TommyT
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EVENT UPDATE : New Date / New Guests - Update post 128
TommyT replied to Massive Events's topic in Return to Middle Earth
Unfortunately travelling abroad can be a risk with these type of events. The organiser is not liable for attendee transport costs. If they were then quite simply no organiser would risk running any event around the world unless they had unlimited funds.Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but in this case the organiser said over eight months ago "Please be assured this is the last time the event will be moved or changed" - without any qualification, caveat, get-out or "wiggle room". A solid, cast-iron, fixed-in-stone assurance. I wouldn't normally go non-refundable, but I would based on that statement. Yes, normally I would agree that there's an element of risk in these events, and they can always be moved or cancelled or postponed, and you book travel (and everything else) at your own risk. But when the event organiser makes a promise such as was made, I think that shifts the goalposts somewhat. -
EVENT UPDATE : New Date / New Guests - Update post 128
TommyT replied to Massive Events's topic in Return to Middle Earth
One for the mods re the amended thread title - I think you'll find the update is in post 128, not 131. -
No, the 7 denotes the seventh chevron and the .x denotes the con number in the series; The first one was call ed Chevron 7. When they announced the next one it was called 7.2, the third was called 7.3 etc; logically I would expect for example a 12th Cheveron 7 event to be called 7.12, not 8.02. Don't view the dot after the 7 as a decimal point but as a full stop or other non-numeric separator. CTRL + Q to Enable/Disable FBPhotoZoom
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8.0??? Wasn't this event named after the seventh chevron? Surely the next one therefore should be 7.10?
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EVENT UPDATE : New Date / New Guests - Update post 128
TommyT replied to Massive Events's topic in Return to Middle Earth
Sent back what? Your money? Your tickets? An explanation? Please clarify. -
Valentina Tereshkova
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Only if you love all things Whedon. Now I could sit and watch Firefly (and Serenity) all day long, I found Dr Horrible rather amusing and Dollhouse pretty interesting. But I've never been able to get into Angel or Buffy, and Cabin In The Woods did nothing for me either. So HW has never really appealed, since there's so much there I couldn't give two hoots for.That said, I'm not much interested in the non-Whedon shows mooted, other than Being Human, so unless by a twist of fate the guestlist for HW5 skews in a direction that appeals to me, I'm unlikely to break my HW duck next year either.
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some more thoughts from Jason after some rest :-)
TommyT replied to showmasters's topic in Destination Star Trek London
Not at all, there have always been two sorts of item on Watchdog in my perception* the in-depth investigation where they believe that they have found something wrong and do a full story on it (although I know at least a couple of these where they were pretty selective with their facts to the point of being well off-base) * the two-minute "fishing exhibition", where they have some reports of possible problems but not enough evidence or time to do the full in-depth job. They seem to stick out a story like this to see if it brings forward any further information or any other complainants. Usually with these stories you never hear anything else about them, but occasionally after a few months they will have done the full in-depth investigation and run with it. Obviously the story from the other night was the latter. Chances are, unless considerably more stuff comes to light, that'll be the end of it. -
Directly, no, it doesn't, but I suspect that their prices are in part governed by the price they were charged to have a stall there...
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I'm just being pragmatic, and trying to make it easier for people to understand. Yes, we can say that under the rights and responsibilities imposed by the contract of buying a ticket youcan't film etc, but given that is now so easy to do so, and that we have a generation of people so used to candid videos through first You've Been Framed and then Youtube, I'm sure many people will think "well why not?" and no doubt some cyncic s will think its just bad old SM being killjoys (and possibly clearing the way for them to sell everybody a DVD later) when that's actually not the reason. I just think that if you explained the legal requirement for consent, the actors' concerns and other issues and laid it out clearly and succinctly, you might get at least some people say "oh, I didn't appreciate that, so I won't." Which would make the crews' job easier if there are less flouters to deal with, and everybody else at the talk's experience a bit nicer if there aren't a plethora of folk filming and lots of crew trying to stop them.
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Put in detention and given lines?
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Oh I don't know; I'd think you have half a chance complaining that it was hardly a "goodie" bag. Now one can argue about the value of the contents in relation to he price of your tickey and whether that consists of "goodies". Oh please! ST-themed beermats are collectable to * people who collect beernats, but only those collectors who collect beermats of any decription rather than those actually issued by breweries * people who collect ST memorabilia, but only those who collect memorabilia in any form. Whether that cobstitutes "a lot of people" is rather debateable.
