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Honest opinions of the event


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Well,that's another convention over but what are your thoughts? Mine:

*guests: fantastic. Just a great shame on the organisers part in failing to allow upgrades on photo shoots where they didn't give upfront visibility to begin with on options available. Massive fail.

* staff: as always, I found the volunteering crew absolutely great. So much hard work and effort from them over the 3 days. Bloody well done all!

*Parties: Hmm. Friday all round awful waste of money and flat atmosphere.what was that layout? Thought i was at a work conference! No live entertainment as advertised on the site just a DJ playing.... Saturday was better with Chase Masterson and the rat pack all awesome. Big fail though both nights on the awful overpriced lager and oversold tickets.45 mins to get a pint as well. Did we forget how well 2014 parties went?

*Talks: I didn't attend too many but those I did were enjoyable but who again was responsible for the awful sound in the main hall especially noted at Shatners World

*Queueing. ENTRY a bit slow Friday on account of wristband issuing but made Saturday and Sunday entry the best I've known so a big positive there. I just had standard entry tickets no package. Photoshoots ran smoothly for me with batches called quickly and efficiently. Great job especially to the A and C team Fri and Sat. Polite and well managed. Great job.

* Dealers stalls. Where were they all....?

* space in venue: All 3 days no issues with crowding or temperature at all.

 

Overall I really enjoyed the show with my group of friends but wouldn't say enough to keep you there for the full 3 days without plenty of padding out. I was a little bored by Sunday having time to kill between photo shoots and seen all on offer.Slightly disappointing overall feel as a 50th Anniversary event but key guests such as Takei and Wheaton made up for that to a degree. The event does feel to have taken a backward step from the excellent 2014 show and this was disappointing especially as already mentioned all the group photo shoots added AFTER we the customers had forked out a lot of cash in advance photo ticket sales with no knowledge or upgrade options allowed. It has made me examine how or even if I bothere to go to future Showmasters events in future (which is a shame after so many attended in the past and thousands of pounds spent. This action alone has left a very bitter taste for a lot of your customers. Showmasters. You need to really take note.

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I agree about the crew, they did an excellent job, can't have been easy managing all those people, late running schedules etc but every crew member I spoke to was helpful and friendly.

 

Guest wise, now the event is over I'm a bit undecided on this. Part of me thinks there have been stronger line-ups at previous events, but I can understand from the organisers perspective that re-booking the same guests again could lead to people wanting to see a fresher line-up. I don't know if there has been a greater demand for guests in the 50th anniversary year which has made booking them more difficult. It was interesting to note though that Wil Wheaton said several times he had decided to take a year off conventions but had agreed to do this one. It may just be that persuading him to do that ate up a chunk of the guest budget for the show. I think the only thing for me is, I would have liked to see one or two guests from the new films. I know they aren't everyone's cup of tea but it would at least have given a spread across the whole ST universe. All the guests seemed to be on good form though and it was great to have three of the remaining four main TOS cast members at the event. All very impressive in their own ways. What I would have liked to see at this event was for CBS to have made something available relating to Discovery, both of the official US events have had some sort of exclusive news and I think it would have been good to have had some sort of exclusive here. I know that is governed to an extent by what news they are able to share and have even finalised yet but I saw the effect them announcing the two episode names had at Sherlocked so it would have been good to see something like that here.

 

I didn't go to any parties, I'm slightly embarrassed to say I was falling asleep in my hotel room by 8.30 last night!

 

I enjoyed all the talks I went to, Terry Farrell and Marina Sirtis were both very entertaining and it was good to see a packed house for Al Worden on the second stage yesterday. I've been to a few of his talks at Autographica downs the years and he never disappoints. I though Greg Grunberg did a really good job hosting the opening ceremony and the panels he moderated. Similarly Garret Wang and Walter Koenig made a great double act today, both do a very good George Takei style "Oh Myyy"!

 

The entry on Friday was bizarre, never really known anything like that before, I've generally had my ID checked when collecting tickets etc so couldn't see why it was that much slower this time, unless there weren't enough staff available which would be disappoint given they must have known how many people had booked in advance. Don't want to judge too much though without knowing the facts. It was all fine on Saturday and Sunday though, so Friday seemed an aberration.

