There are some weekends when being a collector requires a little more planning than usual.

This is one of them.

Film & Comic Con Cardiff opens today, Saturday 12 September, for a full weekend of pop culture, cosplay, traders and collecting at the National Indoor Athletics Centre in Cardiff.

Organiser Showmasters has the event running across Saturday 12 September from 9am until 6pm and Sunday 13 September from 9am until 5pm, with its familiar mixture of fan culture, trader stalls, hard-to-find collectibles and cosplay.

For ASACC readers, however, this weekend has an extra reason to be interesting.

Because once Saturday’s Comic Con shopping has battered the wallet, Card Market Cardiff follows at the very same venue on Sunday 13 September, running from 10am until 4pm and focusing specifically on buying, selling and trading cards.

That makes Cardiff one of the most concentrated collecting weekends on the UK calendar this month.

Comic Con on Saturday. Cards on Sunday.

For years, conventions have been steadily moving beyond the idea that everybody attends purely to meet actors or take photographs.

The trader hall has become an attraction in its own right.

Vintage toys, comics, signed memorabilia, action figures, props, artwork and trading cards increasingly sit alongside celebrity appearances and cosplay as reasons people make the journey.

And then there is the trading-card boom.

Pokémon alone has brought a huge new generation into collecting, while sports cards, One Piece, Disney Lorcana, Magic: The Gathering and countless other TCGs continue to fill specialist shows and convention tables across the country.

Putting Film & Comic Con Cardiff on Saturday and a dedicated card event on Sunday therefore feels remarkably representative of where geek collecting currently sits.

The hobby worlds are overlapping.

The person hunting for a vintage Star Wars figure on Saturday may very easily be looking through Pokémon slabs on Sunday.

Frankly, some of us don’t even need the overnight reset.

The trader hall rule nobody tells you

Anyone who has spent enough time wandering conventions develops their own method.

Some go straight for autographs. Some immediately locate the cosplay area.

Collectors tend to do something different.

We walk the trader hall once before buying anything.

Or at least we tell ourselves we will.

The theory is excellent: establish prices, see what is available and make a sensible decision later.

The reality usually involves spotting something on table three, convincing yourself somebody else is about to buy it and abandoning the strategy entirely.

If you’re heading to Cardiff this weekend, the same basic advice applies as at every big collector event: know roughly what you’re hunting, know roughly what it normally sells for, and leave a little room in the budget for the thing you absolutely did not know you needed until somebody put it in front of you.

Because that is half the fun.

ASACC’s weekend pick

With Comic Con Saturday followed by a dedicated card market Sunday, Cardiff may be one of the best places in Britain to be a geek this weekend.

Whether you collect autographs, comics, toys, cards or simply enjoy walking around a building full of people who understand why your shelves are already full yet somehow still require another figure, this one ticks a lot of boxes.

Our only warning?

Do not describe Sunday as “just having a quick look at the cards.”

Nobody believes you.

Film & Comic Con Cardiff
Saturday 12 September 2026: 9am–6pm
Sunday 13 September 2026: 9am–5pm
National Indoor Athletics Centre, Cyncoed Campus, 9 Cyncoed Rd, Cardiff

Card Market Cardiff
Sunday 13 September 2026
10am–4pm
Same venue.