nkb

As another Kickstarter I'd DEFINITELY be up for this. LoVe photoshoot would be ace and I'd definitely pay for that, but even if things had to be slightly more low key my wish list would be any of the following: Jason Dohring – Logan Echolls Enrico Colantoni – Keith Mars Francis Capra – Weevil Tina Majorino – Mac Max Greenfield – Leo Ken Marino – Vinnie Van Lowe Michael Muhney – Sheriff Lamb

Hello, and apologies for the slightly abrupt message! I'm putting together a write up for Chevron 7.6 for the next issue of SFX. I've got lots of people happy to chat about how ace the event was, but haven't been able to get any photos. Has anyone got any they wouldn't mind emailing me for use in the mag? Either of the guests (on stage in the talks or opening/closing ceremonies) or the party or whatever please? If you don't mind emailing on the address below that would be brill. Thanks if you can help (and I'm sorry I missed the event, it sounds ace!) Naz Edited to say: I have had several emails through from people offering some really stunning pictures, and I've forwarded a few through to go in the review. I don't have any say in the page layout so I don't know and can't guarantee which will be used but thank you both so much - I won't name you publicly in case you would rather I didn't but you know who you are and I know you're awesome!

Got to be James Frain... Mad vampire Cromwell?

LOL don't worry, I'm not embarrassed (well ok, I am a bit, but on the Russell scale it's a mere blip, so don't worry ). I am amused by people trying to track me down though. I also appear in episode 6 if you look closely, and also (squee squee squee) episode 1 of season 2 (in the flashback - I couldn't make it for a set visit alas, although technically it means I'm on both DVDs ) Happy Christmas everyone :) x

Nope, how does it end Simon?

Awwww I'm sorry, it's disappeared. I don't have a copy of the picture - I don't look that very interesting in it if that helps. Although if you missed it and don't have the DVD I'm in the Season 2 flashback

LOL I'm very chuffed that you're all interested but feel I should clarify it isn't a picture with me and Russell, it's just me looking very flustered and horrified at some Comic Con goer who decided (thanks to the eeeevil of my friends who told him all about my 'role' in episodes 5 and 6 (don't get excited, I was about 17th vampire from the left) getting him giddy) that he would like my autograph and wouldn't leave me alone till I did. And I was all embarrassed (because frankly the recognition and nice things that have happened to me since Being Human has been commissioned are all lovely but quite embarrassing anyway - I'm a journalist usually and much happier watching/reporting on shenanigans than being part of it and having people look at me!) and look like a very pink very horrified sort of person. If you want to see a Being Human related picture you could look at http://twitpic.com/t9wqs which another lovely American Being Human related fan posted having played 'Where's nkb?' which is like 'Where's Wally?' but with a blue scarf rather than a red stripey one And I feel like we've gone majorly off topic now so I'm going to slink away and be very quiet for a bit

No, and no. It wasn't funny. Although Chris, Karen, Max and Angela laughed till they cried. I'll link you to the pic

I think you may be right, lovely yet evil boy that he is. Yeah and WHY did someone ask that exactly Mr MK? Yeah. Quite. Speaking of lovely yet evil boys... Well mostly, yannow, EVIL. Nic, I nearly died. There's a picture on Facebook somewhere of me looking very pink and horrified and half running away.

LOL, it's ok, I was pretty much hiding under the seat by the time Russell finished - he's very lovely but quite embarrassing when he sets his mind to it, and I didn't stay for the signing so I definitely missed you. Are you coming to any of the BAFTA screenings? x

Ooooh that was a bit surreal for a Wednesday morning. Hi, erm, that's me. *waves* Although for the record I don't know I was very spearheady despite everyone saying very nice things about it afterwards. I do work for the SFX lot sometimes (if you read the 'best TV of the 00's' special they did recently I wrote the True Blood and Being Human features and I blog about Being Human a lot for them). They love the show but it is very awkward for them to promote this, and you can understand why perhaps they're less than keen to do so. We've sort of missed the boat there I'm afraid. I've already waxed lyrical about marketing shenanigans in another thread though so I'm going to link to it rather than being a bore. I've added you both on Twitter btw. And I take it you've seen the prequels put up yesterday, right?

Do one of you tweet as @beinghuman3 by any chance?