 

I did feel things got a bit mad on Saturday morning with people leaving the main talk stage by the same points people were entering, thrown in all the people queueing for the enterprise d prop shoot and it did get a bit chaotic while I was there. Fortunately that all seemed to be sorted in the afternoon. I think the things I have been to at the excel have been better in that respect in that people can enter through one door and leave through another.

 

I think dealers are a tough thing where Star Trek is concerned, as much as I would like to see more dealers, my view has been for a while that it just isn't an especially well merchandised franchise like Star Wars. I suspect there just aren't huge numbers of dealers who would have enough stock to make booking a spot at an event like this worth their while. i had hoped it would be possible to buy some of the art show prints, there were some great pictures in there.

 

I actually found I was able to keep myself occupied for pretty much the whole time over the three days. Friday was mostly autographs, Saturday was talks and photoshoots and today was nearly all talks. The second stage was really good again with a nice range of topics being discussed. For me it was just about right, I didn't feel like I particularly missed out on anything but wasn't scratching round for things to do.

 

So overall, a very enjoyable event, personally I hope if there is to be another one they go back to the Excel, which I think is better suited as a venue for this style of event. Guest lists are what they are, there will always be an element of you can't please all the people all the time but my main thing this year was the original cast and they had 3/4 of them so I'm pretty happy with that!

 

Roll on the next one!

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I was there Saturday and Sunday.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I was able to meet all the guests I wanted to, attend all the talks I had hoped to and soak up the atmosphere.

 

I found the blue and red shirts very helpful in my dealings with them. They were very enthusiastic and bubbly, especially considering that they were doing in excess of 9 hours on their feet voluntarily.

 

I think that a lot of the difficulties for some attendees was a lack of understanding about virtual queues and needing to buy an 8x10 if they didn't bring their own.

 

Key highlights for me (in no particular order):

Meeting Terry Farrell

The Two Daxs talk

DS9 talk

Roddenberry Vault talk

Meeting George Takei

Keonig/Takei talk

The 50 pieces by 50 artists

 

The most suprising:

The queue for the Tribbles (managed to get one this morning)

The bluetooth Communicator talk

The varied and amazing costumes (kudos to brilliant Delen on Saturday)

 

Most disappointing:

The prop 'museum' (so much more could have been made of this - some labels and other displays rather than having everything lined up against a wall)

The lack of gaming zone

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Staff were helpful, guests brilliant, organisation wasn't great at the Enterprise stage the first two days but today seemed better with less delay. I was very disappointed in the lack of stalls, there were barely any props either and the museum was far smaller than last time.

 

Overall I had a good weekend and enjoyed it but I think a lot of that was due to the other people attending being so nice and nobody letting disappointment show, overall it felt like someone had suddenly realised it was the 50th anniversary and rushed to get something done.

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The guest line-up wasn't as spectacular as I was expecting for the 50th anniversary, but those guests we did have were excellent.

The crew were generally very polite and friendly when spoken to, which is a credit to all of them, since I'm sure they dealt with a lot of complaints and people not doing as instructed.

 

I wasn't impressed with the organisation this time. Because there were no separate entry queues for Command, Lieutenant and weekend passes, morning entry resembled a rugby scrum with too many people trying to enter at the same time. I know priority entry was never on offer, but I think from a health and safety perspective it would have been a good idea!

My main gripe is that the Commander pass was supposed to give you priority access to the autograph queues - certainly on the Saturday, the blue shirts in charge of the queues were interpreting this as meaning we could join the back of the queue without a virtual ticket, rather than that we should be slotted in near the front of the queue (which is what the package description promises). I would have been happy to do this had the queues been of a reasonable length, but given that some of them stretched practically across the venue, it seemed like I was paying for access that I wasn't getting. On the Sunday I only managed to get my autographs because I complained to the person "managing" one very long queue, who referred me to a red shirt who then saw that I got slotted in at a reasonable distance from the front.

Finally, I think all ticket holders who had 'Tier 6' for Shatners World deserve a refund, given that the sound quality was so poor we could barely hear him and there was no projection of him on the big screen, so we couldn't see him either!

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I forgot to comment on the programme guide this year.... LOVED IT. Excellent information and for a fiver, I thought great detail on the guests as well. Well done to whoever was involved in putting that together.

