I was really quite disappointed with LFCC this year. Previous years have been perfect. Each year I book earlybird for Saturday and Sunday. This was the first time I booked to go to the preview show. This was the best part of the weekend. Being able to look at all the fully stocked stalls was really great.
Saturday really threw me off. After seeing the queue size of Friday, we decided to leave our hotel and queue outside for 8. Already, we were really quite far from the front of the building. We managed to get into the building by 10. This was 2hrs of queue time and our tickets were taken from us and thrown onto the ground. I know this may sound extremely picky, but, I have kept all of my tickets for events like this and have now been left with a gap. Previous years, we have managed to get into the queue just past 9 and have nearly been granted immediate access. I know Stan Lee attracted plenty of new people but I felt like I paid extra money for nothing. There was no need to get an early bird entry.
The hall was stuffy and claustrophobic. I received scratches on my arms (nothing major) from people in cosplay. Normally, I like to look around at peoples' costumes but this year, I really wished they would wear normal clothes just to make some extra space. There was plenty of shoving and pulling on the stalls and after a few hours I left. Not only was I starting to get frustrated through spending 10 minutes just trying to walk down one aisle. But, my asthma was really playing up. So much so, that we decided to go home.
I bought tickets for the whole weekend but on the Saturday I gave up after a few hours and only came back for the Stan Lee photo shoot. However, this was really well organized. Although he arrived late (which I completely understand), there was little queue time, I had a ticket near the 900 but once the queue had started moving, I was seen within the hour.
This was the only year where I haven't been dragging my boyfriend in with me to look at more cool things. This year we both left disappointed and aggravated. This was the only year where I felt I had wasted my money.
I do think it is a good idea to limit the amount of tickets bought- the type. There should be fewer earlybird entry tickets even if it means raising the cost (a little). People in that queue should feel special. Yet, we only had 1hr of extra time before standard entry tickets were coming in. The number of people being able to attend should be lower. I think it is a great idea to make Saturday pre paid tickets only although, I believe that this should happen for all days. There is no negative action to buying your ticket online. In fact, it is quicker.
If you were to have the two halls again, I think you need to put stalls in one and everything else in the other. There was a LOT of wasted space. It seems like only half of both the halls were used. The stalls could have been more spread out.
Restrict the amount of people who can come
Use the space more wisely in the halls
Wasn't sure of the layout of either, seemed like it was mismatch. There was an anime zone at the back of Earl's Court 2 which was an empty stall and all the anime stalls were in with the others
Maybe have an announcer- get some speakers and announce events e.g. "Stan Lee Photo Shoot Session 1 will be starting in 15 minutes
For the volunteers and employees- make sure they know what is going on. One of them told someone to come at 6 for the earlybird entry. He said they would be let in.
