April 4th, 2018
By Jolene Matthews: 2018 marks 7 years of the MEFCC and it’s grown year on year: why do you think it is so successful?

Well, when we started out and all it was because we were
geeks and we wanted Comic Con, and you know what, there are other people
like us, and it’s the same thing around the world, a geek is a geek no
matter where you are. The MEFCC brought something to the region that had
never really been thought of. The wonderful thing about the Comic Con
is that it’s not just for the uber-geeks, yes we have the wonderful
artists and awesome celebrities, but there’s more to the convention than
that. What really helps us grow is word of mouth, and people sharing
their experiences at the con with friends. The convention is another
world; it’s (your) an escape where (you) people can be themselves. I
love seeing con-goers faces; they’re so happy. There’s a lot of love at
the show.

What is the most difficult aspect of organising the Convention? How do you get around those difficulties?
Despite how long we’ve been doing this, people still don’t
fully understand the event. It can be quite challenging to explain to
our investors why our event is so popular, because it’s hard to describe
the appeal of comics and pop culture.

Pleasing everyone is very difficult too, mainly because
everyone at the event is a fan of something or another, so everyone
expects their fandom to be prioritised. For example, everybody has a
different opinion of which celebrity should come to the convention, but
sometimes they’re just not available due to their schedules. We try to
be as current as we can, with the guests and content in the show, but we
might never please every single con-goer. We have to meet ever-growing
expectations year after year, and every year sets a new benchmark for
the next year, and that can be quite difficult to meet these expectations.

How many different teams are involved in the whole process?
Oh gosh, there’s a team for technical drawings, and we have
an in-house designer. We have the operations team, who bring everything
together and do all the setup. There’s the sales team, they have both
the easiest and most difficult job, because there’s some exhibition
sponsors who break down the doors screaming, “We wanna be part of the
show!”, and there’s others that need to be begged and nagged to
realise this is where they want to be at. We have a larger team
including myself, the project manager and the show director that
oversees everything, we have the digital and social team, part of
marketing, but they also work with a couple of external agencies,
because we need the additional resources and manpower to get the word
across. Then we’ve also got a team to work to make sure all the
schedules are met, the signings, the events, and to try reduce
overlapping of important shows. (There are) quite a number of people,
we’ve grown from a handful of people from when we’ve started, (so few
that) we really shouldn’t have been able to pull it off, but the support
we’ve got from people who’ve worked with us for free just out passion
really helped too, we’re very grateful.

Is it possible to see everything happening there in 3 days?
I actually don’t think so. Depending on what you love and
what you really want to see, you need to make a plan. We hand out event
guides at the venue, and there are some online, with timings of
celebrity signing sessions, workshops, main stage performances,
contests, and many other shows. Besides there’s all the merchandise
stalls and the artists alley. You really need a game plan and stick to
it!

What are the different ways that new, young artists can showcase their work at MEFCC and be discovered?
What we want them to do is we want the winner to grace the
cover of (the event guide), and we’ll use it elsewhere too. It’s quite a
thing of pride, especially for a young adult, and for a lot of students
who are having trouble figuring out where their talents lie, having an
opportunity for them to show their art and to win really helps them out.
It’s always been that way with Comic Con, we first had the idea in
2010, and since then we saw that there were so many talented children in
our home, so we wanted to give them an opportunity to shine.

The film and comic book industry has had a history of portraying
negative stereotypes of Non-Westerners, but now we’ve got Marvel’s first
Muslim superhero Ms. Marvel, and also their incredibly successful movie
Black Panther, featuring a predominantly black cast. Do you believe
hosting MEFCC every year can bring a more positive view of UAE’s comic
culture to other countries?

