Organisers celebrate MCM Expo success

Last weekend's MCM London Comic Con smashed all previous attendance records, with more than 70,000 visitors coming through the doors of ExCel.

Claimed by the organisers as Europe's equivalent to San Diego Comic Con, MCM London Comic Con the team behind it say it has gone from strength to strength over recent years, and the latest show has seen another substantial hike in visitor numbers - 70,200 compared to the 64,000 attendees at the previous event back in May, which was itself a record figure.

"We are amazed by the turnout; we expanded the show floor space by 5,000 m2 from the May event and we were still packed," said show co-organiser Bryan Cooney. "It is wonderful to have so many attendees and companies like BBC, C4, Universal, Nintendo and Microsoft supporting our show. We are now looking to add a further 4,000m2 for May bringing us to 21,000 m2.

"We are also looking to the future and planning alongside our venue partner to make MCM London Comic Con the biggest show of its kind in Europe."

Running from Friday 26 to Sunday 28th October, Britain's biggest pop culture event welcomed special guests from a host of movies, TV series and SF shows, including Doctor Who's Matt Smith, Hollywood legend Bill Paxton and stars from shows such as Misfits, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Primeval: New World, Warehouse 13 and Continuum.

The MCM London Comic Con also played host to top games publishers such as Nintendo; Namco Bandai; Square Enix; Tecmo Koie Ubisoft; 2K Games; NIS; Konami and Microsoft. Show goers also explored the brand new VidFest UK zone celebrating online video; the UK's largest gathering of comic artists and writers; an expanded JapanEX zone and a colourful variety of costume competitions and fashion shows, including the finals of EuroCosplay 2012.

MCM London Comic Con returns to ExCel on 24-26th May 2013. The next MCM event is the UK's largest collectors' show, Memorabilia, held at NEC Birmingham on 24-25th November with special guest David Hasselhoff.

• You can find more about the event at www.londonexpo.com; on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mcmexpo; on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mcmexpo and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/mcmexpo