Musicalcon - ExCel

I was there yesterday but hadn’t booked early as I didn’t know what my schedule would be and it’s a lot to lay out for a maybe. Interestingly, there were a handful of early bird tickets on resale from people who couldn’t go, so we bought last minute tickets at the early bird price, which helped with the decision making. I really do think the full whack price is too high for the event when so much of what they are offering is an add on price. (Any masterclasses or workshops are an additional price, as are the meet and greets with various West End performers, essentially like an orderly and paid for version of waiting at stage door.)

The performer of our group did four of the masterclasses with a singing focus. Only one got everyone up and participating. The other three followed a format of letting a few people sing and everyone else just listening. Both valid ways to teach but absolutely no indication of this from the class descriptions when you pay, and this really seems like something the organisers could improve with ease. (They could also ask all their teachers to include even just once of the whole room having a sing through and everyone would leave feeling they did something even if they aren’t picked to sing alone.)

Shopping vendors were many repeats from last year, so we bought less this time around purely because we’d already bought our favourites from those. There were a couple new artists and that was welcome, though across our purchases we all opted for the lower end of the price range and although we looked a long time at some stunning work, none of us felt like it was day when the big ticket items were on the agenda. I get that some artists don’t want to diminish their work with postcard prints or anything but we would have bought those.

We watched Phantom and the cosplay final on the main stage, both entertaining in their own way. I love a bit of costuming but it amazes me the time and money and detail and skill put into these costumes for their short time in the stage! I do hope they find more places to wear them.

Would say there are a lot of late teens and early twenties in attendance but definitely quite a big age range and an everyone is welcome (as long as you like musicals) atmosphere. There was a sort of chill out room for some to escape to if it all got a bit too peopley, but at one point we passed that and that room itself had a lot of people! It can be a very loud environment - the acoustics of the hall just don’t help when you have multiple things to listen to all bouncing around. The sound work they’ve done for the main stage is probably the best thing I’ve heard in the ExCel tbf. It’s just not a brilliant space if overlapping sounds do your head in.

DMT display of props and scenery was a highlight to everyone in our group this time. Really lovely range of things to see from how a show is designed to scenes you could stand in, wigs from shows, etc. If a few more producers or shows could bring in content like that, that could really make the event feel more worthwhile. As it goes, there is a huge amount of empty hall space just used for the initial queue and it otherwise is just a giant empty space that makes the whole thing feel very unfinished.

I guess I feel like after this many years, it really needs to add some polish or reduce the price - it’s a fun day out but it’s not value for money.