Comic Con Portugal starts with more than 300 hours of programming
Obedience Comic Con Portugal, dedicated to pop culture and entertainment, starts on Thursday in Lisbon, with more than 300 hours of programming in an improved venue and without the restrictions of the covid-19 pandemic, it was announced this Tuesday.
The eighth edition of Comic Con Portugal will take place from Thursday to Sunday at Parque das Nações, in an area that includes the Altice Arena and surrounding spaces, with an area of 115,000 square meters, to accommodate eight auditoriums and various spaces dedicated to the dissemination of content entertainment, cinema, television, cosplay, videogames or literature.
At a press conference this Tuesday in Lisbon to present the programme, the director of Comic Con Portugal, Paulo Cardoso, said that the current location is “the best of both worlds”, as it includes outdoor and indoor spaces, and that this year there will be no circulation restrictions because of the covid-19 pandemic.
At the end of the presentation, questioned by the Lusa agency, Paulo Cardoso declined to reveal how many tickets have already been sold for Comic Con, noting that the expectation is that they would accept the visitor values for 2019, when 140,589 entries were registered.
This year, among the more than 370 guests, there are names like actor Sean McGuire, from the series “Once Upon a Time”, actress Dafne Keen and actor Amir Wilson, who star in the series “Mundos Paralelos”, or Zackary Levi, from the movie “Shazam!”, as well as the authors Paco Roca, Wes Craig, António Jorge Gonçalves, João Tordo and Paula Hawkins.
At these events, guest artists participate in public presentations of their work, usually also available for autograph sessions, photo sessions with spectators and promotional interviews.
In the presentation, Paulo Cardoso recalled that Comic Con exists to give visibility to “pop culture products” and that it depends on the partnerships that the organization makes with companies in this “multi-million business”.
In this edition of Comic Con, for example, the HBO platform, NOS Audiovisuais, the channels AMC, AXN, SYFY or Paramount Pictures are present.
From the national production, it is known that there will be presentations and panels dedicated, for example, to the series “Santiago”, from the Opto platform, from SIC, to the film “The last animal”, by Leonel Vieira, and to the production of the series “Codex 362 ” for RTP.
Paulo Cardoso underlined that Comic Con is “an incredible experience”, but acknowledged that “Portugal is a difficult country due to the ‘box office’ [receita de bilheteira] before countries with larger audiences”.
Asked about the economic impact of Comic Con Portugal, Paulo Cardoso said that a study was carried out when the community took place in Oeiras, but the data was not released and is being updated.
Even so, the director stated that Comic Con “has a great representation in the flap, in collectibles, in clothing, in intellectual properties, it has involvement in content, in movie theaters and ‘streaming'”.
“Multi-billionaires are promoted who always have to feed themselves. But they live with people’s experiences. Comic Con is about bringing entertainment to people”, he said.
All Comic Con programming is on comic-con-portugal.com🇧🇷
In the press file released this Tuesday, the organization explains that, in addition to the general entrance ticket, visitors may have to pay an additional ticket for an autograph session or to take a picture with one of the guests. Everything depends on the decision of each invited artist.