kelamina

I want to share my experience about Saturday. I would have posted sooner but have been waiting since Saturday evening to have my account validated! The good points about this year's LFCC were that due to the layout, I didn't feel as crowded and squashed up against other people like I have at past cons, and also it was defiantly not as hot and stuffy as last year! Right now comes the bad points: I only had tickets for Saturday, which I attended with my sister & her boyfriend. When we arrived we already had our entrance tickets so asked a member of staff which queue we were meant to be in. We were directed to the queue, and shouted at to have our bags open & ready to be checked. I had quite a large backpack with me, and the woman who looked in my bag had the quickest of glances at it, barely even looking inside, and let me through. We then queued to get in, which in all fairness the line was moving pretty quickly. We then found ourselves inside the main area. At no point did any staff check or scan our entrance tickets! We didn't even receive a hand stamp which is unusual. Great security showmasters!!! We went to our first photoshoot, Mads Mikkelsen and the gathering (I say gathering as no one really knew where or how to queue!) was pretty big and our next photoshoot with Laurie Holden was about to start so as we were batch 1 we went straight to that. In & out with no problems. We had a bit of time to kill before our next photo op, and as at the time of buying tickets online I only had enough to buy 2 photo ops plus entrance, I wanted to wait until payday and buy any extra tickets on the day. I've never usually done this before as I always buy online. I found the sales desk and managed to join the one, and also the slowest, queue out of the 4 that had the one lady that didn't seem to have a clue what she was doing! Every time someone in my queue bought a ticket, up the lady got to look at the wall and ask the other staff questions. We ended up queuing for about 45 mins! So anyway, around 15 mins into queuing a man announced that if you were waiting to buy photo op tickets for certain people they had sold out for that day. He read out the list and the two I wanted, Tobin Bell & Rutger Hauer, wasn't read out. I got to the front and bought my tickets, the lady wandered off with them to ask about something, came back and said I was batch 6 at 4:50 for Tobin, and batch 8! and 5:20 for Rutger. My sisters boyfriend then had his photo op with Dolph Lundgren. He was batch 3. We queued up for ages, then they announced that they wouldn't be letting anyone else in, so anyone higher than batch 2 would have to come back at 5:40. The other photoshoot my sisters boyfriend had a ticket for was Famke Janssen. He came out disappointed and said it was a complete let down and felt it was a waste of time and money. He said she was sitting in a chair, with the security shouting at everyone "no touching" he said hello and she barely acknowledged him. All 3 of us then had our photos with Jon Heder and then Tobin Bell, which both went quite quick and smoothly. That brings me to the Rutger Hauer photoshoot. I arrived at the photo area about 10 mins before it was due to start. Already there was a swarm of people gathering around. It wasnt clear where you were meant to wait and I couldn't hear or see the staff member calling out batch numbers. I dont know why they didnt set up lanes on the floor (for example lane 1 for diamond, lane 2 for gold, 3 for batch 1 and so on) like they did at walker stalker con. It was so much easier to work out where you were meant to queue that way. Anyway, as I was batch 8, I waited around at the back, then they made 4 lines for batches 5, 6, 7 & 8. My sisters boyfriend went off for his Dolph photo, had it and came back, and I was still queuing! A staff member walked past and counted 20 people in my queue. A few more people joined the queue just after that. There was a hell of a lot more than 20 people in the queues for the other batches. Then a very rude and abrupt lady came out and said that's it no more photos! People were trying to ask why & what we were supposed to do and she was basically just turning them away and trying to get us to leave. She said "you'll have to come back tomorrow". A large number of people were trying to ask about refunds and she said very bluntly "go and see the sales desk". We rushed to the sales desk and had to queue for ages yet again, so I could get my money back. There was only one person serving and the other members of staff were just sitting around chatting. Another lady did come round and asked if anyone could come back tomorrow, which no one in the queue could which is why we were all queuing for a refund! She then asked who paid online, so a number of people left the queue and she took them aside and explained they'd sort their refunds out a different way. While queuing I heard a couple of different stories as to why the photos were stopped. Someone said it was because Rutger was getting tired and his agent had stopped it, which is fair enough as he's an old man. Another person said it was because they had overrun and they didn't have time to do anymore photos. Which brings me to think why then are showmasters selling 8 batches (10 if you include diamond and gold passes) if they can only manage to get up to batch 4 seen??? They turned away batches 5-8. Remember there was 20 people in my batch at one point. That's £500 that has had to be refunded right there! They shouldnt sell as many batches in future. Not being able to fit batches in during the earlier shoots and telling people to come back later, and then still not being able to fit everyone in is ridiculous! Showmasters defiantly could do with making some improvements.