Twin Cons, One Cause: Fleetwood Meets the Hebrides

Fleetwood Comic Con: A Community‑Driven Success Story

Fleetwood Comic Con has quickly established itself as one of the UK’s most exciting grassroots conventions. Unlike the large commercial events run by big companies, Fleetwood Comic Con is built on community spirit, volunteer energy, and a passion for geek culture. The organizers, Allan and Hannah, drew on their experience as traders at conventions across the country to create something unique for Fleetwood. Their vision was simple: a Comic Con that wasn’t about profit, but about giving people in a deprived area a chance to experience creativity, cosplay, and fandom in a welcoming environment.

The result was astonishing. More than 2,500 attendees turned up for the first year, proving that Fleetwood Comic Con had tapped into something special. From the moment the doors opened, the atmosphere was electric, with fans, families, and traders all contributing to the sense of community.

OH!CON and Fleetwood: Building a Twin Con Partnership

The partnership between Fleetwood Comic Con and OH!CON in the Outer Hebrides is a story of shared values. OH!CON faced unique challenges, from ferry costs to geographic isolation, yet managed to bring cosplay and geek culture to a region that had never hosted such an event before. Fleetwood Comic Con, meanwhile, leveraged its proximity to Manchester and Liverpool to attract cosplay groups and guests.

By joining forces, the two conventions created a “twin con” identity. This partnership allows them to share resources, ideas, and inspiration, while also highlighting the diversity of locations where geek culture thrives. Whether in Fleetwood or the Outer Hebrides, fans now have access to events that celebrate creativity and community.

Cosplay, Workshops, and Creative Activities That Inspire Fans

Fleetwood Comic Con is more than a marketplace; it’s an interactive experience. Attendees enjoyed cosplay bingo, scavenger hunts, and workshops led by authors and artists. Ashley Lister hosted a horror writing workshop, while Peter Axolotl ran comic book drawing sessions. These free activities gave fans the chance to learn new skills and express themselves creatively.

Cosplay was another highlight. From Star Wars groups to local prop makers, the event showcased costumes that rivalled those at larger conventions. OH!CON mirrored this energy, with fans surprising even seasoned cosplayers with their creativity. Together, the twin cons prove that cosplay isn’t just about dressing up — it’s about building confidence, community, and shared joy.

Why Fleetwood Comic Con Matters for Local Communities

Fleetwood Comic Con has a deeper purpose than entertainment. In a town facing economic challenges, the event provides free access to workshops, guest panels, and creative outlets. For young people, it’s often their first chance to present, perform, or write in front of others. One local cosplayer, Ali, gained confidence by hosting the cosplay competition, sparking her ambition to train as a teacher.

This ripple effect is powerful. Fleetwood Comic Con has inspired the creation of groups like the Lancashire Cosplay Prop Makers, who now contribute to events across the region. By offering opportunities, the convention helps people discover talents they didn’t know they had.

Challenges Overcome: From Setup to Spectacular Attendance

Running a Comic Con is never easy. Fleetwood faced logistical hurdles with venues, tables, and security. Organizers had to hire vans, move equipment, and coordinate volunteers. OH!CON, meanwhile, dealt with the challenge of attracting attendees across the Minch ferry. Yet both events succeeded because of determination and teamwork.

The payoff was clear: Fleetwood Comic Con drew thousands, while OH!CON amazed guests with the quality of cosplay and enthusiasm of fans. These triumphs show that passion can overcome obstacles, and that community events can thrive even in challenging circumstances.

The Future of Fleetwood Comic Con and OH!CON Collaboration

With Fleetwood Comic Con’s debut success and OH!CON’s groundbreaking presence in the Hebrides, the future looks bright. The twin con partnership promises bigger cosplay groups, more workshops, and stronger community ties. Fans can expect more interactive activities, guest appearances, and opportunities for local talent to shine.

Fleetwood Comic Con is not just surviving — it’s thriving. By staying true to its community‑driven roots and partnering with OH!CON, it has created a model for how conventions can inspire, empower, and entertain. For fans of geek culture, Fleetwood Comic Con and OH!CON are proof that passion and creativity can build something unstoppable.

Full Transcript Outline (Quick Jumps)

00:00 Welcome to OCAST: Introduction and Guests

00:49 The Birth of Fleetwood Community Comic Con

03:58 Community Spirit and Collaboration

06:58 Interactive Activities and Workshops

09:57 Challenges and Surprises of Organizing

13:00 Event Highlights and Guest Appearances

24:00 Empowering Creativity and Confidence

26:47 Building Community Through Cosplay

29:43 Fundraising and Community Support

33:42 Planning for Future Events

38:35 Collaboration and Opportunities in Cosplay

45:36 Connecting Through Shared Interests

46:40 Community Connections and Comic Con Experiences

49:51 The Role of Volunteers in Comic Cons

51:53 International Connections and Community Growth

56:23 Challenges and Triumphs of Organizing Events

01:00:36 Creative Ideas and Future Plans for Comic Cons

01:03:39 Creating Inclusive Spaces in Comic-Con

01:05:00 The Diverse World of Comic-Con

01:06:00 Overcoming Misconceptions About Comic-Con

01:07:53 The Creative Community Behind Comic-Con

01:09:08 The Challenges of Event Planning

01:10:03 Trivia Fun: Testing Local Knowledge

01:17:10 Connecting with the Community

Full Transcript Outline

Cal MacD (00:00.514)
Good evening everyone, welcome to OCAST, your island gateway to all things geek. I’m your host tonight, Cal MacDonald. Joining me tonight to very, very familiar faces, Kathleen and John, how are you doing? Have you recovered?

Kathleen & John (00:14.251)
We have recovered, well I have recovered. We both recovered. Yes, we both recovered. It was a great experience.

Cal MacD (00:18.606)
Yep, everyone’s good.

And join us tonight, the whole purpose of the show, our very good friends from our now official twin con, Alan and Hannah from Fleetwood Community Convention. Have I got the name right? It’s a bit of community comic. I knew there was an extra C word. Welcome to the show, guys. Pleasure to have you.

Allan And Hannah (00:35.412)
Community Comic Con, yeah.

Allan And Hannah (00:40.584)
you

Thank you for having us.

Cal MacD (00:44.982)
Alright, so I will at this point, I’ll hand over to Kathleen and John and you can start the story of how this has all come together.

Kathleen & John (00:53.173)
Yeah, yeah. I must say I’m really bad because we were at Epikon last year in September, which was, no, it’s not last year, it’s this year, it’s not 2026. Couple of months ago, you see what Ocon does to me here. Couple of months ago and it was lovely and there was this lovely gent standing by the table and we introduced ourselves and it was Alan and we heard all about Fleetwood.

community Comic Con and that’s why saying I’m terrible I didn’t know where Fleetwood is I do now know where Fleetwood is but our stories were so similar it was just lovely to meet you and lovely to find out about Fleetwood so for art people out there tell us a bit about how you started your Comic Con

Allan And Hannah (01:29.61)
You

Allan And Hannah (01:44.67)
Yeah, so me and Hannah, we run our own little business called Comic Book Frames and we travel all the way around the UK selling our frames. So we go to different Comic Cons up from Aberdeen down to London and stuff. And I used to work for Akrington Stanley Football Club. Who are they? Exactly.

Yeah and so that was a CIC when I first started and then became a charity afterwards and I always thought to myself why isn’t there like a Comic Con that’s a CIC? We’re traveling all over the country and we haven’t seen one yet so I jumped on the internet had a bit of a look and popped out and it’s like so there is one! So must be possible!

Kathleen & John (02:19.563)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (02:38.069)
Hey!

Cal MacD (02:39.992)
Hey.

Allan And Hannah (02:42.921)
So yeah, so it must be possible. it’s like, so I had a look what they were doing and it’s like, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking about what we could do. And it’s like, so we just decided to have a go at it and see what it’s like, because we’ve got lots of contacts in the Comic-Con industry. Cause like I said, we’re all over the place. So…

Kathleen & John (03:02.569)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (03:07.111)
Yeah, so we’ve got lots of like, Comic Con friends. dragged some of them on board. So quite a lot of those are now like directors and stuff as well. They’ve all got their own ideas and their own experiences. together it’s… So we’ve got, yeah, so we’ve got like nine directors who live all over the place. So for instance, you met Bob up at, so yeah, Epic Con. And Bob lives on the borders. So then we’ve got…

Kathleen & John (03:23.049)
Yes. Yes, yes. Brilliant. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (03:33.278)
Dennis who lives in Liverpool, we’ve got Paul and Helena that live in Manchester area and then Kim in Rochdale. So we’re dotted all over the place and we’re just outside Fleetwood and we were like right where shall we start, where shall we have this comic on that we’re going to become a CIC with and we had a look around and the only place local to us was Marine Hall really. There is

Kathleen & John (03:45.066)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (03:52.681)
Yes.

and

Allan And Hannah (04:02.109)
Cause Fleetwood is situated right next to Blackpool. So there are noisy neighbors. And whenever anybody says, where do you live? We usually say Blackpool. Yeah. People know where Blackpool is. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re a couple of towns along the coast of Blackpool. So we thought we could have it in Blackpool, but there’s already a Comic-Con there. We don’t want to step on people’s toes.

Kathleen & John (04:07.049)
I know.

Kathleen & John (04:13.215)
near Blackpool. Yeah, they know where it is. Yes.

Allan And Hannah (04:32.809)
So we decided, let’s go and have one in Fleetwood at Marine Hall. So we inquired about it and then… So it went on from there. on from there, Like I say, we got in contact with all our Comic Con friends and we’re like, we’ve got this idea. Do you want to jump on board? And they were like, yep.

Kathleen & John (04:47.273)
Yeah.

everyone that you asked was you know thrilled to.

Allan And Hannah (04:55.655)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re all like specialists in their own little subjects. So for instance, Kim and Chris. Like horror. They’re horror. So they run their own distant scream events. So they run their own horror convention in Haywood near Manchester, Greater Manchester way. So we’re like, we could have a horror section and ask Kim to run that. And then we could ask, you know, get Paul to

Kathleen & John (05:00.831)
Yes.

Kathleen & John (05:08.383)
Hmm.

Kathleen & John (05:20.457)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (05:25.281)
to look after the guests because he runs autostars, superstar autos. Yeah. So he’s like, he gets lots of signatures off all the celebrities and all that one thing. So yeah, so we just use everyone’s

Kathleen & John (05:35.453)
Yeah. And it’s… Yeah. And people’s interests and I think that’s what’s so great when you’re doing it as a community event rather than a commercial. The whole focus is different, isn’t it? Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (05:43.144)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (05:50.557)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (05:54.15)
It definitely is, because like I say, we go to a lot of the big Comic Cons, obviously big companies like Monopoly and Unleashed and yeah, yeah. So we go to the bigger bigger ones. But I don’t know this is the community part is like the character of it. I find it, think that it’s you know, has a more of a homely feel and everybody mucking in together.

Kathleen & John (06:15.498)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (06:23.389)
For instance, when we were setting up on the day, all the traders that came were picking up tables and setting up the area for us and stuff.

Cal MacD (06:23.404)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (06:23.848)
Yes.

Kathleen & John (06:32.84)
Yeah, everyone’s a part of it. Yeah, it’s different.

