses, the time-traveling train, and he got to have a romance with Clara (played by Mary Steenburgen). So sweet!
I told the cast that we’d be coming to see them again shortly for autographs, since they were about to head off on their lunch break. We all headed back upstairs, and when it was time, we headed over to the autograph tables.
I was so excited to get my autographs, since I had some gifts to give Claudia, Christopher and Jeffrey when I went to see them at their tables. For Jeffrey, I made some digital art of him as George McFly in Back to the Future: Part II, and got it printed onto a wall tile. I also had a card to give him, too. He loved it and wanted to take a photo with it, which was so sweet of him. He also gave me a lovely autograph!
When I went to Claudia’s table, she had a long queue since she was spending so long with each of the guests, which was so sweet and generous of her. When I got to the front of the queue, she spent just as long with me – or maybe even longer! – and I was so grateful. It was so lovely to chat to her. I gave her the little gift bag I had prepared for her, which consisted of a card, a Jennifer Parker Hill Valley High School I.D. (just like the one I have), a Jennifer Parker sticker, a bracelet, and some digital art I had made of her as Jennifer, and she opened everything right there while I watched. I apologised for the smudged handwriting on the back of the digital art (I’m left-handed so my handwriting can be very smudged!), and she said it was perfect since it made it more “real”, which was really sweet. She read my card, and when she got to the part where I was explaining that I’m the same person who she’s spoken with so much online, she said she remembered me, and she thanked me for everything I do on social media, too, which was so sweet! She gave me the loveliest autograph, and asked for some photos of us both dressed as Jennifer! I also asked her if she remembered the brand of the watch she wore in the movie, which she did (more on that in an upcoming post!).
Donald was super-fun to chat to when I went to get my autograph from him! He had a funny print of a cartoon duck, and I asked him if he had voiced it. He told me that he had indeed – and that it was from Toy Story, which I had no idea he was in! (I did a bit of research afterwards and discovered it was a Toy Story short which I had never heard of before.) I went into fangirl mode again and blurted out “I love you, my sister loves you and she’s not even a Back to the Future fan! I thought you’d like to hear that”, to which he replied telling me that he did. I also asked him if he was selling any of his Mayor Goldie Wilson bobbleheads, and he told me he was, through his website. I will definitely have to get one of them someday!
I had a bit of trouble finding Christopher’s autograph table, but luckily I found it in the end. When it was my turn, I gave him his gift, which was a drawing of him as Doc which also had a letter on the back, telling him how big of a fan I am of him, and when I gave it him, he smiled and said “oh!”. Then I told him there was more on the back, and he turned it over and said “ohh!!” again, which was sweet. I told him what an honour it was to meet him, which he seemed happy to hear. When I mentioned personalisation on the autograph, I quickly got shut down by the LFCC staff, who weren’t the most polite people I’ve met, and they told me he wasn’t doing any personalisation that day. Christopher then got a bit confused, pointed to the drawing I gave him, and said “why doesn’t she sign her name here?”, to which I responded that I actually had already signed the picture, and the LFCC staff showed him. He didn’t realise that I was talking about him writing my name on the autograph, but it was sweet of him. I also asked for a selfie, and got quickly shut down by the LFCC staff again. Oh well! It was still such an honour to meet Christopher properly, even if it was only brief.
I also had a quick chat with Frances Lee McCain at her autograph table, and introduced myself. She was absolutely lovely! I can’t wait to get a photo and autograph from her in the future. I would have this time, but I couldn’t afford it after buying a Christopher Lloyd diamond pass!
Finally, after browsing through the stalls, doing a bit of shopping and collecting the diamond pass gift (which was a phone charger in a case that says “1.21 gigawatts!!” on it and a large print of Christopher Lloyd, Michael J Fox and Elisabeth Shue in Part II), it was time for the cosplay masquerade. Me, Samuel, Sylvester, Jason and John had all entered as a group, and had prepared a scene to perform. Unfortunately, when we got to the stage, the staff were very rude and spoke very condescendingly to us, and told us they had lost our audio with no explanation as to what had happened. When I had filled in the registration form, I had attached our mp3 file to the section of the form where they asked for the audio that we would be using, and I had also sent them a follow-up email to check they had received everything. It was very disappointing since we had spent so many evenings rehearsing over Zoom, and even done some in-person run-throughs of the scene, too. Still, there was no way we had come that far for nothing, so we told them we would still go on anyway. What then made it even worse was that they claimed I hadn’t requested any microphones, when I had requested 2 (the maximum they allowed you to request), so we only ended up with one, and some of our speech was inaudible to the audience as a result. Our performance really wasn’t the same without our audio track – the timing was off and it messed up our performance a bit – but we got through it thanks to John, who was playing Marty in the scene, and really held our performance together!
We didn’t win anything in the cosplay masquerade, but we had a good time onstage together, which was what really mattered.
We then headed upstairs to chat to the guests one last time. We asked Jeffrey if he had managed to see any of our performance, and he said he had watched us from upstairs, and even filmed some of it, which was really kind of him. Donald walked past us again and said “Poppy!!!!”, to which I responded, “you remembered my name?”. He replied, “of course I did!!!”, which made me feel so happy! The Back to the Future cast are such lovely people and really care about their fans, which I really appreciate.
Not long afterwards, the con started closing, so we headed out and said our goodbyes. Most of us headed off home after that (I didn’t though – I needed to find something to eat first!).
I am so grateful to everyone who made LFCC an amazing experience! It was such a special and memorable day.
What’s the best con you’ve ever been to? Let me know in the comments!
Poppy x
Pink Blossom Cosplay 