2024-04-09 17:13:19
On Friday, the jubilee fifth edition of the Comic-Con festival started in Prague’s O2 universe. One of the most important events for fans of movies, books, comics or video games, it attracted thousands of visitors during the first day. Pirates met characters from Star Wars in the crowd. Even politicians donned costumes.
The fifth year of Comic-Con started in Prague. | Video: Aktuálně.cz
For a person who does not know Comic-Con, a weekend trip through the Českomoravská metro station would be a surprising experience. In the crowd streaming up the escalators towards the O2 arena, colorful wigs shine, passers-by hold lightsabers and some have the letter H stuck on their foreheads. Among the disparate group of people who set out for Libno, you can spot adults and families with children.
The festival in Prague is a hit. This is evidenced by the crowded corridors of the congress center, through which fans disguised as characters from famous and lesser-known works of pop culture wander on Friday tens of minutes before the opening ceremony.
Near the entrance sits a pair of massive Stormtroopers from the Star Wars film saga, a little further away a group of laughing pirates are jostling, their voices disappearing in the deafening bustle of the hall.
Costumes of pop culture enthusiasts often cost tens of thousands of crowns. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
“Any costume you’ll see here today cost more than twenty thousand. For me, the price is around forty thousand, maybe more,” a visitor who came to the event disguised as Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series adds with a smile. Before long, he is grabbed by the shoulder by Hector Barbossa, who has a stuffed monkey Jack sitting on his shoulder.
Diplomats and the mayor
Sea pirates are in a hurry for the official opening, which this year is traditionally presented by a pair of moderators and game journalists Alžběta Trojanová and Mikoláš Tuček. Dominik Turza alias DJ Roxtar introduced the start of the jubilee year with a musical number, followed by a crowded hall with a capacity of 1,500 people.
Well-known cosplayers, actors, comic and book creators or political representatives appear on stage. Among them, for example, the British ambassador Matt Field with a bow tie and a red fez on his head like the British TV hero Doctor Who, together with the American diplomat Bijan Sabet, who welcomes the fans in the costume of the fictional world-famous neurosurgeon Dr. Strange.
The audience and the presenters are surprised by the mayor of Prague Bohuslav Svoboda from the ODS, who appears in a shabby and torn white wig with a placat in his hand. The humorous phenomenon is supposed to symbolize the drunken scientist Rick Sanchez from the popular cartoon sitcom Rick and Morty. “The opportunity to appear in front of you in the role of someone else, an independent scientist who can drink from a plate on stage, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he comments on his costume, as laughter spreads through the hall.
Minister of Culture Martin Baxa, also from ODS, has good news for the fans at the beginning. The Czech Republic plans to focus on supporting the video game industry as part of the upcoming change to the state fund.
Tickets for this year’s Comic-Con are completely sold out. | Photo: Jakub Plíhal
Star of Dallas and Stargate
The attraction for visitors to Comic-Con is the opportunity to meet foreign guests every year. Already on Friday, they could come across Patrick Duffy, the actor of Bobby Ewing from the series Dallas, the face of Paz Vizsla from the sci-fi Mandalorian, Tait Fletcher, or David Nykl, known as the Czech scientist Radek Zelenka from Stargate. Anthony Daniels, who portrayed C-3PO in Star Wars, also accepted an invitation to the event.
An interesting feature of this year’s edition is a four-ton sculpture made of more than 600,000 Lego bricks. The over four-meter-high effigy of Bowser, the antagonist of the Super Mario game series, was created in the Kladno factory in 3,290 hours. Plumber Mario’s juice attracted the attention of the smallest festival participants in particular.
The foreign hit also caught on in the Czech Republic
Meetings of fans at so-called “cones” have a long tradition. The most famous Comic-Con from the American San Diego was established more than fifty years ago, and although it was then an event for a few hundred enthusiasts, today the festival attracts the attention of hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world.
Even its Czech version, although decades younger, is reaping unprecedented success. The three-day tickets and tickets for the Saturday program are completely sold out.
The “gates of fantasy” opened for the first time in the Czech Republic in 2020. The event then attracted around 23,000 visitors. “The first year was accompanied by a lot of doubts, some people didn’t even believe that this opulent event would take place. But it succeeded and it was a success for us,” recalls Pavel Renčín, marketing director of Active Radio, which co-organizes the event.
Like other cultural events, Comic-Con has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. “Nevertheless, we managed to organize the second year between the waves of covid and later the rather strange Comic-Con Home. Thanks to this, we understood that our event is mainly about the fact that fans can meet each other,” he adds.