Loxias

Man in the High Castle is one of the best shows I've seen, and he is ace in it!! I also saw him pop up in 47 Ronin the other day :-)

It took me 40 minutes to collect my Diamond Pass for Ming Na Wen, and I waited until 10am before joining the queue (had photo shoots to get out of the way first). There were three queues at that stage - one for Pele, one for other Diamonds and one for buying photo shoots. The number of people in the wrong queue was high and people were getting frustrated. I too wish they would post them out, but it seemed to me the only thing there was an issue with today. Everything else was great :-D

Aiming to get there when the car park opens at around 8am - as long as I'm in for my Shanks photoshoot everything is good :-)

I prebooked parking and if you click on the parking FAQs it says: What are the stay periods for Pre-Paid Parking? Car Parks are normally open from 08:00hrs each day. Hopefully there won't already be a massive queue by then!!!

Looking good!! Do we know if the two photo areas are next to each other? I only have one clash on Saturday morning (Barrowman Batch 2 and Shanks Batch 1) - if they are close thinking i can do one then the other rather than having to leave Barrowman until the afternoon (although that's not a problem if needs be)....

Amazing!!!! I just got my diamond pass - as I wanted a photo and auto anyway and the price was hardly any difference. Exciting - I think she is fab!!!

Awww, gutted - but hopefully that's a new show we'll see her in soon!

It's after hours now Loxias so if she has cancelled they may not be able to take the tickets down immediately, they will do so as soon as they can though. I already had tickets - was just gutted if she had cancelled. Ah well - will wait and see and keep fingers crossed. Might buy a ticket for Ming-Na Wen whilst I wait!!

It says on the website (http://www.collectormania.com/birmingham/) Amanda has cancelled - is this true? Tickets are still available on Eventbrite

My Name That I Respond To IRL: J or Jules My Rough Age: 30s My Main Fandoms: Stargate, LOTR, Marvel Most People Love This Fandom But I Strongly Dislike: Star trek, Star Wars Favourite Guest I've So Far Met: Richard Dean Anderson Biggest Name Guest I've So Far Met: Stan Lee Ultimate Dream Guest I'd Love To Meet: Robert Downey Jnr/ Sir Ian McKellan However A More Realistic Dream Guest Would Be: Claudia Black I Plan To Be At LFCC 2017 On These Days: All of them I Will Most Likely Be Wearing: Clothes As Well As The Guests, I Will Also Be Attending To: admire all the cosplayers who are far, far braver than me! Favourite Colour: Sky blue Favourite Movie: All three LOTR films Favourite Food: Italian. Oh, and German chocolate.... Favourite Book: The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Favourite Series Of Books: Harry Potter Favourite Video Game: SoulBlade - yeah, I know this was YEARS ago, but I loved it! Favourite Item Of Merchandise: I don't really go in for merchandise, but I do love my Marvel and LOTR Lego sets (yeah, yeah, I know) Favourite Person With The Screen Name "Stenun" Who Started This Thread: Is there more than one?! Other Information About Me That I Want To Mention: Nothing exciting! Other Information About Me That I Don't Want To Mention: I'm really good at bumping into 'celebs' in everyday life and not recognising them (until someone else tells me!)

Mine cost £333.90 for 3 nights, booked end of May in a double room (there were cheaper, single rooms). I had reserved it at a higher price earlier but did a non-cancellable rate in May when it was on sale. Booking really far in advance doesn't always get you the best rates at that hotel I have noticed....

Don Warrington was on the bus I got on outside LFCC!!

All my autos are at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151562628164810.1073741827.717084809&type=1&l=bf2af152d7 - scroll to the bottom for the most recent :-)

If you used to use Frank's I'd suggest going to timecare http://www.timecare.co.uk/timecare/home.php These are the exact same ones Frank's used to sell as it's where they bought them from. It can be hard to find some things on the site but look at the bestsellers list at the bottom of the main page to find most of them. Ok - thanks - will try them instead! I miss being able to pick them up at the event :-(

I've been looking at the Arrowfile ones, but can't work out what size to get for the autos and photoshoot photos. I used to get all mine from Frank's but never really took much noticed what size they were - can anyone confirm before I buy some that are not the right size - I don't really do all these measurements in mm!!

