The journey to the venue was filled with 900s going in circles in Buchanan Bus Station before admitting defeat to their cooling systems, putting us onto an even cooler double decker 900 CityLink to Edinburgh. That’s where the adventure began, a long bus journey.

The Edinburgh Corn Exchange was easy enough to find – as someone who wasn’t in charge of the google maps – after my first West Lothian bus experience into the venue I went, and the staff at the front desk were very nice and welcoming. There were rows of up to 66 stalls which was almost intimidating to someone who knows nothing about trading cards; I personally only collect the ones I find cute. However, my task for the day was to find a Duskull, Dusclops or a Dusknoir, as well as adding more cute cards to my personal collection. 

When the sports cards didn’t peak my interest, I wandered over to a stall that wasn’t limited to cards, as many vendors had a majority of Pokémon targeted products, which was as expected, many cards and a lot of cards I didn’t understand. I found Angel Kitty Crafts (@/ angelkittycrafts) who had so many incredible gifts for your favourite geeks, and I was almost tempted by their wide range of keychains, from Hollow Knight to How to Train Your Dragon. The type of product range I’d expect to see at a Comic-Con, which they also vendor at. I spent a good while speaking to the vendors, who were able to help me with my mission of finding cute cards for my collection, and for cheap prices. Many other stalls often sell their ‘cuter’ cards for around £1-3, which was music to my ears, thus I spent my first few pounds on special cute cards at a stall, as an avid Pokémon go user (I do not battle, as expected I collect the cute guys), I was impressed with the amount of characters I actually knew, the term “I have them on Pokémon go!” was used a lot. 

After wandering around the event, I happened to be looking through a binder of cards pointing out which cards I thought had a pretty design, when it wasn’t the cards peaking my interest: a young boy was making a £100+ Pokémon card trade beside me, and I was eavesdropping without shame, because I had seen these scenes play out via Instagram reels and now I was front row to the event. I admitted my own defeat leaving that stall unlike that kid, I was not £100 richer. 

After a lunch break of chips, I ended up snagging not one but two Dusknoirs as part of my personal task for the day. My personal highlight of my day was Chuck Steak TCG (@/chucksteaktcg). This stall offered the likes of Sanrio trading cards, My Litte Pony Trading cards – which I had only seen on TikTok – and so obviously I bought some. I even pulled a rare card. It was money well spent. As someone who entered the event not a card collector, I can see the appeal that caused over 600 people to show up to this event.

The event was filled with all types of people, kids dressed up as their favourite Pokémons, many people with Pikachu paper crowns – which I spend a while trying to find but ended up not getting one – as well as young families and couples enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon in Edinburgh. So, I left the event with my winnings and a deeper understanding of this interest that so many fawn over. On the long bus journey home, I looked up events near me.