chrismk

p.s. Jason! If you read this, you may want to put a copy of your original post elsewhere, perhaps as a 'Showmasters State of the Union Address' or something, its a fascinating read that is a little hidden in this thread!

Great topic with some interesting results. For my mind, its worth noticing that Manchester is currently 5th with 15 votes, yet we know from experience that shows there aren't viable. Therefore I'd be surprised if Manchester (or Brighton with 16 votes) were under serious consideration. Bluewater seems like a no brainer, if SM can get a decent deal with the owners of it. Lets not forget that Collectormania became a juggernaut at CMK, so they have lots of valuable experience in shopping centres! Birmingham will be tough unless the right venue can be found and there are obvious difficulties with it. Cardiff is (for me) the most interesting one. Its not the most accessible of places, but there seems to be high demand there and some events HAVE run there (seemingly succesfully). (For the record, I don't live in Cardiff and my one trip there was a deeply unpleasant experience!!)

Interesting question! My personal thought it that because all guests are a matter of taste and opinion (one persons headline guest, is another person's 'who'?) that you're better off getting the biggest guests and not limiting them. Sure, there will be some people who love ALL the guests and want autos/pictures with all of them and they won't be able to, they will have to choose. As long as the pricing of the guest is right and they are busy for most of the day, it should work out for you. The other big advantage of having several headline guests, is that it gets more people to the event and the more people, the more you can offer, meaning every attendee gets a better experience (ok, so there will be some queuing, show me a big event where there isn't!!) I know some of the dealers would rather the guest list is more limited, because they feel that people spend all their money on guests and nothing on dealers. That said, more people through the door can only be a good thing for them! Have to say congratulations on the guests you got in 2012, it truly was a great year for headline guests and you got a bunch of people who I thought would never be available!

They've told you how much the room will be, you just can't book it yet. (it's under the 'venue' link on the Massive events page for the convention.) Given as no one can book a room for the event yet, non of the single rooms can have been taken. I understand that in your circumstances, you'll need to move quickly when the booking code is released, but right now, everyone is in the same position as you. I understand that you can probably get cheaper accomodation, but in my mind, the extra few quid is worth the peace of mind of knowing that you can get money back if there is a problem. My experience would suggest that if there's no code by January, then its less likely that the event will go ahead, as (as you correctly pointed out), the organisers often have to commit to getting a certain number of rooms booked, which is hard to do with less months notice.

It would help if we had the hotel code to book, we have nothing but the dates. hotel and one guest and nothing for months, its about time something like the hotel code was announced at least I don't understand the need to get the hotel booked? If they haven't yet released the booking code, it means that no one has booked the pre-reserved rooms. This means that you shouldn't have a problem when it does get announced. The price probably won't change in the mean time, if they have a negotiated rate.

My advice to anyone attending a 'new' convention (meaning new to SM/ME) such as this, is support the event by buying a ticket, but be wary about spending on the additional costs (travel, etc). The tickets will ALWAYS be refunded if the event doesn't go ahead, but you might lose travel costs (unless you buy some sort of insurance at the same time). Whilst guest announcements obviously rely on contracts being signed, they will also need ticket sales to justify the guest costs. Therefore if you want an event to happen, then supporting and encouraging ticket sales is essential. Also, try and book the hotel via the organiser. This way you SHOULD get a refund in the event of a cancellation. Whilst you might be able to find the hotel for a few pounds less, it's worth paying a little more as a form of insurance (its better to spend £5 more per night, than risk losing £50-£60).

Something else to remember is that if you want to meet the big guests, try and set aside the whole day for it. By 4.30 on the Saturday, Karl, Gillian and Jeri were all open queue and able to spend a little more time with attendees.

As I mentioned in my previous reply, there is a cost to the talks, in that the guest is not bringing in revenue unless the talks are paid. Christopher Lloyd may have been free last year, but he had to stay until 7 signing autos to meet as many people as possible (to his credit), which means a fair number of people who wanted to meet him didn't get the opportunity. Not sure how him doing a talk uncharged made any difference to the amount of people who were able to get his autograph... I'm not entirely begrudging them charging, but to charge the same price that's charged for autos and photos (where there's less of a chance the paying customer is left disappointed) is a bit too much imo. As someone said earlier, £8 or as I said £5 (depending on guests) sounds a fairer deal. As loads of people attend talks, that's still a lot of money being brought in, and due to it being a lower price would probably get people like me who have spent so much already, swayed into paying a bit more for their favourite guests :) Because if he hadn't done the free talk, more people would have got the chance to meet him. Also means that he would have generated more revenue to cover his fee (obviously I don't know the exact figures, but big US guests are clearly not cheap to bring over and I would imagine some of them actually work out as a loss (but generate more footfall into the event, which helps raise revenue elsewhere.) The cost would depend on things like the speed that the guest is signing at. When a guest goes to a 30-40 minute talk, they probably aren't signing for an hour (moving between locations, etc). If a Guest is charging £20 per auto and gets through 250 autographs in an hour (maybe 150 attendees), then it costs SM £5K to put on the talk. If you charge £5 for talk entry, then you need 1000 people in the talk to generate the same revenue. Awkward, because Olympia probably only had 700 ish seats in the main area... which is considerably bigger than previous and other events.

