“Yes. Absolutely. I do indeed concur wholeheartedly!”

Commander Riker when asked by the computer if he concurs in aborting the auto-destruct sequence (from Star Trek: The Next Generation)

If you have at least one geeky bone in your body, you are probably familiar with Comic Con, the massive fantasy and sci-fi convention in San Diego, California, U.S.A, which has been running since the 1970s. I have never been there and hope to go one day, but we do have a couple of official Comic Cons in Europe as well and one of them is in Vienna, the capital of Austria.

Compared to for example Na meji nevidnega, which is currently the largest and most successful geek convention in Slovenia that my friends organise with about 3000 visitors, Vienna Comic Con – VIECC attracts about 35,000 visitors in 2 days. There are other local off-brand geek conventions across Europe, but they tend to cap at about 10,000 visitors, because it is quite difficult and expensive to organise such a large passion project and most of them depend on volunteers to make it happen. So Comic Cons are something on a completely different scale and if you have never been to a huge geek convention, they are absolutely worth attending.

Like most other geek conventions, Vienna Comic Con offers a diverse programme with guest panel discussions, workshops, exhibition stalls of various shops with geek paraphernalia, books and comics, artists and creators, independent writers, influencers, cosplayers and geek societies, as well as kids’ activities, e-sports (computer games), board games and D&D, various contests and a food corner. The cosplay competition is usually the big final event in the evening of the first day and if you want to get a good view for that you’ll want to go in the queue early. Also, note that most of the panels and even the cosplay competition are held in German, except for the discussions with international guests.

Now, let’s talk pros and cons: the smaller, off-brand geek conventions have a lot more soul, because you can really tell that the organisers are passionate about what they do and pay more attention to details. However, the large, branded geek conventions like Vienna Comic Con have a much larger budget, which means a larger venue, more geek shops and exhibition stalls and above all, celebrity guests. Bringing in a famous person to do a panel discussion is a huge expense, particularly if they must travel from overseas, so that is usually something that you will only see at very large conventions. Celebrity guests also mean long waiting queues though, so be prepared to wait in line for the panels and bring comfortable shoes. If you want an autograph or a photo with your chosen celebrity, that means another long queue and it is usually more expensive than the Comic Con ticket, which was about 40€ per day in 2023.

Impressions of Vienna Comic Con 2023

The first time I attended Vienna Comic Con was in 2016 and I have to say that it was a lot better organised than the 2023 edition we attended this year. Nonetheless, it was fun and my partner and I visited as part of my birthday trip to Vienna, as Vienna Comic Con is usually held in November.

The main reason we first went to Vienna Comic Con in 2016 was because they had a panel with Billy Body, who played the hobbit Pippin in the Lord of the Rings movies. He also wrote the Last Goodbye, the end credits song for the Hobbit movies. He even performed it during his panel at the Comic Con and as a huge Lord of the Rings fan I was overjoyed.

Well, in 2023 they brought in a guest from my other favourite franchise: Star Trek – The Next Generation, and no other than Jonathan Frakes, Commander Riker himself, so of course I had to go to the Vienna Comic Con again. Although he is about 70 years old now, he is still very handsome and it was a surprisingly hilarious panel, which included a crash course on how to sit in a chair the Riker way and a lot of inside stories from the different Star Trek series he starred in, including the recent Picard series, which he also discussed in this interview. In fact, Frakes ended up singing some songs too, so maybe that’s a recurring theme for Vienna Comic Con? As the cherry on top of the cake, they also invited Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the Witcher books, which is another franchise I love. He had a shorter panel with Miki Montllo, the creator of the Witcher comic books – I think they really did that guy a disservice, as everyone was mainly interested in Sapkowski.

Jonathan Frakes and Andrzej Sapkowski

It was quite funny to observe the contrasts between the two men I came to see. On the one hand, Frakes is a trained American actor and director who knows how to present himself in public and was all about building a community around Star Trek and showing gratitude to his fans, but still managed to come across as really authentic and fun (probably because he no longer gives a f*ck what other people think at his age). On the other hand, Sapkowski is a rather grumpy, former fur salesman and economist from Poland, who happened to get inspired enough to write one of the coolest fantasy series ever and is primarily interested in literature with all its theory and not a fan of any other media. In his own words “he wrote the perfect book and any adaptation will automatically be worse”. I quite enjoyed his brutally honest, grumpy Slavic-old-man-next-door persona with just the right hint of the condescending famous writer. In one of his recent interviews he said that “the writers of the Witcher Netflix series never listened to him” and that “he doesn’t have time to play the Witcher video games, because they are not entertainment”. I imagine that it would be a similar experience to listen to any of the other old school fantasy literary masters like Tolkien, Wells, Lewis, Jordan etc. discuss the adaptations of their works, just without the Slavic element.

All in all, Vienna Comic Con 2023 was fun and the celebrity guests I came to see were great. However, I was a bit disappointed by certain technical issues and lukewarm organisation during the panel discussions and particularly during the cosplay competition, as I would have expected better from such a huge event. The repetitive branded items and random mystery bags filled with plastic low-quality stuff on offer at all the shopping stalls and the surprising lack of originality on offer at a lot of the artist stalls were also a bit sad, but the again we do live in a consumerist society and it is a big event. Local artists at smaller conventions usually have better items if you want to buy some geek souvenirs. 😊