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OurDek

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Everything posted by OurDek

  1. There is an autograph auction company based in Nottingham who have auctions at the Radisson hotel in Heathrow who could give you a valuation for insurance purposes. It seems to depend on the insurance company but a friend of mine who has a large collection of modern and vintage autographs has been told to insure them separately, this may be because a large number of them date to before the 1970's and would be very difficult to replace. There is also the Stanley Gibbons/Frasers Autograph Guide that comes out annually and that could be picked up from somewhere like Waterstones, this gives a range of valuations for photos, documents and items. As it's published by a recognised name some insurance companies will accept the valuations the book gives.
  2. As said earlier, the names aren't mentioned to stop poaching by other events or organisers. This guest has certainly made my mind up to come on the Sunday.
  3. I get the same thing, usually when I mention how much signatures cost - "They charge money?" "I wouldn't pay X to meet THEM" etc, usually accompanied by comments like "How do you know they're genuine" "You can't get them over here, they must be fake" and "You're wasting your time with that rubbish." The problem is that these people just don't get the hobby and never will. If I followed sport it would be acceptable, travelling hundreds of miles to meet film, tv and comics guests is just weird. Although on the occasions that I've mentioned football club reunions they soon change their tune.
  4. Thank you Jason, as someone who has been to the majority of your events I feel guilty when forced to complain. Although this event was hot and uncomfortable, something that is obviously out of your control, the guests I did get near were great and did bring some positivity to a generally taxing and horrendous time. One thing if I may bring it up, the Hammersmith flyover is closed until at least late summer of 2015 so for those like myself who use either the M1 or M4 it means huge traffic problems. It actually took my son and I 5 hours to travel back home, two and a half of which were spent travelling the 6 miles from the venue to the M4. Maybe you could check on the state of the roads and organise the evnt around the roadworks, I know it's a big ask but I am not the only one who will be hit by these delays. Even though I missed a lot of the guests I wanted to meet, I am looking forward to the winter LFCC and will definitely be there. It's good to know that you are prepared to take on board complaints regarding event organisation, something which another un-named London and Midlands event organiser refuses to do. Thanks again, and keep up the brilliant work.
  5. To add to this, I have previously backed showmasters on most occasions, even on Saturday, but having attended on Sunday this was the least enjoyable event I have been to in a long time. To begin with, knowing how busy pre-sales had been I took the decision to pre-book the car park at a cost of £26.50. Upon arriving at Earl's Court at 9.15 after a two hour journey I find that the entrances to the venue are cordoned off with Car Park Full signs. I told the attendant that I'd pre-booked and was told I'd have to go the other entrance. Three laps of the surrounding roads later, I found another attendant who gave clear instruction on how to find the correct entrance. I got in the car park and parked. I next got to the main entrance where there were two queues, one saying pre-paid tickets (which wasn't moving) and one pay on the day. Rather than get in the wrong queue I asked a couple of the crew girls on the entrance which queue to join and was told that I could go straight in as I had pre-paid. It turned out that the queue was for pre-paid standard entry. Once in the venue I fought my way through the already considerable crowd to get VT's for the guests I wanted to meet and found that for the first time there didn't appear to be crew members giving tickets out, despite some guests showing VQ numbers. I managed to get in the Terry Farrell queue with only a couple of people in front of me and waited about 30 minutes to meet her. Thankfully she was a fantastic guest, really lovely. I again tried to find crew with VT's and still couldn't get anywhere near anyone or just couldn't see anybody. Giving up any hope of meeting any of the larger guests I found the area at the back where the Doctor Who guests were and met four more guests. I then decided to spend the money I had left over in the dealers area but as the general entry people were now coming into the building I found it almost impossible to get anywhere near the stalls. There were just too many people for the size of the aisles so it was horrendous trying to get to see anything. Another problem were the large number of people sitting around the only open spaces around the promotional displays, they were an obstacle blocking movement. I couldn't even attempt to get near the comics building as again there were too many people hanging around so I decided to make the 2 hour+ journey home, having spent three hot and uncomfortable hours inside the venue. Here comes the third fun element of the day, trying to drive through the hundreds of people who just stood where they felt, blocking the car park exit even when security asked them to move. Thankfully no-one was killed. Having been to pretty much every LFCC since their inception, I can see a few ways to stop these repeated problems at the event: 1) Have all entry on pre-sold tickets only, with a number of options within this idea. Using Stan Lee as an example, have major guest-specific ticket sales. For example, a Stan Lee All-inclusive ticket for say £100.00 which would include entry, autograph and photo shoot immediately to Stan Lee's area from the event opening, or a Stan Lee ticket for £60.00 which would just cover entry and the autograph. VT's could still be issued and a hand stamp used to enter other areas, but at least with this format entry could be deliberately measured and photo shoots timed, which leads into point 2) Photoshoots. It was obvious to anyone with a basic grasp of logic that it would have been impossible for all of the people attending the event to meet Stan Lee that not everyone would get the autograph they craved because of the amount of time taken up by photoshoots and talks. On Sunday there was only a window of approximately four hours for him to sign, taking into account photos, talk and lunch. I know that these sessions make a fortune for Showmasters and they are not likely to drop them, but they hold things up and take large chunks out of the time for others to meet a guest. There are a couple of options here. Either split the days that these things are done, so for example have the Saturday as a photo shoot day and the Sunday as a signing day. Showmasters could still sell the thousands of photo shoot tickets for all of the guests and the people who only want a photograph could time their day so that they get their photo and see the dealers stands. Then on the Sunday those who want autographs have the whole day to get their VT and get a signature. If this was done and announced in enough time, it would allow people to book time off work with plenty of notice. The other option is to have a photoshoot either at the start or the end of a day in one session of two or three hours. You then have a fair amount of time for the autograph collectors and those who want a signature on their photo would still have the option. 