Ravogd

Where are you seeing this? As far as I'm aware ther hasn't been a floor plan released yet.

Thanks very much Queen. I realise you mods aren't involved but we are extremely grateful of anything you can do and it'll be great if you do get hold of someone at the office. Whatever happens we will take her letter to the organisers booth when we get there and see if they can help at all. Thanks again.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask but we are getting desperate. We have tried over the past few weeks to get in touch about a special assistance pass at the email address above for my partner who cannot walk without the aid of sticks. The one time they did reply they said this was not possible without proof of careers allowance and lots of other stuff that was not relevant to my partners condition. She replied twice asking if a letter from her doctor would suffice but nobody ever responded. This is in stark contrast to the NEC who when I contacted them about disabled parking who have jumped through hoops to assist us. Sorry to offload here but we are getting desperate. She is bringing her letter from the doctor with her to the event. Will this be enough to prevent her from having to stand in queues for a long time as it is probably too late to get an official pass now.

According to the schedule there are joint photo shoots on both days for Dave Prowse and Daniel Naprous. This seems new as there has been no mention of it before and it is not available for sale on the eventbrite website. I assume it is so new that they won't have it for sale until tomorrow?

Unfortunately the Birmingham International car park is now fully booked for both days. Pity as I normally prefer it and as said above it is cheaper.

I am always astonished that the number of people who attend events with thousands of other people be they conventions, concerts, music festivals and then moan about having to wait in a queue for things. Baffling. Like so many have said the queueing system is simple but so many people just did not know what a que was (especially virtual queues). For example I was first in line for Alexander Siddig coming back from lunch on the Sunday at around 13.30 they were showing ticket 1-80 but while I waited (approx 20 minutes) it was incredible how many people just tried to queue behind me then every 2 minutes the excellent crew member would shout out that if you didn't have tickets 1-80 or a pass could you come back later, 90% of them either left or came up asking for a ticket and upon getting a ticket at around the 150 mark were upset that they couldn't come back by about 14.30 and get straight in.

Like others have said here "expensive" is a relative term but in defence of SM who seem to always be accused of pulling prices out of the air remember this. The guests get paid a fee. This is work for them however friendly and relaxed they seem they are all professionals and quite rightly have been paid to be there. Some guests could even be said to be professional con attenders doing very little acting work and attending cons somewhere almost every weekend. It is the guests that decide what fee they expect and SM that decide whether to pay them. My brother-in-law is an actor and personally knows a few actors who attend various cons and I think a few attendees would be genuinely astonished at the figures involved. The higher they are the more SM have to charge for pics and autographs. It's simple economics. Supply and demand.

This is what annoyed me too to begin with the lack of the FAQ having a closing time. I did actually get an email back from the NEC parking people who said that the standard car park is open until 11pm on the Saturday so I should move my car to the Hilton car park for the party but this suggests that people who are just attending the event and even Shatners World should be OK. Like I said above it is actually cheaper to book the train station as I got it for £9 from 6am Saturday - 3am Sunday which is cheaper than the standard £12 in the NEC park and its right beside it.

It isn't the end of the World if something does happen to them over time as you can (for almost every other Showmasters event anyway) download digital copies from a website later. Sadly this is not free and you usually need to pay a slight fee (I think around £5 per picture). Not sure if this will be available for this event though but every picture I've had taken since my first con in 2008 is still available for download today should I wish. Editeded to add a link to the download site http://showmasters.photoshelter.com

Thanks a lot. It's a bit of a hike from the Hilton to there but I got a ticket from 6am on Saturday until 3am on the Sunday to be safe and it was only £9. Better than the £22 at the Hilton anyway!

Cool. Which train Station is this?

Does anyone have a definitive answer for this? The Hilton does not seem to be bookable for non guests (at least I couldn't see how to do it). I also could not see the restrictions on parking on the "normal" NEC car park booking. The express parking does mention being open until 1am but this is sold out now. The FAQ just says it endeavours to open the car park earlier than 8am if the event starts early and that overnight parking is not permitted. No mention of the actual closing time! Not very helpful. I have booked parking for Saturday and would like to just leave my car there until the party is over. I emailed the NEC for an answer and received an acknowledgement mail stating my request would be answered within 14 days!!

Driving down for the weekend from Linlithgow, Scotland. Birthplace of a certain Montgomery Scott (at least it will be )

The photo shoot areas were pretty close to each other last time, and never more than three running concurrently. As mentioned above if you say this to the staff you should be able to get from one to the other within the same 30-45 min period. Thanks for that. Think I'll just buy them now then and risk it.

On a similar note how do you know that photos for a particular day won't clash. E.g. I have a Shatner/Takei/Koenig bridge shoot booked for the Saturday. Until the schedules are announced how do I know that if I buy say a Marina Sirtis Saturday shoot it won't be happening at the same time and if it was what could I do about it?