Feedback - Saturday problems and other things

[PinkGlitch]

I have another suggestion

seems many people have either gone down with a nasty cold, or stomach bug, or a combination of the two. I know Cons are Petri dishes when it comes to con crud going around but would a hand sanitising station/hand sanitiser in the bathrooms be out of the question? I saw a hand wash/sanitising station at an animal event once and it works really well! People are gross, let's be honest here!  

[The Friendly Dalek]

I think it would be a good idea if every diamond pass had a 'Sunday' option like Benedict, just incase the talk is on a different day.

[Raylenth]

Just now, The Friendly Dalek said:

I think it would be a good idea if every diamond pass had a 'Sunday' option like Benedict, just incase the talk is on a different day.

Diamond passes are intended to cover the whole weekend as activities are spread out over the whole event.  Unless the guest is only attending 1 day they are not day specific (Benedict was an exception).

[The Friendly Dalek]

2 minutes ago, Raylenth said:

Diamond passes are intended to cover the whole weekend as activities are spread out over the whole event.  Unless the guest is only attending 1 day they are not day specific (Benedict was an exception).

Ok then, ignore that 

[Queen_Sindel]

To add to that: Benedict was an exception because the Sunday only got confirmed later.

[Bogleg]

 

[Queen_Sindel]

6 hours ago, PinkGlitch said:

I have another suggestion

seems many people have either gone down with a nasty cold, or stomach bug, or a combination of the two. I know Cons are Petri dishes when it comes to con crud going around but would a hand sanitising station/hand sanitiser in the bathrooms be out of the question? I saw a hand wash/sanitising station at an animal event once and it works really well! People are gross, let's be honest here!  

That is a suggestion you need to forward to the venue I'm afraid.

[Wei]

Hello everyone.

It was my first time there this year and I was very happy to attend the convention despite the "little problems". I have been reading the forum for a week now and I feel like still being there ;). I want to apologize if my english is not perfect because it is not my first language and I am trying to be as clear as possible. Sorry if you feel that I am rude... it is because of my lack of vocabulary so I may sound too direct.

As a qualitician and a fan, the remarks here have the only purpose to improve the experience of everyone because I know that it is already a lot of work and from what I read, there are already improvements. I do not know if you send surveys to the people who attended, so this is mine

I have come with friends (a GP and 3 GAs) and some remarks are from them. To avoid a long story, I will try to summarise the opportunities of improvements.

- More information need to be more clear for the working personal. I have got several different (and opposite) information : gold queueing or not with diamond guess (VT), gold entrance, ... I do not know if a general training is possible for all the personal but it could avoid a lot misinformation. We lost lot of time finding the entrance or the queueing system was not easy to understand for us since there was different info.

- Reserved gold seats? It was better on Sunday. I bought the gold pass only to get my photos and get better seats to talks... i was so disappointed that GA could enter at the same time or already people were seated before I could even enter... for that price, i would expect more than what I got actually. Same remark for diamond pass, I got one for a talk and was seated in 3rd row... not sure that the two first ones were only diamond... (make the gold, diamond and general queue better indicated)

- I got no problem with my two talks included with my GP but my friend who wanted to attend the one with Benedict Cumberbatch was told that it was not possible because sold out... how can GP reserve this when it is not possible to do so online?

- My friends who got photos, because of the lack of booklets, could not have theirs. You should at least print the number of ordered booklets. I know that some does not care to have it so the possibility to refuse them would be cool for the ones who wanted them.

That was just my two cents and I really want to attend the next one  thanks again for that wonderful ans tiring week end.

[Queen_Sindel]

There is a reserved area for the Gold Passes normally. So yes, the Crew would seat normal tickets and Gold Passes at the same time cause it is different Areas.

Going from some of the Diamond Pass numbers posted three rows of Diamond Passes for a talk could definitely happen, for some talks even more.

Going from some üposts of  Gold Pass holders on here they were asked which talk they wanted when they picked up their passes.

[MarioVl]

On 6/8/2017 at 0:04 PM, Queen_Sindel said:

I have a new broken record. It's "what HeartDT said."

