MEFCC 2017: Another super year for the UAE’s top pop-culture event

About 60,000 fans attended the sixth edition of Comic Con in Dubai. Pawan Singh / The National

About 60,000 fans of film, comics, genre TV, pop culture and general geekdom flocked to Dubai World Trade Centre for the three-day Middle East Film and Comic Con at the weekend, a similar turnout to last year, organisers said.

The halls were typically packed, with exhibitors reporting sales were up on last year. One local comic-book publisher sold out of all 650 copies it brought.

The Dubai Mall memorabilia store, The Little Things, was another particularly pleased stall holder. It sold a life-size model of Japanese anime character Grendizer for Dh27,000 to an ­unnamed Saudi collector.

Elsewhere, celebrities including Anthony Mackie (Falcon from Marvel's Captain America and Avengers films), Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos Seaworth on Game of Thrones) and Josh McDermitt (Dr Eugene Porter from The Walking Dead) delighted fans by appearing in panel sessions, signing photographs – and in the case of WWE star Kane, being mobbed by eager fanboys and girls as they walked around the halls.

There were also a number of panels, including a fascinating filmmaking session featuring local talents Faisal Al Hashmi, a horror director par excellence; Mustafa Abbas, who successfully divides his time between making thought-provoking films about cultural diversity and cutting hair at his Downtown Dubai salon; and Dubai-based director Reshel Shah Kapoor, who made an acclaimed, multi-award-winning documentary about transgender culture in India in 2015.

This year, the sixth edition, was the first time the event had expanded into a full three-day affair – in previous years Thursday was a semi-private event open to schools and VIP ticket holders only. As a result, the opening day was almost a full day in itself. While there were no big celebrities or signing sessions, punters had the opportunity to check out the halls before the main weekend onslaught began.

The move seemed to pay off, as there was a steady stream of ­attendees on Thursday.

“It just seemed to make sense,” says event co-founder Arafaat Ali Khan. “The three-day VIP passes have always sold out anyway, so we just thought, ‘Why not open it up and let people in on Thursday?’ We don’t have numbers yet, but if you look around you it seems to be working.”

Blink Studios debuted the world's first "Holotoon" at the event, a sort of combination of Pokemon Go and a kids' cartoon designed for the VR platforms Google Tango and the upcoming Microsoft Hololens.

Viacom set up a shrine to SpongeBob SquarePants with merchandise, and event sponsor Rani gave away a lot of their free fizzy orange juice.

Filmmaker Kevin Smith, director of Clerks, Mall Rats and Chasing Amy among other films, was the star of the closing session on Saturday night, via a video link from the United States, and while much of his conversation was unpublishable in a family newspaper, the audience clearly loved his no-holds-barred approach to answering questions about his work.

MEFCC has become a vital date in the region’s cultural ­calendar, and it seems like there’s plenty more to come.

As head geek and co-founder Ben Caddie told us as the final night drew to a close: “Let’s do this again next year”.