LF&CC Feedback

[gobo1979uk]

Hello. I went to LF&CC for the two days as a gold pass member and thought I would give a little feedback (constructive I promise). Actually it would be an idea to have feedback /suggestions forms available at the event - if people have someting to complain about they might feel better about writing it down rather than whinging to staff (just an idea to make life easier for you guys). Ok here goes.

 

Pros

Despite big cancellations there was still a good range of guests. Not too many sports guests (I do like sport but just not football).

 

Small, but good selection of stalls

 

Beautiful red haired girl on the showmasters crew :-)

 

Hayden was cute as a button.

 

Colin Creevey is now a goth - how funny is that.

 

Cons

Biggest one - THE VENUE. very, very grotty. Apart from the dim lighting (in the area with the low ceiling and the harry potter guest area it was actually ridiculous) it was just generally unclean and scruffy. Toilets stunk and the venue was also very hot and humid. The stalls layout was crazy because of the odd layout of the hall. Worst...venue...ever! Hope we never go there again - i think we probably won't because so many of the stallholders were talking about a mass complaint or asking for a refund.

 

Some guests didn't have a good range of photos available

e.g. Christpher Malcolm (just a b/w closeup and a production shot), Deep Roy (No Droopy McCool photo - despite this being shown on the website), Syd Wragg (again website pic not provided), Al Lampert (b/w pic and a pic where he was only half on the page). The two stalls selling 8x10s were doing a good trade though.

 

No personailsations for Patrick Stewart and Hayden Patteniere (only found out about Hayden after I had paid).

 

Big guests weren't spread out (glad I had a gold pass and wasn't involved in the scrum on Sunday morning).

 

Gold pass goodie bag - I didn't get anything apart from the autographs (LOTR - poor selection Kiran Shah (on a dodgy pic), Sala Baker (over a photo of the ring), JRD (decent pic of Gimli), Jed brody (Snaga pic) and one other I haven't worked out yet. Plus the certificates of authenticity are just photocopys (might be hard to explain that when I try to sell these on).

 

Also very slow getting the gold pass.

 

Smelly people - its like Will Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) said in his article on cons - SHOWER PEOPLE!

 

No stormtroopers - where were the garrison?

 

Friendliest Guest

Lots actually...

Clarence Smith, Milton Johns, Billy West.

 

Most misearable Guest

Gary Kurtz

 

Suggestions

New venue (or stick with the other hall)

 

Give out VQ tickets in the actual queue outside. Just needs one person fom each guest to go along the queue from front to back asking if people want a ticket. This would avoid the sprint and the then the mass scrum around the VQ crew. From a health and safety point of view I don't think it is a good idea to have geeks sprinting (for most this will be the fastest they have moved since school sports day) at least have a defib ready to deal with potential heart atttacks (before you complain about stereotyping I would include myself in this group at the moment). Seriously though, dunno if a risk assessment was done but if anyone fell or was injured then the 'no win no fee' people would be on you in a shot.

 

Seating - foldaway chairs, deckchairs, beanbags...anything! Showmasters you have to admit this has been suggested one or two times before ;-)

 

Have suggested this before but how about showing the selection of 8x10s for a guest on the website. I know you cant do this for last minute guests but i for most it would be ok (I have seen another organisation doing this on their website so can see why it can't be done) This would allow us to bring our own pics if we aren't happy with the ones on offer.

 

Improvements for Gold pass holders...

Think we need some because the gold pass wasn't quite worth the £175 this time around

Gold pass holders can ignore instructions like 'No personalisations' or 'No Photos'

Get in 15 mins early to pic up passes.

Better goody bags.

Gold pass lounge with seating, air con and free cups of tea :-)

Edited September 3, 2007 by gobo1979uk

[chris_mk]

Give out VQ tickets in the actual queue outside. Just needs one person fom each guest to go along the queue from front to back asking if people want a ticket. This would avoid the sprint and the then the mass scrum around the VQ crew. From a health and safety point of view I don't think it is a good idea to have geeks sprinting (for most this will be the fastest they have moved since school sports day) at least have a defib ready to deal with potential heart atttacks (before you complain about stereotyping I would include myself in this group at the moment). Seriously though, dunno if a risk assessment was done but if anyone fell or was injured then the 'no win no fee' people would be on you in a shot.