The voucher was marked as 5 Pounds. I thought that was pretty clear too. Last year there was one shoot (I want to say one of the cars) that wasn't run by SM as a prop shoot, hence they did not accept the voucher.

A significant part of the problem is that the price of each prop shoot wasn't published, at least not in advance. I can understand why the BBT set cost 10 pounds instead of 5, but I can imagine that was the most popular request. If people with gold passes could have read those prices in the forum, they'd saved themselves the frustration of asking and being turned down.

On 6/8/2017 at 7:00 PM, Queen_Sindel said:

To add to that: Benedict was an exception because the Sunday only got confirmed later.

Another sort-of exception, although it may be very situational. On Saturday I tried to get my Kevin Smith autograph using my diamond pass, but I was told that "Sunday diamond passes" (meaning, diamond passes for which the day picked for the photoshoot was Sunday) could not join the queue until Sunday. I guess this was an exceptional measure to try to handle the amount of people that wanted his auto (and the time he takes with each one); but I thought it deserved a mention in case someone wants to challenge your statement that BC was the only exception :)

[Raylenth]

4 minutes ago, MarioVl said:

A significant part of the problem is that the price of each prop shoot wasn't published, at least not in advance. I can understand why the BBT set cost 10 pounds instead of 5, but I can imagine that was the most popular request. If people with gold passes could have read those prices in the forum, they'd saved themselves the frustration of asking and being turned down.

Another sort-of exception, although it may be very situational. On Saturday I tried to get my Kevin Smith autograph using my diamond pass, but I was told that "Sunday diamond passes" (meaning, diamond passes for which the day picked for the photoshoot was Sunday) could not join the queue until Sunday. I guess this was an exceptional measure to try to handle the amount of people that wanted his auto (and the time he takes with each one); but I thought it deserved a mention in case someone wants to challenge your statement that BC was the only exception :)

There was a confusion from some of the crew Mario, possibly new ones, that because the passes showed the photo day they presumed it meant the whole pass could only be used that day.  We have sent Queen photos of our passes and she was going to pass it on to the office.  It may mean that they need to be redesigned next year so it's clearer for all involved.  This may have been the problem with Kevin?

[MarioVl]

First of all, I had a fantastic weekend and pretty much all of the staff I interacted with was stellar.

I did have a couple issues, related to the venue not Shomasters. I know this means it isn't directly SM's responsibility, but maybe communication can continue to improve:

- On Friday, you may remember, a screening of the new TV show Blood Drive was scheduled for 6:00 PM. I don't remember if it was announced here in the forum, I saw it on Showmasters Facebook page. I went to my hotel at 5PM to leave some stuff, I came back and I arrived almost at 6, and the venue staff at the door told me I couldn't enter anymore. I tried to explain but I was firmly told "There is no screening. The event is closed until tomorrow 9:00 AM". A friend texted saying the episode has started, so I know for a fact it took place. It does seem that any exceptions to the rule "The event is 9:00AM to 6:00PM" (like golds getting in early) are difficult to grasp for the venue staff, so I hope they are better informed next time.

- I was a bit surprised that, while my backpack was opened and checked every time I entered Olympia, my poster tube was completely ignored. I'm fairly sure I only had a poster in there, but it seems like the perfect way to ge in with a weapon... Maybe I'm wrong but it looked to me that the staff had been told to "check bags" and they were very dutifully checking bags, and either not bothering or refusing to use even one extra brain cell to be proactive about the actual purpose this is supposed to serve.

[Raylenth]

I did have my poster tube checked both days they looked at my bags Mario so it may just be random rather than every single person.  But yeah, you could have had a sword in there

[MarioVl]

9 minutes ago, Raylenth said:

There was a confusion from some of the crew Mario, possibly new ones, that because the passes showed the photo day they presumed it meant the whole pass could only be used that day.  We have sent Queen photos of our passes and she was going to pass it on to the office.  It may mean that they need to be redesigned next year so it's clearer for all involved.  This may have been the problem with Kevin?

Maybe but I didn't get that impression. It is possible that I am too forgiving :) but I didn't think that was a confusion on part of the crew, but a conscious decision made on the day to be sure that people that maybe wasn't able to come to the event on Sunday would get their auto.

