115 replies to this topic

[swan]

I would love an event in Wales.  Wales nearly always gets missed out for concerts, which can be a tad annoying!

Dr Who, Being Human, the old Torchwood, all were filmed here in South Wales.  I love spotting the locations when watching the episodes.

Treking up to Northampton is no fun, and nor is Milton Keynes, and Birmingham just makes me want to cry.  

London is the easiest for me, even Edinburgh is easier to get to than Northampton!  LOL!

So bring a show to Wales, don't leave us out! (Cardiff preferably!)

Cheers!

[Vickie H]

TerraHawk, on Feb 1 2011, 12:41 AM, said:

1of2, on Feb 1 2011, 12:14 AM, said:

I genuinely don't understand why people think that having only two sets of dates will mean you get an increase in higher quality guests.

The Big events need to be events. Look at the US San Diego Comic Con - it's world famous. They don't have one of them every 2 months do they?

But it's so busy you won't necessarily get to meet everyone you want to

[MikeDonovan]

1of2, on Feb 1 2011, 12:14 AM, said:

I genuinely don't understand why people think that having only two sets of dates will mean you get an increase in higher quality guests.

Sure, but my point is nothing to do with the quality of guests - my point is to do with the quality of SM's balance sheet.

swan, on Feb 1 2011, 12:57 AM, said:

I would love an event in Wales.  Wales nearly always gets missed out for concerts, which can be a tad annoying!

The harsh truth is that one of two things will happen. It will either make precisely £50, or lose thousands. The risk vs. reward is simply not worth it.

1of2, on Feb 1 2011, 12:50 AM, said:

I understand the financial aspect from an attendee point of view.

If you're going to run a business, this is all there is I'm afraid. If your customers can't afford your product, you're done.

[18blue78]

Kind of surprised how many people are thinking 2 events a year will increase the amount of top guests that attend. Jason already pointed out that many guests can’t make the shows that we already have dates for. Reducing the amount of shows reduces the chance of them being available.
Remember attending events/cons isn’t going to be high on a actors list of things to do. Sorry to say this folks but I think you’ll find they would rather be acting then chatting with us commoners.

Personally I don’t think it’s about how many events you organise, it’s about the quality of guests attending. Simply put if you organise 6 events full of top names you’ll be successful, while 6 shows full of extras will flop.
And when it comes to locations it simple business sense to pick London and the Midlands. I’d love an event in the North West, but I also realise you want to stage events in areas of large populations so as to attract as many paying punters as possible.

[MikeDonovan]

18blue78, on Feb 1 2011, 01:37 AM, said:

Kind of surprised how many people are thinking 2 events a year will increase the amount of top guests that attend.

Once again, it will not increase the amount of top guests attending. It will, however, lower SMs risk profile, because they will be focusing on the shows that actually make money.

[TurkFox]

TerraHawk, on Feb 1 2011, 12:00 AM, said:

To paraphase the Radio Times disclaimer from years gone by - other event organisers are available. Having two big events on the same date bothers me far more than there being too many events.

This is my only real gripe but it's a big one. It's only real chance I have to showcase any of my "big" costumes so there really is no choice for me, and I wish that wasn't the case because although I've been lucky last year and this year in that there aren't really any guests I'm missing out on, I might not be so lucky next year. It also means that, until there isn't a clash any more (or I stop doing it), there won't be a cosplay event at MK because most cosplayers will be elsewhere, myself included.

Apart from that, I'm not concerned about the number of events. I know I'll be hard-pressed to meet the guests I want to meet because they're maybe not big enough to be thought of as "worth inviting" but I'm grateful for those I do get to meet. There are some events I will attend regardless of guests (LFCC, for example) and the rest usually depend on who's there. If there's more of a choice of dates for the guests, there's more chance I'll meet them.

Edited by TurkFox, 01 February 2011 - 01:46 AM.

[Rhianydd]

MikeDonovan, on Feb 1 2011, 01:39 AM, said:

18blue78, on Feb 1 2011, 01:37 AM, said:

Kind of surprised how many people are thinking 2 events a year will increase the amount of top guests that attend.

