Troy Baker is first celebrity guest of Middle East Film and Comic Con 2024

Attention, comic fans and celebrity spotters. The Middle East Film and Comic Con (MEFCC) 2024 has announced Troy Baker, the US voice actor and musician best known for his role as Joel in ‘The Last of Us’, as its first guest.

The region’s largest pop culture festival, now in its 12th edition, will be held in Abu Dhabi between February 9 and February 11, 2024 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre. It’s here that fans can meet Baker, also known for his roles as Snow Villiers from ‘Final Fantasy XIII’ and Jonesy in ‘Fortnite’.

Baker is among the rare few to have voiced for both the Joker and Batman. That apart, he currently holds the record for most acting nominations at the BAFTA Games Awards, with 5 between 2013 and 2021. He has also lent his voice to anime characters such as Baki Hanma from ‘Baki and Yamato’, and Pain from ‘Naruto Shippuden’, among other titles.

There’s more at the MEFCC, which has grown over the years to become a showcase of regional and international entertainment and including some of the world’s biggest fandoms, franchises and brands in film, TV, sci-fi, anime, Manga and comics.

Registrations for the cosplay competition are now open, in four categories. Cosplayers can enter the ‘World Cosplay Summit Preliminaries’ to represent the UAE at the World Cosplay Summit finals in Nagoya, Japan. The other categories include ‘Best Craftsmanship’ and ‘Best Performance on Stage’ with a prize pool of Dh35,000 up for grabs. For the little ones, there is the ‘Best Kids Cosplay’ category.

A limited number of early bird tickets to the event are being released, at discount of 40 per cent, and are available on the MEFCC’s website. One-day passes start at Dh120 and three-day passes are available from Dh265.

MEFCC is being organised by Informa Connect, in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism — Abu Dhabi.