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veasse
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My weekend was brilliant but the convention as part of the weekend wasnt the highlight... (perhaps the kiss and hug from Dom was one highlight though...)

 

I got to meet Patrick, I was the big girl that ran... you may laugh... no i mean it you can laugh at this... I'm surprised i didnt get black eyes... i did get a chest complaint though!!

 

I have been to so many conventions and feel that this was possibly the worst....

 

Not because of the staff or the guests at all, but really because i felt there was no atmosphere, the venue was awful, the stalls had no flow and it was quite small...

 

I suppose from past events my expectation was too high.

 

Patrick was lovely and i'm not sure who i feel more sorry for... Patrick or the fans that didnt get to meet him. I was seriously upset that tickets over 1000 were being given out when it was obvious he wouldnt get past 800. the poor guy was signing so fast and working so hard to be nice to everyone, look at them and smile that i felt like it was a zoo.

 

I had a great meeting with Michael Gross who was lovely and very personable.

 

What are your thoughts???

 

Please bear in mind that this is a constructive thread not a criticism and certainly not a pop.

 

Hope you all had some good experiences this weekend...

 

Love

 

Veasse xxx

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i enjoyed i thought it was really good....i just felt it was a bit choatic with all the heroes guests and the demand of Dominic Monaghan and Patrick Stewart i dont think the demand for tickets was within showmasters control....i just think thats the price to pay for good quality guests.....although having said that i am a little black and blue from being barged into when moving from the various ques.

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I had a blast this weekend but the venue is terrible, I agree. The lighting is absolutely appalling (bad for photos) and it just lacks any kind of feeling. I felt the same when LFCC was in EC1 too. I also hate how there's nowhere to sit aside from the floor unless you want to pay for food/drink in one of the horrifically overpriced cafes. With all the waiting around that comes with a covention that's really not cool.

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Patrick was as nice as he can be in such rushed circumstances, but its a shame that some people will still criticise. At least he was there, another person may have cancelled- he had a flight to catch in the afternoon!

 

I agree- it was a vvv badly layed out hall- and people know, I'm never one to criticise SM as they are the best organisers out there imo. It may have been because of the date change, and it being the only hall left, plus the loads of stairs to make room for. I got so confused by the stalls, and the main guests were very cramped- there was a bigger area for the other (nana etc) guests who were less busy. I still enjoyed the show deff, but yep, it was lacking a certain something. And it was v dark. I liked the food places scattered around, but EC2 was better with a mini restaurant, and it all being upstairs. Again, its not SMs fault, it was just that they were lumbered with a crap hall, and prob did best in the circs.

 

I had a great day, and am looking forward to another CM!!

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Too expensive, too dark, nowhere to sit and food too expensive and not half as enjoyable as Collectormania at MK. Most of the crowds sitting around on the floor in the dark waiting to get a autograph that they probably won't get.

 

Patrick Stewart was nice though did feel sorry for him as I don't think he had a chance in hell of ever reaching the 1000 mark.

 

I'll be giving LFACC a miss from now on and I'll be sticking to the more superior Collectormania.

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OK top 3 things about this weekend

 

1) Guests

2) Guests

3) Guests

 

Worst 3 things

 

1) Lighting

2) VT Queues this morning

3) All the good guests being in one area with no update on numbers.

 

There did not seem to be a good atmosphere and the food and drink was expensive and a very poor choice.

 

But I love the showmasters events and know they really work hard organising everything.

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I had a really good time, and the guests I meet were very nice, but I agree about the atmosphere.

 

A few constructive points would be:

 

1) the aformentioned dealers area. Too dark! The flooring in the venue was awful and I plus a few others I saw almost went a**e over t*t because of the uneven flooring and lack of light...one made the other worse!

 

2)Over priced refreshments...£1.80 for a coke...'nuff said!

 

3)Talks area...very hard to hear due to a)sound equipment issues b)sound from autograph area

 

I know that some of these are beyond SM's control but its the sort of thing that should be considered when looking at venues.

 

It was nice to see crew members smiling for once...too often they look either fed-up or bored or angry (and I'm sure with reason) but its nice to see crew smiling sometimes. This goes double for Trey? (sorry if I get it wrong....crewing for Adrian Pasdar today?) who always seemed to have a genuine smile on her face...made me and a few others smile whilst waiting!

 

Apart from that a good time!

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I had a blast this weekend but the venue is terrible, I agree. The lighting is absolutely appalling (bad for photos) and it just lacks any kind of feeling. I felt the same when LFCC was in EC1 too. I also hate how there's nowhere to sit aside from the floor unless you want to pay for food/drink in one of the horrifically overpriced cafes. With all the waiting around that comes with a covention that's really not cool.

 

 

My feet are swollen and stinging... i was almost in tears by 1.30 and needed to sit down... no chance... I'm only short we got food and those seats were for giants and very few.

 

xx

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Hi

 

I'm going to try and be honest here, but I know it's not going to go down well with a number of people.

 

I live in Glasgow and attended Collectormania Glasgow last week and travelled 400+ miles this week to see Hayden and Patrick Stewart. I have also attended a number of events and this was probably the most chaotic.

 

Don't get me wrong, I saw almost everyone I wanted to but it was a lot crazier than it needed to be.

 

Problems:

1. Well over-crowded - someone's probably under-estimated how popular the heroes guests are.

2. Getting Virtual tickets - we queued from 9 till 10 and then witnessed mayhem trying to get virtual tickets. My partner was struck on the face and my 5 year old son was literally thrown several feet

3. Layout - crazy to say the least. We kept getting lost and asking people for directions. From what I've read, others seemed to have similar problems.

4. Lighting - not great, but not as bad as what I was reading on here last night. I thought I'd need to turn up with a miners helmet

5. Staff giving out VT's - Instead of giving out VT's staff were answering daft questions or chatting to other crew when the fans were racing against the clock to get numbers. It would have helped if more staff were around to assist - I'm not against people asking questions - I just don't feel the flow of distributing virtual tickets should be interrupted for long periods of time. I witnessed Too Tall a few times rushing staff along.

6. Inconsistencies - We were advised at the Hayden VT distribution that we didn't need a VT for my 5 year old son, but at the Milo queue, we were advised it was vital

7. VT information boards - It was chaos trying to find out which number the guests were at and we kept having to dash across the building all the time.

8. VT boards - the boards that did exist were very small and down low near the guests, so no-one could read them and this added to the congestion.

9. Lack of seating - nuff said.

10. Patrick Stewart - very disappointed as we never knew he was leaving early and it was so difficult getting a VT.

11. Lack of personalisations - Late in the day, the big guests were not personalising anything. I blame some of this on fans earlier hogging the guests. My sons name only has 4 characters and I felt Dom wanted to personalise it but advised not to by the crew. Instead, he wrote a blurb instead but it would have been far quicker to personalise the autograph. To make matters worse, we were told when we paid a few yards back that he would personalise.

12. Haydens autograph - Don't get me wrong, she was lovely but we travelled for 8 hours, spent a fortune and we didn't even get her surname on the autograph. She was so slow at signing, more down to the fans than her but some suffered later. I've seen it mentioned on here that her hands were sore, but that's probably because she was forced to go from 200 in five hours to 200 an hour.

13. The Adrian and Milo photo shoot - We were 15 from the end of the photo shoot and the boys looked suicidal at this point. Even with my 5 year old son, they looked thoroughly depressed and others were complaining as we had paid £30 and queued for 40+ minutes. I'm not looking forward to seeing the results in the mail. They were terrific during the signings but I couldn't take photos at this point.

14. Lunch times - I know the guests go when they want, but at one point there was hardly anyone signing at all. Glasgow suffered from this very badly last week as well.

15. Future events - it was a bit disappointing as there was no further information about guests at future events as there has been at some other events we've attended

 

I know this won't be popular, but we did enjoy much of the day - many of the guests were terrific.

 

I thought the crew near the photoops were terrific and the stalls were brilliant but the numbers probably far outweighed expectations. I've already mentioned elsewhere that I'd gladly buy VT tickets online and I thought some of the queues could have moved quicker at the start of the day.

 

Overall, very mixed feelings.

 

Steve

Edited by steevofromglasgow
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I got ticket for Patrick at around the 650 mark, long shot i thought but i was hopeful... until i found out he left after 4 hours at 2pm. I guess he had good reasons but there was a lot of pissed off ppl.

 

Heroes guests were my highlight probably but Robert Englund and Billy West were relly nice and i got to see Bumblebee too, A-MAZ-ING....

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veasse, believe me, i know about the feet- I've had 3 operations on my feet recently, and am having loadsa physio- but I'm not on crutches (just) and I look normal apart from a slight limp (limping on both feet= waddling, not so much a limp lol) and its so hard when people don't visibly see my probs... and no seating unless you paid loads for a drink, but thats cos its london.

 

Steve from glasgow- point 5: omg I was getting v frustrated with this... I won't say who, but many in the main guest queues were talking to other crew and ignoring us. I got fed up and was half way up one queue and the person had to run over to get my ticket, as they were too busy talking. Also people were v misinformed about hayden near the start, she was personalising, then i got to the desk and had the paper with my name on it snatched away, which sucked.

point 12: Hayden and Dom spent like the whole time talking. I'm not saying thats not allowed, cos thats silly, of course they can socialise, but I watched a lot, and they were talking loads, which is why they were both v slow when signing. I met Hayden at about 10.30/11 and they were talking constantly with a gap when she looked down at my photo. Exactly the same for dominic at 3.30. Not any1s fault obv, I just thought they could have concentrated on what they were doing a bit more. shes only a teen and prob v talkative, but hes surely a vetran at this...

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phew....i had a feeling sunday would be ALOT busier...and i was right by the sound of it. everyone was holding out/saving their £££ for today.

most peeps were saying how empty it was yesterday, today how busy.

 

glad i'm a football factory and mads fan other than heros and picard :)

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I was really dissapointed with a capital D!

 

First i q up then as we move to go in everyone merges so u loose ur place, so i was like 455 for hayden, qued for ages for her photo, and she for me was a bit of a let down, but i will give her the benifit of the doubt, shes prob tired but i didnt get her auto in the end, she didnt personlies so wasnt bothered, next was Jack photo, he was a lovly guy. then was dom qued again for ages and again lovely guy, wasnt that fussed about meeting him but he was my fave of the day, then came Milo and Adrian man oh man, the body guards, hands by ur sides at all time, i mean WTF? So over the top it was stupid, £30 to stand like a solider! also in the middle of the day i was walking back to my mom only yop be pushed aside by the guy in the mohalk telling me to STAY THERE cus milo and adrian and there millions of bodyguards were walking by, i mean again WTF that was out of order and rude, im like a small person walking up and isle i wasnt gonna harm there or go anywhere near them as a con regular is was stupid, i see DOM as a way bigger person that those two and he was just walking round with a friend, the building was very dark and badly placed i loved SM events but was very let down by the whole of this event.

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Well I've commented in several threads now, but this one seems good for an overall view of the weekend, so here's mine. Bearing in mind I've now done quite a few of these con's I would consider myself to be a veteran.

 

1.) Lighting was bad - Beyond Showmasters control I'm sure but like many have said, it wasn't great for taking photos.

2.) Sound system - I seem to recall last years sound system wasn't great, and neither was this years. Some talks were clear (Quadrophenia Reunion), others were quite inaudible (Billy West).

3. ) Cosplay - This is actually a good point. Although I don't exactly have an interest in cosplay, I'm glad Showmasters made an effort to put on some kind of Cosplay parade this year. I'm sure last year there wasn't one (or at least I don't remember one), so well done for doing something for that crowd.

4. ) Quadrophenia talk - Never seen the film, stumbled in the talk while waiting for numbers to go up on autograph queues, but this was very entertaining. It made me actually want to watch the film now, which not many talks manage to do!

5. ) Tom Baker - Great guest, okay so he talked a little too much with everyone, but he was one of the most humourous guests I encountered so I made him a bullet point of his own.