Once again, it will not increase the amount of top guests attending. It will, however, lower SMs risk profile, because they will be focusing on the shows that actually make money.

Jason already said in this thread that by not having a show on a particular date means he cannot get a big guest that he could otherwise.

He also said elsewhere that decreasing the number of shows greatly reduces the possibility of being able to book guests.

Location?  They know what they are doing and no doubt often look into areas/venues etc, so if they havent put a show somewhere before, perhaps it wasnt possible at that time.  Where they stage a show in the future?  Waynes world? If you book them they will come?  Not always, so again, that is where risk taking on a new show comes in, sometimes it could work, others not.  Sometimes a good idea to try, sometimes safer to not do it.  Again, I imagine that Jason and co think very seriously about this sort of thing.

As to SMs balance sheet, only they can comment how different shows affect that, we cant.

[showmasters]

well how am i to know which events will work and which will not ? with out trying to run them ?

i had 9 guests to a Being Human event with all but one main cast , were the fans flocked to meet just to main cast my Birmingham Collectormania show , so a full on con with 9 cast for i think it was £60 odd a ticket should have sold out only sold 56 tickets , so how do you know its going to work or not ?

Glasgow dose not make money but it dose not lose money so we get the chance to have a trip to Glasgow have some fun hang out with my friends the crew and put on a fun good event for the people of scotland , now the events is growing and we are spending a little more on each event we run there so we still do not make money but the event is growing the right way and i can see that over time more and more people will attend this event meaning the event will in time be able to have bigger names spent on it  , so to just give up on something when it dose not work 1st time is not the right way to start up an event .

LFCC lost money lots of it for 4 years

Collectormaina MK lost money for 5 shows

manchester CM lost money for each event till the hall put up the costs to 3 times what it was when we started to that pulled the plug on it not us as we are in it for the long hall .

also another company ran small Stargate cons that did not pull in more that 200 to 300 tops for the past few years in fact these events were getting even smaller these guest list had no A listers at all , we here love stargate and felt we could make a Stargate con work and make it work so well we could start to get all the main cast , and after 6 events were have had most of the main cast and have an event that has sold over 600 odd tickets and is still selling tickets so this event can afford a good line up and have some rare or unusual guest that just would not be able pay for them to attend a singing show as there would not be the mass demand to make it work , so cons really do help the true collector as some guest that attend these events will never go to a signing event .

so its easy saying this is how it should be  , but guys if it was that easy do you not think i would save my self money and time and just to it like you say ?

i will also say this year we "are" running less events , but if i start to run less evens do you think that other promotors will also do the same ? no they will run what they think they can run and there will not be any brakes between events so from my point of view i think that i should run the events i think may work and if in time they do work thats great for all the fans , if they do not well its still best to try and not succeed than to have never run Collectotrmaina at all ? think about it ?

imagen if i had never had nerve to run Collectormaina MK 1

there were 5 promotors that came to this event to watch me fail and fall on my face as everyone knew that a free entry event would never work , as thats just not how events would work, funny that ?

also the first con we ran others promotors and fans said it could not be done the way we did it , no event could be run were you got to do most of the events over the weekend and you had to clash activities over the weekend , well we did it and the people said we could not do it again we try , we sometimes get  it wrong , but we learn and get it right next time .

others walked out of Glasgow and said it could not work and we would die up there , sorry not true its tuff but its working and it has a good future.

so i chose to have a go and try to make them work and some times they do other times they may not but we have done some amazing things and we still have dreams for more amazing events .

one last very important thing to talk about , the world is in a very hard place , recession is here and its hard on everything and everyone so for us to find it hard is not a surprise is it , so maybe we do ask for help from the fans of what we do , i do not think thats bad of us i think its smart as we can save wasting money on ads when the fans that like what we do help us to make the money that come is go further and it means we get more guests or have more money to spend on bigger names so i do not feel i should stop asking for help to promote in fact i think we should be asking more and if people like what we do they should help get the word out .

