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If you’re planning your cosplay for a comic con over the next couple of months and wondering whether you can nip out for a vape between panels, you’re not alone. It’s one of those questions that seems like it should have a simple answer. It doesn’t.
The short version: there’s no single UK law telling comic cons whether vaping is allowed indoors. Every venue sets its own rule, and this September’s cons are genuinely split, some ban it outright and treat it exactly like smoking, others haven’t published anything at all.
We’ve gone through the actual venues hosting UK comic cons over the next couple of months to find out what’s confirmed and what isn’t. Now let’s get into it properly.
Why isn’t there just one rule?
This is where most people trip up. The Health Act 2006, the law that banned smoking indoors in England back in 2007, only covers burning tobacco. Vaping produces vapour, not smoke, so it was never actually covered by that ban. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own versions of the same law, and none of them mention vapes either.
What that means in practice is that whether you can vape inside a specific building comes down entirely to whoever runs that building. A shopping centre, a leisure complex, a hotel, an exhibition hall, they can each set their own policy, and plenty of them do treat vaping exactly the same as smoking even though the law doesn’t force them to. Others don’t bother publishing a policy at all, which leaves you guessing.
So, whether you can vape at a comic con depends less on the law and more on which specific building it’s happening in.
The venues, one by one
There are a few venues holding events over the next few months; we break them down one by one to define the rules around vaping.
Comic Con Northern Ireland, 19 September, Eikon Exhibition Centre, Lisburn
This one’s clear cut. Straight from the event’s own venue information page: the Eikon has a strict no smoking policy, and anyone found smoking anywhere within the venue will be asked to leave without a refund. Vapes get the exact same treatment. The use of electronic cigarettes is strictly prohibited, and anyone caught using one will also be asked to leave.
No grey area here. If you’re heading to the Eikon, plan on stepping fully outside the building if you want to vape, and expect it to be enforced.
Stoke Creed Comic Con, 26 September, Fenton Manor Sports Complex
Fenton Manor is run by Stoke-on-Trent City Council as a leisure centre, and there’s no vaping policy published specifically for this event. Council run leisure centres in the UK are about as consistent as anything gets on this, indoor vaping is treated as standard the same as smoking almost everywhere in that category, so don’t go in expecting to be able to vape at your table. If you’re an exhibitor or you’re planning a full day there, it’s worth a quick email to the organisers beforehand just to be sure.
Peterborough Comic Con, 6 September, Bushfield Leisure Centre
Same situation as Fenton Manor. Bushfield is run by Vivacity, Peterborough’s leisure trust, and there’s no event specific vaping policy published anywhere we could find. Again, leisure centres in the UK overwhelmingly ban indoor vaping as house policy, so assume the same applies here unless the organisers tell you otherwise.
BGCP Kirkcaldy Comic Con, 12 September, Mercat Shopping Centre
The Mercat hasn’t published its own centre rules online in a way we could track down, but it’s worth knowing what’s standard across UK shopping centres generally.
Plenty of them spell it out explicitly in their centre rules, Nottingham’s Victoria Centre for example states plainly that smoking isn’t permitted anywhere in the centre, including the malls, entrances and food areas, and that this includes e-cigarettes and vapes. That’s a fairly typical wording across UK malls. Being an enclosed retail space, the Mercat almost certainly runs the same way, even without a page confirming it.
Comic Con Connections, 12 to 13 September, Winchester Science Centre
Winchester Science Centre is officially listed as a No Smoking Attraction. It’s also a family focused charity venue built around STEM education for kids aged 5 to 12, so if there’s one venue on this list where you can be fairly confident vaping won’t be tolerated indoors, even without an explicit line about e-cigarettes, this is it.
Comic Con Liverpool, 10 to 11 October, Exhibition Centre Liverpool
Same situation as the Eikon, and for the same reason. Comic Con Liverpool is another Monopoly Events show, and their venue information page for Exhibition Centre Liverpool uses the identical wording to the one for Comic Con Northern Ireland: a strict no smoking policy, with electronic cigarettes strictly prohibited in the venue and anyone caught using one asked to leave the premises.
No ambiguity at all here either. This is the North West’s largest comic con, running across the convention centre, exhibition centre, arena and auditorium of the Liverpool Experience Campus, and the vaping ban applies across the whole site.
The pattern across all of it
Notice something. Comic Con Northern Ireland and Liverpool Comic Con are both run by the same organiser, Monopoly Events, and both venue pages use identical wording, almost word for word.
Strict no smoking policy, electronic cigarettes strictly prohibited, asked to leave without a refund. So if you’re going to any Monopoly Events show anywhere in the UK, that’s the rule you can expect.
Beyond that, the honest answer is that a lot of venues simply haven’t published anything specific for vaping, which isn’t the same as vaping being allowed. It almost always means the venue is following the standard house rule for its category (leisure centre, shopping centre, hotel) without spelling it out for this particular event. Don’t take an absence of a rule as a green light.
What’s actually changing, and why this whole picture might look different next year
Here’s the bit that’s genuinely worth knowing if you vape regularly. The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 got Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. Right now it doesn’t ban vaping in any public building, what it does is hand the government the power to do exactly that through future regulations, without needing a whole new Act of Parliament to make it happen.
The government ran a consultation between February and May 2026 specifically on extending smoke-free rules to cover vaping too, in England at least, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland working on their own versions separately. That consultation closed on 8 May and the government hasn’t published its response yet. Until it does, nothing legally changes, but it’s clearly the direction of travel.
So the patchwork you’re seeing across upcoming comic cons, some venues strict, some silent, some somewhere in between, is very much the current reality precisely because there’s no law forcing consistency yet. That’s likely to close up within the next year or two once the vape-free places consultation response lands. For now though, it’s down to each venue.
FAQs
No. The 2006 smoking ban never covered vapes, only burning tobacco. Any indoor vaping ban you come across is a venue’s own house rule, not a legal requirement, though that’s expected to change once the government responds to its 2026 consultation.
Not necessarily, and honestly, don’t assume it. Most venues that don’t publish an explicit vape policy are simply following their standard house rule for that type of building rather than deliberately allowing it. Leisure centres and shopping centres in particular tend to ban it as a matter of course.
At most of these venues it means being asked to leave, sometimes without a refund on your ticket. It’s not a legal penalty at these events, it’s enforcement of the venue’s own terms.
Quite possibly. Once the government publishes its response to the vape-free places consultation, expect a much more standardised set of rules across public venues in England, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland following their own timelines.
Usually yes, but check first. Some venues, including the Eikon, specifically mention it’s not permitted immediately outside entrance areas either, not just inside.
Final word
The reality is that vaping at a comic con comes down to which building you’re walking into rather than what the law says. A couple of venues are clear and strictly enforce it; several haven’t publicly stated their policy but likely follow the standard no-vaping-indoors approach for their venue type, and the legal framework is in transition.
Our advice is simple: check the specific event’s own FAQ or T&Cs before you go, don’t assume silence means permission, and if you do need to step out, a compact discreet kit makes that a lot less of a faff between panels than lugging a full sub-ohm setup around a con floor all day.