Allan And Hannah (06:35.793)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, from, yeah, definitely from the traders to the guests and stuff. Everybody like knew the story. Everybody knew that, you know, we’re not doing this for the profit. We’re doing this to give the community something to do for an event. And therefore people were like really on board with that. Even like traders who, you know, like us do big events all over the country were like, no, actually these guys are doing it for a different reason. That’s like mocking. We wanted to speak like really like activities based and have those events and those stuff.

Kathleen & John (06:41.096)
Yes.

Kathleen & John (06:47.08)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (06:57.758)
That’s it. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (07:01.299)
just going on for free. Fleetwood’s quite a deprived area, so it’s like we want people just to come down and have a nice day. So yeah, the focus I think definitely got people’s attention for sure.

Kathleen & John (07:03.679)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kathleen & John (07:13.0)
Yeah. And as you say, it’s based, the focus is on activities. You know, you’ll have vendors there and people selling stuff, but it’s more about people experiencing things, isn’t it? That’s what’s very similar about, you know, Ocon and Fleetwood.

Allan And Hannah (07:24.089)
Yeah, yeah, so we.

Allan And Hannah (07:29.321)
Yeah, so we had like, um, Ashley Lister, who’s a local author, horror author, who did a workshop, uh, free of charge, uh, who was, um, did a short story horror, horror story writing workshop and stuff. And, know, again, free of charge. And, and then this Peter with, hi, here we go. Axolotl. We always struggle how to say it. Yeah. The Mexican lizard.

Kathleen & John (07:57.213)
so do I. Yeah. Yes. I picture it in my head. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (07:58.441)
The Mexican Lizard. He did like a drawing workshop, didn’t he? Like how to draw the character. And then he did a separate like comic book writing workshop. And like I say, it just gave people like an opportunity to, you know, do these different creative, creative outlets. And it’s helped them as well because they’ve ended up, for instance, we had creatives on the couch, a TV broadcasting company there.

Cal MacD (07:59.604)
All right.

Kathleen & John (08:12.479)
minutes in.

Kathleen & John (08:25.702)
I love that idea, yeah.

Allan And Hannah (08:27.237)
And they then invited Ashley on to the Bolton studio to do one of the shows, one of the episodes with them and stuff. So things come out of it for them. So they’re volunteering, but it also helps them as well.

Kathleen & John (08:41.427)
Yeah.

Yeah, as all kind of really important community events do, you know, everyone’s getting it out, the volunteers, you know, you’re working so hard, but you must love it, you know, and to be so successful that first year must have been great. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (09:01.385)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we had that just David. We had about two and a half thousand people turn up to it. I mean, far off the… Yeah, it blew us out of the water. We were like, it will die down. We were like, it will die down. It was like, no, it just didn’t. no more people get to hear it. A free event. mean, we had security on just because it’s a free event and Comic Cons are a safe space. Our biggest worry was to have

Kathleen & John (09:09.694)
Yeah. I mean, that’s incredible. Yeah.

Cal MacD (09:12.396)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (09:18.84)
No, got busier.

Kathleen & John (09:28.968)
Mm.

Allan And Hannah (09:31.131)
like riff raffed turn up and try and spoil it you know because it’s free so we had security on as well and he loved it yeah he loved it but he like tapped me on the shoulder as i’m like doing the setup and stuff and says there’s a queue outside and said what he says there’s a queue outside of about 100 people it’s like half an hour it’s like there we go but yeah so it was really like

Kathleen & John (09:35.048)
Yeah, when you can’t. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (09:42.248)
Hahaha

Kathleen & John (09:53.702)
Ha ha ha!

Q! Q! We can only dream of two and a half thousand, yeah. I think, yeah.

Allan And Hannah (10:01.138)
Chuff with that. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (10:07.982)
Yeah, but again, I think that you’ve got issues like we were talking about before about the ferry to get over and things like that. More hurdles, I think. You’ve definitely got more hurdles than we have. I mean, for instance, even cosplay groups. I mean, we’re about an hour away from Manchester and an hour away from Liverpool.

Kathleen & John (10:22.734)
That’s it. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (10:34.139)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (10:35.72)
So there’s plenty of cosplay groups and stuff around for us. Yeah, so you’re always in our thoughts when we’re thinking about, we’ve got this barrier to jump over. it’s like, they’ve got bigger barriers to jump over. They’ve got bigger barriers to jump over. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (10:39.826)
and

Cal MacD (10:44.972)
You

Kathleen & John (10:47.338)
Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. We’ve got the minch. Yeah. But then again, I suppose it makes it, you know, we’re unique in different ways, you know, all different and other ways that kind of, yeah. So, but yeah, we will, we will move on from me moaning about the ferry and the costs because otherwise you’ll never hear the end of it.

But yeah, it’s a challenge. did, we did. We were looking at where people came from this year and it was a bit more from sort of further afield, which was lovely to see. You know, and we hope in time people will combine it with a holiday, you know, sort of take that October day to come because you were planning to come and have a holiday as well. yeah, very slow.

Cal MacD (11:16.333)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (11:24.311)
Okay.

Allan And Hannah (11:31.814)
Yeah. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (11:39.037)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (11:41.966)
Yeah, because it’s, it’s to what you, oh sorry, I was just going to say it’s interesting what you said about your first day, whether anyone, we were kind of, but with us, it was just like, cause this was just Comic-Con in the outer Hebrides was completely new waters for everyone. We were just like, will anyone turn up and cosplay? Like, and, but they turned up and it was, it’s like, as Rob the Klingon said, he’s amazed at the level of cosplay and the, you know, the quality he said was out of this world.

Allan And Hannah (11:42.248)
Yeah, we.

Kathleen & John (12:08.137)
Mm.

Kathleen & John (12:11.401)
Yes, you know, when you, we go back to that first year and just, you we sort of, you were very, very sort of quite well informed. You know, you’d been to Comic Cons and that. I think we went to one Comic Con and it was just, we kind of like this, you know, we’d only been to one. But this is the kind of stuff we like. So, you know, and then slowly got volunteers and we’re just so lucky that, you know, and we thought, OK.

Cal MacD (12:28.077)
You

Kathleen & John (12:40.029)
handful of volunteers, it was about 10 or 12 at that time, wasn’t it? And we thought, but is anyone else gonna come? You know, we honestly, absolutely had no idea if it was just going to be this complete, you know, ghost town with tumbleweeds. yeah, no, it was terrific. I don’t think even after you’re, you know, you do more, that first one will have a special place, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (12:48.065)
Yeah. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (12:54.664)
Thank

Allan And Hannah (13:04.946)
Yeah, even though we had the tables. Yeah, because the venue didn’t have enough tables, so we had to rent some of the tables, but then the venue didn’t have enough space for us to… No, it wasn’t open the day before, or they had an event on.

Kathleen & John (13:17.79)
yeah, yeah.

Kathleen & John (13:25.545)
the challenges, yeah, yeah.

Allan And Hannah (13:27.4)
But we had to, yeah, get to hire a van, hire a van, go and pick the tables and then load the, well, the tables got dropped off to us. So then we had to put them in the van, which is fine. Cause the guy that gave us, hired the tables helped us. But then we had to then unload them all at the start of the event and then load them all back in the van at the end of the and then take them out the van because the table guy was coming after we had to have the van back. So we like loaded and unloaded that van.

several times several times and then yeah but that’s the thing that people don’t see though that people don’t see like the the again they think the comic con ends on at five o’clock or whatever and that’s it and everybody goes home and it’s like yeah yeah that’s it

Kathleen & John (13:56.221)
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s those. Yeah.

Yes. And then little mice come and they turned into footmen and they clear everything up. Yeah. And that’s the hard work. I’m sure people laugh at me because I get obsessive about it. But, the whole set up and breakdown is hard work. luckily… Did it surprise you about how much work was involved? Because obviously you had some idea.

Cal MacD (14:12.013)
Thanks for

Cal MacD (14:26.391)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (14:28.242)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (14:36.263)
being attendees and other things, but did you just get sort of a side swipe like we did by thinking, blimey, there’s a lot of this stuff to do.

Allan And Hannah (14:37.915)
Yeah, so

Cal MacD (14:42.636)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (14:43.272)
Yeah, well, yeah, definitely because we’re traders. we break, we set up and break down, but this is on a, this is on another level. It’s like, luckily we, we had a brilliant team of people that did their own little sections. we were, and it was just a case of just making sure everybody knew what they were doing. Yeah. So the setup was worked and it was fine, wasn’t it? was mainly just me and you the day after having a total late of fire.

Kathleen & John (14:53.757)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (15:13.159)
mean, like, everything. Again, we’re doing this man again. Yeah. But his brother came and helped and like, brother’s got a bad…

Kathleen & John (15:15.803)
Yeah. And I think there’s no avoiding that, there? It just has to be done and we’ll get better at it. yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So for people who didn’t get to fleet with this year, can you just talk us through what you had and how the day structured? hello. we lost them.

Cal MacD (15:40.67)
Ooh, we’ve lost them.

I think if they just refresh they should come back and no problem. The wonders of the internet.

Kathleen & John (15:47.928)
yeah.

Cal MacD (15:56.334)
Okay, shall we? Awkward silence or shall we? there we go. They’re back.

Cal MacD (16:05.591)
Sorry, I think the hamster in someone’s internet kind of had a bit of a fit there. So John, you were about to ask something.

Allan And Hannah (16:10.657)
You

Kathleen & John (16:11.506)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (16:15.379)
Did you hear the questions? Yeah. For people who didn’t get to Fleetwood this year, can you just talk us through what you had there and the kind of stuff that went on?

Allan And Hannah (16:27.647)
Yep, yeah, so like Hannah said, we wanted to be a little bit more interactive with what we did. So as well as having obviously we had three workshops, the two comic ones and the book writing. But we also had like a scavenger hunt quiz as well. So we’d have 10 things dotted all the way around the comic con.

Kathleen & John (16:48.787)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (16:55.401)
And then it was free for people to come along. They got a little worksheet and they go around and they find the little plaques that we had. And on the back of the plaque, there was two questions. One was a question in writing and one was a picture one for younger people. You can tell I’m a teacher and I think about this dual coding stuff. That was one of my responsibilities. And the event was actually like…

Kathleen & John (17:15.369)
Yeah. Yeah. Very handy.

Allan And Hannah (17:22.571)
funnily enough just by coincidence on national lollipop day if you didn’t know there was a thing there is so we brought about a thousand ish lollipops so we just gave lollipops if you can believe it everybody had lollipops lollipops lollipops lollipops yeah yeah so we had yeah we had that going and we also had the cosplayer bingo so again on the other side of the sheet we had like a

Kathleen & John (17:26.525)
wow, a thousand.

Cal MacD (17:37.997)
You

Kathleen & John (17:39.689)
That is amazing.

Allan And Hannah (17:52.025)
Picture of Batman so you had to then go and find a batman get a photograph within or a stormtrooper a Stormtrooper go and get a picture with stormtrooper. We had either another comic-con friend of ours that dresses as a mermaid So we had her and she’s like propped up on a like a trolley thing and she’d made loads and loads

Kathleen & John (17:57.834)
that’s actually what I brilliant idea.

Kathleen & John (18:09.501)
tour.

Kathleen & John (18:14.032)
instead of… …stride.

Cal MacD (18:14.573)
Ha ha ha!