this is what makes us different to other events we are all fans and run by fans and the people that work hard at these events are all fans to , to whats the difference from all of you to all of us .

too tall meet his wife in the line at C4 now he looks after the crew and helps us run these events , you the fans are us the promotors in a way , you may not have looked at it this way but i know the crew feel this way as we are all a team and make these event happen as a group , we even spend New Years together partying for 5 days together , so its more than just running events that work or do not work its a group of fans trying something new sometimes , giving it a go

so we will keep trying and even though its a tuff year we will be here next year and the year after and we will have some amazing events in the future and we may not pull off all that we do , but it will not stop us from trying .

people used to say you cannot get this guest or that guest well we have proven that you can never say that anymore and if you try one day you might just get them so i think we will all keep trying .

this years cancellation is just a one off and i am not just saying this , never have i been out of it for so long because of being assaulted ,and with one of my business partners fathers having a triple hart op and another partners mum having kidney failure all with in 3 months , in a year when we have some of the worst recession figures for 90 years , so if we are not shining as much as we did 3 years ago then i think maybe this has something to do with it ?

but we will keep on going and keep on running some amazing events for everyone that wants to attend

well there is plenty in this for the few of you that do feel there is to many show to fuel your debate  


thanks for reading  

jason  

[Tanith]

About CM Glasgow the only thing I would say to make it a little more successful is to try and book more local celebrities, Scottish actors etc.

Edited by Tanith, 01 February 2011 - 02:29 AM.

[showmasters]

TerraHawk, on Feb 1 2011, 12:41 AM, said:

The Big events need to be events. Look at the US San Diego Comic Con - it's world famous. They don't have one of them every 2 months do they?

well yes they do there is not just SDCC my friend there is at least 1 big con in the us every month you may not know about them or there names but they are there .

also its not just down to me to only run one event a month in fact some other promotors put on events on the same month or even on the same day , i am not going to  go into it on here but we book a date and some times other promotors ring the hotel we use to put up the guest to find out when we have it booked to fine out the date of the next event we plan to run and had put there event on the same weekend , why who knows but this has happened twice in the last two yeas its very boring , and nuts , so we can only look after our events and if we only ran one event a year the other promotors would just run more so its not just down to us .

jason

[showmasters]

Tanith, on Feb 1 2011, 02:27 AM, said:

About CM Glasgow the only thing I would say to make it a little more successful is to try and book more local celebrities, Scottish actors etc.

we had James Cosmo at the last event i think no one really cared , he is a great guy and a good actor but no one rally bothered to meet him ?

we tried that .

and i can see you may think this is a good thing and would work , but as you can see just saying something dose not make it so , you have to try it and understand why something did or did not work ? , this is something we do all the time , and as we see a lot of behind the seen's stuff that most people would not even know go's into running an event , we have built up a lot of knowledge , we do not know everything by far and we are still learning every time we run an event , so we do listen and we do learn and we keep trying to improve after each event .

jason

[Talie]

I bloody love crewing so for that selfish reason the more events the better, but from a business side of things I agree with the likes of (MikeDonovan)

Have a MEGA weekend, get the big guns from supernatural,twilight,potter,dr who...etc etc...[no one attack me for those choices they're just examples AS is the following actor] people WILL come for them, people like Jensen ackles etc... he might be extorniate but for an event like this I'd be uber shocked if you didn't make your money

Focus on making a couple of AMAZING high class events and then maybe when we're out of the recession pull some more?

Or combine the themed events Twilight with true blood and VD for instance...

Edited by Talie, 01 February 2011 - 03:20 AM.

[Delorean 2015]

To add my opinion..

I would much rather see 4 larger conventions organised every quarter than have to juggle additional events throughout the year with a smaller volume of guests and less variety..