6. ) A Guest turning their back and ignoring me while signing an autograph - I'm afraid one of the bigger guests I found quite rude, turning round talking to their agent, and then handing me back my photo once they had finished their chat. I won't say who they were but they weren't in Heroes and they weren't Patrick Stewart. :P

7. ) Virtual tickets, especially Sunday - Well as much as I found stampeding for tickets both comical, and kinda exhilrating, on the serious side, I can see why a few people are annoyed about the whole thing. Virtual ticketing systems for gigantic guests from Heroes and Patrick Stewart maybe needed organisation and planning all of their own!

8. ) Lack of atmosphere - Kinda hard to pin this one down, but I felt there was less atmosphere here than last year. There was a little more today what with all the craziness surrounding Heroes, but there still didn't seem to be as much as last year.

9. ) "No Photos Please" - I understand they don't want people taking photos of guests posing because inevitably it delays the queue. I have no problem with that. But whats the problem of just taking photos of the guest whilst in the queue whilst they're signing WITHOUT asking them to pose? Especially as the guests this applied to didn't seem to mind having their picture taken randomly anyway?

10. ) Lack of seating - Again beyond Showmasters control, I'm sure, but now they got another year to try and sort something out with Earls Court about it?

 

Overall I got everything I had aimed for out of the weekend in terms of autographs, and got the big five, which I'm grateful for.

 

It was also still a memorable experience, and unlike some other people who have commented on the forum, I will still return next year despite the problems.

 

It would just be nice if next year some of the comments made on the forum today are taken in to account.

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I got ticket for Patrick at around the 650 mark, long shot i thought but i was hopeful... until i found out he left after 4 hours at 2pm. I guess he had good reasons but there was a lot of pissed off ppl.

 

Heroes guests were my highlight probably but Robert Englund and Billy West were relly nice and i got to see Bumblebee too, A-MAZ-ING....

Patrick stopped signing at 710 (I was 708, phew) so you would have got your autograph if you had waited near his queue towards the end of his signing time (which was written on his VQ board).

I agree with many of the points made on here, the venue was poor, particularly the lighting, the layout and the lack of comfort zones. The scrum for tickets this morning was madness, by having all the big guests sat together like that it just caused log jams and confusion. It would have made more sense to have the Heroes guests there with a couple of less popular guests and Patrick And Dom round with the other guests where there was more room. Although I understand and am thankful that Hayden, Milo and Adrian stopped personalising and shortened their signatures in order to move through the queue so that as many of us as possible got to meet them, but it could have been avoided with a combination of better scheduling (I know the Milo/Adrian photo shoot was a late addition but 10 past 3 when the show closes at 5 meant they were gone for an hour late in the day, minimizing the amount of time they had to catch up) and also with better communication with the stars, I may be wrong but I don't think Hayden had been told that 0ver 1200 tickets had been given out for her because if she had been I'm sure she would have paced herself better in order to avoid the rush and the hand cramp!

However, I'm lucky I got to meet everyone I wanted who was there today and am extremely thankful to Showmasters for hosting what is a great event, to the crew who were always in good spirits and all did there jobs wonderfully and particularly to Jason for persuading Patrick to sign last few :P

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of all the threads regarding this weekends show,i thought i'd reply to this one...purely because of the comments made by veasse at the beginning. damn,i wish i'd seen her running,lol...

:P

anyhoos,i only went sunday/today cos we didn't get home from holiday til yesterday. i wouldn't have attended both days anyway,but i really wish i hadn't bothered attending today.

echoing everybody else on the comments about poor lighting-for a show so dependant on the visual medium,to have such poor lighting at a venue is inexcusable.

the venue itself was ramshackle at best... looking about i kept thinking i was round the back of somewhere,like an old abandoned warehouse or somewhere... what,no carpet? sheesh!

the layout was confusing. well,,,to me,anyway...

the venue food was overpiced,i have my receipt for my bottle of coke and bag of crisps... three pound thirty??? thanks,very much.

the dealers area was a motly bunch,kind of like a gypsy boot fair. don't get me wrong,i'm all for fairy dream-catchers and replica firearms,and medieval costumes and japanese sweets...

and that car from transformers? no,i don't think so,lol.

yes,chairs would be good,and i don't think that's down to the centre owners... after all,who's paying for all this?

