Laughing Cavalier

Any response from Joiner was only going to be one thing, and that's what Dragonmate got. One irrelevent and incorrect comment about how to kill off another event, and the usual "how dare you come on here and cause trouble by asking a valid question" response. He's never going to hold his hands up and say "we done it, Guv. We confess". He can say that Showmasters don't steal other events' guests, and that they're not out to destroy the competition until he's blue in the face. The truth is that only the usual crowd on here believe him. The rest of us stopped believing him when he kept telling everyone that Kilmer was going to be at LFCC3 on the Saturday when many people knew he wasn't. Many people who go to events regulary don't need to know if Showmasters are guilty of what they're accused of. They look at what they see and perceive guilt. Showmasters' previous bouts of behaviour which have led to all the accusations have now happend to so many times that the coincedence factor has gone out the window. The first time could be deemed unfortunate, the second unlucky, but come the third time only the foolish will believe you. If you behave in a way which makes you look bad, regardless if what you've done is wrong, people will think you're bad. Judge, Kilmer, Pygram, Shatner, Brooks. All episodes in which Showmasters have behaved in a way which has led to mud being thrown at them. And yet Joiner fails to realise or acknowledge it's his behaviour that has led to this. He may want to take this on board at a time when attendences at his events seem to be falling. As for Avery Brooks having been signed up, SM will be missing out on a good 1500 people who would've paid for his signature. So it's their loss. Bad news travels fast. All those virgin SM event attendes who were yelled at, pushed around and physically threatened at C8 while queuing for Shatner have gone back home and told their family and friends all about it. You need a crash course in public relations. Only you could turn having a cultural icon at your event in to a PR disaster.

Quick! Someone sound the sex pest alarm! Building evac! MOVE!

I'd buy that for a Dollar!

George and Grace would be wonderful. SM will never get Shatner for the same reason they apparantly declined Hamill. And if true, it was remiss of Too Tall to get people's hopes up by saying Shatner may do an LFCC. As long as they won't charge more than £25 a signature, SM will not be able to get many big guests. The irony is that if SM attracted the right people to their events, they wouldn't have any problem getting enough people to pay £45 to £50 for Shatner of Hamill. It's reasonable to assume the vast majority of the people who queued for Fisher and Williams would've still been queing had the charge been say £35 or higher.

Other events in the UK are more than able to get high quality guests. Any possible reasons as to why Showmasters seem to struggle in this department are up for debate. Everyone knows the type of guests who in the past have appeared at the "other event" and at the N E C. They were high quality guests. . Madsen, Carradine, Robert Patrick, Hagman, Nimoy, Lazenby. It makes me wonder who Showmasters were going after when other organisers were getting signed contracts from these people.

Sorry, I don't understand why this makes a difference? Showmasters aren't going to be able to get 'bigger' guests, just because they are only splashing out on 10 of them! There's only a certain amount of auto's one guest can sign during the weekend, so if they limited themselves to just 10 guests, their potential profit wouldn't be that great. If you don't like the 'filler' guests, don't go and see them... as long as some people do and buy autographs, then they are likely to make SM a profit (which WILL help them spend mroe on guests in the future.) As always Chris, it's good to see you flaming other people's posts before taking time out to use your brain. Very few people go to see most of the filler guests. I've seen it, you've seen it (even if you blocked it out with your blinkered view of everything), everyone's seen it. Many of us have even see higher calibre guests sitting on there arses doing nothing. Particularly if LFCC is to continue, people need to be got through the door in much higher numbers. To attract them you need HIGH quality guests. If these guests cost more money, then fine. SM spend their budget on less of them, but ones which will likely get far more people to the event than the current 4 or 5 high calibre guests and 25 fillers policy. SM jack up the cost of autographs to cover costs, but many people will spend no more than they do already as they will see fewer guests. End result is that you have more people spending the average amount per head than you do at the moment which equals more profit and better guests for the future.

But if you managed to capture Shatner's fart and bottle it before it dissapated, you would have James T Kirk's fart in a sealed bottle. Do you have any idea what that would be worth on the open market?!

Shatner is at least as bad as that with the added bonus that he's more than capable of being openly rude and dismissive of you. What you have to do is hire a tv camera if you go and see him. The Shatner sees a tv crew and he instantly becomes sweetness and light.

You missed the great George Takei. I'd press SM's for Grace Lee Whitney. I've never met her, and I don't know if she's ever been over here. Majel Barrett Roddenberry would be wonderful, but I think she's to frail to travel outside the US.

Without checking, I would assume most of the original Airplane cast are long since dead.