Allan And Hannah (18:16.447)
Yeah, she’d made loads and loads and I don’t know how many but she would tell you of like friendship bracelets little like beads like octopus like Toys and stuff that giving out and the kids love that and then she was giving them away. Yeah, just giving them away So like that there you go type things the kids up and then her husband Tony is a DJ and so he had music on all day and We had yeah, so we also had

Kathleen & John (18:21.974)
wow, handing them out, lovely.

No.

Kathleen & John (18:39.24)
Fantastic.

Allan And Hannah (18:45.173)
What’s his name? Black Lace. Dean Michael. Dean Michael from Black Lace. So Agadu, the Konga, he did, he sung the Konga and we had the cosplayers do the Konga all the way around the Comic-Con and then finish off on the steps. He did Agadu, didn’t he? He sung Agadu and they were all doing Agadu.

Cal MacD (18:52.971)
All right.

Kathleen & John (18:53.44)
Amazing. Oh no.

Kathleen & John (19:03.432)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (19:03.597)
All right

Allan And Hannah (19:14.037)
the dance routine to it. Yeah. And then we talked about Kim and Chris earlier on the who do the Heywood Horicon. They did a scare zone for us. So we wrote, we wrote in about 50 different volunteers to dress up as zombies on the day. Yeah. And then filled like the side of Marine Hall with like a scare zone to like challenge people to try and like walk through the quarantine zone and fleet has been infected and like, you brave enough to go through the quarantine zone? Because, because we’re

Kathleen & John (19:14.151)
Bye.

Kathleen & John (19:22.792)
Yes, lovely.

Kathleen & John (19:33.638)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (19:41.532)
That is so cool.

Allan And Hannah (19:43.702)
Because we were so close to Blackpool as well, there was a few volunteers that volunteer at the Pleasure Beach and there’s a horror passage to Terrorist Code and some of them work there on the make-up so they do the make-up and they’re actual professional Scare actors and they volunteered and they did the other volunteers make-ups for each other and stuff so yeah.

Kathleen & John (19:46.435)
is.

Kathleen & John (19:50.822)
Yes.

Kathleen & John (19:59.196)
That is fantastic. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (20:06.299)
was amazing, And tell me, was it just a different section and did people, you know, the audience members, you participants just walk through and did people just sort of look scary at them?

Allan And Hannah (20:20.831)
Yeah so we had a fence saying yeah yeah yeah yeah we had a little fence where there were soldiers on the fence so that you knew you was going into the horror zone so little jaw blobs could have gone in and then go what is going on here yeah we also had

Kathleen & John (20:23.932)
I didn’t mean it sounded not much, I just said that’s brilliant.

Kathleen & John (20:35.981)
Yeah, yeah. Accidentally gone there. Yeah. I just came for the lollipop.

Allan And Hannah (20:46.655)
We also had Murder House Production, is one of the best horror cosplay groups in the UK. They came up as well. They were raising money for Birmingham Children’s Hospital. So they come up, voluntary as well, and come up and they absolutely bust it as well, they? Because they’re just amazing and they travel all the way around the UK doing what they do.

Kathleen & John (20:53.54)
huh.

Kathleen & John (21:02.056)
lovely, yeah.

Kathleen & John (21:09.436)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (21:15.739)
brilliance in it. We had Thornton Cleveley’s board game club so there Will is one of our directors and when he runs that every Thursday night he came down with loads of his different games and then had those going on some of his members coming down to play games and show people how to play the different games and those sorts of things. Gelson’s gimmicks. Gelson’s gimmicks with like retro games and arcade games so we have who’s the next colleague of mine

Kathleen & John (21:15.804)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (21:24.249)
and then

Kathleen & John (21:31.069)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kathleen & John (21:40.082)
I love you.

Allan And Hannah (21:44.633)
James who just came and like ripped it all up. There’s like a dance, you know, one of the dance machines and all sorts of different things. Guitar Hero, retro games as well. So much. So far as cosplay groups, we had a couple of Star Wars cosplay groups. Yeah. So we must have definitely misfit to a Star Wars cosplay group. Yeah. And they had a couple of like…

Cal MacD (21:54.317)
Anyway.

Kathleen & John (21:57.192)
Okay.

Kathleen & John (22:06.899)
Hooray!

Allan And Hannah (22:09.813)
We set up, they, for people to take pictures with. We had the Blackpool Mandalorian. He had his own. We had Dabrush, who is the Dalek creator. I mistakenly called him a Dalek. And he was like, I am not a Dalek. I was like, OK. OK. I like Star Wars. I like Star Wars.

Kathleen & John (22:12.998)
Yeah, yeah. Nice. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (22:20.359)
Yes.

Cal MacD (22:21.035)
You

Kathleen & John (22:30.834)
Hahaha

Okay, yeah.

Cal MacD (22:37.173)
Hahaha.

Kathleen & John (22:38.13)
No, it’s worse, it’s worse!

Allan And Hannah (22:40.777)
Yeah, so yeah, but yeah, come up and did his own little bit as well. taking pictures of that and yeah, like I say, there were lots of people there that just won’t have ever experienced a Comic Con, but because we’ve we’ve fixed so many different activities in that there’s definitely people that are like, oh, wait a minute, what’s this about? And then, like I say, it’s about getting people involved. Yeah, and I mean guests as well. We had 10 guests. had, for instance, had… Hacker T Dog. Hacker T Dog, who’s the… presenter.

Kathleen & John (22:42.888)
you

Kathleen & John (22:52.924)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (23:09.377)
He’s the latest Blue Peter presenter, Hackety Dog, with his puppeteer, Phil Fletcher. He was there as well. else have we… I’ve got Rhys Ryan. Rhys Ryan who is the actor in Bohog and the director of Bohog, Craig Quinn. Tiddler. The little boy that’s the voice of the Tiddler, have you watched that at Christmas? The Julia Donnison. Julia Donnison, yeah.

Cal MacD (23:12.011)
Alright.

Kathleen & John (23:12.53)
Ow!

Kathleen & John (23:32.656)
Yeah, yeah, I remember another book. yeah, fantastic.

Allan And Hannah (23:36.564)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So who wrote Gruffalo? Yeah, she did Tiddler and then at Christmas there was a Christmas special on and the lad who did the voice of Tiddler. Ruben. Yeah, Ruben. Ruben lives in the next town from Fleetwood. Literally like, come on down in his coat, like, yeah, I’ll come down with you. So he loved it. He loved it. And then Brian Jermais.

Kathleen & John (23:46.952)
Did the

Kathleen & John (23:53.051)
Aw, lovely, yeah.

Kathleen & John (23:58.406)
it’s lovely. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (24:02.585)
Ranger Mike’s baby dinosaurs. He’s puppet baby dinosaurs. So he was walking around with them all day. But yeah, but the things we did to get that, I mean, they did it all free. But in return, we’d turn around and say, we’ll give you a table, for instance. For instance, Ranger Mike, he also sells dinosaur toys and stuff. So we said, do you know what? If we give you a table, will you do?

Kathleen & John (24:14.577)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (24:20.525)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (24:25.861)
Yes. Right.

Allan And Hannah (24:31.947)
just a bring color for baby dinosaurs. Yeah, and he did it all day long didn’t he? And he’s been on that creative on the couch as well since. Yeah. Yeah, like people coming, know, getting things off.

Kathleen & John (24:40.743)
So it just, that’s the opportunities that people get from it that make it so worthwhile.

Allan And Hannah (24:47.125)
Yeah, for instance, Ali, one of the cosplayers that we use for other local events that we do and stuff. She’d never done any presenting or anything before. She did our cosplay competition and she absolutely loved it, didn’t she? Yeah, she’s really, really nervous about it. but she bossed And were like, you can do it. And then, yeah, like I say, the confidence it gave her and she’s talking about training to be a teacher and all that sort of stuff. So the experience actually that that gave.

Kathleen & John (25:03.377)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (25:12.903)
Bye.

Allan And Hannah (25:14.911)
Ali, who is a young person in the community that wouldn’t have the opportunity if it wasn’t provided to her.

Kathleen & John (25:20.987)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (25:24.391)
I think that’s the important thing about it. It’s not just… It is a good time. Everyone has a wonderful time. But it’s so much more significant than that. You know, when you think of the impact on people’s self-confidence and learning new skills, meeting new people, is… It really… All those things really, really matter so much, don’t they?

Allan And Hannah (25:35.306)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (25:41.985)
Yep.

Allan And Hannah (25:46.762)
Yeah, opportunities and us being really like a platform for other people to stand on and say, look what we can do, look what can I do. Which is like spiralled into the Lancashire Cosplay Prop Makers group as well, which is another group of people that like have come together in part because of Fleetwood who now are going out and doing all sorts of jobs in, you know, in and across Lancashire and beyond.

Kathleen & John (25:53.745)
That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (25:56.366)
Yeah. And it’s normally that you’ve.

Cal MacD (26:04.299)
Okay.

Kathleen & John (26:05.031)
I have to admit.

Kathleen & John (26:14.885)
That’s incredible. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (26:16.033)
The staff who does that and is doing a fantastic job, yeah, popping up at different events and things like that. And like I say, it’s the spiral effect that it’s had.

Cal MacD (26:20.609)
Yeah, alright.

Kathleen & John (26:24.103)
Yeah, that’s feeds into this. That’s it, it gets bigger each time, you know, as people learn and they get ideas.

Cal MacD (26:25.409)
And it’s that, I, sorry, And it’s that like you were saying, there being a, sorry, with there being a deprived area as well, you’re giving people who don’t have the, they can’t go to the big con. Now they’ve got some kind of con and they can meet a few authors. Like, it’s like what Tanya was saying, that’s why I go to all these cons to give like, you know, people who want to put their art out there. And so you’re providing that opportunity for folk. I know it’s like.

Allan And Hannah (26:30.943)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (26:40.906)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (26:53.399)
A lot of folk think it is dressing up in silly costumes. Yeah, it’s a part of it, but there’s also that connection part, which is the big thing behind it all.

Allan And Hannah (27:02.815)
Yeah, and people making new friends and stuff because again that that’s what Comic-Con is for you but you make friends at Comic-Con and again so the amount of people that are now in touch with each other and stuff and so if we have like a mini event or we’re helping out another Comic-Con local Comic-Con or something people will get together and bring each other up are you coming along yeah yeah we’ll come along and stuff yeah it’s better

Kathleen & John (27:09.413)
Yes.

Kathleen & John (27:16.391)
Thank

Kathleen & John (27:27.909)
Yes, you’ve created a family. It’s sort of like we have this extended family now across the upper areas.

Cal MacD (27:33.345)
Yeah, it’s like the story of PJ from that first comic-con and now he’s part of the team, almost PJ. That was just a magnificent story.

Allan And Hannah (27:34.005)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (27:41.413)
Yeah, yeah. You see people who, you know, who came, attended the first and now they’re helping. you know, it’s just great. Yeah. So tell us about the activities because, and you’re hoping to have a Comic Con again next year, but because you make it a free event, it’s that fundraising.

Allan And Hannah (27:43.637)
Get.

Allan And Hannah (27:50.763)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (28:00.15)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (28:03.617)
Yeah, it’s that fundraising because our entire event for everything from marketing down to renting the tables and everything was just around £6,500 it was. So what we need to do is raise £2,500 before Christmas, which that would pay for the core funding, so the venue, the insurance.

the first aid and security that would pay for pay for all that, which then gives us everything else will then follow from trader tables will then pay for everything else and stuff like that. So and we also use a lot of sponsorships as well. we get we had a few businesses coming and turn and say, can we sponsor, for instance, healthier Fleetwood came in and said, can we sponsor the scavenger hunt? Yeah.

