Now in its sixth year, the ‘Conference of Alternative Leisure of Torrevieja, ComarCON18’, will be held on September 15 and 16 at the Palacio de los Deportes in the town.
Torrevieja´s councillor for youths, Víctor Ferrández, presented details of the event at a press conference this week attended by the coordinator of the university headquarters of the UA in Torrevieja, José Norberto Mazón, and the vice president of the region, Alejandro Sesma.
ComarCON is considered to be amongst the top three alternative leisure events in the country, and it’s free to get in, a fact that Ferrández has said is a “reason for pride”. The councillor highlighted the three basic principles of this event are, “free admission, the large number of activities on offer, which are very wide and varied, and the promotion of associationism”.
Ferrández explained that, “you can enjoy more than 150 different activities and more than 120 table games in 23 hours of fun, without interruption, and, this year, you are even welcomed to camp overnight.
The doors open at 10 a.m. on Saturday, staying open until 9 p.m., and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., with the varied activities taking place at the Sports Palace, the outdoor area and in the parking lot, as well as in one of the artificial turf pitches.
Ferrández said that this year the space available has increased, as has the capacity within the Palace of Sports “for which security has increased and we will have ambulances, among other improvements”.
Ferrández has also reported that the costs are very similar to those of last year, when it was possible to reduce them by 50 percent, thanks to the collaboration of the association La Comarca and the headquarters of the UA.
José Norberto Mazón explained that for several years the University of Alicante has organised Unicómic, a conference on comics, that this year will celebrate its 20th edition. Through Unicómic we will have references in the world of comic fans, and with ComarCON, the aim is to organise talks, workshops and other events, including celebrity appearances.
“We will have Joan Tretze, renowned cartoonist and scriptwriter of the role-playing webcómic ‘El sistema D13’, Román López Cabrera, who has published several comic books about local author Miguel Hernández, and won comic awards, also working for Marvel, Ulises Ponce (UPL), who has published his works in several magazines and newspapers throughout Spain, arriving at the international level to design the covers of ‘Angry Birds’, a global phenomenon”, explained Mazón.
There is also an educational element to the event, where establishments and courses are highlighted to those interested in developing through the graphic or storytelling medium, such as the Higher Polytechnic School of the University of Alicante, who offer a degree course in Multimedia Engineering where, among other things, there is training in the development of video games. In fact, many of its graduates have created their own companies and are working successfully in this field. “This is the case of Inverge Studios, which will join us in the ComarCON, winners of the Sony PlayStation Talents Game Camp project through the Lanzadera business accelerator, where they are developing the video game ‘Effie’ under the PlayStation brand,” said Mazón .
The vice president of the association La Comarca, Alejandro Sesma, said that ComarCON is already among the three largest free entry events in Spain, with figures that place it as a fully consolidated event. “In the last edition, we had more than 6,000 attendees and in this edition we think we will reach 8,000”, Sesma said, as the most important element of this event is “living together, participating, laughing and having fun”.
Sesma also stressed that this macro event serves to give support and visibility to local artists, such as is the case of Daniel Cabezas, author of the poster announcing this year’s event.
The event takes place on 15th and 16th September, 2018, from 10:00 to 20:30 at the Palacio de los deportes in Torrevieja.
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