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A few comments (hope they're fairy balanced)

 

Firstly, I think that it could be let known much earlier that the talks would be on Saturday and Sunday. I get that there's a lot of finalising to do , but I suspect that as the opening ceremony was only on late , there was never any realistic chance of talks being done on that day. This would have helped people like myself to plan our weekends. It's not very easy to do when you only have a few days notice. I also think that the packages could have been sold without having to decide there and then which talks/autograph package you were going to get. Why not just let people choose on the day? The 'pickup desk' was sprinkled all the different groupings on tags; I'm hoping they let people who had chosen blindly switch their allocation, but as I said this could have been left to the day - it's hardly as though they would be over-subscribed.

 

As for pricing ; I thought £299 was pretty fair for a three day attendance plus the extras. The main thing for me was priority seating in the 'Enterprise' area. which gave a great view and made you feel like you could almost touch the guests. There was very little difference between that and the Captain/Admiral

seating. I'm not sure how great it was for Lieutenants, but I did feel sorry for those with a day pass as they couldn't have had anywhere near as great an experience, but for me the Commander ticket was money well spent.

 

It also came with a neat goody bag and the gifts inside were pretty darn good considering what they could have given. An added bonus was the talks/autographs you got. My talk tag had nearly all the talks I wanted, plus I got Wil Wheaton - but I'll come back to that later.

 

My first day was Saturday and it was a bit hectic. Queuing for the Enterprise stage was a mess, with queues forking and no-one knowing which queue they were in or where they should be. The staff were doing their best, but I can't believe there were no barriers or ropes to help them. To give them credit they quickly learnt to deal with it, and the afternoon was better, whilst Sunday there was no problem at all. Perhaps the staff improved, perhaps us customers had a better idea what was expected of us, more probably a combination of the two, but certainly by Sunday it was running like clockwork. One annoying thing was having to come out of the Enterprise stage after a talk to then immediately have to queue again to get back in! I'm sure something better could have been arranged, but in all honesty I think the staff did the best they could. Until now I had no idea that they weren't getting paid (surely with all the money being made they should have got SOMETHING?) so fo that I thank them from the bottom of my heart. They were always friendly, always happy to help, under what at times were trying circumstances.

 

A shame about the vendors; I was hoping for a number from the states with some less easy to get merchandise; for a show with so many visitors, there really should have been much more on offer, and it's a great shame that there wasn't. I been to a few conventions (comicon, retro gaming cons) and there was far,far more stalls selling stuff. What there was however seemed fairly reasonably priced, and there was some pretty neat stuff for sale.

 

 

The set props were awesome, I loved the two Enterprise stages, and whilst the Klingon one was a little on the small side, it was still really cool. A shame they didn't have any props to use, but great that you got an actual photograph (rather than just a digital image) and it was of really great quality.I was a bit surprised that the TNG bridge seemed to be more popular than the original bridge (and the Klingon one trailing a LONG way behind the other two).

 

Must admit I didn't use most of my autographs, mainly because the queues were too long (there didn't seem to be any priority here?) and quite often the guests were off doing talks/photos-hoots , breaks etc. I'm not sure how well the virtual queuing was working either, as there appeared to be a number of disgruntled people who had been waiting for their autographs for quite some time. The autograph I DID persevere to get was Walter Koenig, and what an absolute gentleman he was. He was in no rush and gave people the time they wanted ; he seemed to enjoy people paying attention to him as much as we did with him paying attention to us. Like I say, an absolute gentleman and it was worth the admission fee just to be in his presence.

 

The only photoshoot I had was with Will Shatner. Must admit it was far quicker than I thought it would be, but then I don't think I appreciated just how in demand he was. If he'd spent a couple of minutes with every attendee then probably half of those wanting their photo with him would have gone home disappointed. Looking at some of the other photo shoots, there was an entirely different outcome; the Ferengi on the TNG bridge (Max?) seemed to be having a great time with guests, striking different poses etc and spending much more time with them, but I guess he could afford to. I always wanted my photo with Will and now I've got it; if I do one again it will be with Gowron or a Ferengi - a more fun one. I do regret not having paid for a photo-shoot on the Bridge with Sulu and Checkov though.

 

Shatner's World was quite spectacular with Bill particularly animated. For an 85 year old who's just had a day of photoshoots and autograph signing, after flying halfway round the world, to then to a 2 hour solo performance can only be described as incredible. Love him or hate him, the man is a legend; in fact he's more than that - hes a phenomenon. Again, I have to say that having a 'tier 1' seat was a big advantage. Though I do have to say that I was surprised that there wasn't somewhere more suitable to host the show; I was expecting an auditorium or theatre, not the Enterprise stage. But it was money well spent for something pretty unique.

