Comic Con Stockholm: An Adventure with Fox Finland

Comic Con Stockholm is the biggest and brightest star of the Nordic convention scene. With 30,000 visitors over three days, it is the largest pop culture event in the Nordic countries. This year, we got to experience it as Fox Finland’s ambassadors – and had a blast! Check out our introduction video below. It’s in Finnish, but you can see our beautiful Fannibal flower crowns and listen to this weird language that we speak every day. Plus we have a fancy official Fox microphone and all!

Ystävämme @FangirlQuest ovat koko viikonlopun FOXin matkassa Tukholman Comic Conissa. Seuraa heidän menoa täällä Twitterissä sekä samalla tunnuksella Instagramissa ja Facebookissa! #FOXOnComicCon pic.twitter.com/onma0rXrP9

— FOX (@FoxSuomi) September 15, 2018

Comic cons are fun events packed with special guests, amazing cosplays, tons to see and do in all the stands lining the convention halls and of course meeting up with like-minded fans. We also hung out at our homebase, the Fox stand quite a bit, trying out the different fun activities.

FOX – Fun stuff on two floors

Most commercial stands offer some kind of activity to tempt visitors – a character you can pose with, a game you can try or just a cool setting for a selfie – but FOX really outdid themselves with this year’s stand. The two-story structure offered a nice lounge on the second floor that offered bean bag chairs for lounging, a charging station for your cell phone and the best views of the con.

However, the real treats were found on the first floor. The Orville VR experience gave guests a chance to play a first person shooter in space or a thrilling ride on a rickety rollercoaster. We were thoroughly entertained by watching others play the shooter game in full-body mode, nearly knocking into walls while at it, but opted for the rollercoaster ride ourselves. I even experienced a little motion sickness while “riding” it, that’s how realistic the experience was!

The stand also housed a small but terrifyingly awesome escape room, that was one of the definite highlights of the con for us. The escape room was themed after the show The Passage that premieres on FOX in January (check out the trailer here), and it got us very excited to see the show! People locked into the room had just 15 minutes to find their way out – before the creepy companion locked in there with them “attacked”. This was our very first attempt at an escape room ever and we weren’t exactly sure what to expect. In the end we didn’t quite make it out in the allotted time but we were just one lock away. So close!

Meeting Mads Mikkelsen

As professional fangirls, the chance to meet some of our idols is always the best part of any con, and Comic Con Stockholm was no exception. We knew well in advance that Mark Sheppard was going to be one of the guests and were excited to see him again. Then, just a couple of weeks before the con, yet another guest was announced and I could practically hear Tiia screaming over our chat. Mads Mikkelsen, Dr. Hannibal Lecter himself, was coming to Stockholm!

As we were waiting in line for our photo ops with Mads (on the very first day of the con no less – talk about being thrown into the deep end!), I tried to calm Tiia down and to remind her that if she passed out before the photo she would miss out on actually meeting him. Once we got to the small photo booth, the mood was luckily very casual and relaxed. Mads courteously shook hands with every single person coming for their photo and then posed for the camera. What a gentleman!

In addition to photo ops and autographs, Mads did a couple of Q&A panels during the con. I’m sure Tiia has more than a few hundred photos of him, but here’s a small selection for your enjoyment.

Sweet and snarky special guests

Another great thing about comic cons is you can discover new favorites among the special guests. Just a day before leaving for Stockholm, we found out we’d have the chance to interview Jacob Elordi, the star of Netflix’s teen drama The Kissing Booth. We didn’t know much about him but luckily I had time to watch the movie and do a little background research. He turned out to be utterly charming during his interview and adorably quirky and funny during his panels. He’ll soon star in the new HBO series Euphoria alongside Zendaya and we can’t wait!

All of the special guests also had several Q&A panels during the con, where fans could ask the burning questions on their mind and get some answers. Or, in the case of Mark Sheppard, sometimes get more snark than answers. He can be as grumpy as Crowley and we love him for it. Then again, sometimes he gets serious and talks beautifully about what coming to these conventions and interacting with the fans means to him, making us cry while doing so. He eloquently puts into words what is so great about fandom and why we so desperately need it in times like these. Check out the video for yourself and try not to cry, we dare you.

Here’s another gallery of Q&A photos from Mark Sheppard’s and Jacob Elordi’s panels:

Keeping busy at Comic Con Stockholm

As mentioned, there’s a lot more to a comic con than just special guests. We went around the convention hall several times during the weekend, making sure we didn’t miss any of the fun photo ops. Tiia was especially excited about Venom and sitting on the very same bike that Tom Hardy used in the movie!

We also had fun dorking out in front of the Aquaman green screen…

An important part of any convention are the amazing cosplays that take so much time and effort. This time all we could muster up for ourselves in a hurry were the Fannibal flower crowns and some fandom t-shirts, but we had such a blast admiring all the incredible costumes we saw at the con.

Art is another essential element of a comic con. We admired the works of all the independent artist at Artist Alley and Tiia even got a chance to try her hand at the new Wacom tablet.

View this post on Instagram

Most comic cons have something called an #ArtistAlley and it's one of our favorite sections of any con. You get to see amazing art made by fans and support independent artists by buying directly from them – and have a lovely chat with the artists while doing so. ⠀ #ComicConStockholm was no exception and we wandered through its Artist Alley several times admiring all the amazing works. Here's a collection of some of our favorites, check out their instagrams for more beautiful art! ⠀ 1) Andrea Tamme: @lothlenan 2) Jon Turner: @thisisjonturner 3) Daniel Velu: @velusaur 4) Maja Winnicka: @WinnickaMaja 5) Sedra, Tohrunix & Anders: @Sedra60 @tohrunix94 & @starzander 6) C. Conztantine: @c.conztantine 7) Sandra Lavaniegos: @melocotonki 8) Sofie Wikström & Memokkeen: sofiewikströmart.tumblr.com & @memokkeen 9) Gustav Rangmar & Anders Larsson ⠀ #FoxOnComicCon @comicconnordics #ComicConStockholm #comiccon #illustrations

A post shared by Fangirl Quest 🎬 (@fangirlquest) on Sep 21, 2018 at 1:25am PDT

All in all, our three-day Comic Con Stockholm adventure with FOX was jam-packed with awesomeness. By Sunday we could definitely identify with the guy who needed to take a little break in between all the excitement. If you’ve made it this far in the article and still aren’t as exhausted as this guy, keep going for one more gallery of con photos!

---

This is a collaboration post: Our Comic Con Stockholm adventure was done in collaboration with FOX Finland. Thank you for the amazing experience to everyone at FOX! We have the best job EVER