So for a hundred pound, they give a hundred pound, we put the logo on and whenever we advertise them and stuff like that. we’ve got ideas. Pay for the lollipops and the cards and the stands. Yeah. So, so.

Kathleen & John (29:01.895)
Yeah.

Brilliant.

Yes.

Just thinking a thousand lollipops, yeah. It does come out in the air. Yeah, yeah. But what a wonderful way for them to be able to give back to the community as well, because they must be looking for really, you know, really meaningful ways to contribute. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (29:24.827)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (29:31.017)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was really good to see that so many. I mean, we’ve just started our big Christmas raffle and the amount of companies, even local ones that wasn’t involved with the Comic-Con to start with, have donated things. I mean, like the local gym, the local sports center. couple of Yeah, a couple of passes there.

Kathleen & John (29:50.287)
Amazing.

Allan And Hannah (29:59.55)
What else have we got? We’ve got all sorts. So Creative on the couch again, they’ve turned around and said, you can come to our Bolton studios and see behind the scenes how we run the show and stuff and also give you a goody bag. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So things like that. And Distance Scream events again, they’ve given tickets away to their events and yeah, lots of different stuff that people have given away and we’re like, wow, thanks.

Kathleen & John (30:09.255)
Cool, yeah

guest pause kind of thing.

Kathleen & John (30:25.798)
Yeah. So tell me, with these wonderful gifts, when can I buy some raffle tickets?

Allan And Hannah (30:29.099)
So.

Allan And Hannah (30:35.393)
Well, well who’s in charge of the raffle tickets who does the board game club because it’s like well you’re gonna have to take control of this because Yeah, I’ve got too much going on at the minute and he’s bossing it at the minute Yeah, he’s just got the tickets we’ve gotten yesterday debate Yeah, so we’ve got the yesterday tickets yesterday. So we’re gonna do a big post on how you can apply and get your tickets Yeah, but we’re going to do it via

Kathleen & John (30:38.822)
you

Kathleen & John (30:45.11)
Yeah

We have a will as well!

Allan And Hannah (31:04.725)
So you can get them obviously physically, but we’re also going to find out a way where it probably via PayPal. Yeah, we normally do, yeah, free PayPal. So watch our Facebook page really. We’ll figure out how we’re going to do it. So people from a phone. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (31:13.785)
Yeah

Kathleen & John (31:18.372)
Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. And then we will copy you next year, you know, about you will wait for you to work that bit out because we just did physical things. And then we’ll we’ll steal the entire idea. yeah, that’s it. Exactly. We’ll share because we’re twins. Yes. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (31:27.945)
Yeah, where that be? then, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah, well, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? That’s what it’s all about. It’s about like saying, that works. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s about sharing and saying, that works. Have you tried doing this? Have you tried doing that? Have you tried applying for this funding, that funding and stuff like we were talking about in Glasgow? Yeah, it was it’s just about working together where

Cal MacD (31:32.557)
You

Kathleen & John (31:45.926)
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (31:57.008)
very much.

Allan And Hannah (31:57.76)
down here the Comic Cons, there’s a few Comic Cons that work together but some are just all by themselves and they’re big companies and stuff they don’t need little… Their purpose is different isn’t it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kathleen & John (32:06.842)
Sure.

It’s very different. yeah, yeah. That’s it. And I think that’s people maybe don’t realize how different a community comic con is from a kind of official company comic con completely different experience and approach.

Cal MacD (32:22.038)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (32:22.33)
is from a normal yeah yeah

Yeah, yeah, I think you have to go to community comic con to see the difference between like a commercial, know, these commercial ones and these community ones.

Kathleen & John (32:43.726)
Yeah. If people want to donate, you’ve got a mechanism for them to do that as well, think, haven’t you?

Allan And Hannah (32:46.549)
But how?

Allan And Hannah (32:50.725)
Yeah, yeah. So if you’ve got jump onto our Facebook page, there will be a link right at the top to our GoFundMe page. We’ve got a GoFundMe page on there and people can donate money to there. So like we say, we’re waiting until Christmas to see whether we can hit that two and a half thousand. We have got a grant in at the minute that we’ve got our fingers crossed. We’re supposed to hear this week, but we haven’t heard yet. So it’s like,

Kathleen & John (33:17.722)
Yeah, it’s always sweaty, it? absolutely. And you either get an email or a letter and then you’re too scared to actually open it.

Allan And Hannah (33:20.521)
And yeah, yeah, yeah, just saying.

Allan And Hannah (33:27.361)
Yeah, you’re like, oh, emails come through with it. Oh no, it isn’t. It’s not something else. They just sell me something. So yeah, it’s just waiting for that really. If that comes through, we’d definitely go ahead with it and stuff. If not. If it doesn’t, got, we’ll probably then make it like a biannual event. We’ll do it in 2027 and then. A round. Yeah, definitely. And we’ll still be in the community doing

Kathleen & John (33:35.514)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (33:42.724)
Yeah. Yeah.

You’ll still be around.

Allan And Hannah (33:56.994)
probably pop-up workshops and stuff around. just keep keeping our name out there and keeping the wave going. But how did your event go? Sorry, how did your event go?

Kathleen & John (33:58.138)
Yeah. Exactly.

Kathleen & John (34:03.174)
That’s it. Yeah.

It went very well this year. It was really, really good. About the same amount of people, but there was much more participation in the workshops and the talks, which we think were really good. We had a good strong program. I was going say a good strong program this year. We have a good strong program every year, but it felt especially good this year. We had stuff going on.

sort of diversity of stuff. Yeah, so depending on different ages and different interests, you know, there was something for everybody because getting that balance when you’re just doing it in one day is really hard and you’re never going to please everybody because they’re going to have to make a choice between going to this event or that talk or something. Yeah, but it seemed to work. It’s still absolutely worth doing. It’s, I have to say, just kind of leaping back to what we were saying before about

Allan And Hannah (34:46.102)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (34:53.601)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (35:05.574)
whether you do it next year or when it becomes biannual, we thought at the beginning, year between events is bags of time. It’s not. really isn’t. As soon as one finishes, you seem to be back on the looking at the next one.

Cal MacD (35:13.837)
It’s not…

Allan And Hannah (35:14.377)
No it isn’t. No it really isn’t.

Allan And Hannah (35:21.045)
back onto it again. Yeah.

Cal MacD (35:21.205)
Yeah. Like, like it honestly feels like it’s just yesterday those first meetings back in January. I can’t believe we’re sitting here and it’s all done already.

Kathleen & John (35:30.298)
Exactly. Yeah. The year just sort of goes so quickly as well when you’re sort of planning. And of course we do, we all love it. We’re addicted to it, know, because we just do it. But it is, it’s that work and it’s the little things and each year that gets better. You know, you’ve got to go through that process. Then I think also, and I’m sure it’d be the same with you, you kind of try and do more each year, which kind of…

means you’re back in the same place as you were before that experience has been knocked away by all the extra stuff you’re doing.

Cal MacD (35:58.945)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (36:08.171)
Yeah, I mean, when we went to the Epic Con, did you see the school pictures that they had? Well, the school picture competition. We was like, yeah, write that down. It’s like, that is a brilliant idea. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (36:17.83)
Yes, yes, yes. Brilliant. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we actually stole one of their ideas because they had a people’s choice thing, because we’ve always had a competition for people’s choice. That’s a good thought. So we stole that had that this year. And there were so many folks, know, there were a lot of who went there and they loved the opportunity of making that choice. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a worthy winner.

Cal MacD (36:21.879)
Thanks.

Allan And Hannah (36:34.817)
Yeah. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (36:43.873)
Opportunity to put in the vote.

Kathleen & John (36:47.622)
You so you’ll find you’ll have all these extra ideas. I think that’s what’s so lovely. It was just so nice being at Epikon. You get so many ideas and meeting you guys there as well. was just terrific. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (37:02.113)
Yeah, really enjoyed it. He disappeared for hours and I was stood because I was manning the stall and he, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob came and was like, I’m going to go and steal Alan. I was like, okay. And then like an hour later I was like, I’m still stood here doing the table and the you do. Yeah, we was having coffee. And at one point I said, so I was like, could really do the break. I was working the table.

Kathleen & John (37:09.644)
I didn’t even realize!

Kathleen & John (37:17.7)
But we haven’t coffee! We do apologize.

Kathleen & John (37:30.95)
So next year we will have coffee. Yeah, we’ll make a point of that.

Allan And Hannah (37:33.762)
Yes, we’ll switch it round, I’ll abandon him. I blame Bob, he’s not here so he can’t defend himself. I blame Bob. That’s another thing, Bob said that he’s looking into making you a little jingle for you as well. So we have our own little jingle that he made. Come and join the fun, athlete would come and can’t.

Kathleen & John (37:40.652)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s right.

Cal MacD (37:40.653)
You

Kathleen & John (37:52.912)
Ooh! Top man! Are you gonna sing it for us now?

Cal MacD (37:56.565)
Alright.

Allan And Hannah (38:03.225)
and I’d get your cosplay and I played with Comic Con yeah people were actually yeah yeah it is an earworm because people were actually asking the DJ to put it on at the Comic Con can you put that tune on? he’s like yep so yeah he played it several times it’s like so and somebody actually came over and said do you have that tune that you can send it me?

Kathleen & John (38:08.411)
Ha

Kathleen & John (38:19.429)
Brilliant.

Allan And Hannah (38:30.335)
Why would you want it said? Yes, we can do it. But yeah, yeah, it’s a good, it’s a good one, it’s Bob. But yeah.

Cal MacD (38:30.477)
You

Kathleen & John (38:32.133)
Yeah, it can be people’s ringtones. You can sell it for 99p.

Kathleen & John (38:42.659)
Yeah, that’s grand, yeah. And you were sort of saying, you know, you do think, tell me more, I’m still interested in this prop group that you mentioned. Yeah, tell us more.

Allan And Hannah (38:54.561)
So yeah, so Lancashire Cosplayers and Prop Makers. So it started off as a Facebook group, but then we had like a number of cosplayers who were local, who like, we got together didn’t we? So there’s Sav who runs it, Sav runs it basically. But there’s also James and Ali, you know, who are the regular ones who come all the time.

to all our mini events or if we’re a promo at somebody else’s event or if we’re doing anything that we’re doing, they’ll jump on. And we thought, this is a good idea. So we now use the Facebook page for other events, local events. For instance, we had Saint Anne’s Film Festival wanted a couple of cosplayers. So what they do is then they go onto the Lancashire Cosplayers and Prop Makers Facebook group.

Kathleen & John (39:45.86)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (39:54.05)
Put down, we need some cosplayers, there anybody available? And then Sav goes through and asks people basically. That’s how it And then they do it. So it’s no legwork for us. So it’s less legwork for us to do. But then they get to do what they enjoy doing and they get to help the rest of the community out.

Kathleen & John (40:02.917)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (40:08.302)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (40:15.566)
Enjoy doing. Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (40:16.321)
Mm-hmm.

Allan And Hannah (40:18.497)
and stuff. And they’re exploring ideas like going into hospitals and things like that now aren’t they? Like Sal’s been contacted which he’s tried to set up before but because of the Lancashire cosplayers and because like I say they’re going around to loads of different events now it looks like that this Christmas we’ll be going to like local like hospitals and things like that so you know cosplayed and stuff which is something he’s wanted to do for ages and you know he’s a brilliant lad and yeah.