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The e-mail mailing list was the thing you signed up to in advance of the evnt, was it not? You did not have to sign up to this buy a ticket once tickets were on general sale, so not everyone who bought a ticket was on the that mailing list.
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Given that See Tickets are more than happy to send me regular e-mails about ticket-purchasing opportunities for events that I'm not going to, I'm sure it wouldn't have been beyond their wit or ability to e-mail everybody who had bought a ticket for the event to say that the intended timetable/schedule was now available on the event website.And before somebody tells me that See Tickets just dealt with tickets, not timetables, it should not be beyond the ability of the people organising the timetable to say to See Tickets "please e-mail this info to all ticketholders". It's either the fault of the timetable organisers for not doing so, or some other communication/co-operation fault within the organisations working together on the event, which just reflects poorly on the overall organisation. Either way, it's not the fault of the customer.
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Actually, it's not in the least bit silly; there is a huge difference between an actor saying something a wee bit risque in front of a few people and that getting around by word of mouth, and said remark being captured on film and millions of people worldwide seeing it. What may have been a mildly rude or insulting reference too another actor or director or studio for example might have been amusing as a passing "dig" in a talk, but splattered out of context across the internet may have repercussions. If actors are afraid of that sort of thing, then they're going to rein back on what they say, or decline to give talks. That strikes me as your loss, but your mileage may vary. You also need to tsake into consideration the requirements of any trade union (such as Equity) that they may be a member of, and any obligations there. Generally such organiations are against people doing "freebies" since it would undermine the payscales for those further down the foodchain - why pay a jobbing actor for a voiceover or appearance if you can get a rich one who doesn't need the money to do it for free? He may therefore have a minor issue if he's seen appearing in movies on youtube without the necessary paperwork and accounting being done. This is certainly one reason SM have previously given for not usually producing DVDs of talks before - the need for all the editing, actor/agent approval, fee negotiation etc is so time-consuming and expensive that it makes the production of videos uneconomic. I'll grant that the rise of technology now makes it much easier to record these things, but that doesn't make it right; it's a lot easier to do a lot of things these days that are wrong - just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. I will grant you that if it was put across in a way that it was more a request from the actor, and the basis of it was explained, rather than just an unexplained and autocratic edict from the organisers, then people might tend to be more compliant, but that's another issue.
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If the officer is worth his or her salt they will probably tell you that the problem is that it would at least be an offence under Sections 18 or 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act (GBH), and possibly other offences (were the person to subsequently die as a result). At least, that is what the two officers I asked told me. Well, if you're happy to allow the "no filming" rule to be juxtaposed with the "no stabbing" law, then I would say that the reason for questioning some rules and not others is because some do not seem as obvious in their necessity, or perhaps not as fair. Nothing wrong with asking for an explanation, or questioning if something is reasonable. Since you're open to wider analogies, might I suggest that in living memory your phrase could have been "You are told to load your fellow countrymen onto trains to the camps simply because of who they are, so load them onto the trains. Simple as." Hardly admirable.
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The good... and the vast amount of bad!
TommyT replied to aaethor's topic in Destination Star Trek London
On that we most definitely agree. I remember years ago doing some Institute of Customer Services stuff, and they quoted that a person was"X" times more likely to tell of bad customer service than of good, or would tell "Y" times more people about bad customer service experiences rather than good ones. I'm unsure of the exact figures, and if you go online you can find figures in the range of two to twenty. Whatever, the simple fact is that people are more likely to moan if they had a bad time than make a happy noise if they had a good time. This is an entirely instinctive human trait (apparently research has shown that three month old children process negativity in the same way that adults do - it's from an interesting wikipedia article on negativity bias although I'll grant I have no idea how they conducted the research, but it is from a reputable peer-reviewed publication) where we place greater weight on negative things.So yes, a significant number of people complaining on here isn't the sole extent of customer dissatisfasction, and may indeed be just the tip of an iceberg, but at the same time time the ratio of "boos" to "hurrays" is no guide to overall proportions of customer satisfaction across the entire attendance either. I would observe that this is a higher level of dissatisfaction than I can recall with other events, which I would tentatively suggest at least means more dissatisfied people in terms of numbers, if not percentages. That may be because this was a first time experience for many people, and they were expecting something different. -
Might be a fire regs issue?
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The good... and the vast amount of bad!
TommyT replied to aaethor's topic in Destination Star Trek London
There were some 17000 tickets sold, and the percentage of those who have come on here and gone on Twitter is small. According to the Office of National Statistics, the total number of UK parliamentary electors in December 2011 was 46,107,200. The number of such electors who have gone on Facebook, Twitter or blogs etc expressing dissatisfaction with the current government is probably in the tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands. That doesn't necessarily mean that the other 45 million-plus electors think that the current administration is doing a spot-on job... And likewise Mr T, it does not necessarily mean the other 45 million plus electors think the current government is not doing a spot on job. Nope, but I don't think that anyone actually believes that the other 45 million or so are all perfectly pleased. One can argue about how many are dissastisfied, but I think that even the most ardent fan of the government would concede that at least 30% of the electorate are not satisfied, and some may argue at least twice that many. The simple fact is that whilst the people who have stepped up to complain online about the government number around perhaps 100,000, no political commentator worth his salt would agree that the actual number of the electorate who are displeased is less than 12 million. The simple fact is that twenty or fifty people complaining on here is most definitely not the sole extent of dissatisfaction. -
The good... and the vast amount of bad!
TommyT replied to aaethor's topic in Destination Star Trek London
There were some 17000 tickets sold, and the percentage of those who have come on here and gone on Twitter is small. According to the Office of National Statistics, the total number of UK parliamentary electors in December 2011 was 46,107,200. The number of such electors who have gone on Facebook, Twitter or blogs etc expressing dissatisfaction with the current government is probably in the tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands. That doesn't necessarily mean that the other 45 million-plus electors think that the current administration is doing a spot-on job... -
|Please don't make excuses for them; I buy scores of tickets for dozens of events through the major ticket agencies every year, and for several years now in my experience (and that of numerous other people I know) See have been shockingly poor at things like timely delivery and customer service. It may well be deliberate, but it certainly doesn't make their practices laudable or even acceptable.
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Actually your original post says "desk", so I was like "furniture?"
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Personally I would assume that each individual would want a individual autograph regardless of if they are a couple/family/etc.I think it's quite obvious that given that people were going to be allocated a number of autos, some people buying tickets together would want to have all the same, and some people would most definitely not want the same. Surely it wasn't beyond the wit of man to have a simple choice of three boxes for people buying multiple tickets together:Yes, we all want the same autos if possible No, we want completey different autos if at all possible We're not fussed, we'll take whatever comes That would have at least allowed people to express a choice and improved customer satisfaction. And it wouldn't have been a logistical nightmare to organise. Sure, it would have taken a bit of thought and planning, but nothing major.
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The District Line is pretty much all Victorian, with some Edwardian parts, but generally you're looking at something that is 100, 120, in places nearly 150 years old. Like great swathes of the LU network, there was a hideous lack of investment for many decades, and obviously there was significant degradation over that period. During the mid-90s I spent some time working on track replacement planning to optimise the amount of work they could do in a 53 hour possession over a weekend. (True to form the actual track replacement part got shelved due to budget cuts, but the planning was interesting.) If I remember rightly, if you had four line running, you could theoretically get about 1,600m done in a weekend if all went to plan. This fell to something like 1,200m if you had twin lines, because you didn't quite have the availability of running track for moving material. And if you only had single line track (i.e. you were replacing the track that you also used to bring materials in and take waste out, then the amount you could do was considerably reduced. And again dredging back through my memory, if you were in tunnels that obviously restricted the excavation machinery you could use; I think single line in-tunnel track replacement rate was less than half a kilometre a weekend. And that's if everything goes to plan. There's an awful lot of the District line that is single line in tunnels, so you could theoretically take a month to do a kilometre and a quarter. It could be 15-20km a year. I think the District line has something like 64km of route - with one track in each direction that means at least 128km of track to replace. But there's also no doubt other stuff to do - replace/upgrade signalling for example. Plus because of the increased capacity needed, the new trains they're bringing in will be a bit longer, so a number of existing platforms need to be extended. There will also be structural repairs neded to such a venerable old structure. Basically we're paying the price now for decades of underinvestment in the system.
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That can be very painful, but there are some antibiotics which will cure it