I think people need to realise that the long term aim of this show is to emulate (as much as is possible) a famous overseas event (that I am not allowed to mention). At that event (and to a lesser extent this one just gone), there is so much going on that it is simply not possible to see and do everything that you want. I can see how this is a problem if you book photo shoots with people, not knowing what the schedule is going to be like (and I can also understand why its not possible to publish the schedule until the last minute, due to changes/last minuet guests), so maybe its time to look at other ways of selling talk/interview tickets?

As I mentioned in my previous reply, there is a cost to the talks, in that the guest is not bringing in revenue unless the talks are paid. Christopher Lloyd may have been free last year, but he had to stay until 7 signing autos to meet as many people as possible (to his credit), which means a fair number of people who wanted to meet him didn't get the opportunity.

I agree that some its a shame that there are more pay talks, but at least there are still SOME free ones (unlike Collectormania). As Jason pointed out during that debate, there is a cost to Showmasters for having a talk, in that the guest is not bringing in money (which pays their fees). You could argue that the increased number of pay talks this year, just represents an increase in the quality of the guests.

I utterly agree with this, I think the recent MASSIVE guests that they've got, have been very well handled and although time with the guest is minimal, its usually enough for a hello and eye contact. Compare that to 'The Shatner' experience of a few years ago and you can see the vast improvements SM have made. There has to be a balance between the experience and getting through as many fans as possible and I think it was spot on (again).

Just a quick thought guys... but couldn't you set up a separate email account for photo queries (such as photos@showmastersonline - dot - com), so that your spam filter doesn't 'eat' any and it will make them easier to trawl through? (Also, its a bad idea to post the complete email address, as I gather you'll get more spam!)

Have to say the the people running the photos on Sunday (especially but not exclusively) in areas B and D were excellent, kept the queues moving and people informed, as well as using that good old common sense to make decisions relating to clashes. Great work!

That was Naomi, she's not on the forum often, but she's a friend of mine, so I will pass on your comments :)

I'm pretty sure Olympia is bigger than Earls Court (it certainly felt that way), so this comment doesn't make sense!

Hmmm... lets see, you posted it at around 8.30pm of the main day of the event. Common sense says that given as they didn't leave until gone 8, I'd guess he's probably having some food and will not be on the forum until Monday or Tuesday.

God if its like this Tomorrow I am NEVER going to another Showmasters event that looks like free for all that should never have happened. This sort of thing would never would happen if we didn't have to pay to get in and to be honest I still don't know why we have to pay to get in ? Don't you think we pay enough once inside ? Having said all that I have a feeling this post will disappear as if by Magic To the best of my knowledge, Collectormania is the ONLY event of this type which is free to enter. I don't know the figures, but I would imagine the entry fee (and probably a fair chunk of the dealers fees) pay for the rental of the location (the cost of the guest likely covers the cost of the guests). Its not like its a hidden cost that is prung on you, so I don't understand the criticism.

What has that got to do with queue organisation? That is ENTIRELY down to her being popular.

I agree with the majority who are saying that the bigger venue was fantastic and the bigger scale of the event with the guests was also amazing. In my mind, this has been the greatest LFCC so far, by some distance (and I've been a big fan of previous ones!) The Dredd panel especially was the closest thing the UK (or Europe) has ever had to a large, famous US event (whose name I cannot mention). Exclusives for a major film, with the star, director and related people in a free panel... hell yes, more please!

I am a little confused, why was the VQ system a 'joke', just because you got a high number? Without the VQ system, there would still have been potentially 700 in front of you! What better system can you come up with?

How did you get it to work, I kept getting an error on my iPhone!

What has changed is the volume of big guests. This years list is pretty epic and if you think about it, for the hour the guest is unavailable, they could have signed maybe 100+ autographs at £10-£30 a go. Showmasters have to maximise earnings from the guests, to pay for their costs (fees, transport, hotels, etc). Therefore the option is quite clearly 'pay talk', or 'no talk'. This potential loss of earnings applies to any guest who is likely to have a constant stream of attendees queuing all day, so the free talks are more likely to be guests who will be 'Open Queue', at which point a free talk can almost act as an advertisement for the guest (I know several people - myself included - who have got an auto or photo with a guest, simply on the basis of a great talk!) I was quite vocally opposed to all the pay talks at CM:MK, but that was because there were NO free ones.

As has been said, it depends on the guest, but they aim to get them seated for 9. Last year, David Tennant arrived shortly before 9 and was just about sat when the doors opened (I was working as a dealer, hence was inside already). Have to say that I've been to MANY events and even so, his complete professionalism on the day stood out as something special!

Does anyone know the name of the dealer who was in the large part of the dealer room, near the door on the right hand side (if you were standing at Dave Prowse's stall facing the room). They had a lot of DC and Marvel stuff (including Batman/Superman bath mats) and some small cancas mini prints. I'm sure they're an online retailer, but I lost their card!