St James' Park is usually packed with football fans in black and white shirts, but today it attracted an altogether different kind of audience.
Cosplayers, superheroes, and sci-fi fans packed out the fourth floor of St James' Park's Milburn Reception for Newcastle's Comic-Con with some very special guests in attendance. One of the biggest names on the bill was the fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, and his companion Nyssa, played by Sarah Sutton - who were on hand to pose for selfies and sign autographs.
And he wasn't the only big name at Comic-Con, with Samantha Alleyne, the first female stormtrooper in the Star Wars films, Billy Mansell from Alien Covenant, and Arie Dekker, who was the stunt double for Chewbacca - also in Star Wars. Marvel superheroes Spiderman and Iron Man were making their way around the event for photos with guests, as was Transformers autobot Bumblebee.
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Peter Davison's appearance delighted fans, and he was pleased to be in the North East, having missed out on a previous Doctor Who convention he was meant to attend in 2013. He said: "My one memory of Newcastle apart from filming here and having some very long and drunken nights here during that time was that was meant to attend a Doctor Who convention here in Newcastle and I completely forgot to turn up!
"I'm very glad to be back here and make up for missing it."
Peter wasn't the only star who was delighted to be in town, with Samantha Alleyne bowled over by the warmth and friendliness of the people who had approached her for autographs and selfies. She said: "Everyone's so warm and friendly, one of my best friends lives here and I spent years with her teaching me different things in Geordie and it's so nice to finally be here.
"I feel quite at home and I'm coming back for a night out because I've heard it's amazing!"
Sam was the first female Stormtrooper in the Star Wars movie and in a Facebook Live with the Chronicle, she expressed how honoured she was to take on the role, as well as being a role model to young people who watched the films. However, it wasn't just the professionals and special guests that impressed on the day.
Elvan Ozguler, a 15-year-old student from Bedlington, was one of the winners of the costume competition for over 14s, for his representation of Vergil from the Devil May Cry Video Games. Elvan attended his first Comic-Con event at Hallowe'en last year and was delighted to win, as it was his first time up on stage.
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He said: "Vergil is just my favourite character in the video games, he's a great villain. He's cold, fearless and strong, always striving for nothing but power.
"I've had this costume prepared for ages, my mum is a beautician so she helped me with the hair. It's normally brown and long and curly! I'm planning to go to more Comic-Cons to be honest, I love them - I'd always wanted to go but they weren't really a thing that existed in Britain."
He could have been joined on stage by Matthew Henderson from Hexham, who had come dressed as DC Comics' Dr Fate from the Injustice video game series, but he had arrived too late to be involved in the competition. Nevertheless, he and his friends Blake Cooley and Sam Brannan had a great time.
Matthew said: "I'm loving the costumes, they're the best bit for me. I love coming to these, I've got plans to go to London next!"
Blake added: "I'd been to some Comic-Cons before Covid but this is my first one since. It's been incredible, the weapon rails are amazing - it's just absolutely great."
As well as film characters, Comic-Con supports a number of small businesses, many of which had stalls at the event selling everything from board games to replica movie merchandise. NERG, which is hosting a gaming event at Gateshead Stadium on July 16 and 17, had brought down a few consoles for people to try retro arcade games such as Pacman and Donkey Kong, while Rexys Reviews from South Shields had brought a plethora of dino-themed merchandise to delight fans of Jurassic Park, with owner Andrew Garthwaite having already seen the new Jurassic World movie five times.
A spokesperson for Unleashed Events said: "It's absolutely fantastic to see so many people here, there are an awful lot of small businesses that rely on us and they do really well out of being here, which is so important for us. It's actually been far busier than we expected so we want to apologise for the queues earlier in the day."
Did you go to the Newcastle Comic-Con? What did you think? Let us know!
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