The first Singapore Toy and Comic Convention was held from 27th to 29th June 2008 at Suntec City. Friday the 27th was mainly for trade visitors and I had wanted to visit the show over the weekend to see what they had. A month ago I had pre-registered to get their 'Passport' program which basically means you were given priority registration and also a booklet where you are to get stamps from various dealers and once your booklet is full you can exchange it for some free giveaways. The also had a special toy 'Bearbrick' to mark the occasion, a different version was given out on each day. Saturday was the red version and Sunday the white version.
There was an opening ceremony on Saturday which I wanted to attend as the 501st Legion (Singapore Charter) was to be in attendance with a showing of an Imperial March, but alas, I had some urgent things to do that Saturday that I had to forgo the opening ceremony and in the end did not managed to get down to Suntec on Saturday.
I decided to make my way down on Sunday morning, the doors open at 11am I was a little late due to traffic and reached Suntec only at around 10.30am (yes that's late for these kind of shows) As I made my way up to the 6th floor, they had the Bearbrick giveaway on the 4th floor and there was already a queue snaking round the level at least 500 people I estimate to be in that queue. There was a cosplay finals that day as well and lots of your favourite Manga and Anime characters were around. There was another jam at the 6th floor luckily they open the doors a little earlier, got my passport registration (actually you don't really need to register it's basically free to enter) but in the end too crowded and I gave up half way of finding all the stalls for the stamp, partly also due to the fact that I had my hands full carry toys and comics and the light sabre. More on that later.
I caught actors from Moviemania doing some stunts on stage, the story line was a terrorist plot to blow up the world and Snake-eyes (from GI Joe) and Hellboy were there to save the day. Not too shabby for a 5 minute stunt show.
Looked around the booths and came across these dolls from collectors, I thought they were really nice although they might look a little eerie.
The only comic artist, I saw around was Gary Erskine and I got an autograph copy of his comic since I was there, he did one of the Rogue Squadron comics as well but I don't own a copy of that for him to sign. Below is a really cool statue of the Predator from Moviemania. There was also a shop selling Trumps cards which I used to play when I was a small kid, a very very long long long time ago. They had battleships and fighter jets back then, now a whole host of license cards are out including English Premier League teams and Simpsons even. I saw these when I was in Canada last year but decided not to get them and it seems now can't get these Star Wars Trumps cards anymore as they are sold out and are worth a fair amount these days. These cards were only for display and not for sale, so sad.
They also had the Singapore branch of the World Famous Star Wars 501st Legion in attendance, they had a little booth and loads of badges from all over the world of the 501st Legion. It's basically a club where they dress up as Star Wars Characters, the cheapest costume's are the Imperial and Rebel officers. The most expensive being those of Trooper's and likely Boba Fett.
They also had an area where you had to queue to get in to see the display of Star Wars toys, from 1977 to 2008, heaps of stuff in there including a scene from the Emperor's arrival on the Death Star II. Here's some pics from there and of course the advertisement for the new range of Clone Wars toys with it's midnight launch on July 26th.
That about wraps up what I did at the show, it was really crowded and once I started getting my comics and toys, I could not really take any more pictures, I had to leave (stayed for about 2 to 3 hours, most times waiting in line for this and that) before the cosplay finals so I missed that as well. Will post the goodies I got and bought later.
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