Lucca Comics & Games is enormous, for every event you attend or place you visit, there are three alternatives that you miss. It seems you could repeat the same year several times and still not catch everything you want. The day itself was sold out, with 75,000 day passes sold with a huge number of attendees in cosplay, and those numbers aren’t including locals from nearby, visiting the city for the sheer spectacle of it all.
Whilst lively, it does have a family feel too; for every stormtrooper or anime character you see, there’s a young family dressed up as the Scooby Gang or the Addams family.
SciFiNow started the day at a packed panel for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with cast members Ismael Cruz Cordova (Arondir), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Queen Regent Miriel) and Sophia Nomvette (Princess Disa) in attendance. Sophia beamed to the fans; “This is the beginning. This is the start of something, many of us have been sitting on this for years. We’ve worked tirelessly with Tolkien watching over us and inspiring us. We wanted to create fresh ideas to make this something very special, new, accessible, and exciting for Tolkien fans and new fans hopefully along the way!”
SPOILER WARNING
When discussing the big reveal at the end of Season One, Nomvette added; “All of our characters are an extension of ourselves, it’s a stunning cast, they’re all so beautiful! But if there’s one actor that couldn’t be further away from his character is Charlie (Vickers)! (In the accent) He’s just a really chilled Australian! He’s such a sweet guy, fun and hugely hard working. I wouldn’t say there’s a dark bone in that man’s body!
“None of us knew, of course we had our suspicions. It’s really exciting, and now we can see that darkness, yes, is very much among us in the dwarf kingdom too and we’ve seen the ripple effect – the Balrog’s coming! It’ll be really exciting to see how everything unfolds with the umbrella of Sauron looming over us.”
Journeying across the city, our press team, some of whom were now in cosplay themselves, descended on the Villa Bottini, a visually stunning five-hundred-year-old building in the South-East of the City and once owned by the sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, Elisa Baciocchi. The Villa today houses leading video games developers, CD Projekt RED, best known for The Witcher game franchise and and more recently Cyperpunk 2077. We were welcomed inside the Villa where, as a part of their anniversary celebrations, CDPR has commissioned numerous paintings based on The Witcher and Cyberpunk in the styles of other famous artists. Who wouldn’t want a print of Geralt in the style of Van Gogh, Yennefer by Dali or Cyberpunk’s Night City in the style of Monet?
As we progressed deeper into the Villa, fans of the franchise were able to check out concept art from the three games, plus the opportunity to play some Gwent! There were also concept art and displays dedicated to Cyberpunk 2077 and the new series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
As we left, we were delighted to discover that the gardens of the Villa had been transformed into a Witcher-themed Renaissance Fair!
Fans were able to try their hand at the Trial of Grasses, drink and chill in the orchard or join in the mass cosplay. Very few outfits in Lucca are amateurish and it’s clear Witcher fans take their cosplay very seriously. Fans of the series, books or games could easily spend several hours just there, but sadly we had to move on.
We think it’s time for another espresso!
Lucca Comics & Games will be taking place from 28th October to 1st November. More information can be found here.
