Sonic Con UK 2025
As you may very well tell from following me on my various blogs, sites and social media profiles - or if you know me IRL - I have a lot of love for Sonic the Hedgehog and his adventures. The blue blur has been with me for decades and though our relationship has had its peaks and valleys across time, the past five years in particular have seen me fully return into the franchise's folds stronger than ever. It has thus been really wonderful to see that Sonic conventions in UK have made a return as well, after some quiet years of their own. Last year saw the debut of Sonic Con UK in Manchester: a cosy little affair of an event that was nonetheless a really fun day out. Sparked by the success of the first year, the second convention took place this weekend and really jumped up a notch: now taking place in London (for 2026 anyway), it's suddenly magnitudes larger in size and boasted quite a sizeable guest list, including a number of overseas guest stars (David Humphrey, Ryan Drummond, Scott Dreier and Johnny Gioeli formed part of the super extensive guest list). Of course I'd be there.
The special thing about events such as these for me is that for a day, I get to fully let out my nerdiest, geekiest side. It's simply fun and freeing to openly go all-out on indulging in my passion for this video game franchise about a bunch of cartoon animals, in the same space where we all feel the same deep love in such a myriad amount of ways. It's joyful. Seeing all the wonderful cosplays and levels of dedication, the plethora of art both lovingly respectful and wonderfully irreverent in that fandom-exclusive manner, sharing the passion for the music, the stories and the characters... it's just so warming. And of course, the most wonderful thing about it is doing with everyone else - casually striking conversation with perfect strangers because we both happen to like the same niche character, meeting online acquaintances and growing friendships, and sharing the love with like-minded close friends. This year has been a lot for me, but one of the happiest memories I will carry from it for the next several years is the last hour of the after party event, belting out Sonic vocal songs and partying with my friends in a small sea of others doing the exact same thing with their friends. It was really, truly special.
As for the rest of my thoughts, let me put those in bullet points for convenience.
- One fun thing I really like about Sonic Con UK is the fan character trading card "feature" they encourage people to partake in, by providing the template for people to get cards printed out of their beloved personifications. Again, I came back with a whole lot of people's cards and I look forward to properly sitting down to reading them all in further thought than I managed to in the rush of the convention.
Here's my trading card for this year. Still proud of the Chaocities pun...
One of the major highlights of the convention for me was not any of the big celebrity VA guests, but the chance to finally shake the hand of Dreadknux, the head of Sonic Stadium, for the first time IRL. TSS was my first Sonic homeground, and I was one of the forum's longest-running moderators for several years. Yet, I never had had the chance to meet Dread until now, after the excellent Sonic Stadium 25 panel, and it was genuinely just wonderful to finally say hello face-to-face after knowing each other for so many years virtually. I don't use SSMB as much as I did back in my teens but I still log in from time to time and catch up on the community - it's an important place.
In terms of the celebrity stars, I only got the chance to attend Ryan Drummond's meet & greet. Was wild and wonderful to meet him and have him throw Sonic quotes in my face in the voice. Had a fun chat about the Sonic Adventure 2 vocal tracks OST I had brought for him to sign - the first time he had apparently seen the booklet. Got a neat little decorative plate as well. Did briefly bump into TJ Davies casually later on as well and got to chance to exchange a few words - she's just great fun and really enjoys just casually enjoying the convention herself, by the looks and sounds of it.
I attended the three 'big' concerts (sadly timing constraints scuppered me from enjoying the small ones throughout the day), and had a great time. TJ Davis' concert was my favourite of the day, and it's wonderful to have observed the growth of appreciation for the Sonic R soundtrack. Back in my old-school days most people dissed it, now I got to dance and sing along to it in wild abandon to the sound of Davis' incredible live vocals - you can tell how much she loves that these random songs she recorded for some racing game in the mid-90s still mean so much to so many people. The Bentley Jones and the day-concluding Johnny Gioeli concerts were also a lot of great fun (though the latter was slightly scuppered by a flare-up of exhaustion that made me rather more lethargic than I wanted). It's wonderful to see just how much each of these artists put into their performances - yes it's "just" video game songs, but the love and passion around those tracks is real and each of the vocalists gives their all to the audience.
I do also have to be honest, and say that the con really did seem to struggle with such a giant growth burst. There were incidents throughout the day which indicated that the runners hadn't quite been able to prepare for the reality of just how many people attended. Enormous queues were frequent, particularly for the Meet & Greets - my hopes of getting the above-shown SA2 soundtrack booklet signed by both Drummond and Humphrey were smashed by said queues as I just never got the chance to reach Humphrey, and I know some people who spent the vast majority of the day in the queues and missed out on everything else. At one point, there was a medical incident in the waiting line - following this they re-thought the entire queue flow for the M&Gs but the communication was minimal at best and lead to a whole lot of confusion (I really did miss how most furcons have an active Telegram news and comms channel). The guests were great and patient about it, but they really need to re-think how these are organised for next year. The same inexperience at handling a crowd came through with a number of other things too, like unsuccessful attempts at clearing the stage rooms in-between events and completely forgotting about the comic book that some of the pledgers were meant to have. Hopefully this is a good learning experience for the staff and they take the lessons learned for next year.
Of course I got some loot too. I walked away from the convention with a bunch of stickers and pins, some new clothing, and a neat little two-sided standee (apparently Tails and Fang is "not a pairing I've had before" said the seller Kaladania), among other tat. Pictures at the end of the post. The surprise find of the day was someone selling the Life in Sonic's World compilation CD from 2021, which of course went straight into my CD collection. Whilst it's mostly songs I have elsewhere and it lacks the book it came packaged with originally, it's a fun little thing to add to the collection and also houses some unique songs not available physically elsewhere (the 2019 remix of "Welcome to Station Square", a piece from the Sonic Mania Adventures soundtrack and most bafflingly, the Sonic Boom show main theme).
I also got a wonderful rendition of Sonic!Flint from VeronicaAndJelly - I really, really love how this turned out and I really want to frame it haha.
Overall, I had a truly wonderful day. It's just wonderful to be a part of this community and to spend day celebrating it unashamedly. I've met incredible people, spoken to some I never thought I would, had the time of my life letting go of my inhibitions on big sing-alongs, and just had a blast. Super excited for next year, I know for sure I'm coming. And if it is held in Manchester again as the rumours say, well, I might need to try and figure out if I can do a little dress-up of my own...
Massive thanks to everyone who I got to spend time with during the day - Damian, Regdeh, Lucas, Taylor, Leon, Funky, Nost, Sophie, everyone else I may have missed. You guys were an integral part of the day being so excellent. Super special shout-out to Shez for accompanying me to the trip and patiently dealt with me being a great big nerd <3.
P.S. Here's the promised loot corner:
