Paranoid Marvin

Hotel prices were only crazy if you wanted to stay near the venue; over £200 for a basic room in an average hotel is really not on. Tbh staying near the NEC was only really needed for those wanting to party 'til late, and even then a taxi into Birmingham city centre wasn't exhorbitant. - Far better to get a city centre hotel for £80 with a £20 taxi fare than a £250+ room in the NEC/airport hotels. There could have been more done to make the interior appealing; as amazing as the bridges were , there needed to be more. Having said that,the cost of doing so to such a large hall would have been pretty expensive, so I can see why this wasn't done, but still disappointing, The only other thing they HAVE to get right is more traders - this is almost an attraction in itself, and I was very disappointed with the turnout. Let them pitch their stalls for free, or just charge them a nominal fee - better than having loads of empty space, and I'm sure a lot of fans went awy feeling disappointed that they couldn't buy more merchandise. Like I said , for the organisers this is a FREE attraction so definitely 'could do better'. As for where it is, I don't care as long as they put on a good show. There are very few places in the UK not far from a motorway, train station or airport, and with advance planning accomodation can be got for reasonable prices,

I agree that having the bridges out in the open looked very cool indeed. And if they'd been hidden from view it would have been a great shame. Again going back to guests I was really happy with those who attended. Tbh I rather just have those who really want to be there, and they all seemed that way, And I agree on the 'chill out' zone - it seemed to be showing a 2 minute advert on loop. Would it have been that dificult to have had a few episodes of ST showing instead?

I think it would have been a good idea to get people in advance to pose their questions to stewards so that nothing was duplicated and no awkward ones were asked. That way you would know who was going to ask the questions (they seemed to get a bit confused where the mike was going). Is that not the way these things are normally done?

Think it was Maz doing the bridge shots on TNG. They weren't whizzing through them like with Bill Shatner, as he was putting on a show. Longer wait (but shorter queues). I would never mind waiting longer when the experience was that memorable. Like I said earlier, if I go again, I'll get shots with Gowron , Max and a double with George and Walter as they looked like they were all having lots of fun. I don;t regret getting up close for my photo-shoot with Bill though.

Couple of things I'd like to add. All of the negatives were completely blown away by just how amazing the guests were. Considering many must have had some jet lag and were then expected to do 2 or 3 long days, you could be forgiven for thinking they may be a shade jaded, but not a bit of it. They all seemed bright and bubbly, and although you may think that's what they get paid for , it can't be easy to do the job so well. George and Walter (as I have mentioned) were absolute LEGENDS, esp Walter. For instance, Walter did a 40 minute talk, then within 5 minutes he was back at his desk signing autographs. Then he was back doing a talk with George for another 40 minutes, and to my astonishment within minutes he was back at his autograph booth. This was after 5pm on the Sunday, when many seemed to have finished. I don't think he was doing it for the money, I think he was doing it for the love of Star Trek. I also thought it incredible that the guests didn't have photos on hand to be signed. Crazy that you had to go to a vendor for your picture, then to the guest to sign it. Unless here was some kind of deal between the two, the actors and/or the organisers lost out on easy revenue.

A few comments (hope they're fairy balanced) Firstly, I think that it could be let known much earlier that the talks would be on Saturday and Sunday. I get that there's a lot of finalising to do , but I suspect that as the opening ceremony was only on late , there was never any realistic chance of talks being done on that day. This would have helped people like myself to plan our weekends. It's not very easy to do when you only have a few days notice. I also think that the packages could have been sold without having to decide there and then which talks/autograph package you were going to get. Why not just let people choose on the day? The 'pickup desk' was sprinkled all the different groupings on tags; I'm hoping they let people who had chosen blindly switch their allocation, but as I said this could have been left to the day - it's hardly as though they would be over-subscribed. As for pricing ; I thought £299 was pretty fair for a three day attendance plus the extras. The main thing for me was priority seating in the 'Enterprise' area. which gave a great view and made you feel like you could almost touch the guests. There was very little difference between that and the Captain/Admiral seating. I'm not sure how great it was for Lieutenants, but I did feel sorry for those with a day pass as they couldn't have had anywhere near as great an experience, but for me the Commander ticket was money well spent. It also came with a neat goody bag and the gifts inside were pretty darn good considering what they could have given. An added bonus was the talks/autographs you got. My talk tag had nearly all the talks I wanted, plus I got Wil Wheaton - but I'll come back to that later. My first day was Saturday and it was a bit hectic. Queuing for the Enterprise stage was a mess, with queues forking and no-one knowing which queue they were in or where they should be. The staff were doing their best, but I can't believe there were no barriers or ropes to help them. To give them credit they quickly learnt to deal with it, and the afternoon was better, whilst Sunday there was no problem at all. Perhaps the staff improved, perhaps us customers had a better idea what was expected of us, more probably a combination of the two, but certainly by Sunday it was running like clockwork. One annoying thing was having to come out of the Enterprise stage after a talk to then immediately have to queue again to get back in! I'm sure something better could have been arranged, but in all honesty I think the staff did the best they could. Until now I had no idea that they weren't getting paid (surely with all the money being made they should have got SOMETHING?) so fo that I thank them from the bottom of my heart. They were always friendly, always happy to help, under what at times were trying circumstances. A shame about the vendors; I was hoping for a number from the states with some less easy to get merchandise; for a show with so many visitors, there really should have been much more on offer, and it's a great shame that there wasn't. I been to a few conventions (comicon, retro gaming cons) and there was far,far more stalls selling stuff. What there was however seemed fairly reasonably priced, and there was some pretty neat stuff for sale. The set props were awesome, I loved the two Enterprise stages, and whilst the Klingon one was a little on the small side, it was still really cool. A shame they didn't have any props to use, but great that you got an actual photograph (rather than just a digital image) and it was of really great quality.I was a bit surprised that the TNG bridge seemed to be more popular than the original bridge (and the Klingon one trailing a LONG way behind the other two). Must admit I didn't use most of my autographs, mainly because the queues were too long (there didn't seem to be any priority here?) and quite often the guests were off doing talks/photos-hoots , breaks etc. I'm not sure how well the virtual queuing was working either, as there appeared to be a number of disgruntled people who had been waiting for their autographs for quite some time. The autograph I DID persevere to get was Walter Koenig, and what an absolute gentleman he was. He was in no rush and gave people the time they wanted ; he seemed to enjoy people paying attention to him as much as we did with him paying attention to us. Like I say, an absolute gentleman and it was worth the admission fee just to be in his presence. The only photoshoot I had was with Will Shatner. Must admit it was far quicker than I thought it would be, but then I don't think I appreciated just how in demand he was. If he'd spent a couple of minutes with every attendee then probably half of those wanting their photo with him would have gone home disappointed. Looking at some of the other photo shoots, there was an entirely different outcome; the Ferengi on the TNG bridge (Max?) seemed to be having a great time with guests, striking different poses etc and spending much more time with them, but I guess he could afford to. I always wanted my photo with Will and now I've got it; if I do one again it will be with Gowron or a Ferengi - a more fun one. I do regret not having paid for a photo-shoot on the Bridge with Sulu and Checkov though. Shatner's World was quite spectacular with Bill particularly animated. For an 85 year old who's just had a day of photoshoots and autograph signing, after flying halfway round the world, to then to a 2 hour solo performance can only be described as incredible. Love him or hate him, the man is a legend; in fact he's more than that - hes a phenomenon. Again, I have to say that having a 'tier 1' seat was a big advantage. Though I do have to say that I was surprised that there wasn't somewhere more suitable to host the show; I was expecting an auditorium or theatre, not the Enterprise stage. But it was money well spent for something pretty unique. As for the talks; I must admit that nearly all the talks I attended were on the Enterprise stage. Like I said , a Commander's seat gave me a fantastic view of the speakers, my only gripe being that the chairs were unnecessarily too close together for comfort. My first was with Wil, and I must admit that I only attended as it was on my 'talk group' pack. My last experience of him was in TNG, I had no idea how much of a celebrity he had become since. This was one of the benefits of the package deals - I got to experience stuff I wouldn't otherwise have done. Wil was amazing; I suddenly understood why there were people who were attending the show simply because he was there. He was intelligent, articulate and insightful. He was also amazingly enthusiastic for the Star Trek universe, probably moreso than any other actor from the show who was there (at least from the talks I heard). On top of that he was polite, humble and genuinely interested in what the audience had to say - he didn't seem to want to leave the stage, and seemed to be on for much longer than he ought to have been! I am truly grateful that I got to experience a talk involving him. The other talks were awesome too, with some heart-warming tales, some funny, some really quite sad. Walter's talk was brilliant; really funny and at one point an announcement about Will Shatner over the tannoy drowning him out made everyone laugh out loud. George Takei is a brilliant speaker and his talk was very interesting, whilst the final one with both George and Walter was truly memorable, especially their reminiscing about DeForest Kelley. So in summary I would say that it was a great success; some tweaks could have made it better, but on the other hand it could have been far,far worse. The guests seemed to enjoy it and so did the fans I saw. But this is from the point of view of a 'Commander' ticket holder; I'm not sure if I had paid for a daily ticket - which when you add in the cost of paid talks was still a fair bit of cash - I would have been of the same opinion.

