The Hero Festival did indeed return to Marseille a few weeks ago. After a relatively small seventh edition due to a lot of factors – including the post-pandemic -, the eighth season of this convention has taken place. November 5 and 6 at Parc Chanot. The opportunity for us to see that the show this year at Parc Chanot did not really convince us, and for quite a few reasons.
Organization, Halls… Not madness
Clearly, we cannot say that the organization of the Hero Festival this year was truly crazy. Whether it was getting home or the paid photo shoots with Bryan Krause and Holly Marie Combs, it was literally chaos everywhere, at least on Saturday. We don’t know if all this was settled the next day but overall, it was really laborious even for the holders of the legendary pass which costs a little over 100 €, we remind you. Ditto for circulation in the halls. However, it is not surprising, the convention having made 34,000 visitors over the two days, compared to 26,660 visitors last year.
After this parenthesis that needed to be mentioned, you should know that nothing has changed on the layout of the Halls. Because yes, the second hall opened well this year against only one last year for the reasons we know. Here on the first Hall, you will have as always the Konoha and Brocéliande sections, shared on a single hall. Concretely, we found on Konoha the traditional purely Japanese stands, but also the usual goodies such as t-shirts, posters, mouse pads, jewelry, mugs, manga, figurines and many other goodies.
For Broceliande, there was also a bit of everything. Whether original creations, through various authors / authors and young illustrators / illustrators, that’s about all that we could see on this Brocéliande part. Of course, there were also the same stands as last year, including Harry Potter. In sum, for the little that you went there last year or in the last editions of the Hero Festival, there is nothing really crazy on the horizon after all. Too bad because innovation will not be for this year. The only thing to remember will possibly be a few nice little stands with some exhibitions of figurines and dioramas, already present last year.
Finally, we had the second hall with Krypton and Ludopolis. Again, and to start with the Krypton side, we also had a few stalls including one selling vintage metal plates referring to pop culture, car exhibitions including K-200, and many others offering various original creations . For the Ludopolis side finally, the video game was necessarily part of the game with many esports tournaments on FIFA 23 or even Super Smash. Bros. Esport was also part of it with a lot of PCs to be able to play a few other titles like Fortnite, Rocket League even Overwatch 2.
Clearly there was plenty to do, and we will also have to note a retrogaming stand, but also VR this time paying to play it – 3€ for 8 min, which remains a shame given that the VR stand from last year was playable for FREE. In other words, no big exclusives on this video game side, and we almost come to regret the small stands of independent games present four years ago…
Finally, and in addition to the main stage present in this second hall, it must be said that the latter seemed damn empty and sad. So much so that we practically only went to the first hall, which was infinitely fuller. However, be aware that the famous medieval village was still outside with a second stage further on, dedicated to other activities such as just dance.
Programming under the sign of Charmed and… that’s all
On the programming side of the Hero Festival, there was nothing to have fun or to split the pear either. In fact, the main big programming was none other that the presence of Brian Krause and Holly Marie Combs, best known for starring in the Charmed series – except for Holly Marie Combs, who starred in Pretty Little Liars. The two actors thus lent themselves to the usual conference of questions / answers by the timeless Denis, then by the spectators. The whole traced their career, not really brilliant as we say. Note that there was also the presence by Dominique Vallée, the French voice of Holly Marie Combs as well as Virginie Ledieu and Clara Soares, respectively voice of Athena in Saint Seiya and Eleven/Jane in Stranger Things.
Beyond that, the other lineups on stage were relatively starving. It was roughly from a big repeat from last year, and even the cosplay wasn’t bushy this year either. Of course, there were certainly qualitative ones, but also know that we only went there on Saturday, and that it’s a safe bet that there must have been many more on Sunday. Cosplay was in the spotlight on stage for fans of the genre. But concerning the rest unfortunately, there was not much to get your teeth into except for a few other conferences on the stage, located between Brocéliande and Konoha. However, not enough to make us jump to the ceiling either, even if as usual, we also had the presence of a few influencers here and there, but also the Games Academy for the curious wanting to embark on the creation of video games.
For this eighth edition, this Hero Festival was not very convincing. Despite the opening of a second hall which was unfortunately a little empty, the rest was ultimately just a repeat of last year. Apart from a few more or less interesting guests in the background, it must be said that we go too quickly around this convention which is really struggling to renew itself. The organization is also to be reviewed, with many annoying failures like the gaming part which would have deserved to have a little more things, and not only paid game sessions in VR or pure esports – even if it’s still very good. Nevertheless, we still had a good time there, and we hope that the Hero Festival will do better next year.