 

i have no opinion on the guests signings,as i'm really not fussed for that malarkey,other than the odd star wars guest now and then,but seeing hayden and milo and adrian walk past me on several occasions was plenty good enough for me,xxx

and bless little dom,he's sooo tiny,lol... sooo cute!

 

finally,one stern warning for jason and his team... if you intend to continue running these shows as showmasters,you'd better be putting on better events than this weekends... it made a mockery of your very good name.

 

cheers,xxx

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Hi

 

Despite my earlier points, I don't think it made a mockery of the Showmasters name.

 

What I do believe though is that it's only a matter of time before someone is SERIOUSLY injured in the scrum for Virtual Tickets. I witnessed several people in wheelchairs trying to get involved and both my partner and son were nursing minor injuries by 10:15.

 

Steve

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The stampede for VTs was insane. I ran so fast and was pushed and shoved all over the place even though I'd turned up early at 7am in hopes of avoiding a scene quite that bad. It was extremely stressful. Something needs to be done to stop that sort of thing from happening as as comments here have proved, people can get hurt. There's no excuse for allowing that kind of mess. I'm sure it could be better organized when it comes to people getting their VTs.

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hello steve,

don't get me wrong,i love showmasters and the service they provide,but todays event was very poor in comparism to previous events run by them...

the bucks stops somewhere,and it isn't with the earls court owners,or the punters who showed up today,or the guests...well,maybe some of them,lol.

CELEBRATION EUROPE showed us that a convention can be put on a a level to rival the ones in the states,or so i'm told... surely someone from the SM inner circle was paying attention over the weekend at that event?

look and learn,and all that.

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I had a lot of fun today and I saw everyone I wanted to see... in the end.

 

But I have to agree - it seemed a lot more chaotic this year and the venue wasn't as nice at all. Granted, last years lights were orange but it made it seem a bit more warmer as opposed to the dim lighting today.

 

In some ways, the 'manicness' sort of takes the fun out of it because it's so stressful at times - especially when you're quite small and keep getting trampled by very tall people who never look down!

 

However, on the plus side, the majority of the guests were a lot friendlier and more chatty than I've experienced before and spent more time with each person - the eye of the storm.

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I had a really good time, the guests I met were all really nice although I do agree that the lighting was very poor.

The one thing that annoyed me was the bodyguards at the Adrian and Milo shoot, I have been to quite a lot of photo sessions but I've never been told before not to touch the guests, just stand inbetween them. I felt really silly and as I turned to thank them they were already going to take the next photo. I managed to say hello to them but that was about it. It did ruin the experience for me a little though especially as I choose having the photo shoot over getting their autographs. (I didn't have enough money for both.) I wish now I had got their autographs instead at least I would've managed to speak to them.

 

The Dominic photo session was also really busy but I still managed to shake his hand and speak to him briefly. I thought it was well worth the £20 for the ticket.

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Just want to say thank you all for making this constructive and not just bitching...

 

Believe me jamie, you dont want to see me running... and just for the record it was first thing and there wasnt anyone in the way so nobody but myself was injured by my running...I would never push someone or hurt anyone!

 

I think that despite the problems it was a nice weekend, not extra special like usual but nice.

 

I cannot fault Dom, i never could anyway! Patrick was as lovely as he could be within his remit and micheal gross was lovely too.

 

I managed to see my friend from the US that i havent seen in years and even managed a pic and glimpse of Orlando Bloom at the theatre just by fluke! (just walking down the street and there he was!)

 

I'm looking forward to the next collector mania, and ring con, I do hope they get Dom back because he is such a lovely guy!

 

Again THANK YOU to showmasters for putting this show on, perhaps you can take some tips from here and improve the next LFACC.... I do recall Wembley and the first LFACC and how amazing it was... perhaps trying to get a similar venue would be good.

 

Veasse xx

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