Impressions of the CCXP Event which happened for the very first time in Cologne, Germany.
The Comic Con Experience (CCXP) 2019 happened from June 27th - 30th in Cologne, Germany for the very first time. Originally coming from Brazil, it is the biggest Comic Con Event worldwide. The CCXP is an event about movies, Comics, art, tv shows, music and books. As special highlight star guests from around the world are invited.
CCXP Cologne had around 80 Exhibitors and more than 200 Artists from the industry. The event took place at the Kölnmesse in Deutz.
BUILDING UP MY BOOTH A DAY BEFORE CCXP STARTED
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26TH 2019 On Wednesday I drove my car to Cologne to build up my booth in the Artists' Alley. I've been preparing art prints and other products during the last few weeks. Luckily CCXP is not my first event as an exhibitor, so I had a good base of products from my previous events. I arrived at Kölnmesse around 18:00, picked up my Exhibitor Badges at the North Entrance and drove my car right in front of hall 7, where my booth was supposed to be. Everything worked quiet well. It took me around 2-3 hours until my booth was set up. Obviously I could have been done much faster but I like to take my time and test, which set up looks best. So I moved things around until I was 100% satisfied with my display. During that week we had an incredible heat wave here in Germany and I was super glad to stay in the cool halls of the trade-fair.
One of my favourite parts of CCXP was this amazing set up of Hagrid's Hut from Harry Potter. It was so wonderful to look at that gorgeous lighting! Seriously, I wish we would have been able to go inside the hut!
THE FIRST DAY OF CCXP COLOGNE
THURSDAY, JUNE 27TH 2019
The CCXP opened their doors for visitors at 12:00. Brands and exhibitors were able to come in at 10:00 though. I knew it's going to be a very long day since the event closes at 21:00.
I came pretty early and noticed that it was quiet empty. Well, no wonder! It was Thursday- people would still be at work or in school at that time. I took the chance to check out the halls and other exhibitors.
Kölnmesse is huge, but they only used two of the halls and some space outside. The Artists' Alley and my booth were placed in hall 7. Merchandise, Cosplayers, Publishers as well as other exhibitors were in the same hall. Hall 8 had a big Theater were the panels took place. They also had that place where you could take photos with star guests and receive an autograph. Outside they placed the medieval market from the previous RPC events (which got integrated into CCXP). Highlights of day 1 were basically all about Batman! In the Thunder-Theater, Panini Comics welcomed the Brazilian Batman Comic Artists Ivan Reis und Joe Prado. The two artists gave some insights into their work and they also did a live drawing session.
THE SECOND DAY OF CCXP COLOGNE 2019
FRIDAY, JUNE 28TH 2019
The first day of CCXP went very slow. There haven't been many people at the event and we all were hoping that Friday would do better! It was better... unfortunately just a little bit. However, I was super glad that I had a helper from Thursday to Sunday. A couple months ago, after I signed up as exhibitor for CCXP, I gave away my Helper Ticket (which was included) to a random person on Instagram. I had a couple requests of people who were interested in receiving the ticket and being my helper during the event.
In the end, Andrea- who is an Artist as well, became my helper. She's from Cologne and has never been on a Comic Con before. So on Friday morning I went outside to pick up Andrea in front of the trade-fair area to give her the badge, so she could enter the CCXP. I was super glad, that Andrea helped me! I told her that she wouldn't have to stay all day long. She could go and see as many panels as she wanted and she wouldn't need to come every day. However, Andrea decided to stay with me every and all day long (except for the first day). She was such an incredible help!!! I was super grateful to meet her and we also talked a lot about art and other stuff during the more quiet and empty days at CCXP.
Faber Castel was one of the Exhibitors at CCXP and they did a drawing contest a couple times per day. One of my teacher coworkers from PIXL VISN- Irina, entered the contest. So I went to Faber Castel's Booth around 14:00 to cheer for Irina, even though I knew she was going to win!
The contest works the following: Two artists compete against each other in a 10 min drawing battle. Right before the start they'd get a random topic that they have to draw. In this case it was "Werewolf Grandma". Irina won the contest. Star Guest Highlights on Friday were: Mark Pellegrino, Ashleigh Murray and Zachary Levi.
The Thunder Theater had a couple panels with Ben Barnes and as a special highlight, Universal Studios presented exclusive content from “Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw” as well as panels with Jason Statham und Idris Elba.
THE WEEKEND: COMIC CON EXPERIENCE DAY 3
SATURDAY, JUNE 29TH 2019
Finally! The weekend had started and all exhibitors were eagerly hoping for more people to visit CCXP as the previous days went pretty slow. The weekend went much better! The mood and energy in the halls was so different now! It was much more fun walking around at CCXP now that the event had more visitors. I've met lots of friends, some of my students from PIXL VISN and even a couple followers from Instagram!
Highlights of Day 3 were definitely the Cosplay Championship in the Thunder Theater as well as some star guests such as Nikolaj Koster-Waldau, Rebecca Mader, Zachary Levi and Ashleigh Murray.
THE LAST DAY OF CCXP
SUNDAY, JUNE 30TH 2019
Sunday was the last day of CCXP. Obviously, the greatest highlight was the panel of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones)taking place in the amazing Thunder Theater powered by Cinedom! I didn't really watch many panels as I had to stay at my booth, but this time even I had to go to watch his talk!
Highlights at the Ultra Stage were the Comic Artists of "Wonder Woman" Brian Azzarello, Mike Deodato and Meredith Finch as well as "V for Vendetta" Artist David Lloyd.
At the end of the day, I have to say that the CCXP was a great experience. We all know, that it was the very first time that the event happened here in Europe. I'm definitely going to give it another try next year. The Comic Con Germany in Stuttgart happened at the exact same time, which was probably not the best thing. We all wished for more people coming, especially on Thursday and Friday. I've been attending a couple other Comic Cons and I can say that the event was very well organised. I loved how there was staff everywhere- even our Artists' Alley had special staff members taking care of us and they even gave us a cute gift at the end of CCXP. The event felt so much more classy due to it's organisation, the look and to how clean it was! Seriously, the cleaning lady cleaned my table 5 times before I started building up my booth!!! I just hope for more people visiting in 2020 as well as more activities to do on the event itself. So let's wait and see how the next one is going! See you in 2020 CCXP!
IMPRESSUM Pictures by Meike Schneider, Andrea Stifter, Chi-Ho Yun
CCXP Website: www.ccxp-cologne.de
