Bevluvsrats

First of all, this is going to be a moan, but I'd like to start out by saying that the workers and helpers there have a HUGELY difficult job! I sincerely admire the fact that they actually want to go into work on a day like today, no way you'd catch me having to do it. Got there, with non-early bird tickets, at around 9:30am to discover utter chaos as soon as we got inside the gates! people queuing EVERYWHERE, with NO order, no signposts saying which queue was for what, and nobody around to ask, not a blue shirt in sight. Ended up going to the main doors of EC2 and found ONE blue shirt there, who basically had no idea what was going on, and just told us to push into the queue and just go in at the front. The doors were open, nobody else was going in, so we did, to be told, fairly, that it was earlybird tickets only, so we took our standard tickets up to the booth and asked to UPGRADE to earlybird. Nope, we had to buy complete earlybird tickets and not just pay the difference. That effectively meant we paid TWICE! Got inside and everything was madness, which is normal for these events. One (of many) things that Showmasters needs to address at LFCC is that NOBODY KNOWS WHERE THEY'RE GOING!!!!! Everyone mill around just inside the doors trying to work out what to do. If SM had some maps and schedules printed to hand out to the queue, people would be far better organised, and you wouldn't get so many bunches of people all trying to look at ONE map or ONE schedule on a wall somewhere. Also, my advice to everyone seeking autographs - go get your virtual tickets as soon as you get in! The earlier you get your number, the more likely you are to actually see your celebrity. We had some occasions today where schedules were fiddled around, so less people ended up getting to see some people, purely because their schedule changes meant they spent time elsewhere. And Showmasters - queues! Sort it out!!! PLEASE!!!! Just having lines of tape stuck onto the floor does not an orderly queue make! Also, having ALL of the high traffic guests bunched together meant that queues were crossing each other, and spilling over into each other. The virtual queues' numbers were far too low, if you could somehow raise them up to above head height people could see what the number is up to from more of a distance, meaning less people crowding around the same area. Your disabled and elderly care is AWFUL, and really needs to be addressed. I understand that chairs and seating areas would take up a large area of ground, but not every disabled person or elderly person automatically has a seat with them in the form of a wheelchair y'know! Luckily my 74 year old Dad took a shooting stick with him to sit on, but myself, having my own disability, was forced to sit on the floor and get stepped on and kicked as people hurried through. The information is not filtering down from high up, down to the workers either. We ask a blue shirt a question, they don't have an answer, they go to find out and ask us to wait, and we never see them again. While I did get my photoshoots done (admittedly only three), my OH had trouble with his Anthony Head one, thinking he'd missed it, when in actual fact his time had been HALVED today, and he was sharing his time with two other people. I've since heard that he had another shoot at half five this evening, but it wasn't well known, and my OH maintains that nobody told him. So many people not seen, so many experiences not had, so many things not bought.

Ok, thanks everyone for your help.

Oh bum! Thanks guys. If we buy a ticket for the single shoot, I guess we'd have to pick it up from the venue, right? Or is it possible to buy the ticket when we get there?

Hi there, we're sad to hear that both Michael Shanks and Claudia Black have had to cancel or postpone from this weekend's convention, but if you've already paid for a photo shoot with Amanda Tapping *and* Michael Shanks, will we be getting a half refund so that our photo shoot can still go ahead with Amanda Tapping on her own? Many thanks.