All my autos are here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151562628164810.1073741827.717084809&type=1&l=bf2af152d7 (these are all my autos, the ones from this weekend are at the bottom!) All my other photos are here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154409495584810.1073741865.717084809&type=1&l=7b016f497d These should all be public, but if you can't see them just send me a request - always happy to have new friends :-)

My little feedback on this event: Positives: - the glorious amount of space! Was nice walking around without being crushed, elbowed or barged out of the way. - the stalls. There seemed to be a good mix of stalls there selling all sorts of things. I was particularly taken with the folks selling those storyboards with the classic story all fitted on one page with a nice design on. - the guests. For the most part all the guests seemed happy, were engaging with their fans and living up to expectations. Certainly all the folks I met for autographs were lovely and chatty, and they were also pretty jolly in the photoshoots too (with one exception, but I'll move that to the negatives). Therefore, a big smiley from me goes to Jeremy Renner, Sean Maher, Jack Gleeson, Joe Naufaru, Famke Janssen, Sylvester McCoy, Jamie Harrison, Hattie Hayridge, Jon Heder, Faye Marsay, Mads Mikkelson, Dominic Monaghan, Elden Henson, Kae Alexander, and Aaron Stanford. - the crew. All the crew I encountered this year were helpful and friendly and I did not get any aggro off anyone. I must give particular praise to the two guys looking after the queues for Mads Mikkelson and Sean Maher on the Friday - they were a credit to SM. I am also grateful that I was able to swap my Saturday photoshoot with Sylvester McCoy to Sunday, after it fell in the middle of the Jeremy Renner talk. I had no problems and they were happy to make the switch. - other attendees. Yes, people this year seemed more polite, more friendly and certainly happier. I always attend on my own, so it's nice to chat to people. I think given the space and better organisation, people were just a lot more relaxed. Yay to that! Negatives - the Thursday evening pick-up. I don't know where to begin with this. I know it was organised late, but for it to take two hours to pick up a gold pass and one diamond pass when there wasn't even a big queue was beyond belief. For staff to be working off paper lists to find your name (which didn't look to be in any sort of order) was a bit badly organised, and to then have to queue twice because they couldn't give you both passes together was a nightmare. Even after that, you still had to go to the Diamond Pass booth (or area behind the TV screen) on another day to collect anything that wasn't your dog tag. - the gold pass. I am loathe to complain about this because for the main part of joining any queue and being front of photoshoots it did work well for me - but everything else just didn't seem to quite work. For Friday and Saturday we did not get let in any earlier - they did not do bag search in advance as I am led to believe they did at the main entrance - so it took even longer. As we were also located the furthest point from guests, it also meant high VQs for the Diamond guests. The gold pass room went from being a cordoned off triangle on Friday to a tiny room the rest of the weekend. I went in once on Friday but never again as there were only about 8 seats so not really a place to relax. I think SM need to work on the goldpass room for next year, brief the security folks on the rules of letting people in before the event starts and not in response to everyone complaining that it isn't working, and to actually make it worthwhile again I think goldpasses should be able to join Diamond guest queues after the diamonds - Famke Janssen's Saturday photoshoot. There is not much to say here that hasn't already been said. The poor woman looked like she didn't want to be there, her security were rough and rude, the crew were on edge, the attendees were simultaneously fearful and pixxed off and it turned out not being a very pleasant experience for anyone. If indeed she was ill then she should have cancelled the shoot and just stuck to autographs - people are understanding when they get the truth, but the way this was handled was a complete mess and you can't get back all that negative publicity all over FB and Twitter and everywhere else people were complaining. Overall I had a great time though, and I'll be back next year!

A couple more pics from today.....I also found the Famke photo experience a bit weird, but she was pleasant enough at the auto table. Bit sad my 'selfie' with Joe is a bit blurred but he was such a lovely guy to meet I don't mind!

Yeah, go to the sales desk. One of the folks there wrote and signed mine allowing a change of day for Sylvester McCoy as his shoot was in the middle of my Diamond Jeremy Renner talk. You probably should have asked them today as soon as you missed it, but it certainly won't hurt to go straight there tomorrow morning and check!

I completely agree.... I don't mind the no touching thing too much but a smile or even a heart felt hello would of been nice. Felt more like I was a bother to her being there... Agree..... i would be so annoyed if I had a diamond pass for her. Raging at myself just for the photo shoot pay out alone. I also agree. I think if guests are uncomfortable with photoshoots then they should just do autographs. I'd rather more people got to meet her that way than spend all that money on a pretty terrible photo. I could probably photoshop a better picture without the massive gap between us and the two inches of blue screen above our heads!

Right, now I've worked that out here are some more!

Final attempt!

Been in this queue for almost 2hrs now. Got my Gold Pass but then had to join another queue for the Diamond Pass. No idea why this is taking so long - hope they fix it for tomorrow!

I want to keep the photo vouchers. You can just change your terms the day before the event. I have a diamond pass for the only talk I want - you are now taking away the photos and giving me something worthless? Your gold pass is becoming a joke and I won't be buying one again. Stop trying to pretend you are doing people a favour with this change. The only genuinely decent option is to include £10 vouchers we can use on anything. Not happy.

As this is a clash between two paid for Events it may be possible to switch the day, but I can't promise anything. Last year under certain circumstances it was possible. But you need to speak to the sales desk please. Many thanks - I'll see what they say. I'll only get one chance to use my Diamond Pass to hear Jeremy so don't want to have to miss half of it...