Maybe Two in London, One in Milton Keynes ( seeing as its the original location) and maybe another one in either Scotland or Wales. This would allow fans to budget for the events every 3 months and tie in side trips to meet up with friends, family, holidays etc

For example, I love the idea of the Lord of the Rings convention at the end of the year.. Im from England but currently live in Wellington / New Zealand for a year so 'The Hobbit' buzz is all around the city at the mo.

This convention sounds very cool and im contemplating tying in a trip home so I can attend, but TBH id much rather have the LOTR presence included in a large con for peace of mind that it will deffinately go ahead.

Dont get me wrong, im sure you would never put together any convention if you were not extreemly confident it will go ahead - but providing a good variety of guests at larger events gives me more confidence.

For example: The Indy cast members at one of LFCC a few years back.. Awesome event with plenty of variety and 6/7 cast members from the films.. Very cool

Either way.. Ive been to many of your events in the past and you do a great job for us fans.. So cheers!  

Edited by Delorean 2015, 01 February 2011 - 04:41 AM.

[Bergman]

Ok, this is what I think. Ready or not, here we go...

I usually attend conventions if there are, at least, 3-4 guests I really like/want to meet. Once at the convention, I can also get more autographs from "minor" (i.e. less interesting to me but still important to a wide audience) guests.
I live in Clacton which is not very close to any of the usual locations but I once drove up to Manchester just to meet 3 Space: 1999 people! MK is probably the best one for me as it takes 2 hours by car and I don't have to worry about parking. I go to London by train only. I am ready to drive long distances 2-3 times a year but no more than that. I don't fancy "themed events" as I have to plan in advance and cost too much.

After all these glorious years there are a certain number of recurring guests (usually on the Star Wars side). It is time to vary a bit more. I did not go to some of the most recent conventions because I had already met most of the guests. I am not saying that some guests are better/more important than others. All guests can be fun and say interesting things.

I don't particularly like photoshoots. They are too expensive. Although the initial reason behind them was a good one (i.e. having the chance of a photo with an otherwise very busy guest - and I am still happy with my Leonard Nimoy photo), now there are for nearly everyone, reducing the chances of having one a the table (the ones that I like). But if they are financially positive for the show keep them going...

I hope these ponits are useful. Having said that, I hope Showmasters continue to keep up the excellent work and bring more guests. Events are never enough but I would concentrate on 3-4 big ones per year spread out between London (why not to try the Excel? More approachable by car.), MK and Birmingham.

Edited by Bergman, 01 February 2011 - 07:52 AM.

[TommyT]

Evie_Nitram, on Feb 1 2011, 12:55 AM, said:

I think the selection process for these themes needs to be widened as well.
Turn the Twilight events into a 'Young Adult*' orientated event to include shows like Vampire diaries, glee, being human etc - things that will appeal to that audience.
Likewise maybe turn the Hub into a British Sci-fi TV series con, with Doctor Who, Red Dwarf and anything else that might qualify.

Might not always work. I really like Being Human (but couldn't make the proposed con last year). This time it's been combined with two other shows, which I have never watched and have no interest in watching. I'm not going to a con where I'm not interested in two-thirds of the content.I'd need to be a big fan of one of them and at least very interested in one of the other two, and possibly have a pssing interest in the third, before I'd consider going.
By combining shows into one event you dilute the appeal for some people as well as combining it for others; the danger is you dilute it for more than you combine it.

[JaneDoe]

swan, on Feb 1 2011, 12:57 AM, said:

I would love an event in Wales.  Wales nearly always gets missed out for concerts, which can be a tad annoying!

Dr Who, Being Human, the old Torchwood, all were filmed here in South Wales.  I love spotting the locations when watching the episodes.

Treking up to Northampton is no fun, and nor is Milton Keynes, and Birmingham just makes me want to cry.  

London is the easiest for me, even Edinburgh is easier to get to than Northampton!  LOL!

So bring a show to Wales, don't leave us out! (Cardiff preferably!)

Cheers!

