57 replies to this topic

[the dude]

paddington, on Jul 20 2009, 01:35 PM, said:

Brilliant Showmasters!!

Thank you

could not have said it better (or bigger) myself

the dude  

[TurkFox]

NatalieX, on Jul 20 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

Were you in costume as someone from the Kingdom Hearts anime (this is what my cousin told me the outfit was). If not, then it wasn't you and if so, then I'm afraid it was. We did stand there for a few minutes and this person, if it was you, was sat on the floor with a lot of other costumers for some time, and then was being carried around by someone with spiky red hair. Sorry, as I said, I'm not into anime, so I have no idea who these characters are to identify them. We also saw you (or, if not, someone in the same or similar costume) meeting guests.

Again, if you were not this blond Kingdom Hearts anime character, then I apologise.

If the judges were giving out false info, it was due to being provided with a lack of information. The three girls at the judging desk were all very apologetic, and gave me whatever information they could. As far as I was aware, none of it was "false", just uninformed. After all, they were judges, not organizers. As said, all three of the Saturday judges were very polite and helpful. I even saw one of them apologising to a parent of an under12 who DID enter the masquerade on Sunday for there being no catagory for them, which she didn't need to do, but it was very nice of her to do so.

It was the cosplay element my cousin came along for, as I was there primarily to meet guests. So, while MY weekend was fine, hers was quite disappointing.

That was me, but I was actually answering some questions the people I was sitting with had about the cosplay zone. Also, I met a guest in my 20-minute break and then another once our timetable was finished.

I had a bit of trouble with my staff over the weekend and some won't be invited back - I kept finding they had walked off without telling me, leaving me understaffed and struggling to keep things together (Sunday wasn't anywhere near as bad, if any of them are reading this). As I said before, it was my first time running this and I hope to have sorted things out by the next event (CM Glasgow, for me) - I will also be without the staff members who were the issue. I had no previous experience, I suddenly found myself with a lot less than I expected prize-wise and so was unable to have any child prizes, and I frequently found half my staff were missing - I will be working on this for the next event, but please try to see it from my point of view.

Edited by TurkFox, 20 July 2009 - 04:01 PM.

[Purple_Vamp]

Good points - Everything

Bad points - me feeling rough as hell on Sunday due to getting myself rather plastered on Saturday (but thanks to the Twilighters that looked after me - esp Starbuck73).
Also running out of pennies when I wanted more auto's.
Deciding to have a hotdog and the bread was stale - not nice when you got  dodgy belly!

The talks - which others have said about the acoustics and not being able to hear much.  I'm hard of hearing too, so found it very difficult to hear what was going on.  Some of the talks I went to alone so I couldn't exactly ask the person next to me what was just said.

Otherwise I had a fab weekend - and roll on next time!

Thanks to SM and their crew for making it perfect!

Edited by Purple_Vamp, 20 July 2009 - 04:01 PM.

[BeatrixKiddo88]

But hang on TF I dont remember you being in costume (apart from the wig) on saturday. Natalie seems to be referring to someone in a whole costume. My mistake if not.

But as both a cosplayer and a staff member (on sunday, hopefully one of the good ones) I found for a first event with this new cosplay zone layout and organisation, it worked very well.

Usually we get a small desk in the corner of the room and thats it. This time we had a full (if sometimes rubbish, you know who you people are   ) staff, changing areas, room to relax and repair costumes and water for cosplayers.

As TF has said, first event with new rules and organisation will always have some kinks to work out. Mainly it will be who TF asks back to be staff and who she dosnt. I felt bad on sunday as SM moved Jewel Staites photoshoot from 12 to 2.50, and so when I was supposed to be helping with the masquerade/covering the desk I was in a masisve queue. But I hope I made up for it by staying late after closing and cleaning up the area and packing tables away.