Kathleen & John (40:23.193)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (40:37.057)
That’s brilliant. is terrific. For ages, And it’s just suddenly there’s enough people to do it. Yeah, that’s fantastic.

Allan And Hannah (40:48.162)
To do it. Yeah. And it’s just about getting, getting the group together, grouping them together and letting them know that these opportunities out there and people want or are after a couple of cosplayers and so, so for instance, we’ll put them through the DBS. So we’ll put them through the DBS and stuff like that. And things like even Sky Vistral, Perial. So, so the Drone Man.

Kathleen & John (40:54.223)
Mm. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (41:16.033)
So somebody did a drone, had a drone and stuff. we, and he was just setting up his business. So we ended up paying for his insurance. We were telling him, said, do you know what? We’ll pay for your insurance if you can do a couple of like pictures and promos for us and stuff. So he’s done that. And now he’s making it into his own little business, doing weddings and stuff like that and advertising and stuff. So again, it’s helping saying, right, who needs help?

Kathleen & John (41:17.221)
I

Kathleen & John (41:32.549)
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (41:38.949)
Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And by helping each other, that reciprocity, you know, coming together and getting something out of it and then they go on and help someone else and help someone else. Yeah. Yeah. That’s fantastic.

Allan And Hannah (41:45.781)
promoting yourself on using us as a platform.

Allan And Hannah (41:58.946)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because, but it was easy for us because the Comic Con community are all like that anyway. Everybody in the Comic Con community are excellent at like working together and helping each other out. If somebody says somebody needs help, they’ll go and help them and stuff. So yeah, so it was easy enough to do, especially because again, we’re only like I say, an hour away from Manchester and an hour away from Liverpool. So.

Kathleen & John (42:08.96)
Brilliant.

Kathleen & John (42:21.999)
Mm.

Cal MacD (42:28.01)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (42:28.971)
There’s already some that all people are, yeah, people already around it.

Kathleen & John (42:31.941)
Yeah.

So without any spoilers then, have you got plans for next year? If you do it next year, have you got things in your mind already thinking, oh, I wouldn’t mind trying that this year.

Allan And Hannah (42:46.049)
well I did the I I booked the guest and Paul looked after the guests this year just gone but if if we were gonna do it the next year then Paul will definitely book the guest which he’s got a bit of a network and stuff so I’ll leave him completely up to that and I’m sure he’s got some good ideas he wants to do we want you to do wrestling

Kathleen & John (43:06.701)
Okay. that.

Allan And Hannah (43:15.617)
this year, but, we had it booked and everything, however, it got, had to get cancelled because again, we needed a, what’s called a 10 from the council, temporary event notice because it was, it, yeah, it was on, it was on, it wasn’t on private land. was outside. yeah. And it just become all complicated. It was all a bit too late to start up.

Kathleen & John (43:17.094)
All right.

Kathleen & John (43:29.669)
huh.

Kathleen & John (43:39.429)
Okay. Oops. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (43:44.31)
So if obviously we’d started earlier we would have yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so it was possible But it was just too short notice to determine to find out the get all that to sort it sorted out So so we’re probably gone. Yeah Yeah, get some wrestling going on. Yeah. Yeah

Cal MacD (43:45.058)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (43:45.061)
That’s the thing, isn’t it? But you learn. You learn.

Kathleen & John (43:58.981)
So definitely next year. Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (44:01.218)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (44:03.843)
Yeah, Cal,

Cal MacD (44:06.157)
There’s a few people have come up to me and said that already to me about a few folks saying with any chance so there could be some wrestling related stuff. So that’s why we’re doing that segment on the podcast. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (44:14.949)
You see that’s just that whole thing is just it’s yeah, I know nothing nothing about it

Cal MacD (44:21.237)
I’m aware of a lot of people on the island who like wrestling, so there’s definitely an appetite there for it.

Kathleen & John (44:28.625)
You think of two volunteers who will actually do the wrestling?

Allan And Hannah (44:28.993)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (44:32.455)
Toodle.

Kathleen & John (44:34.436)
Yeah, yeah get the sports center on board yeah

Allan And Hannah (44:35.166)
there’s a research, yeah trying to see if there’s Wrestling groups.

Cal MacD (44:36.981)
That could, that’s any disputes.

Well, the way Hedoward’s behaving about winning the quiz, I think he wants to get into some wrestling. He’s been carried on.

Kathleen & John (44:47.684)
Okay we can nominate him.

Cal MacD (44:50.517)
Yes.

Allan And Hannah (44:54.913)
But yeah, yeah, but the thing is at the minute we’re just at the stage of getting that two and a half thousand. Then it’s a case of, and then it’s a case of, right, what can we do this year? then you’d really, so it’s really till Christmas all focus on getting that two and a half thousand and then, and then the rest really paid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we’ll go, right, what else can we get?

Kathleen & John (45:04.148)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (45:08.824)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (45:16.312)
Yeah. And then you let yourself sink.

Allan And Hannah (45:24.457)
imposed with because again we want what we could at least get a five yeah five or six yeah so we’ll see well where that goes but we’ve also got Thornton Cleaver’s board game club happening so that happens every Thursday night so Will’s there now he runs Thornton Cleaver’s board game club and we pay for the

Kathleen & John (45:27.012)
I’m sure you’ll do it and we’ll be looking out to buy raffle tickets.

Kathleen & John (45:38.582)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, cool.

Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (45:54.177)
venue once a month at the end of the month so it makes it free because usually it’s like three pound to get involved and they have about 20 25 yeah so they have about 20 25 people turn up each week to the board game club so it’s a decent number and he’s he’s been running the club again club for about 10 years hasn’t it and so it’s established it’s things so we’re trying to get his numbers up as well by

Kathleen & John (45:58.606)
Huh?

Cal MacD (46:02.551)
Yeah, let’s, yeah.

Kathleen & John (46:02.784)
each so you’re those costs.

Kathleen & John (46:16.035)
Wow. Yeah.

Cal MacD (46:22.497)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (46:22.824)
advertising for him and stuff and helping him out that way. And he’s helping us out by raising money and stuff. So again, it’s that working together type thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (46:26.584)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (46:31.44)
It’s partnership, yeah, it’s so close, yes.

Cal MacD (46:32.737)
Yeah, it’s similar to what we have with Gateway Nerds. That is same idea.

Kathleen & John (46:38.766)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (46:41.601)
And it was just as abused.

Kathleen & John (46:42.498)
You see, there are similarities in that about how one connects with people and partners.

Allan And Hannah (46:42.549)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (46:51.028)
Definitely. mean, like I say, was so chuffed when I was like researching and I looked and I found there was another CIC Comic Con. And now there is another one after us as well. So Luton Comic Con. So Luton Comic Con, they’re a CIC. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re a Comic Con now.

Cal MacD (46:51.053)
I’m just kidding.

Kathleen & John (47:04.452)
Good luck.

Cal MacD (47:05.685)
All right.

Kathleen & John (47:07.722)
Lute and that’s the gammist takes that out. Yeah.

Cal MacD (47:09.901)
So let’s go in.

Cal MacD (47:14.59)
Going all the way north to south now, all these community cons.

Allan And Hannah (47:14.89)
Triplet.

Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Yeah, it starts up north and then you exit way down. Yeah. And Milton Keynes are thinking about it, aren’t they? And they want to have a little bit of a discussion about whether, how to do it and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (47:18.058)
Yeah!

And there, another spig.

Okay. Yeah. This is… Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing, isn’t it? You know, I don’t think we’d realised that it wasn’t a typical thing. I don’t think it had even occurred to This is our ignorance. Yes, our ignorance. It seemed the way to actually do it was feasible. So we just, we went for it. But not because we were informed or because we were great thinkers, just because…

Cal MacD (47:30.925)
Yeah.

and

Cal MacD (47:47.671)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (47:48.128)
Yeah. Did it that way.

Kathleen & John (47:56.428)
Yeah, that seems about right. We’ll do that. Sometimes you think you have to do it. You just have to grasp it and go for it. Otherwise you end up just planning for years doing nothing. That’s it. So file an error. At least you’re moving forward.

Cal MacD (48:09.269)
and

Yeah. And it’s just through doing this podcast and the people I’ve spoken to, know, like authors and all that, there’s an appetite from them for community cons as well. Because they’re saying they feel like they’ve lost that connection to the people kind of with all the big cons. It’s just, you know, autograph and photograph farms there a bit. I mean, that’s great. Who doesn’t want to get the… But a lot of these creatives, they are craving a bit more of a small feel, that they can get a good connection going with the people.

Kathleen & John (48:23.683)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (48:27.299)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (48:40.068)
Very much. We always get good feedback from guests specifically on that, that it does give them an opportunity to get out there and infuse about the things that they love. They’ve been infusing why you got them into it. Rather than sitting in a green room and then coming out for 10 minutes and then going back again.

Allan And Hannah (49:05.344)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (49:09.72)
So yeah, I think that’s It’s got so much more warmth. Yeah. That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (49:09.85)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. they feel part of it. They are actually part of the Comic Con instead of just, we’ll wheel them out and wheel them intact thing and they, you know, yeah.

Cal MacD (49:10.029)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (49:23.127)
Yeah,

Kathleen & John (49:23.434)
Exactly, For better or worse, you know, we’ve had these poor partners that accompany their spouses or other partners, you know, they are suddenly roped in. you can help with the cosplay. You can help with this activity. All these poor people are suddenly put to work. They’re always so lovely and generous with their time and that’s part of it.

Cal MacD (49:39.469)
You

Cal MacD (49:43.437)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (49:50.026)
Yeah and that’s it. mean once you’ve got the volunteers in and who and again you the volunteers but they’re also attendees can enjoy the comic-con while you’re helping out you know there’s always a spare hour that you can go away and actually enjoy the rest of the comic-con and stuff and they come back and do your your voluntary job that you’re doing and stuff so yeah it’s like when we had the zombies the zombies they absolutely loved it.

Kathleen & John (50:08.196)
Mm.

Kathleen & John (50:13.219)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (50:19.009)
And they said, hope you come back next year and stuff. And it’s like, yeah. So then they’re like, is there anything else that you need to help with and stuff? It’s like, no, no, just enjoy the day. It’s like,

Kathleen & John (50:19.474)
Yeah, I bet.

Kathleen & John (50:27.223)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’ve always wanted to have zombies. think we went, where was it? it one of the early ones we went to? They had sort of prison gates, like bars and zombies behind. And then people could be made up by zombies and then go into the prisons. And I just thought that’s just a brilliant way of occupying people. And they get all the children, zombify them, put them in a prison.

and then the parents can have a bit of me time. Joking aside, but it’s just such a fun idea. think, you know, definitely think of something like that. But you can’t do everything, you know, you want to, but you can’t.

Allan And Hannah (50:56.897)
You can go on, would have some idea.

Cal MacD (50:57.793)
Yeah

Allan And Hannah (51:04.915)
Yeah, no, But the best things are as well, the spontaneous things, for instance, the zombies. They did like a dance like, to break out to the cranberries, know, went over to the DJ, they asked them to put it on, they put it on and they all danced and they were all like doing this, like it was brilliant.