 

As for the talks; I must admit that nearly all the talks I attended were on the Enterprise stage. Like I said , a Commander's seat gave me a fantastic view of the speakers, my only gripe being that the chairs were unnecessarily too close together for comfort. My first was with Wil, and I must admit that I only attended as it was on my 'talk group' pack. My last experience of him was in TNG, I had no idea how much of a celebrity he had become since. This was one of the benefits of the package deals - I got to experience stuff I wouldn't otherwise have done. Wil was amazing; I suddenly understood why there were people who were attending the show simply because he was there. He was intelligent, articulate and insightful. He was also amazingly enthusiastic for the Star Trek universe, probably moreso than any other actor from the show who was there (at least from the talks I heard). On top of that he was polite, humble and genuinely interested in what the audience had to say - he didn't seem to want to leave the stage, and seemed to be on for much longer than he ought to have been! I am truly grateful that I got to experience a talk involving him.

 

The other talks were awesome too, with some heart-warming tales, some funny, some really quite sad. Walter's talk was brilliant; really funny and at one point an announcement about Will Shatner over the tannoy drowning him out made everyone laugh out loud. George Takei is a brilliant speaker and his talk was very interesting, whilst the final one with both George and Walter was truly memorable, especially their reminiscing about DeForest Kelley.

 

So in summary I would say that it was a great success; some tweaks could have made it better, but on the other hand it could have been far,far worse. The guests seemed to enjoy it and so did the fans I saw. But this is from the point of view of a 'Commander' ticket holder; I'm not sure if I had paid for a daily ticket - which when you add in the cost of paid talks was still a fair bit of cash - I would have been of the same opinion.

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DSTE - Saturday - 3.00pm

 

 

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Congratulations once again for another great show. Had a fantastic time. I bought a day ticket for Saturday and got into the main hall for 9.10am. I immediately went to the Voyager Stage which was already quickly filling up. Got a great seat near the front with a clear view from the aisle. Terry and Nicole are brilliant speakers.

 

 

 

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That was quite a powerful moment when Terry stood up and gave that guy his answer and boy did she give it! Her answer was given with such emotion that it duly received a roar of applause, and the day's show had just started! Nicole arrived a few minutes late and had to sneak onto the stage with great laughter. She was genuinely thoughtful and sympathetic because her opening comments were not about herself or the other guests, she instead first brought our attention to the fact that the people sitting in the back rows could not hear what was being said on the stage due to a problem I think with the microphone and the general ambiance of the hall as thousands of people were coming in. Full marks for Terry and Nicole. That was a great talk and a great feeling to start the day!

 

A quick tour around the hall to familiarise the layout and eating arrangements, and then I was off to get some autographs.

 

Wonderful chatting with Christopher Lloyd as he signed my photo from BTTF. I then showed him some photos that were taken in Belfast earlier this year when I photographed 70 Deloreans parked outside the Titanic museum. He was immediately impressed and gasped "Wow!" I joked and said it would be awesome if someone had opened the top floor window of the museum, looked down and yelled "Great Scott!!" Chatted a bit more and then he shook my hand. A true gentleman and charming to speak to. Also got to see William Shatner up close as he was signing autographs beside Christopher.

 

I met Nicole next and as she was signing her autograph, I just had to say it - "You certainly know how to make an entrance." She laughed and said why she was late, and when she heard my accent we talked about my home town and the hope of attending a convention there one day and asked for tips on getting around. I also said she looks younger now than she did in the show and then I sang to her - "You must have been a beautiful baby, 'cause darling look at you now!" - just had to say it. :wub:

 

Next I met Gates McFadden. This was interesting because I showed her two photos (one from Star Trek and the other from Marker (post Star Trek series) and I asked her politely if she could sign the one she liked the most. She surprised me and chose the picture that was from Marker and her answer was "My hair was nicer and I was happier then". I admit I was not expecting her to say that because she was (and still is) one of my favourite characters from TNG. We chatted a bit more and off I went. It was a different experience compared to the other guests I met.