As for goody bags: No. Sorry, but nobody on the staff thinks its a good thing to give ALL the kids a goody bag who enter.
Not only does the cosplay zone not get enough money to do this, but none of us believe in giving out prizes just for entering.
Plus other parents I spoke to (your son was Cloud on sunday, hello from the guy in a white tshirt who chatted to you at the desk!) had no problem with it. They understand (as their kids did) the concept of winning things in a competition. You enter to try and win, if not, you tried your best but maybe next time.

Giving out prizes just for turning up encourages less effort when it comes to the costumes. If you know the competition is hard, you try your best next time. It is the reason people do so many great costumes, because they know only effort and care will get them a prize, not just being a certain age and turning up

Sorry for the length, but its something I feel strongly about. Giving kids something all the time isnt a good lesson for them.

[hobbitfanatic]

Purple_Vamp, on Jul 20 2009, 04:59 PM, said:

Good points - Everything

Bad points - me feeling rough as hell on Sunday due to getting myself rather plastered on Saturday (but thanks to the Twilighters that looked after me - esp Starbuck73).
Also running out of pennies when I wanted more auto's.
Deciding to have a hotdog and the bread was stale - not nice when you got  dodgy belly!

The talks - which others have said about the acoustics and not being able to hear much.  I'm hard of hearing too, so found it very difficult to hear what was going on.  Some of the talks I went to alone so I couldn't exactly ask the person next to me what was just said.

Otherwise I had a fab weekend - and roll on next time!

Thanks to SM and their crew for making it perfect!

stop drinking so much next time.

I had a great Time I bought a friend who had never been to a event before now she can't wait for the next one.
The only bad thing I thought was that there seemed to be a bit of a short of crew at times mainly in the talk area.

[Jeni]

Is this a general feedback thread? Ah, I'll make it one, it's got a good title. :)

The Brilliant:
-Justin Chon! Paul Couvela! Lovely blokes I'd like to see more artists like Couvela, signing for free, with donations for Oxfam if you wanted. He was quite shocked when I gave him a £10 note and joked if I wanted change, but I said no, I'd rather see the money go to a good cause. Over the weekend I gave him £12 for five autographs, they were worth every penny.
-Robert Rankin. Although I'm personally not a reader of his, it was a really good to see an author there!

The Good:
-So much room! It was lovely! Being able to walk around without starting an intimate relationship with people in front, behind and to your left and right!

-The guests! I don't know whether they were flown in a day before or something, but they seemed so chipper! I didn't have one bad experience.

-Chill Zone, what an excellent idea!

-Gaming Zone, an even better idea!

-Good food, I know this is a venue thing, rather than SM, but it was nice to have some places in there serving decent food. Of course it was expensive, but it was better than having to have hotdog and chips because there was no other choice.


The Bad:
-Still not enough variety in stalls for me. I don't know what you can do to change this, SM, but it would be exciting and, well, I would start to look forward to going there for the stalls as well as the guests!

-Chill Zone, just not quite big enough, considering there was all this space not being used for stalls.

-The Very Useful Cloakroom wasn't mentioned on the website. I saw it on Saturday, but come Sunday morning when I was checking out of the YHA, I couldn't remember whether it took bags and how much it was. I texted a Crew friend, and she asked others, and they told her there wasn't one. So I ended up shoving my backpack in the YHA lockers for £2. When I got there at 9am, after going in, I looked at the cloakroom and gutted, it did take bags, at £2!


The Ugly
-No posed photos. Heh. Ok, this one isn't directed at Showmasters, but I'll say it anyway. Get it through your skull that by not letting guests pose with people at an event that you're going to make them buy a photoshoot ticket. Of course the main guests can't be doing with posed photos, so few people would get to meet them, and it's just not fair. But come off it, Sean Maguire? He was very Open Queue all day, and I saw him jumping up gladly to do posed photos with a big grin on his face (so it obviously wasn't his choice).

That's the thing with professional photo shoots, you get an assured good quality picture, taken by a professional photographer, with a good background, no other people intruding and generally something you can frame on the wall.

One over the table is a personal memory, that's all, and it could be blurry, your eyes could be shut, there could be crew walking behind, but that's what you get.

