Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: london book fair, mcm

MCM Comic Con Makes A Big Pitch At London Book Fair

MCM London Comic Con set up shop at Book Fair with a big message. Launch your book at MCM. And they had plenty of statistics to back it up.

Reed Exhibitions/ReedPOP owns both the London Book Fair and the MCM Comic Con brand, but until this week the two had never met. That changed, as MCM Comic Con set up shop at Book Fair with a big message. Launch your book at MCM. Their NYCC shows had a big Book Contingent, and it is one that has grown incrementally at MCM, and last year at MCM London Comic Con the appeal of the Ghosts crowd for the launch of the Button House archive was massive – and MCM didn't actually organise that one and it happened at the last minute.

So at London Book Fair, there was a large banner declaring their presence, as well as the café in the Children's Book section completely covered in MCM livery, as well as a stand up on the top floor, 2C14 if you want to pop by.

Talking to the representatives at the show, the striking visual imagery was all developed in house and may well inform the overall look of MCM Comic Con going forward.

And the pitch was very much, launch your book at our show, promising coverage on the Popverse website as well as pushing the demographic and numbers for attenders at MCM London Comic Con. And how they have specific plans for publishers who wish to do so.

As well as throwing some stats into the picture, 100,000 attendees at MCM London Comic Con, four million app views, 477,000 social media following, an email subscription list of 170,000 and a slightly disappointingly low 63% of attendees wanting to see books, graphic novels and comics at… a comic con. Le sigh.

And statistics for the shows featuring book events, which are rapidly on the rise at MCM. As well as stats for Popverse which I am sure other website will want to compare against (is 1.8 million readers a month right? Seems a little low). But they do promise coverage of the events at the show.

As well as showing off the possibilities MCM can bring, as well as offering a trip to the show. If you are in the trade of course…

I was also delighted to meet Annie Byrne again, a former journalist who I knew at MCM when she was basically a one-man press and PR runner, organising us, moving us from one part of the site to the other, before running off to sort other people out. A few years later and she has been promoted to Content Manager, pretty much in charge of what goes on, certainly here. I have to give it to ReedPOP, they do promote well from within, develop trust in their employees and move them up the company. It make me like them even more than I already do.

The MCM London Comic Con (formerly known as the London MCM Expo) is a speculative fiction fan convention held in the London Borough of Newham twice yearly, usually on the last weekend in May and October. The convention mainly focuses on video games, sci-fi, cosplay and popular media from the United Kingdom, United States, Japan, South Korea, France, Italy and elsewhere. Founded in early 2001 by Paul Miley (ScifiShows) and Bryan Cooney (Wolf Events), both well-known organisers within the fan convention entertainment industry, the show has expanded across the UK and Europe. In 2017, ReedPop acquired MCM and all of its events throughout the UK to add to its portfolio, including NYCC, ECCC, C2E2 and many more.

The London Book Fair is held every year in March or April. and is principally a global marketplace for rights negotiation. from different territories to different media. Initially formed in 1971 as The Specialist Publishers' Exhibition for Librarians, with 22 exhibitors, the event and purpose grew rapidly and was renamed the London Book Fair or LBF in 1975, and the librarian focus was dropped. Held at the Olympia exhibition centre until 2006, it moved to the London ExCel building. before switching to the Earls Court Exhibition Centre until 2015 when it returned to Olympia.

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