Sorry, probably stupid questions, but I've looked on the website and am confused. I bought a photoshoot with William Shatner, and I'm in the last batch for Saturday - how do I know what time it will be at? Also it says the opening time for 'pass pick up' is 8am Sat. Is this just for people who pay on the day, or will I need one, or do I just print my emailed ticket? (I've got a Commander ticket and received an email) Thanks

To get a photo with 3 of the few remaining cast would have been of much appeal though, and possibly there may never be another opportunity to do so (in the UK at least). And at the price even if only a handful of people bought one you're still talking about thousands of pounds.

I almost booked this, but changed and went for the photoshoot with Bill. What's the reason for cancellation?

I too would like to say that in NO WAY is this the fault of any mods, This is pretty much the only platform we have to vent our frustrations on, and if the mood of the forum is like this, it should be telling the event organisers something. If we said nothing then it would look like we're all happy with the way it's been handled, which is quite clearly not the situation.

Could we at least know which days the talks are for? I want a Commander ticket but can't attend on the Friday. I just don't want to book a talk group where my talks are on the Friday. Do you have any idea if this info will be confirmed soon?

Due respects to whichever stars are going there, but from a personal point of view I'd rather have Shatner, Koenig and Takei than any others.

For me it's more about the quality than the number, and I'm quite happy with the line-up - anything else is just a bonus. It's also the fans that make it a special occasion, and I'm sure we'll be fine on that score too. All we really need is more details about dates so that we can book our Lieutenant/Commander tickets!

Unless you opt for the £2,999.00 Admiral package or the £899.00 Captain's package you WILL have to pay for Mr. Shatner's autograph. The cost of Mr. Shatner's autograph is likely to be the same as the cost of his photoshoot, which is £55.00. The most expensive included autograph in the Commander's package is worth between £20.00 and £30.00 of which you have 2 plus another 3 autographs worth £15.00. Thanks. Yeah , I kind of assumed I'd probably need to pay for his autograph. In all honesty it's the only one I really want so £55 I can live with.

Thanks again, that's why I was thinking of going for the Commander package, as I'm guessing there'll be a lot less of those than Lieutenants (and £900 for a Captain's ticket is just TOO much of a jump up). Hopefully his autograph won't be as much as his photoshoot. £55 seems reasonable for a photoshoot, not as much so for an autograph, but he's probably about the only person I would pay that much money to, as he's an absolute legend.