And quite frankly, I know that this is a business like anything else (so no capitalist arguments pls kthxbai), but really, when the photoshoots are expensive (and with good reason) and in this sort of economic climate, it's insensitive.

I am no way a supporter of The Customer Is Always Right (in fact, I think they're frequently wrong), but, likewise, I don't agree with It's My Way Or The Highway.

I won't let Tesco tell me what food I should buy, so nor am I going to let someone dictate to me that I should fork over precious pennies for a memory of the day.

So I'll take the Highway.

Regrets:
-I didn't get an auto from Sean Maguire, I really wanted to, but he's just so pretty, I was shy.

-I forgot to ask Scott Bakula how his name was pronounced, then I was going to go into my spiel about how Bak-u-la is awesomer because it rhymes with Dracula.

Feedback:
-Webcomic artists! I think this is such an untapped medium over here. I'm sure plenty of people here read webcomics and would like to get the chance to meet the artists behind them. A real money maker, I reckon. Heeheehee.
Incidentally, some suggestions:
-Dave Kellett (went to Kent Uni!), Sheldon
-Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
-Pete Tarkulich, Bardsworth
-Sarah Ellerton, Inverloch and The Phoenix Requiem

-Authors! I think LFCC would be perfect to bring in more authors. Incidentally I know Jonathan Stroud, Garth Nix and Markus Zusak are excellent speakers at talks. But there's also Kevin Crossley-Holland, Brian Jacques, Marcus Sedgwick, Mal Peet... hint much?

[Dellefyne]

About the posed photos, I don't understand something: why is it that there were no signs such as 'no posed photos' Saturday, and Sunday these signs just seemed to appear out of nowhere??

[Queen_Sindel]

Dellefyne, on Jul 20 2009, 11:15 PM, said:

About the posed photos, I don't understand something: why is it that there were no signs such as 'no posed photos' Saturday, and Sunday these signs just seemed to appear out of nowhere??

They actually showed up Saturday in the morning already, at least for some guests.

Sometimes it's clear in advance that posed photos just are not possible, like for Scott or Peter. Sometimes the guest mentions it in the morning because he/she woke up with a headache. Sometimes a guest requests it during the day because the headache just started then, or they may get tired from the  constant getting up and down. I sat with Michael Shanks for one day at a prior show and although the fans were taking pictures of him I ended up with a flash induced migraine in the evening too. Since then I have 110 percent sympathy for a guest if those signs show up during the day.

[Jeni]

Asking for no flash photography is a very reasonable request, especially as at LFCC my pictures came out worse with flash! But as a general rule, when asking guests for a photo, I turn the flash off, it's just politeness and good manners.

[1of2]

The Good - Jewel. Scott. Pretty much everything else. Jewel...

The Bad - No reapperance of Darth Tall :vader: on Sundays entry

The Ugly - being refused entry to the car parks at 7am (the time I was told they would be open when I checked with Earls Court). Not the fault of Showmasters. Even Jason was refused entry until he tried another gate. I was stopped when trying to follow him through though, got told they would be opened at 8am and to go away. Went back to the first gate. Five minutes later was told that the other gate was open. Why couldn't they open this gate as well which was actually closest to the car park!! Arrgh!



The regret - Not getting around to seeing Jacon Kogan

Totally agree about flash photography. The lighting is more than adequate. I have never used a flash at any of the events and the photos have been fine. The black hole that was Earls Court 1 in 2007 is excluded from this - I still didn't use the flash there (no the phottos were not as good ) as that would have blinded the guests even more.

Edited by 1of2, 20 July 2009 - 10:08 PM.

[Absynthe]

My only criticism was about one particular staff member who I found intolerably rude. I was on the staff at Artist's Alley and she made it very difficult on the saturday for us to have staff passes and caused a huge fuss over my parking space on the sunday. I don't think it prudent for me to go into details on the forum- perhaps someone could let me know who I could actually talk to about it as in furture I would not like her involvement with our staff.