Kathleen & John (51:14.519)
Yeah

Kathleen & John (51:18.313)
brilliant.

Cal MacD (51:19.693)
you

Kathleen & John (51:29.453)
What?

Yeah. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (51:32.637)
not planned whatsoever just thought this would be a good idea let’s have a go at it and i think that’s what it’s about so we’re like yeah definitely come back next year and do that same with us we had somebody with Kermit and Fonz Fuzzy Bear yeah Kermit and Fuzzy Bear the puppeteer yeah had a plan for it he just came along and and everybody loved it and they were coming along and it’s like you know what

Kathleen & John (51:38.519)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (51:44.46)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (51:51.275)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (52:00.088)
Bye-bye.

Allan And Hannah (52:02.604)
come next year we’ll give you a little bit of a table and stuff that you can then show everybody what you do with the puppets and stuff and yeah and show off your hobby to everybody because everybody was interested so yeah

Kathleen & John (52:05.988)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. And then you’ll find more people doing that and then next year you’ll discover some other people and you know, it will just grow.

Allan And Hannah (52:20.961)
some other people. Yeah. But yeah, had one of we had a an attendee as well come from Devon. I think you said Devon. Devon. Yeah. Came up from from Devon just to be at the Comic Con. Yeah. It’s amazing. So so.

Kathleen & John (52:28.191)
effect.

Kathleen & John (52:36.289)
Wow, that’s quite a trip. Especially, that’s impressive.

Cal MacD (52:46.359)
Well, we had to…

Allan And Hannah (52:49.643)
Hopefully we’ll grow as well because we have got room to grow.

Cal MacD (52:53.367)
Yeah. And we had Kimberly this year as well. Kimberly who…

Kathleen & John (52:53.729)
Yeah. Yeah. We’re jealous of your room. Yeah, we had someone from Kentucky. Yeah. And Canada. Yeah. yes, and Canada. But they were specially invited here. yeah. You know, and I think that’s nice. I love the fact that we can also have an international family, you know, sort of connection as well. It’s really, yeah.

Allan And Hannah (53:02.389)
Wow!

Allan And Hannah (53:09.353)
you

Allan And Hannah (53:15.038)
Yeah

Well, that’s what I was gonna say as well was maybe thinking about other Comic-Cons that are community orientated elsewhere around the world and get a little group going, a little union, if you will, of community Comic-Cons from around the world. Yeah, so.

Cal MacD (53:29.43)
Yeah, I think there’s

Kathleen & John (53:30.466)
new

Kathleen & John (53:35.053)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that’s a great idea. Yeah. And certainly hearing about, did you say Luton and some more local ones as well? Because it is different and so, as you say, the community is so open to sharing and that I think that will be really lovely to create this network all over. Yeah, it’s not just that it’s different. Yeah, it’s also, think, from when we were chatting with at Glasgow,

Allan And Hannah (53:47.615)
Yeah. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (53:59.582)
to a network.

Yeah, that’s something that we can look into.

Kathleen & John (54:09.444)
There are so many things that are also the same between yours and us, the kind of things that gave us a head scratch moment, gave you a head scratch moment. It’s even though we’re in very different places. Yeah, there’s similar challenges and we can give advice about, know, well, we dealt with it this way, you may be dealt with it a different way, but these are ideas of how to do these things. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (54:18.784)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (54:24.013)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (54:24.639)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (54:35.445)
Definitely. mean, when we went for that coffee in Glasgow, was, we was just sat there and we’re going, yeah, me too. Me too, me too. And it was literally going through like, like going through the same same barriers that we’ve got to jump over similar barriers that, you know, with funding and with venues and stuff like that. So it was good to like.

Kathleen & John (54:38.711)
And then.

Cal MacD (54:42.797)
you

Kathleen & John (54:42.965)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (54:50.019)
That’s it.

Kathleen & John (54:55.107)
And just tables, you know, you’re talking about tables. had, I was scarred this year because the folding tables kept on falling on me. And I’m literally fighting with folding tables and losing it. I’m just thinking, you know. You’re actually going to run that as an activity next year. Charge five from the go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know.

Allan And Hannah (55:00.383)
Hahaha!

Cal MacD (55:05.869)
Yep.

Allan And Hannah (55:06.305)
You

Allan And Hannah (55:13.441)
Dumb in our tables!

Cal MacD (55:15.105)
You

Kathleen & John (55:22.923)
Yeah, yeah, I could empathise about those tables.

Allan And Hannah (55:27.253)
I hurt in places I didn’t know existed because of the tables. The day after I was like, I’m sore, how am I sore there? And it’s like, cause you’ve been lifting the tables.

Kathleen & John (55:29.923)
Yeah, exactly. Gables, yeah. Yeah, we’re kind of in the age now where we get Oconache up for a few days. we do. I mean, yeah, yeah, we ache.

Cal MacD (55:30.139)
Hahaha.

Cal MacD (55:38.049)
Yeah. And then I think.

Yeah and as I remember I think poor James had a sore throat on the Saturday. Remember he was hosting the quiz and the PA died so he had to do the he had to shout he had to shout the quiz to the whole town because you walked in John and said what’s going on in here why’s James shouting?

Kathleen & John (55:51.551)
yes, yes.

Allan And Hannah (55:52.801)
no!

Kathleen & John (55:57.219)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (56:01.251)
You know and that’s they’ll always be tech issues always you can’t avoid it, but it’s just That’s life. Yeah, but yes the poor guy in this massive wall

Allan And Hannah (56:02.207)
dear.

Cal MacD (56:04.577)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (56:05.717)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (56:10.613)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (56:17.375)
Yeah, I think we had what did we or we had to pay the pay thing went down for a bit, didn’t it? Yeah, the internet for the traders, you know, internet. Yeah. Panic station. We can’t do payments. I’m sorry. But like you say, these things are going to happen and they crop up and you just got to deal with them as they as they happen.

Kathleen & John (56:25.268)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (56:31.298)
Bye.

Kathleen & John (56:36.94)
They do. And you know, it doesn’t sort of matter. You’ll come, okay, we don’t have that tough, you know, yeah. No one cares. Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s great. Of course, when you are organizing these things, you see all this and you think, that’s not because I wanted, and we forgot to do this and that. But the people coming, they don’t see any of that and they have a great time. And yeah. So, you you feel the pain more than anybody else does, think.

Allan And Hannah (56:42.421)
Yeah, yeah, you just have to do.

Allan And Hannah (56:55.733)
The people, yeah, they don’t say none of it. Yeah.

Cal MacD (56:56.417)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (57:02.539)
Yeah, it’s like I’ve always said to so many, I say I would love to go to Ocon as a punter and just see it through their eye, but I could never give up doing all this work. I love it too much to ever have that experience.

Allan And Hannah (57:03.967)
Yeah, I’d like to…

Kathleen & John (57:11.358)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (57:16.225)
Hmm.

Kathleen & John (57:16.482)
I know the thought of stepping aside one year and just doing it, yeah, no, you’d be itchy. Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to last. Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (57:23.116)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (57:24.641)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s very much like a swan, isn’t it? Where it looks so elegant and stuff for the people who see it and then underneath the water, it’s peddling like mad. Everyone’s working hard and stuff, yeah. But we were, like I say, we were very lucky. We’ve got a brilliant team. Yeah, you have to the team around Yeah, you’ve got to have a brilliant team around you to make it.

Kathleen & John (57:32.055)
That’s it.

Kathleen & John (57:44.674)
Yeah, same here, Yeah. And it is, it’s just like every single volunteer brings so much and gives so much of their time and their talent and energy and that and you know, that’s what makes it so special, you know.

Cal MacD (58:01.57)
Yeah, yeah. And we’re quite lucky with our team. It’s kind of the same. We’ve added to it, but there’s no one really left as such. It’s all the same faces that were at our first meeting, basically.

Allan And Hannah (58:03.999)
Yeah, definitely.

Kathleen & John (58:15.735)
Yeah, which is quite extraordinary when you think it’s 2020, you know, some years and still that same core team. Yeah.

Cal MacD (58:26.539)
I know. Is that one of yours? I don’t know. I don’t know who that is, but you just said he went as a punter and a volunteer and then could be one of ours, could be one of yours. Could be.

Kathleen & John (58:26.73)
that’s lovely. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (58:33.067)
don’t recognise the name but… it doesn’t matter!

Kathleen & John (58:33.442)
It doesn’t matter. It’s great. we’ll take it. always feel sort of a bit guilty because the volunteers just work so hard. Yeah, everybody goes above and Yeah, yeah.

Cal MacD (58:44.576)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (58:45.013)
They do. They do.

Allan And Hannah (58:49.409)
But like you say, being a community comic con, it’s everybody, everybody’s in it together type thing. Whether you’re a attendee, a volunteer, a guest, a trader, it doesn’t really matter. It’s like, as long as everybody makes sure that it’s successful overall, then, you know, and if anybody needed any help, somebody jumps in and out.

Kathleen & John (58:54.346)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is that?

Kathleen & John (59:01.707)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s it. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (59:11.616)
Yeah, yeah, no, and it’s just that’s I think Comic Cons are still one of the most inclusive welcoming events I’ve ever been to. I just think they’re amazing. And I think being a community one is just like times 10, isn’t it? Yeah. That’s it. Yeah, yeah.

Cal MacD (59:19.34)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (59:27.563)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (59:27.913)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It takes it to another level.

Cal MacD (59:32.286)
As we always remember the very first one on the very first night, what James said when he went took to the stage, it’s okay, we don’t have to pretend to like football anymore. We can talk about this stuff openly. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (59:42.177)
Can’t talk about cake yourself.

Kathleen & John (59:42.242)
I know. That was great. Yeah, yeah. We’ve given ourselves permission now. Yeah. That’s been brilliant.

Allan And Hannah (59:51.957)
And what date is yours next year, Have you thought about one?

Kathleen & John (59:55.555)
We’re officially saying October the 3rd. If October the 1st is Saturday. Yes indeed. We’re trying it a week earlier than this year. That’s the plan. you know, plans don’t always… That’s it. That’s absolutely what we’re aiming for. No, we will make it so.

Cal MacD (59:56.941)
Can we reveal?

Allan And Hannah (59:59.562)
Exclusive, exclusive.

Cal MacD (01:00:04.513)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:00:11.872)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:00:18.21)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:00:18.9)
Yeah

Kathleen & John (01:00:25.442)
Yep. Yeah. Yes. It starts with the date, doesn’t it? You need to have that before you do anything else. It does focus the morning, doesn’t it? Yes. I’ve only got a year! This is only 300 sleeps to Ocon.

Cal MacD (01:00:25.751)
Yes.

Allan And Hannah (01:00:26.049)
Determination.

Cal MacD (01:00:33.324)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:00:34.473)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:00:37.997)
Yeah Not even that. We’ll only have… Yeah, it’s gonna be 10 months once we get started in January. Do you like… I can just see you…

Allan And Hannah (01:00:41.684)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:00:49.45)
Yeah, yeah, it’s literally my stomach sort of went.

Ten months! Yeah, no, no. Well, we’ll be looking out for… Sorry.

Allan And Hannah (01:00:55.348)
Yeah.

And again, a lot of people don’t see that, like you say, the organisation of and how it takes to, you know, and like you say, it goes off quickly.

Kathleen & John (01:01:07.146)
Yeah. So quickly. Yeah. It’s absolutely worth it.