[MarioVl]

5 minutes ago, Raylenth said:

I did have my poster tube checked both days they looked at my bags Mario so it may just be random rather than every single person.  But yeah, you could have had a sword in there

Oh OK. If some tubes were being checked, then I'll just count myself lucky that I was spared the minor hassle :)

[Raylenth]

33 minutes ago, MarioVl said:

Maybe but I didn't get that impression. It is possible that I am too forgiving :) but I didn't think that was a confusion on part of the crew, but a conscious decision made on the day to be sure that people that maybe wasn't able to come to the event on Sunday would get their auto.

And a good example of why we say a person 'may' not get through if they are there for only 1 da and have a high pass number.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Raylenth

[Queen_Sindel]

14 minutes ago, MarioVl said:

Maybe but I didn't get that impression. It is possible that I am too forgiving :) but I didn't think that was a confusion on part of the crew, but a conscious decision made on the day to be sure that people that maybe wasn't able to come to the event on Sunday would get their auto.

Not a conscious decision aka unannounced Change. It was a misunderstanding, I have already checked on that.

[MarioVl]

4 minutes ago, Queen_Sindel said:

Not a conscious decision aka unannounced Change. It was a misunderstanding, I have already checked on that.

I'm officially too forgiving then. I can live with that

Thank you for clearing it up!

[CosmicAvatar]

Apologies if I've missed it, but has Jason made/does he plan to make any comment anywhere about how the event went and what happened re things like Saturday entry?  I know there have been other events going on so waited for a while, but now am not sure whether the SM comment has been delayed, posted elsewhere or abandoned.

[jennings74]

this might have already been covered but the virtual queuing system was DREADFUL again this year!! Got my ticket for Tobe Hooper at around 10am (printed Derek Jacobi No-130) .... by 4pm the queue was only at 100 .... also there was a queue staff member change and would not recognise my ticket as valid.  By 4pm there was also two queues for the same guest, those inside the white line (main queue) and a second queue at the side (filter queue), but as the main queue was going down, new people was joining that queue (without virtual tickets) and those who played by the rules were stuck in the second queue including GP people.  I was very disappointed again at a showmasters event!!

I had a virtual queue ticket for Christoper Lloyd (collected around the same time as Tobe) but that was over No-500 so I was never going to get that autograph again!!

[RomeroSavini]

Tobe Hooper had a open line most the time I saw. Strange. Didn't even know he had tickets. 

[jennings74]

2 minutes ago, RomeroSavini said:

Tobe Hooper had a open line most the time I saw. Strange. Didn't even know he had tickets. 

On Saturday it was always a closed queue, just kept getting told to come back in an hour.  Showmasters hadn't planned a virtual queue for Tobe as there wasn't many bookings for a pre-booked photo shoot, so they thought he was going to be unpopular.  

It was Tobe Hoopper!!!!  I'm guessing Showmasters hasn't seen any of his work!!

[RomeroSavini]

Ohhhh did not know that. I nearly joined his open line many times, very odd if they would have said no wheres your ticket with no one there haha

[The Friendly Dalek]

One issue I had was being sent away from guest tables if the guest was not there.

For David Bradley and Matt Lucas I tried to get VTs but was sent away and told to come back when they were there. It didn't matter much with Matt Lucas (I got number 150 so I still saw him), but I got 290 with David Bradley! I went straight to his table and got sent away.

Please change it next year so VTs will be given out even if the guest isn't there.

Thanks 

 

[Raylenth]

4 minutes ago, The Friendly Dalek said:

One issue I had was being sent away from guest tables if the guest was not there.

For David Bradley and Matt Lucas I tried to get VTs but was sent away and told to come back when they were there. It didn't matter much with Matt Lucas (I got number 150 so I still saw him), but I got 290 with David Bradley! I went straight to his table and got sent away.

Please change it next year so VTs will be given out even if the guest isn't there.

Thanks 

 

They should still be given out even if the guest isn't there Dalek (unless the crew have been instructed individually which I can't actually see happening under normal circumstances) and most crew do, it must have been an aberration with the person manning that queue and unfortunately you got it twice.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Raylenth