You may find their behaviour is symptomatic of the general breakdown in both society and what is deemed to be acceptable behaviour, all bought about by the nanny state and left wingers. But that's another topic. I doubt any of these 14 year old female brats are any better individually. Give each of the stewards at these events an old style wooden police truncheon. A couple of hefty smacks over a few heads and the brats will soon fall in to order.

agree totally you always get your moneys worth with the smaller guests! They have more time to chat and often have some very interests storys from there days on set! I think they were referring to his role in the hit us tv show boston legal! Which is currently being shown on living tv over here and is well worth checking out! Not to mention his appearances in both Miss Congeniality films with Sandra Bullock. He was actually rather good in the first one and almost sent himself up. I also forgot to mention his recent CD with Ben Folds. To all those people who for decades have mocked Shatner's attempts at singing, I suggest everyone should listen to his cover of Pulp's Common People. He also recently won a Golden Globe for Botson Legal. So either he can actually act, or they'll just vote for anyone over there.

you say you want 10 realy top line guests, well if they did that i hope for your sake you have the patience to que for all three days all day long and alnight long like people did for frodo because that would be the only way you will get all 10 autographs. something for everyone to think about, ask your self and give an honest answer. how many times have you gone to an event for a select few big name autographs and looked at the que and said forget that im not waiting that long and ether left the event with only half what you came for or looked at some of the smaller guests with no que and said what the hell and used the rest of your cash on them. small guests have there uses and i have found can be better to talk to and you do get a chance to talk to them, bigger guests need to keep the line moving, i have seen first hand how ugly things can turn when someone is perceaved as holding up the line by talking to the guest In all honesty, I've never gone home without the autograph of a guest I wanted to meet because of queues. I missed out on Brad Dourif but that was cos I forgot he was there. I remember queuing for quite some time at LFCC1 to see Tony Todd, but I was happy to stand in line. To quote Jimmy D, "If something's important you make the time". I suppose I meant this by big guests: Major series cast members regardless of show or genre, as long as that show and the guest is going to be popular and recoup what you've paid them to show up. I like the smaller guests as much as most of you. Yes, you do have more time with them, and they are usually more friendly and approachable. But why do they have more time? Because only you and a small handful of others have wanted to see them. Rare guests are a great idea for those serious collectors amongst us. I'm not saying we shouldn't have them at events. But having 5 or more guests that few people have heard of or care about at the same event is not doing anyone any favours. And as for stunt doubles etc, don't get me started. Getting guests that only sign for maybe 40 or 50 people in a day is futile from a financial perspective. I think we've all seen A LOT of previous guests at Showmasters events with no queue for hours on end even with a good overall attendence. These people are being paid handsomely for reading a good book or having a kip with one eye open. If anyone can tell me the point of this, I'm all ears. There comes a time when common sense should tell you that you have to draw the line at trying to cater for everyone at the same event.

Great minds think alike Dom ! The thing is, Buffy and Trek people take those jobs for the exposure, but nearly always end up stereotyped as a result. They then spend their days living off DVD sales, repeat fees and conventions / signing shows. Which makes them a lot more willing, and easier to get than many others ..... A sweeping and quite untrue generalisation. None of the TOS cast have ever (to my knowledge) not got other work and had to live off the the con circuit and DVD sales. Shatner has always had other work and is currently enjoying a huge career rennaisance - I'll leave you all to decide if that's a good thing or not! Nimoy has never done much non-Trek acting, but has outside interests which have occupied his time over recent years. He was also a successful director in the 80's and has written two autobiographies. Koenig was in B5, also writes and I believe has something to do with comic book production or collection. Nichelle Nichols is also a singer, still acts periodically, and has written her own Star Trek universe novel. George Takei while not having acted much if at all since ST:VI has outside interests in the US. His personal website is very good and is kept up to date with what's he been doing. All the original TNG cast are either still acting, directing or involved in their own theatre projects. Wil Wheaton, while no longer acting, is now a successful writer. . .OK, so Sirtis has starred in a couple of s***e straight to video movies, lives off the con circuit and invites to go back and hijack other Trek series. . but we'll gloss over that. Many of the DS9 cast were trained theatre actors long before they were on DS9. Nana Visitor has a new show which has started in the US. Alexander Siddig has been in quite a few large US films including Kingdom of Heaven, Vertical Limit and the BBC's Spooks 2 years ago. The only one who's career has died is Terry Farrell, especially since the demise of Becker. Rene Auberjonois is in Boston Legal with Shatner, Armin Shimerman did Buffy for quite a few years and has written Ferengi Trek novels. Colm Meaney can be seen in just about every UK or Irish made gangster movie. . .Intermission, I think he was in Layer Cake, Con Air, The Commitments, Last of the Mohicans. Main Star Trek cast guests are nearly always very popular. They do events, yes for the money, but also because they want to meet fans of the series. People like Jimmy Doohan understood why fans wanted to meet him and always went out of his way for them. To understand why Trek guests are always popular is to understand the nature of both the series and its fans.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd rather Showmasters did an event with just 10 or so really strong guests while leaving out all the fillers. All these small time tv show actors who'll be forgotten long before the likes of Buffy and the BSG remake have faded in to obscurity rarely have any sort of pulling power, especially when you consider the need to get new people to attend events. If and when these people have cemented their place in popular culture, they can then be brought to events. More quality and less quantity anyone?