Friends Fest 2019
On Tuesday 10th December: me, my sister and her best friend took a trip to London to visit Friends Fest. Me and my sister finally watched Friends last year once we were able to binge watch it on Netflix and decided that we should see what this popular programme had to offer. Safe to say we were hooked right from the moment Rachel runs in to Central Perk in a wedding dress. So fast forward to this year and having seen a few people visit Friends Fest as it travels round the world and seeing it advertised on Comedy Central as we always rewatch old episodes on there when there's nothing to watch, we decided we would buy tickets ourselves. My sister booked our tickets online in November and then we booked a return train ticket from Birmingham to London. When we arrived we were transported into the world of Friends with the sound of Phoebe singing 'Monica, Monica, have a Happy Hanukkah!' from the moment we entered the doors. We scanned our tickets, put our coats in the cloak room and were greeted with the sign below!
We then waited in a short queue before finally being allowed in and we viewed a timeline telling us the event order of everything that ever happens in Friends dating back to the moment when Rachel and Monica first met in 1987 all the way up to that final moment where they left Monica's apartment in 2004. Also around were some of the iconic props and costumes actually used in the programme including: Hugsy the penguin, Chandler's wedding suit and that iconic Turkey head. We were then given a tour stopping at three different sets: Monica and Rachel's apartment, Joey and Chandler's apartment, the hallway between them and of course Central Perk! We were given about 10 - 15 minutes to look around each set and get in all of them photo opportunities and they also gave us a moment to take a photo of each set with no-one stood in them.
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| Monica and Rachel's Apartment - Panorama |
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| Joey and Chandler's Apartment - Panorama |
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Central Perk - Panorama
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Me trying to convince Joey to let me in!
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The tour was wonderful and it was so exciting to see these iconic sets that I now love to watch on TV. After the tour had finished there were then official photo opportunities that you could take part in if you wanted to which we obviously did. You could have your photo taken in the frame wearing: Joey's Superman outfit, Monica's prom dress or Rachel's cheerleader outfit. There was also the chance to recreate the floating heads from 'The one with the Late Thanksgiving'. You could also meet the Holiday Armadillo, who turned out to be a very enthusiastic and loud man, you could ring the bell for charity money like Phoebe and finally we got our chance to recreate the theme song with our own photos. This proved to be a mini exercise for me with all the running I had to do!
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Our trip was completed with a quick drink and a listen to a young woman doing her rendition of 'Smelly Cat' and a walk around the gift shop. The gift shop wasn't great, all I wanted was a keyring or a pen but everything was big and expensive. There were things like the Friends Monopoly or the Lego set of Central Perk but nothing simple. However I did have my eye on the Hugsy and part of me did debate spending £30 on a toy penguin. Overall, it was a wonderful day and I do recommend taking a trip if your a Friends fan!
- Courtney -
