Lucca Comics & Games

Lucca Comics and Games is an annual fair dedicated to comics, games and other pop culture. The event is held at the end of October in the small city of Lucca, Italy. Lucca comics is the largest pop culture festival in Europe, and the second biggest in the world.

Ok, with that said, you are probably getting a clue what this article is going to be about. Yes, I wanted to try something different this time and thought it would be a fun experience to visit the Lucca comics festival. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect as it was the first time I’d visited this type of event.

After waking up very early, and having a quick sip of a cappuccino (I prefer it over a plain coffee), I was heading to Lucca and ended up arriving there around 8 am. Lucca is a pretty small medieval city, and the crowd already started to form in the early morning.

The first day of the Lucca comics festival was off to a great start! I was craving for some breakfast, and finally spotted a couple of chocolate covered donuts just after entering the festival. Next to the donut shop, there was a huge tent for the gaming convention that I ended up visiting immediately.

Speaking about the busy crowd in the early morning, it would probably be good to mention that you should book your tickets upfront. Even more important than your tickets is booking your stay in Lucca in advance so you can immerse yourself in, and explore the event fully without worries.

At the time of the update of this article, the last Lucca Comics and Games was held in 2022 and the only way to access the festival was to purchase tickets online that you could print out or bring with you on your smartphone.

The price for one day starts from € 19 but there are also options for multi day passes. For those of you who are into a more exclusive experience of the Lucca comics, you can also go for a Level UP Experience ticket, which comes with some extra perks like being able to skip certain lines, a welcome bag to hype up your excitement, exclusive meetings with authors, aperitfis and other exclusive experiences.

Back to my experience of the Lucca comics festival. Immediately after I entered the big gaming convention tent, I spotted a miniature of Sailor Moon there. Do you remember the episodes of Sailor Moon from your childhood?

A couple of steps further I stumbled upon Monte Michael Moore, an award winning illustrator. He was drawing a dragon that looked so alive, almost as if it was about to jump off the paper. Monte transformed his love for fantasy and sci-fi into his job and since then he has worked for companies like DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel and several pop culture franchises. Monte’s artwork looks absolutely fascinating and fabulous!

Later, I took a walk on the ancient city walls where you could meet various people who are having a great time dressed up as their favorite characters. There were a lot of tourists and photographers lurking around in order to get the best possible pictures from the Lucca comics cosplay.

My favorite cosplay that I saw was the Batman costume, it was amazing how detailed it was. Absolutely superbly made. You could see people cosplay as characters from all kinds of franchises. Spiderman, Daenerys Targeryen from Games of Thrones and Starwars were some that caught my attention.

What do you think about the Lucca Comics and Games event, is it of your liking?