3) Cut down on the guest list. It looks impressive when the number of guests is announced but it is almost impossible both financially and in terms of time to meet so many guests. Also stop having big guests on one day only. Having them for two days spreads things out and gives everyone a chance to meet people. For those of us who are fans and who work on Saturdays it is very frustrating to find that the major guest you want to meet is only doing the day you can't make. I for one would much rather have a list of say thirty or forty guests signing on both days than a list of almost 100 people with a large percentage only signing on one or other of the days. 4) Don't allow standard entry people to form queues outside the venue entrance until all of the early bird entries have entered. Earl's Court is a large enough venue that two queues could be neatly formed away from the entry. Or stop anyone with a standard ticket queuing from the early entry time without paying the additional charge. Make them enter the grounds after 10.00 to form their queues or make them upgrade. What is the point of queuing so early if you aren't getting in for two hours. It's OK for those who are entering at 9.00am and want early tickets, or who have paid for the car park in advance and can gain entry from 7.00am to the car park. By stopping standard entry people from queuing so early you would not need five queues on the day, only three for the first two hours of entry - Queue 1 for Gold pass holders, Queue 2 for pre-paid ticket holders and Queue 3 for pay on the day early entry. Added to this it would be an idea to have one or two trusted crew members go along the pay on the day queue, selling the tickets to those waiting and getting them to join the end of the pre-paid queue. Once the doors are open and the queue has gone in to the venue then the box office can start selling the early entry tickets to those entering later. I fully agree with the forum poster who started this thread, not enough is being done to stop the repeated problems that LFCC is encountering. Instead of promising to get bigger and have more things, look at going smaller and making all attendees have the best day possible.
  6. There always seem to be problems with Earl's Court on Saturdays because the venue staff never seem to know the plan that Showmasters have arranged, I certainly wouldn't be blaming SM for the chaos.
  7. Just a big thank you for a fantastic day today, really relaxed yet professionally organised. I got to meet all of the guests I wished to see with no big queues, so was able to spend more time than at other events chatting to them. The venue was also great, I haven't been to a Heathrow Autographica for a few years so it was nice to see that it is still easy to navigate around the event.
  8. Showmasters are going to evolve into beings of pure energy and will become the foundation of a new world religion.
  9. Fantastic Four #86, 1969 UK Fantastic Four Annual if possible.
  10. I know exactly who it is, I'm already planning on arriving as early as possible on the Sunday morning.
  11. So this is the future, £45 for a background actor from the Marvel films
  12. At the previous event this year there was a family straight out of big fat gypsy weddings patrolling the car park. Sadly because of the positive feedback these events generate and the publicity surrounding them the scumbags have started to realise that they are prime targets for thieves. We'd be more than happy to pay an entrance fee, I know we can't name specific events on the forum but other non-SM events don't seem to get the problems, at least they aren't reported. I do think that a permanent event security force is now a sad necessity.
  13. This is going to be only the second Collectormania I'm going to have to miss since they started unfortunately. This announcement just cements my decision not to come which is a shame because I've loved every event.
  14. I met him a few years ago and found him to be really pleasant if a little quiet, he had not long been in the country and was a little jet lagged but brightened up during the day. He was interested in some of the items he had never seen before and I'd recommend meeting him.
  15. There were about six or seven tables with names first thing Sunday morning, all signs had disappeared by about 10.00. Robin Furth, Geoff Senior and quite a few others didn't seem to be there.
  16. A pity that so many of the comics guests hadn't turned up as I was looking forward to meeting them.
  17. For Olympia we have arrived at around 7.30 with a pre-booked car park space when there have been major guests and had about 100 people in front of us between the pre-paid and pay on the day visitors. As there are no "big" guests this Sunday for us personally we'll arrive just after 9.00 and should hopefully be straight in to the venue and able to get VQ tickets for the guests we want under 150 going by previous events but this is only an estimate. It all depends on the number of guests you hope to fit into the day.
  18. We had three signatures from George Johnson and were charged for each of them, the elderly lady who was crewing for him had a hand-written note saying Check All Passes or something similar but did not seem to know anything else, we were charged the full £45 for the signatures despite clearly wearing our green weekend passes. Can we still get a free signature from him on Sunday as he had other photographs we were interested in. Thanks again.
  19. We have two weekend passes for the event but were unable to find the guest who was the free signature, could somebody please tell us so that we can claim our free autographs on Sunday. Thank you.
  20. Walked around three times thinking we may have missed them, thank you for putting our minds at rest.
  21. A really nice guy, met him twice and both times he was worried that people hated him because of the negative fan reaction to The Phantom Menace. Definitely meeting him for a third time.
  22. I've known Willie and his family for a few years as he's local to where I live, he's a great guy and a very rare signer. He's one of the credited Ewok actors who have their name in the official Return Of The Jedi magazine compendium and he also appeared in Willow, The Neverending Story amongst others and worked with Ken Russell during his acting career.
  23. Personally, guests-wise I prefer CM, it's been going longer and so apart from venue issues all problems have been ironed out, however LFCC has a far better dealer area, whether in Earls Court or Olympia. It all depends on whether you are going for guests or traders. If you're a comics fan then it has to be LFCC but for the film and TV stuff then give Milton Keynes a try.
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