 

 

I then went to the Excelsior stage and watched the Kirk=o=oke. Most of the seats were filled, so I stood at the back. When it started a number of people got up and left, which I thought was strange because - what were they expecting to happen? :borg: I thought it was a laugh, and the singing Borg should have won :)

 

 

I then joined the queue to see the DS9 talk at the Enterprise stage. I was among the first in the queue and waited over an hour as the previous talk with George Takei was delayed by half an hour which meant the DS9 talk would also be delayed. I got a seat about 5 rows from the front. It was great to see the cast so friendly to each other and having a genuine good time up there. Everyone hugging and harmlessly flirting on stage and having a good laugh about their days on DS9 and of course hosted by the marvellous Garratt Wang. I heard the people next to me saying it was one of the best guest talks they had ever attended at a convention.

 

I went back to the Voyager stage and watched a great talk by former astronaut Colonel Worden. The seating was packed and I sat nearer the back this time, but his voice was coming in loud and clear as by now most of us had become accustomed to the background ambient noise and had mentally tuned it out. I left half way through the talk because I still wanted to get Terry's autograph. It was now after 5pm and her queue was still very long and every time I checked it rarely seemed to move. I went back to the Voyager stage and listened to Colonel Worden conclude his talk, which was very good and informative.

 

I then walked around the stalls and returned to Terry's autograph queue. On my way there I saw William Shatner doing his bridge photoshoots everyone massed together in the hall around him and holding their cameras in the air. A person in the crew said my ticket for Terry's autograph should now get priority over many other's as I had got the ticket about 3 hours earlier and I was taken close to the front, with about 60 people behind me and about 9 in front. It was now 5.30pm and I knew Terry would not have time to get to us all. A couple of people with Commander's tickets were now put at the front. I wasn't too bothered because during that wait I had a fantastic view of Alexander Siddig and watched him sign away and he was so cheerful and friendly to everyone. When a mother brought her young child towards him. Alex crouched down eye level with the kid and behaved like a loving parent would do. It was wonderful to see this man behave genuinely with goodness and gratitude to all those people. Terry was just the same. Giving big warm friendly hugs and engaging in full conversations with genuine thanks and happiness all around. When it was my turn I thanked her on her stage talks and how "You are a great speaker" and then I said "I don't know how you do it. It's after 5.30pm and you've still got the energy to keep going, and you're still smiling! I know I couldn't do it." She laughed and said her fans give her the energy to keep going and how for many of them this could be the last time she will get to meet them and said it was the least she could do and wanted to show her support and thanks to as many as she could and sign as many autographs as possible while almost everyone else had been packing up or had already left. What a woman! Terry and Alexander were signing away right up to 6.00pm when I left the hall. Two people I now hold with great respect as genuine good people.

 

 

I left the hall just after 6pm and grabbed a snack before 'Shatner's World' began at 7pm. The queue was huge. My ticket was for Tier 6 so I wasn't fussy about my position in the queue because I was only too glad just to get a seat and rest my feet for a while. I got an aisle seat and I could clearly see William Shatner on the stage. There was a considerable echo effect but this went away as I gradually tuned it out and focused on what he was saying, and I could hear almost every word and had a good laugh. Other people were laughing near the back, but not many. About half way through the show people started to get up and leave and some of them were near the front, so they must have spent quite a few quid on their tickets and yet here they were getting up and leaving. I figured they were going to attend the party at the Hilton Metropole which had already started by then. I thought it was good and there were some brilliantly funny moments that made me laugh hours later.

 

 

I thought my overall experiences at DSTE on Saturday were excellent, and the crew did a fantastic job. I have to admit my experiences at DSTL 2012 were much better as the location and professionalism of that event was handled slightly better, but that was in London after all, and that was my first Star Trek convention.

 

 

Overall I give DSTE a 7.5/10 score.

Edited by Aaron2029
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I have to agree with the sound quality in Tier 6 for Shatners World. When Mr.Shatner made a joke the front half of the hall would laugh while there was near silence from the back half of the hall. We just couldn't hear back there!

 

I was going to buy a Tier 6 seat but they sold out so I ended up with Tier 5. Turns out that was a lucky break as it seems to have been the difference between being able to hear the show or not !

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I thought all the guests were great and the talks were very enjoyable. Massive kudos to Terry for destroying that idiot with that question in the Dax talk, most the questions were bad but his was something else but why on earth did you give him the mic again to ask the question a second and then third time?