Except for the werewolf outfit. Or do you consider that an 'at home' only sort of thing?

SFX have made Being Human their Christmas cover. Very exciting news indeed - surely a sign that this show is only going to get bigger and bigger and season 2 gains momentum

All good stuff, although technically the hashtag would need to be #beinghuman (oh yes, pedantry in action!) Following the other BH communities on Twitter (there's three fairly decent ones) and retweeting anything they have that might be of interest is a good thing too, plus Aidan is allegedly on there (it's an unverified account and I'm awaiting confirmation that it's actually him) so you could follow him too - you need to add value to your tweets. While people will put up with some marketing from a company and undoubtedly in this case are following you in part for the new guest announcements etc, they'll tune out your messages if every one is just plugging the latest guest. Agree about the #cult thing - although the idea that suddenly the events are being brought to a whole new audience of people in funny coloured robes amuses me a bit. Oh and David, please don't think this is negative - a lot of what you're doing is ace, I just think there's some wiggle room for it to be a little more human. It's 'social' networking after all - while I understand you're running it on behalf of SM and need to keep the differentiation, letting a little bit more of your character flow through and interacting a bit more isn't going to cause any harm. And I agree with what Chris says about event days - let's get people who can't come to an event excited and a bit jealous at everything going on - a Twitpic of the queues to get in, or the UK Garrison having a chat with Warwick Davies - or a retweet of something he or Tom Felton posted during the day (I seem to recall seeing them both tweet recently from an SM event) or a little nugget of info about one of the guests - 'Jason Mewes has just told us all that he loves Merlin and Robin Hood. Is this cool or a bit frightening? You decide...' - all of which gives a flavour of the show and what's going on and and is a bit different to the usual tweets but actually helps market the shows albeit in a slightly different way.

I agree completely about the Facebook stuff - I've already posted about it extensively in another thread though so I'm going to link rather than going through it again. Just as a thought though - 737 people have clicked that they 'like this post' this post about the season 2 poster on Facebook. That's 737 people that might be interested in booking a ticket, that care enough about the show to follow news about it and click to endorse it. With the best will the world while some of those people could be us, or people we know a lot of them aren't, and they're ripe for targeting - but by Showmasters rather than us. Personally, I love SM events and have been to loads of them, but I agree with Chris that marketing/media savviness is something that the company doesn't have such a close grip on as the other aspects of running such a successful company - although admittedly, that's in part because of the fact that it being run by a small and dedicated circle of people. It's frustrating though, as whether you like it or not media coverage is something that provides people a shop window into the brilliance that is these events - and right now so far as I can see (and admittedly I'm seeing it from the viewpoint of a small fish in a big pond) it's not being taken advantage of.

Since, presumably, they gave The Sun press accreditation (my understanding is this is what they've done previously) and since nothing they've said is particularly libellous, no. SM has much more important things to worry about I'd say. This is all a storm in a teacup. :)

It makes sense to do so - they were able to get close to him for a decent picture they could use big, and they had time to talk to him for a couple of quotes. Unfortunately if you have a press strategy encouraging both regional and national media the sad fact is regional media is going to be friendlier than national where they can go for cheaper angles for something entertaining to the masses - that's the trade off for getting large scale publicity, you risk the 'message' coming out being not what you'd hope. These stereotypes of stars running all the way to the bank and spoddy fans are easily perpetuated, even though we all know they're untrue. All in all I don't think this is as catastrophic as people are making out. If you are the sort of person who thinks '£20?! To meet John Barrowman?!' then this was never going to be your event. If you love him in Torchwood though and never knew these events happened then actually now you're thinking 'wow, I'd quite like to go to summat like that'.