Other than that, I found the weekend thoroughly enjoyable! I was kept very busy so was only able to wander the stalls a little bit, but I met Chris Sarandan and he was a lovely guy. The cosplay was fantastic and everyone seemed to be having a good time. I was able to meet lots of lovely people and although I was exhuasted after the two days it was so much fun!

The lighting for photography was awful, but that is to do with the hall itself. A friend of mine showed me that if you just have the pictures in black and white they look much better rather than orangey

Edited by Absynthe, 21 July 2009 - 10:33 AM.

[Too Tall]

Absynthe, on Jul 21 2009, 11:32 AM, said:

My only criticism was about one particular staff member who I found intolerably rude. I was on the staff at Artist's Alley and she made it very difficult on the saturday for us to have staff passes and caused a huge fuss over my parking space on the sunday. I don't think it prudent for me to go into details on the forum- perhaps someone could let me know who I could actually talk to about it as in furture I would not like her involvement with our staff.

Please talk to Mike about this who will then pass the information on to myself or Jason.

[1of2]

Absynthe, on Jul 21 2009, 11:32 AM, said:

The lighting for photography was awful, but that is to do with the hall itself. A friend of mine showed me that if you just have the pictures in black and white they look much better rather than orangey

This may help for future events. With a lot of cameras the automatic white balance setting does not cover enough of the kelvin temperature range to be able to compensate accurately for the colour cast given off by the lighting.

If your camera has the option to change the white balance then setting it to Fluorescent/Tungsten/Incandescent (depends on the type of lights used) will help remove the orange colour cast. Even better would be using a Custom setting if available as this will be the most accurate.

Auto and Fluorescent





Incandescent and Custom

Edited by 1of2, 17 August 2009 - 10:16 PM.

[Flibble]

Thanks for the tip 1of2. All my photos came out with an orange  glow, and I've had to fix them on the computer.

[RiversideJon]

Just a couple of thoughts.

Could have spent all day talking with Eve   , she was very chatty, so was Alex and Michael, most guests I feel would have like to chatted more, but with queues etc, not realistic.   but I do feel for the guests that have no one at the desk, and they are just looking out at the big queues on the other tables, MS (icon) was one of these I think.  Havent seen him so quiet before.  RDA for the next event   .  

Bit of an awkard moment at first,  but with having auto pics to be signed next to the guest I think is a bit, well at first awkard.  you look at the pics, the guest is then looking at you waiting for your choice, hand over money, people queueing behind, prefer selecting before going to the guest.  

However, I went to see Anna walton, again pics on desk, but this time talked to her whilst choosing, so in a way it was more time with the guest and it was good to talk about the photos there, she said about the makeup and then said about Abe costume how due to the way the suit makeup was, toilet breaks were tricky for him, not helped by Ron who kept pouring water into a cup, doing anything to make him want the toilet.  

The lighting in there is bad, , But I have now got an SLR which more than copes with the light, and though flashes can produce better shots I think it does irritate the guests, having a barrage of flashes at them, save that for the photoshoots, anyhow, using a good paint shop program you can remove the orange, no problem.

[Dwarfer ZK]

looks like everyones commenting here so here's a far too in depth account of my visit on the Saturday:

The Generally Good -

- Robert Rankin, never read his books before but my friend's a fan so I had a look and bought a book. thought about getting a peice of the jewlery made from victorian watches but had to watch the budget. also had a conversation about cats with wings - was being teased by my mates for buying a faerie winged cat from another stall, and robert then told us to look it up on google as it can happen and his cat actually grew wing type growths.

- Jewel Staite, she was absolutely lovely. that's pretty much it.

- Hattie Hayridge, Dominic Keating, Chloe Annette, woman who played Master's wife in Doctor Who, didn't get any of their autographs but they were all great for a random chat and photo.