 

Unfortunately there are a lot of things which left me scratching my head as to why things were done a certain way.

 

Queuing was terrible. Almost 4 hours to get my pass on Friday (I got there at midday), then for the opening ceremony I thought I'd get there half an hour before it starts because I won't be standing for very long as you'll let people in 15 mins before it starts. However you didn't let people in until after 10 mins before it was supposed to start and there's no and was never at any point anything telling anyone which seats were for what group.

 

It got better as the day went on during Saturday after you put signs above the doors, they went up after I complained that after queuing for half an hour to only be told that I was in the Commanders queue and not the one for Lieutenants? The staff after that also become more active in telling people which queue was which. That didn't happen for autographs sadly, not the letting people which queue they were in but keeping people informed with how long things will take. Also why remove what numbers you are up to when the guest isn't there?

 

The merch stalls were a little to be desired and what was with the sunglasses stall and massage kiosk? Why didn't you get in Nostalgia & Comics to run a comic book stall and Weylands Forge for a board game stall? Why no other options for buying DVD's and Blu-Rays? Did Zoom have a clause that there could be no competition?

 

The Gaming Zone - You had Wil Wheaton, the guy whose show has brought a revolution in board games and brought them back to popularity and you don't have anything? He's also an avid gamer and voice actor and you do nothing. I'm sure there's a bunch of the cast that have also voice acted in games too. There was a huge open area where it should have been so what happened?

 

The stages - Why on earth were these in the main hall? why could you have just used smaller halls and separated it out? As others have said we couldn't hear at the back. The seating was terrible. Those seats were incredibly uncomfortable and not enough leg room. Once we sat down we couldn't move an inch to adjust to get comfortable and we were so close to the people sitting in front that all we say was the back of their heads, To charge the money you did for Shatners World for it to take place in the Enterprise Stage was ridiculous, it should have been in a proper auditorium.

 

I did notice a big problem which is not caused by SM but an issue with the NEC or at least the hall we were in, there was not enough facilities for disabled people. I saw a few struggling to use the toilets because there were what, 2 disabled toilet stalls?

Edited by Magnitude_V1
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I can only comment on the Sunday.

 

I went to LFCC in London this year and thought that Showmasters had nailed it. Very well organised, fantastic guests, lots and lots of dealers and a great venue.

 

So its with sadness to say that I left DSTE with disappointment. Most of the guest's I had seen before at other conventions would like to have seen the some of the new crew.

 

The queuing system was muddled. No information on where to queue.Not enough people scanning tickets.

 

The lack of dealers made the hall seem very empty. The crew were doing their best and apart from one (George Takei autograph line crew helper) were helpful and courteous.

 

Time with the guests seemed rushed and this is the first time that I have felt that Showmasters are doing it just for the money. Too much emphasis on selling packages and it made the people who could go for only one day much more problematic with autographs and talks.

 

I agree with Grip this could of been combined with LFCC.

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I agree, a combination of the two events would have been hideous, I don't think I would have attended if that had been the case.

 

One observation I do have from looking at a few comments, and its not to disagree with anyone or say anyone's wrong in their approach, we all have different circumstances after all, but I do feel an event like this, i.e. specific to one franchise, is best enjoyed as a whole weekend rather than a single day. I know from my own experience that I treated the 2012 event as a LFACC type event, I attended the Friday and Saturday morning, pretty much just went to get autographs and only went to a couple of talks and but found I got a lot more out of the last two events when I spent the whole weekend there. Certainly gives you more time to get into it and the free time to just do things as and when you want rather than spending one day dashing from queue to queue. Certainly holding one of the higher value packages helps as you can avoid some queues and it gets you better seats in talks and the like but I'd say if you can make a weekend of it, you get a lot more out of it.

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can i ask a question of showmasters? why, why are the prop shoots open plan? this isnt a new mistake either. when prop shoots are open you'll always have people wanting to take photos with flash possibly ruining other peoples photo shoots and when those photo shoots are the more expensive star ones thats horrible. they also become bottle necks with crowds forming just to look. who knows where the queue starts and the onlookers ends.

 

please can you put some baffle walling up around prop shoots which are paid ones, you can stick a photo of what the prop looks like on the outside.