I will second this! Or Bristol! The far south west of the UK is not an easy place to travel from. Brimingham isn't too bad to get to for me anyway but Cardiff or Bristol being within the M4 corridor would be far easier for us south westers! Although I realise that Cardif isn't a great place to get to from other parts of the UK. It's a mind bender for sure! But a signing event this side of the country would be grand!

I also agree about banding together like genres! Although I do realise that If you had a combined Twilight/Vampire Diaries/Trueblood con, having a main bod from each would be extortionate. But so are the costs of these cons individually to me.

It's a hard one to call, I don't envy your job trying to keep everyone happy Jason!

[theblackrose]

Personally I think 4 events a year is about right.
It is much easier and cheaper for us to go to MK but we do also travel to the London ones.
I feel that any more than 2 in London would be too much as it is not just the expense of travelling but also the accommodation costs as it is too far to travel there and back every day.

Finally me and my family appreciate the hard work that goes into getting the excellent guests we have had the great fortune to be able to meet thanks to Jason, Mark and everyone involved in SM/ME.

[etmuse]

The sad fact is, that if you find it difficult to travel to the rest of the country for events from where you live, then it's highly unlikely an event will be held near to you, as the rest of the country will then find it difficult to get there, and unless there's a hugely popular guest*, most will probably decide it's too much hassle. (And getting a hugely popular guest to agree to attend an event in a difficult-to-reach location would probably be trickier than getting them to an easier location.)

Are there too many events? Right now, I don't think so. (Are there too many that I want to go to and can't afford them all? Yes. But that doesn't mean I think they should stop running them just because I can't do them all.) Yes, the weekend conventions are more of a 'niche' market, but I know I'm not the only one who first heard about showmasters through one of them. (If you don't read any/many newspapers and magazines, and don't live in the vicinity of any events, I think you're far more likely to hear about a show-specific event through fandom than about a general signing event, but once you've heard of the organiser...)


*I'm not going to attempt an example, as everyone's definition of what constitutes a big guest differs so universally popular is impossible.

[JacknDaniel]

showmasters, on Feb 1 2011, 02:44 AM, said:

we had James Cosmo at the last event i think no one really cared , he is a great guy and a good actor but no one rally bothered to meet him ?

To reply to that, I met him, and he was a lovely guy, and he was a pleasure to meet. However he isn't a hosehold name. If I was to tell anyone about the event, the first thing they ask is 'who's going', if I were to reply 'James Cosmo' I know for a fact 100% of the people I know would never have heard of him.

When people say Scottish celebrities, I'm afraid most people are imagining people like Billy Boyd, John Barrowman, Robbie Coltrane, David Tennant, a lot of people that you have no doubt wanted to get, but are probably financially problematic to get for an event like Glasgow.

As for the 'too many events' arguement. I do have to say it only makes me happy that there are less events this year, as it just means i'm saving money(as long as all guests that were booked are re-booked for another show)

[DavidB]

Talie, on Feb 1 2011, 03:17 AM, said:

I bloody love crewing so for that selfish reason the more events the better, but from a business side of things I agree with the likes of (MikeDonovan)

Have a MEGA weekend, get the big guns from supernatural,twilight,potter,dr who...etc etc...[no one attack me for those choices they're just examples AS is the following actor] people WILL come for them, people like Jensen ackles etc... he might be extorniate but for an event like this I'd be uber shocked if you didn't make your money

Focus on making a couple of AMAZING high class events and then maybe when we're out of the recession pull some more?

Or combine the themed events Twilight with true blood and VD for instance...

This is what I don't get - what makes people think that suddenly with less events we'll get an influx of huge main cast guests? We get them where we can, and they're tricky enough to get NOW, without halving the number of events. No one has ever said it's a financial issue that they can't get these guests.

It's never going to be as simple as making less events and suddenly it opens up a whole world of possibilities.

As for being shocked if they didn't make their money on Jensen? I doubt many, if any attendees really know how much he asks for. A lot seem to assume that big guests are huge money makers but that's really not the case. More often than not, the bigger they are the more you have to pay out. It has to stop somewhere.