Oh, definitely, we’ve already seen it you know. Ever since we
started in 2012, we’ve seen artists and celebrities attending again and
again because they loved it! We get emails from people around the world
telling us how they’ve heard about the convention from others who
enjoyed Comic Con here in Dubai, and they’ve been told they can’t miss
it. Last year, we had a very well-known Italian artist Claudio
Castellini visit the convention, and then the following year we got so
many calls from Italian artists who want to attend because of he told
everyone back home how well he was treated in Dubai, and how amazing the
convention was. Art transcends boundaries; the convention has been
making quite a difference for the Middle East. There are still people
who won’t come to the Middle East, but the idea that we host Comic Con,
and now there are many more pop culture events all around the region,
shows the world that we really are some of the most passionate fans of
sci-fi and film, and that helps other countries see us in a better
light.

How is the Super Fan Challenge influencing the con-going community?

We’d be nothing without our fans, so we continuously try to
give back. We have so many people invested in the community; my Facebook
page is filled with (enthusiastic people explaining why they love Comic
Con) them. We want to keep the buzz about the convention going even
after we the show is over. Building a community is very important to us!

We’ve got the legendary Alodia Gosiengfiao judging this year’s
cosplay competition, what would you like to say about our local
cosplayers?

They’re amazing, they’re just as good as any other cosplayer
anywhere in the world. I remember in 2012 when we had our first cosplay
contest, one of our regional cosplayers Vega, he did Devil Jin Kazama
from Tekken, complete with wings that would rise up when he pulled on
some invisible string. I can see the passion and love for the characters
in their costumes and even their mannerisms, it just blows my mind! I
just want to give them more opportunities to shine, and hopefully we can
bring the World Cosplay Competition next year. If we can make that
happen, it would let our cosplayers work at a whole new level.

It’s great that other brands are seeing this and supporting
it; Huawei’s helped us make another category just for Marvel characters
to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe, and plus we also have a separate kids’ category in the Cosplay
Contest cause they’re really the most adorable cosplays ever.

What will the Esports Arena bring to UAE’s pro-gaming scene?

We’ve got another event called Games Con, and throughout both
events, we’re trying to develop the scene and support our pro-gamers.
Even without us, some have gone and made some cool teams already. We
want to bring some international flavour to our pro-gaming community.
Gaming is a massive part of pop culture, and it’s much more mainstream
now. Even I’m a gamer myself, and I can see, now more than ever, many
people, young and old, have aspirations to be professional. We’re hoping
that the eSports can be the first step to encourage them. For the first
time we have a League of Legends tournament, and when we transition to
Games Con at the end of the year, we want to keep adding to our
videogame tournaments and successfully develop it every year.

Which celebrity or artist would you like to invite next year?

Oh my Lord, there are so many people we want to visit. We’ve
looked a A-List celebrities, but it’s so difficult to get them because
they’re so busy! We’re lucky to get anyone who can free their schedule
for us; they’re always in demand. For example, Karl Urban was supposed
to come last year, but he got busy and could only make it this year. And
some people criticise us for our choices; they’d be like, “Oh, but Gaku
Space isn’t important, he’s only a voice actor!” No! He’s also super
busy, and Overwatch is one of the most popular FPS games there are, and
freakin’ Genji is also one of the most played characters in there,
whether you like him or hate playing against him! We have our reasons
behind our lineup choices. I could easily give you a list of 50 names,
and I’d love to have them in a future convention. I’d love to have Bryan
Cranston, or even Ben Affleck. There’s a fanbase for everyone, even if I
don’t know a guest, I’d see a huge response from the community in
appreciation for including them. We try bringing people from singers and
anime artists too one year.

Will you be attending this year’s convention?

I can’t stay away even if I wanted to, it’s like my baby, I
have to make sure it does well. I’m an active part of the team, so I
still want to go around and see that the con-goers are happy.
This may be difficult: Marvel or DC?

 

I have to say I’m a Marvel guy. I grew up with DC comics in
the 80s, and they’ve been a huge part of my life since, but I love
Marvel’s TV shows and movies, so I think it’s still skewing towards
Marvel, but my nostalgia for The Justice League and Hulk.