Almost exactly a year after it was badly damaged by fire, a landmark Bristol store is set to reopen next week. And Forbidden Planet, the world’s largest and best-known science fiction, fantasy and cult entertainment retailer, is coming back with a comic-book bang after announcing a series of events to relaunch the store in the three weeks before Christmas.
Forbidden Planet has been the go-to place for everything weird and wonderful since it first opened in Bristol 30 years ago, but the store closed on the first weekend of December last year when a fire gutted the Clifton Triangle premises.
Now, the store has announced its opening date as Saturday, December 7 this year, and a series of events starting on that first opening day.
“After facing down the Clifton Triangle fire and living to tell the tale, Forbidden Planet’s legendary Bristol megastore will be reopening, after much anticipation and public demand, on Saturday, December 7,” a spokesperson said.
“We’ll be celebrating with a wild array of costumed characters, special visitors, festive decorations and launch day goodie bags – along with some amazing events lined up throughout the festive season,” he added.
The store is also planning ‘creator signings, themed days and Yuletide events’, for the rest of December, and one of those will involve Bristol’s most famous animated exports, Wallace and Gromit.
Aardman creators and directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham will be in the Forbidden Planet store for an exclusive signing event on Sunday, December 22, between 1pm and 2pm, to sign copies of The Art of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, the behind the scenes coffee-table book which is accompanying the new Wallace and Gromit BBC One Christmas Day movie.
The re-opening day on Saturday, December 7, will also be Forbidden Planet’s Free Comic Book Day. The Bristol store missed out on the annual event, which this year took place everywhere else in May, because it was closed.