Ok, you're my new favouritest Being Human fan. That's ace! I was over for Comic Con while the first couple of shows aired and it seemed to be going really well, I read quite a few reviews all of which seemed positive - hope it still is, the con goes ahead and you have an amazing time. It might be worth looking into travel insurance though to cover if the con IS cancelled, that way you can book your flights etc early and get the best price, without worrying nearer the time that you'll be left with flights you can't change/cancel. PS - if you do make it over I'll buy you a beer just for sheer dedication to the BH cause! Narin :)

I've already got my silver ticket lined up for this and have been passing on details to everywhere I post / people I know and I'm very sorry to hear things are going relatively slowly. That said, and I have posted this before, I don't think Showmasters are taking full advantage of the marketing opportunities available. Being Human has nearly 30,000 fans on Facebook and has four different fan groups. The show was commissioned in part because of a groundswell of internet support, it has burgeoning fansites, and the BBC Being Human section of the site remains one of the best sections of the Beeb for traffic even in the show's off season (although it's obviously been given a boost courtesy of the BBC One repeats and Aidan Turner's turn as Rossetti in Desperate Romantics). It's an online show. I don't know that fliers are going to do much to help get the word out. We all have a responsibility - on messageboards, on Twitter, on LJ communities etc. But the marketing side of it could utilise the online element. Google adwords and (imho more effective for this show) Facebook advertising targets people down to the nth degree and you only pay for clickthroughs direct to your site. For example, you could set up a campaign on Facebook that said your advert would appear ONLY in front of people who were a fan of Russell Tovey or Being Human, aged between 18 and 40 and based in the UK. If you trialled it by, say, putting in £100 (way less than advertising in a mag) at around 35p a clickthrough (which is what it comes in at) you're putting your advert in front of 3,000 potential attendees who are definitely into what you're selling. You can use analytic software to see how many people have been referred who book tickets - so at the end of your trial you could see your £100 has sold you 10 tickets. Or 20. Or 50. Or a 100. Yes, it's a new thing to try, but this is arguably a great show to try it with. As I've said before, if you want help with any of this sort of stuff I'm always willing to help out. Good luck with it. I sincerely hope I'll be seeing you in February when, six episodes into the eight episode season two, we're all agog at the brilliance of both the show AND the con.

And Chris has left his phone number in some VERY dodgy places...

Primeval? Hmmm. I suppose it's better than Demons. Just Write up of the Being Human talk for anyone who wasn't able to make it on Sunday...

I think anyone who sat in on the Q&A with Russell Tovey and Lenora Crichlow at Collectormania Midlands could see how entertaining they were. With the show being a UK based one (and thus with none of the travel costs associated with flying US guests over) which must help in these credit crunchy times PLEASE could we have a Being Human con? There's so many interesting possibilities for people to go along too - as well as Russell and Lenora and Aidan Turner (Mitchell) we could have Jason Watkin (Herrick), Annabel Scholey (Lauren), Dylan Brown (Seth) and Sinead Keenan (Nina) as possibilities, plus anyone who's seen the Beeb's Being Human blog knows that show writer/creator Toby Whithouse is (a) fan friendly and ( very articulate and funny. I can't be the only one who'd go along...

I paid £7 to go to Stephen's guest encounter on Sunday and it was really worth it. He was very funny, really interesting, very frank and told some great anecdotes. For me Alan and Stephen were by far the most interesting guests on the panel as a whole and I'm very chuffed I got to chat to Stephen - having sworn I wasn't going to pay out any more money for such a thing I couldn't resist when I saw the kind of price it was going for

Said it before and will say it again The guest list this time is awesome, glad you agree Enjoy I think it's fab that you're both happy with the guest lineup but I think it's fair enough that there are people who don't think that (including me) - let's face it even Jason has said he was hoping for a stronger guest line up than they ended up with. But it's all kind of academic now anyway as the event is looming large - so let's go have a fab weekend. I can't wait - three hours till I finish work And I'd just like to say thanks to Jason for his post here. So many convention organisers will try and spin things to blame everyone else for things not going the way they hoped they would - from flight costs, to dodgy management to people who they say aren't 'true fans' and who therefore haven't supported the show - rather than holding their hands up and saying we've tried the best we could but despite everything it wouldn't work out this time. As someone else mentioned earlier in the thread when chatting about the auto sessions at Eclipse you do seem to take feedback on board for which we're really grateful. Jason, I know you and your team have busted a gut putting this event together and I hope you've not been tearing your hair out over the whole thing. No matter who turns up I'm sure we're going to have a great weekend - so thanks for all your hard work. We do all appreciate it (even people like me who I'm sure probably seem like I only delurk to offer constructive criticism / moan ) Maybe a suggestions box section of the board is a good idea as suggested. Here's hoping SM and Massive Events go from strength to strength even in the current climate :)