 

thanks

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At DSTL in 2012, the TOS bridge was behind the scenes with a large window so you could see through and big 'no photos' signs (which most people ignored).

 

I quite liked the open bridges, when it was quiet you could take a couple of pictures.

 

The poor crew were hoarse with telling people not to use flash photography (non-flash was fine), the problem is that people either didn't listen, chose to ignore, or are unable to switch the flash off on their cameras and just kept going.

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Well, things that I in particular noticed. Maybe I have a terrible recollection of the last DST, but I felt this one was so much more chaotic. Last time I went for a day and had no problem at all getting the autographs of Stewart, Urban, ... pretty much all the biggest guests. This year it was sheer luck that I still got Takei and Wheaton as I didn't believe I'd succeed near the end of the day, coming all the way from Belgium for practically nothing. I believed Showmasters taking over the autographs would be a great thing, but I'm not convinced after saturday.

 

I too think the line up wasn't that great for a 50th anniversary. I remember seeing the very nice banner hanging in the NEC with all captains on here and realised they only got one there. I really wished there would've been more guests of the reboot. I'm not expecting someone like Zoe Saldana, but someone like Alice Eve or Peter Weller would've been great as well.

 

My biggest disappointment is that I was really expecting Bryan Fuller there. Stupid of me to be disappointed in something like that, but it would've been a great opportunity (for whoever is producing the new show) to get people excited for the new show. What better place than a huge Star Trek convention for promoting the new show. Mainly, I just wanted to meet him as I'm just a huge fan of his other shows too (and was looking really forward to meet him before his cancellation at the last DST)

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At DSTL in 2012, the TOS bridge was behind the scenes with a large window so you could see through and big 'no photos' signs (which most people ignored).

 

I quite liked the open bridges, when it was quiet you could take a couple of pictures.

 

The poor crew were hoarse with telling people not to use flash photography (non-flash was fine), the problem is that people either didn't listen, chose to ignore, or are unable to switch the flash off on their cameras and just kept going.

 

 

yep which is why it needs to be enclosed or at the very least like they did it in 2012

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I bought the lieutenant package and for me I feel it was a waste of money considering what you got I wish I had paid seperatly for things, this was my first proper Star Trek convention as I have mainly done comic cons. I hate to say as some staff I felt let the power go to their heads and some seemed overwhelmed. For me Terry Farrell was awesome and I have to agree with the previous comment on how she dealt with that silly question. Got a chance to meet and talk to a few of the actors and shook their hands. Also Nicole De Boer was a delight as always and she even remembered me so I implore SHOWMASTERS TO TRY AND BOOK HER FOR Cardiff Con as she wants to attend.

Also the floor space could have been utilised more with more merchandising stands or props and where was the gaming zone. For the 50th anniversary it felt as if in certain areas they couldn't be bothered. Forgot to say Armin Shimmerman what a true warm and friendly gentleman to talk to and absolute delight.

The one thing I will say I have made great friends there and memories that will last forever as it was nice to meet people who were so great and I thank the organisers for that.

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I was able to get both George and Wil's on Saturday (one of the advantages of getting the VQs straight away).

 

It's not really showmasters fault - it's down the guest about how much time they spent talking to the attendees and some were very slow signers.

 

The longest I had to wait in a queue for an auto was Max Grodenchik who talked to everyone, not that I'm complaining - he is a lovely man.

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Couple of things I'd like to add. All of the negatives were completely blown away by just how amazing the guests were. Considering many must have had some jet lag and were then expected to do 2 or 3 long days, you could be forgiven for thinking they may be a shade jaded, but not a bit of it. They all seemed bright and bubbly, and although you may think that's what they get paid for , it can't be easy to do the job so well.

 

George and Walter (as I have mentioned) were absolute LEGENDS, esp Walter. For instance, Walter did a 40 minute talk, then within 5 minutes he was back at his desk signing autographs. Then he was back doing a talk with George for another 40 minutes, and to my astonishment within minutes he was back at his autograph booth. This was after 5pm on the Sunday, when many seemed to have finished. I don't think he was doing it for the money, I think he was doing it for the love of Star Trek.

 

I also thought it incredible that the guests didn't have photos on hand to be signed. Crazy that you had to go to a vendor for your picture, then to the guest to sign it. Unless here was some kind of deal between the two, the actors and/or the organisers lost out on easy revenue.

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