Cal MacD (01:01:07.446)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:01:12.885)
And it’s also in that preparation play when you have all the ideas and seeing it just shrink and shrink and it’s ones you would really like, but they just can’t pull it off.

Kathleen & John (01:01:20.673)
Yes.

Allan And Hannah (01:01:20.788)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:01:24.53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We used to, we do it every year, we’ve got a huge great pile of extraordinary ideas and you just have to narrow it down to the ones you can actually sort get there and do. But we never give up on them. Sometimes we think of the year after we think of them. You know, one thing may not work and then like two years later you’ll do it.

Allan And Hannah (01:01:24.871)
Yep. Yep.

Allan And Hannah (01:01:32.149)
Yeah, we-

Allan And Hannah (01:01:44.095)
Yeah, we had to-

Allan And Hannah (01:01:48.674)
Yeah, yeah, I mean we had a number of different things that we wanted to do didn’t had the, what was that, the mass singer, so we was gonna do the mass cosplayer, so the mass cosplayer and somebody sing because we had a couple of people, you know, but then we couldn’t get somebody to do this so it was like, oh logistically, we haven’t got enough manpower to do it. We’ll get there, yeah, we’ll do that. Like Bob sings, you remember? Yeah, Bob.

Kathleen & John (01:01:58.937)
yeah. Yeah. All right.

Kathleen & John (01:02:07.778)
yeah, the idea is great. That’s Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:02:08.588)
Mm-hmm.

Allan And Hannah (01:02:15.393)
Bob sings, he was on the voice, official voice, Bob was on the voice, He’s got a lovely voice, and so Eva’s got a good voice as well, so like, we’ve got people that will do it, and it’s just, yeah, of it. will do it. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:02:15.722)
Mmm, yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:02:24.379)
Sometimes it’s just logistics, where, how, you need lots of volunteers. But the idea stays.

Allan And Hannah (01:02:30.261)
Things like, yeah, yeah, things like tug of war as well. We wanted like local groups, so maybe doing like a four man tug of war by local groups. say the fire brigade or the army cadets and stuff. Maybe getting them to do things. More people to get, yeah, yeah, to get involved. So things like that.

Kathleen & John (01:02:36.225)
like this.

Kathleen & John (01:02:46.805)
Yeah, yeah. And again, that’s including more people and more parts of the community. Yeah, that’s great. I like what you’ve got on the screen, Carol. Giving people a safe space to indulge in the fandoms is a real gift. So that’s one of yours, think. brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:03:03.487)
Yeah

Cal MacD (01:03:06.145)
Yeah. The person who would say… sorry carry on.

Allan And Hannah (01:03:06.355)
Yeah that would be Kim or Chris distance greens yeah. Yeah so Kim like say Kim and

No, no, it’s okay.

Cal MacD (01:03:16.045)
I was just saying the person who was saying that we’re a punter and volunteer is one of Irish. I can’t figure out who it is.

Kathleen & John (01:03:20.961)
that’s lovely to know. fantastic. I always feel that pang of guilt that, you know, just coming in and working so hard. Yeah, but yeah, love it. Yeah, that’s good.

Cal MacD (01:03:33.111)
So you were saying.

Allan And Hannah (01:03:36.757)
Yeah, I would say in decent scream events. That’s Kim, who’s just brought that. that’s who ran the horror section. Yeah, so the horror section for us. They’ve got the horror con coming on the 28th of February, my birthday. So we’re going to be there for my birthday. So the 28th and the 1st of March in Heywood, which is just outside Manchester.

Kathleen & John (01:03:37.089)
Thank

Kathleen & John (01:03:44.193)
The horror zone, yeah. yeah. Giving us ideas, Kim. Thank you.

Kathleen & John (01:03:55.457)
You’re gonna be there. Brilliant.

Allan And Hannah (01:04:06.088)
Manchester yeah. She was there running around, there was a soldier all day wasn’t she? Yeah, there loving life.

Kathleen & John (01:04:06.625)
Nice, yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:04:17.93)
No I love that. that’s lovely yeah yeah. That’s good to know. providing an alternative for people who aren’t into sport. It’s good yes not into sport. I’ve watched the game of rugby but you know no. I want to be a zombie next year yeah.

Cal MacD (01:04:17.981)
The comments are flying in right now, coming to the end.

Allan And Hannah (01:04:21.13)
Hmm.

Allan And Hannah (01:04:25.596)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:04:33.546)
Yeah, gives it, like, say it.

Allan And Hannah (01:04:38.432)
I can say Comic-Cons are just… There you go. Do it.

Kathleen & John (01:04:45.321)
Yeah, I can still wear my t-shirt. I’ll just, you know, yeah, perfect. Just have bits falling off. Bits falling off, yes.

Yeah, very, very good point. it’s, there’s not, and I think that’s why we kind of wanted to start Ocon because it was in the library and it’s just, you just felt that there wasn’t, there was parts of the community that weren’t being catered for and sort of Lewis and Arthur Hebrides. And I think that’s again was a big motivation.

Cal MacD (01:05:00.887)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Kathleen & John (01:05:26.525)
about, yeah, this could work. We hope it will work. And it does transcend the covers such a huge range, writing, art, film, animation, props, makeup, design. It just goes on about all the areas it covers. It’s extraordinary.

Cal MacD (01:05:31.912)
it’s…

Allan And Hannah (01:05:45.428)
Did you have an issue with explaining what a Comic Con was to some people before you did it? Because a lot of

Cal MacD (01:05:52.801)
Really?

Kathleen & John (01:05:55.297)
I think for some. Well, think not. So that the discussions I had, the people I was working, you know, like initially in the library, a lot of people had no idea what it was. Yeah. I mean, if you hadn’t been involved in that kind of scene, it’s very much something that doesn’t cross your threshold. So why would you know about it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:05:55.415)
can never recall having that.

Allan And Hannah (01:06:15.115)
That ended, yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:06:19.937)
Yeah, it’s very alien to, yeah. I mean, we have the issue because of like, dealing with the council. trying to, there’s a Comic-Con, what’s a Comic-Con? Yeah. They don’t understand, yeah. And they’re like, then trying, cause we find it’s like monite, the avid, you don’t need to explain what a Comic-Con is whatsoever because they know I am. You’re like, yeah, yeah. And then you move on. But then.

Kathleen & John (01:06:29.407)
Yes, that’s local authorities. do not understand, do not know. Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:06:34.433)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:06:42.209)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Allan And Hannah (01:06:46.613)
then there’s some of God, I don’t know what that is, and you have to start right at the beginning.

Cal MacD (01:07:00.845)
Mm-hmm.

Allan And Hannah (01:07:02.175)
Yeah, yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:07:10.421)
what’s a comic con and I literally, just, you know, this was at a meeting and my face was dropping. I said, you don’t know what a comic con is? I mean, I was really rude, but I was so surprised that they didn’t know. There’s also, there’s a third thing, which is people who know what a comic con is, but then you have to go through that thing we were talking about earlier on about the wider benefits. It’s not just people playing funny games in fancy dress. There is all this other, the hints.

Allan And Hannah (01:07:20.865)
kid.

Allan And Hannah (01:07:34.357)
Yeah, the community part.

Kathleen & John (01:07:39.829)
Yeah, the value. I think we probably do more explaining about… That’s it, that it’s not just about selling stuff for celebrities or being… Yeah, it’s where the TV fandom, yeah. It’s about the…

Allan And Hannah (01:07:49.353)
Yeah. so many different, like you said with the creative side and then you’ve got the music, you’ve got the singing, you’ve got the prop making, you’ve got the cosplay making, you’ve got the comic book design and you’ve got, and there’s so many different layers. it’s hard to explain. It’s it’s mainly the creative part of anything that’s creative. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:08:02.399)
All that.

Kathleen & John (01:08:09.675)
So many.

Kathleen & John (01:08:14.813)
It’s creative industries, absolutely. And that’s what I think it is. It’s all about creativity. And with the volunteers, they’re learning how to plan things, how to organize, how to budget customer care. know, everyone’s learning all these skills at the same time through doing it. it’s a lot of weird stuff you wouldn’t think goes on. Exactly. A lot of stuff that you’ve got to. Yeah. yeah, that’s it.

Allan And Hannah (01:08:40.062)
Yeah, I mean, we had a meeting with the venue where we were and it was like, I just wanted to, brought somebody down just to see, make sure that the Daleks can get in and out of the doors. they’re like, you know, it’s normal for us to talk about Wookiees and stuff like that. You know, yeah. The Wookiees have to duck down because the door is going to be a bit, or the, yeah.

Cal MacD (01:08:56.545)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:09:00.137)
Yeah. I love that. yes, you’ve got to do a risk assessment, know. Can Jabba the Hutt get Well, as I’m always very fond of saying, the enemy of the dark is not the doctor, it’s the wit from a domestic doorway.

Cal MacD (01:09:01.387)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:09:12.35)
Yeah!

Cal MacD (01:09:12.61)
you

Allan And Hannah (01:09:17.952)
Exactly, exactly. And I mean, their changing rooms, for instance, our venue where we were was at Marine Hall, their changing rooms were upstairs. I thought we’ve got Daleks coming. Stairs. Number one enemy of Daleks.

Cal MacD (01:09:19.085)
You

Kathleen & John (01:09:25.377)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:09:30.845)
Yes. What are you doing? Stairs. Yeah. Brilliant. love that these are our issues. Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:09:34.605)
you

Cal MacD (01:09:43.671)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:09:43.986)
Yeah, it’s funny because I triple away because you can see like council is like like looking at your strange like I can’t believe I’m having the conversation about how a how a walkie can’t walk upstairs and stuff like that.

Kathleen & John (01:09:51.585)
Yeah, I love it. Yes, it’s great. Eventually they will all know what a Comic Con is and then you know that you’ve we’ve won. Yes, yeah, that’s grand. It’s been lovely catching up with you guys. And I just, yeah, we’ll be looking out for the raffle and yeah, definitely.

Cal MacD (01:10:02.456)
Yes.

Allan And Hannah (01:10:02.942)
Exactly. You’ve ticked the box and you’ve done it. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Cal MacD (01:10:12.493)
Yeah. All right.

Allan And Hannah (01:10:14.593)
Yeah, great.

Cal MacD (01:10:17.975)
Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:10:18.111)
Yeah, we’ll put the past up and stuff how you can get to case.

Kathleen & John (01:10:21.513)
And.

Cal MacD (01:10:21.965)
Before we end, I’ve got the trivia round but I’m going to do it differently this time. the Fleetwood crew, you’ve got five trivia questions on the Outer Hebrides to ask and Kathleen and John, you’ve got five questions about Fleetwood to answer. So who knows more about the other town? We’ll find out in a second. So questions about the Outer Hebrides, number one.

Kathleen & John (01:10:28.667)
okay, okay.

Kathleen & John (01:10:36.967)
okay.

Allan And Hannah (01:10:44.065)
Cal MacD (01:10:49.761)
What’s the name of the famous standing stones and the outer Hebrides? The very famous ones.

Allan And Hannah (01:10:57.089)
knew we should have had Bob instead of you. I know. At what point should I tell you that my day job is a geography teacher? Geography teacher should know this, should know this. But I don’t have any knowledge, any general knowledge so. I know.

Cal MacD (01:11:06.157)
Ooooo

Kathleen & John (01:11:07.178)
Haha!

Allan And Hannah (01:11:17.345)
I know. we’ll have to pass.

