Chanbec

The thing is, Friday worked perfectly, so it shows it can be done!! Hopefully Sunday will also work!

I'd even suggest gold passes getting a couple of 'lottery' VQ tickets that we could use to join any diamond guest queue - like the £10 auto tickets but only good enough to join a queue for a diamond pass guest. That might be a happy medium, but it would be another 'thing' for volunteers to try to remember!

I was towards the end of the gold pass queue and was in the venue at 8:56. On entering all I could see was a massive scrum of GA people heading up to the guests to get VQs. I couldn't get anywhere near it. So the issue was not gold pass being let in late but General admission being let in early. I would like to say that Friday worked perfectly - gold pass were let in at 8:55, had the VQs I wanted in hand by 9:01 and vacated the area as soon as the GA was let in. It would be easily solved by letting gold passes in 10 or 15 minutes beforehand as it takes nearly all the 5 minutes for us to get up to the VQ area. I would echo others in saying that today looked really unsafe with some of the behaviour I saw going on. I would also say that the main stage area and photo areas near it (ABCD) was very badly organised - no where near enough staff and I suffered a panic attack after getting caught in a mob of people. Maybe forcing people to exit on one side of the stage only would help? And completely separating the Main Stage queuing area from the photo areas?

Absolutely brilliant guest. He was taking ages with everyone in the autograph queue and happily taking desk photos with everyone. I chatted to him about Prison Break and got a hug. And then in the photo shoot he remembered my name, which I thought was seriously impressive and made sure I had a lovely photo, getting it taken twice as he wasn't happy with the first one. His talk was a lot of fun and his genuine appreciation for his fans was wonderful, I hope he comes back in future years, cause he ended up being pretty much my favourite guest!

Lots of feedback! · The new layout was brilliant, having the dealers completely separate and with so much space in the aisles worked really well. I spent far more time in the dealers area than in previous years simply as my claustrophobia wasnt so bad. · The only improvement Id suggest would be a couple more obvious signal points. The flying red shark was an easy location to spot and get to from a distance and the other side of the hall could have done with something similar so you could meet back up with friends more easily · The autograph area was still really difficult to move around. It was helpful to have a couple of really big guests around the corner, but maybe if the suicide squad costumes had been located somewhere else (kudos for getting them btw!) then the autograph zone could have been spaced out properly. · Gold pass issues. The entry situation on the Friday and Saturday was not cool, but thank you for resolving it on Sunday. On Saturday in particular to have paid so much but to get to the VQ area so much after standard entry people was not fun fortunately I only needed a VQ for one diamond guest. We were so far away from the autograph area and so many people ran past me. Maybe in future Gold Pass people could get automatic VQ tickets for 1/2 diamond pass guests of their choice? · The other thing that worried me was security at the gold pass entry. On the Friday they were thorough but efficient. On Saturday they were incredibly fussy, wanting to look into absolutely everything and contributed to the delay in getting through. On the Sunday they were great at starting early on the bag check but they were very relaxed. I had my fake knives and gun still in my bag rather than on me at that point and the guy didnt open the bag to see them. I dont know if there was a specific threat on the Saturday but it worried me that on the Sunday I could have got anything through that check. · The second location of the gold pass room was much better. Would it really be so difficult to at least offer squash as well as water (particularly given the Gold Pass blurb mentioned drinks plural, not just water!), tea and coffee would be even better. · Really liked having the two entries for talks with the Gold Pass rather than £10 photos and hope you do that in future. I really enjoyed both talks I chose (neither of which I would have paid for) and that felt like great value. · Most of the crew, particularly at the photo areas were absolutely great and I want to say thanks to them, they made life a lot better! Most crew/volunteers I met seemed to know the rules for Gold pass etc, which was good. The only issue was that people on the info desks really didnt seem to know where anything was located which was a bit frustrating. The two ladies on the autograph queue for Jeremy Renner on the Saturday afternoon were also great, patiently explaining why the VQ numbers hadnt changed and what was going on. · I thought the location for the talks was actually pretty good, much the back should have been completely blocked off so no one could walk around it. The queues for the next talk would still have space just further back on the same side. It was also a new experience to actually be cold under that air con! · Finally many thanks for all the guests. I was gutted that Ron Perlman cancelled, but I met so many wonderful people, and maybe I was just lucky but all the guests I met were really friendly and up for a chat and a laugh. Particular standouts for me were Kim Coates, Dominic Monaghan and Laurie Holden, although Jeremy Renner was very sweet as well. I would also like to put a shout out to Jeremy Renners security they were really polite and professional when checking fake weapons etc in the photo queue, which does make a difference.