- Room to sit down, Lack of space at other events i've been to has been a big problem, especially as I have CFS and often have to resort to using a walking stick (nicknamed the baby dalek for the first half of thecon as when it was in my friend's rucksack it looked like a dalek sucky thing)

- The red headed staff woman who was working around Scott Bakula, Michael Shanks and Jewel Staite's queue areas. She was really lovely and made queuing not as difficult when possible. she also kept getting told off by other staff members for pronouncing Scott's last name wrong which amused me.

The Generally Bad -

- We were sent standard tickets when we'd paid for early. but that said we explained what happened and we just got in straight away with no fuss, so not that bad really.

- Realised after 20 minutes of being there I'd forgotten the dvd covers I was getting signed for my friends (one wanted Michael Shanks, the other Tom Baker) so I had to travel all the way back to Hostel at Kings Cross to get them. was my own fault though and back by 11am.

- Sound quality in talks. I'm a bit deaf so found it hard to hear in the Red Dwarf talk, was gonna go to the Doctor Who and Stargate ones but kinda changed my mind as a result.

- People kept glaring at my mates coz I bruise *REALLY* easily and had some love bite bruises on my shoulder from play fighting in the park with my boyfriend a couple of days before, and they thought I'd been beaten lol (was *so* embarrised)

If anyone remembers me I was the midget with the walking stick, electric blue tights, denim shorts, purply top and pink scarf - I was in a random mood to wear bright colours that day.

[Absynthe]

TooTall- I shall mention it to Mike. I know that a few of us at Artist's Alley had some probs with her so I'll get something sorted and ask Ruth or Mike to talk to yourself or Jason (actually, if you are who I think you are- you witness this lady at the organisation booth being really rude to Ruth and I on the sunday evening...you might not remember though?)

10f2- Fantastic tips! I have a Canon 400D which I am still getting used to, but I shall definately do that. I thought there was something up with my ISO heheh me lame

[1of2]

Absynthe, on Jul 21 2009, 05:58 PM, said:

10f2- Fantastic tips! I have a Canon 400D which I am still getting used to, but I shall definately do that. I thought there was something up with my ISO heheh me lame

No problem. As you have a DSLR then I have no doubt there will be a custom white balance option. Basically it will involve taking a photo of something with a neutral colour (grey is best, or white) that is directly under the hall lights - I think used the floor this time around - and then applying it as your white balance reference point. I use a Nikon D300 so can't help you with the exact way of setting it up on a Canon. It should be in the manual somewhere. Although if you are struggling by the next event then feel free to shout - we can meet up (providing I am there of course!) and I will try and help. In the meantime enjoy your camera!

p.s. Raising the ISO can help with non-flash photgraphy as it helps keep the shutter speeds up. Although the higher you go then the photo will start to degrade with noise. 1600 is the realistic ISO limit on mine. 3200 at a push.

[Queen_Sindel]

1of2, on Jul 22 2009, 01:14 AM, said:

No problem. As you have a DSLR then I have no doubt there will be a custom white balance option. Basically it will involve taking a photo of something with a neutral colour (grey is best, or white) that is directly under the hall lights - I think used the floor this time around - and then applying it as your white balance reference point. I use a Nikon D300 so can't help you with the exact way of setting it up on a Canon. It should be in the manual somewhere. Although if you are struggling by the next event then feel free to shout - we can meet up (providing I am there of course!) and I will try and help. In the meantime enjoy your camera!

I've got the Canon 350D and it has that function, so the 400D should have it as well.

[touchthesky]

Only a few bad points from me, most can probably be explained..

First is that we were told online there was a place to leave coats, then told at the venue by two seperate crew members that my suitcase would have to be pulled around by me all day since there was no where to leave it ....Ileft it with a dealer (ty soo much) but then I accidently stumbled accross a cloak room! So I had left my huge suitcase with a poor man who I think was scared to say no to me (I was so desperate) for no reason.

Second was that we were told that we needed to come back in an hour for Paul Mcgann at 11:30am..we went back at around 12>45 and were told to come back in another hour..then we were told half an hour..and the man was really kinda rude about it..eventually he just let us in, i think due to all the huffing and puffing and steam from the ears.