Cal MacD (01:11:19.824)
The colony stones. You know you heard of them before? You probably got the picture in your head do you?

Allan And Hannah (01:11:28.001)
Yeah, I actually watched a documentary yesterday about all the different storms in Scotland. Well you weren’t watching very carefully! I know! watched it yesterday, we were about like Medieval… Ancient Britain we watching and we were on about that… Anyway.

Cal MacD (01:11:33.037)
Right.

Kathleen & John (01:11:38.173)
Thanks.

Cal MacD (01:11:43.885)
Number two, what is the language that is spoken up here?

We speak another language apart from English.

Kathleen & John (01:11:55.402)
You’re so tough.

Allan And Hannah (01:11:55.731)
Yeah, I think it’s guilt.

Allan And Hannah (01:12:02.082)
It would make sense but I don’t want to be wrong. on. No. Gaelic? Yeah. Yay. There we go.

Cal MacD (01:12:05.556)
Hahaha

Cal MacD (01:12:10.261)
Yep, spot on. Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:12:13.012)
Hey!

Cal MacD (01:12:16.045)
Number three, what is the name of the distinctive traditional hand woven fabric that is made up on the islands? It’s a type of wool.

Allan And Hannah (01:12:27.553)
Yeah, so you get your tweed suits from…

Cal MacD (01:12:31.455)
Yep, there’s a specific name for this tweet. Very well known tweet.

Cal MacD (01:12:41.271)
Kathleen’s bursting. No, hardest tweet.

Allan And Hannah (01:12:48.545)
Harris Tweed. There we go.

Cal MacD (01:12:51.189)
Okay so the largest island of the Outer Hebrides is actually separated as two different islands. Can you name the two of them?

It’s one landmass but we’re kind of classified as two different islands for some mysterious reason. you name the two islands?

Allan And Hannah (01:13:05.013)
too different out.

Allan And Hannah (01:13:12.385)
I’m no, I don’t know. teacher. I’ve got a… This is like the embarrassing thing though. You’re a geography teacher. I don’t know, I can tell you all about how a waterfall forms.

Cal MacD (01:13:17.579)
Yeah.

Kathleen & John (01:13:17.651)
It’s.

Kathleen & John (01:13:24.501)
Later.

Allan And Hannah (01:13:27.265)
So, so Stonoway’s on the Isle of…

Allan And Hannah (01:13:34.855)
on the aisle. I would just say it’s in the altepidism. You know but it’s on the aisle of…

Cal MacD (01:13:37.485)
You

Allan And Hannah (01:13:43.585)
or that’s gonna bug me. I do know. Lewis. Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:13:46.253)
All right, it’s the Isle of Lewis and the other island is actually the answer to the last one, Paris is the other island, the Isle of Paris.

Allan And Hannah (01:13:55.458)
Harris. that’s where Harris comes from. I don’t know, Louis. Just couldn’t, yeah.

Cal MacD (01:13:59.83)
Right. Anyway, number five. The island of Barra is famous for having the world’s only airport where the flights land on what kind of surface.

Cal MacD (01:14:13.181)
only airport in the world where they land on this kind of surface.

Allan And Hannah (01:14:18.017)
I’m guessing it’s going to be sand. What else could it be?

Cal MacD (01:14:26.241)
Yep, it is. It lands on the beach. It lands on the beach. It’s the only airport in the world where the times are dictated by the tides, the landing and takeoff times.

Allan And Hannah (01:14:26.535)
Yeah, that book always sand.

Allan And Hannah (01:14:36.437)
Just there. there you go. is cool. But probably, is it terrifying though? How do they flatten it? How? But it’s soft, so I guess it doesn’t bounce.

Kathleen & John (01:14:38.666)
He

Cal MacD (01:14:40.939)
Right.

Kathleen & John (01:14:41.437)
It’s very cool.

No, it’s brilliant! Best, best!

Cal MacD (01:14:49.377)
There’s people who just, who take that flight just.

Kathleen & John (01:14:51.456)
soft landing, etc.

Cal MacD (01:14:54.229)
No, we do get tourists who just take the flight just to have that to see they’ve done it. They’ve landed on the beach on the plane.

Allan And Hannah (01:15:00.801)
Cool.

Cal MacD (01:15:02.943)
All right, Kathleen and John, your knowledge of Fleetwood now.

Kathleen & John (01:15:05.728)
Okay, we’re not gonna do as well as you.

Allan And Hannah (01:15:05.951)
Cal MacD (01:15:11.113)
Okay, the town of Fleetwood was famously the first planned town of the Victorian era. Which prominent architect commissioned the layout of the town’s design?

Kathleen & John (01:15:21.824)
I don’t know many architects. All I know is…

Kathleen & John (01:15:33.254)
I think this is a hard pass for us. You just said name a Victorian architect.

Cal MacD (01:15:35.233)
Right.

Allan And Hannah (01:15:35.489)
You

Cal MacD (01:15:40.109)
It’s a proper Victorian name this Decimus Burton.

Kathleen & John (01:15:46.526)
Decimus what?

Cal MacD (01:15:47.787)
Burton. That’s a proper Victorian name. I’ll give him that and I guess he’s got proper good sideburns and a great beard on him as well.

Allan And Hannah (01:15:49.525)
Burton.

Kathleen & John (01:15:50.016)
That’s fabulous. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s all presumably nine younger brothers and sisters, yes. You knew that, didn’t you, Giles?

Cal MacD (01:15:59.31)
So.

Cal MacD (01:16:05.321)
Okay Fleetwood is the only town to have three operational lighthouses. One is the Inland Upper Lighthouse. What is the classical name it is known by?

Kathleen & John (01:16:18.986)
So can you say that just again, the three lighthouses and then one.

Cal MacD (01:16:22.485)
Yeah, one is called the Inland Upper Lighthouse, which is also known by what classical name?

Kathleen & John (01:16:30.726)
my gosh.

Kathleen & John (01:16:35.207)
Something Roman.

Cal MacD (01:16:38.157)
I would say yes.

Kathleen & John (01:16:40.607)
Okay.

Kathleen & John (01:16:45.055)
What would be something Roman and light? The Zeus. That’s Greek. Say the Zeus. The Zeus light up. Okay, yeah, makes sense.

Cal MacD (01:16:53.741)
All right. Yeah. Fados.

Faros of Alexandria, yeah.

Number three, the decline of Fleetwood as a deep sea fishing port in the mid 20th century was largely hastened by a series of disputes between the UK and which country over fishing rights.

Kathleen & John (01:17:18.874)
Iceland?

Cal MacD (01:17:19.98)
yep, spot on John.

Kathleen & John (01:17:22.303)
Woo! You see, I was a child of the Cold Wars.

Cal MacD (01:17:23.021)
It looks totally surprised.

Allan And Hannah (01:17:24.011)
Yeah.

Cal MacD (01:17:27.149)
The cod war.

Allan And Hannah (01:17:27.545)
Cuts, boys.

Kathleen & John (01:17:30.119)
Honestly.

Cal MacD (01:17:32.919)
So what famous local product, a strong lozenge, was originally created by pharmacist James Lofthouse for deep sea fishermen?

Kathleen & John (01:17:44.433)
and Fisherman’s Friends.

Cal MacD (01:17:46.037)
Yep, there you go.

Kathleen & John (01:17:48.351)
I have saved me on many a daftly. Fleetwood never did anything else but Fisherman’s Friends. It’s earned its place in history hasn’t it? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Allan And Hannah (01:17:49.825)
You

Yeah, fisherman’s friends. That’s basically it.

Cal MacD (01:17:58.702)
Right so, what historic semi-circular building designed by Decimus Burton was constructed in 1841 to serve as a high-end hotel for overnight guests making the railway journey from Houston, London before boarding the steamers to Scotland?

Kathleen & John (01:18:21.075)
What round?

Cal MacD (01:18:22.422)
Yeah, it’s a semicircular.

Allan And Hannah (01:18:24.884)
I miss it.

Kathleen & John (01:18:25.391)
semi-circular

Some sort of crescent maybe.

Cal MacD (01:18:33.773)
Any other sort of.

Kathleen & John (01:18:34.395)
No.

Kathleen & John (01:18:38.213)
circus yeah no it’s another idea so ashamed

Cal MacD (01:18:41.197)
Well, the kind of the answer was in the question there was the journey from Houston was the North Houston Hotel.

Allan And Hannah (01:18:42.57)
North Houston.

Allan And Hannah (01:18:46.812)
North Houston.

Kathleen & John (01:18:49.945)
yeah right okay.

Cal MacD (01:18:52.013)
But do believe Kathleen and John, you and 2 to 1 there on local knowledge.

Kathleen & John (01:18:58.863)
luck. Yeah, that was it. That’s what swung it. That was mean. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Allan And Hannah (01:18:59.432)
No. Fisherman’s Friends did it. Fisherman’s Friends.

Cal MacD (01:18:59.661)
Yes.

You’re never going to get that wrong. So, yes it was. Well, I’ve always got to… no, no, no. I spring this on every single guest we have. I spring a trivia round. I do this to all our guests. I like torturing people with questions. It’s my thing now.

Allan And Hannah (01:19:12.948)
I would have revised if I knew there was a trivia around. I can’t believe I forgot Ila Lewis.

Kathleen & John (01:19:21.072)
Thanks.

Kathleen & John (01:19:26.207)
You should fit right into the civil service.

Allan And Hannah (01:19:26.368)
Really.

Cal MacD (01:19:28.749)
Alright guys, so to wrap up, if people want to find you and find out more or if they’ve heard and they want to get involved, where can they find you guys?

Allan And Hannah (01:19:39.976)
So you can get us on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok and our website, is FleetwoodCommunityCommonCon.co.uk. But we usually are Facebook. Facebook is the most active, isn’t it, at the moment. then closer to the con, it’ll be like the TikToks and all those sorts of things. At the moment, Facebook is the most active way of getting in touch and finding out what’s going on.

Kathleen & John (01:19:54.239)
Bye.

Kathleen & John (01:19:59.56)
Yeah

Kathleen & John (01:20:04.191)
Yeah. Excellent. And we will definitely be looking out and wishing you every bit of success with your fundraising. Yes, very much so.

Cal MacD (01:20:09.239)
Okay. All right, sir.

Allan And Hannah (01:20:15.964)
Yeah, and hopefully we can get up for the 3rd of October and come up and see you guys.

Cal MacD (01:20:17.141)
And.

Well, and hopefully we can, we’ll get down there at some point.

Kathleen & John (01:20:21.823)
Excellent and we will try. Yeah, you must send us your logo.

Allan And Hannah (01:20:30.932)
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, well done. And we’ll get Bob onto that tune.

Cal MacD (01:20:34.187)
Alright and Kathleen and John… Alright Kathleen and John a pleasure as always to have you on. It’s always good to see you.

Kathleen & John (01:20:39.135)
Thank

Kathleen & John (01:20:43.647)
It was lovely to meet you Hannah and lovely to see you both again.

Cal MacD (01:20:50.057)
Alright, thanks everyone for watching and listening and bye, we’ll speak to you all soon.

Allan And Hannah (01:20:51.419)
Thank you for having us.

Kathleen & John (01:20:56.861)
Bye, thank you. Bye bye.

Allan And Hannah (01:20:57.674)
Thanks, bye.

Cal MacD (01:21:00.664)
Don’t leave just