 

Seating - foldaway chairs, deckchairs, beanbags...anything! Showmasters you have to admit this has been suggested one or two times before ;-)

 

Gold pass holders can ignore instructions like 'No personalisations' or 'No Photos'

 

You can't give out VQ tickets outside, because there is always 2 queues, that makes giving out sequential numbers impossible.

 

As one of the 'sprinters' I found the lack of a hot cup of tea and a silver baco-foil blanket at the end a big disappointment! (made up by the fact that I got a number 48 for Patrick)

 

The no personalisations and photos are set by the guests, not Showmasters, so there's no way of getting round that.

[sydney_bristow]

Cons

The venue was too dark

Big guests seated together - the chaos on sunday morning trying to get VT as all the "queues" were getting mixed up

Two sets of VT being given out for Hayden

Expensive & limited food - I have a wheat allergy and therefore couldnt buy anything in there.

 

Pros

Variety of guests

Friendly guests, didnt have a problem with any of them. Michael Gross and Louise Fletcher were fantastic The crew were great, cheerful, even at the end of Sunday

[dufresne]

Ignoring "no personalisations" etc would not work because of individual guests' contracts. If they won't do them, they won't do them ! Regarding VFM, you might have missed >>THIS<<

[ilkarry]

We arrived early Sunday found that all the top guests were plonked together in one corner and you couldn't even see the stars. Everybody were hanging about cluttering the stars and me being only 5ft 3†had no chance of seeing anything some of the staff were very unfriendly .

 

Patrick Stewart was leaving at 2pm and we had a ticket for 1030 which the chap said unlikely you'll get to see him well waste of time there.

 

The place was very dark and dismal and smelt rotten.

I will be going to Milton Keynes only from now on as the Earls Court event wasn't very good.

Didn't get any autographs at all the queues were long and by the time you got round to getting near the guest they went to lunch not back for over an hour which everyone has to eat fair enough.

 

It was a total waste of time for us.

No descent food at all good job we brought our own after having to wait for hours for a guest we gave up and went home.

 

[dufresne]

People buying early bird tickets on the day should have not entered the area before us, the people who bought early bird long before the event. For me, this had the bad consequence that I had quite high VT numbers (around 300 for the Heroes guests and 595 for PS). So I missed PS and I could meet Hayden only when she was signing quicker than light.

 

So there should be two different types of early bird ?

 

Early bird is early bird is early bird !

[kittygoldfang]

Excellent pros and cons - I love the idea of the Gold Pass Lounge, but even better would be a Gold Pass lounge with guests - I ended up going out in search of food and drink. It was rather dark and the cloakroom wasn't open on Saturday til later on and I ended up leaving my bag with the photo bags (thank you very much for looking after it, I used the cloakroom on Sunday as promised). The photo collection was a total nightmare, I felt so sorry for the poor girl who had to deal with the Hayden hoardes who just wouldn't queue, I was lucky enough to be at the front and get my pic within minutes. The gold pass goody bag (already stated in another thread) was disappointing but it did have George Herzbergs auto which I wanted, others were relatively unknown to me (apart from Anto Head and Al Tudyk). The talks were great and Sparks was a brilliant warm up, so YAY to Sparks and thanks for not throwing me out when I said Patrick Stewart was the fave guest before the Lost Talk he he hehe. Poor Murray Melville was stuck in a dark corner and it took me ages to find him, he is so lovely and such a gentleman, I hope many people went to meet him specifically. Please start up a campaign to bring him back to Torchwood as a 'Q' type figure who puts a spanner in the works every once in a while, he is brilliant.

[mattman81]

It's always important to try and put things into perspective and in this case, try and view things from Showmasters POV, but even with that in mind, I'm finding it very difficult not to be incredibly upset and even angry with how this year's London Film & Comic Con, Showmasters flagship show, turned out.

 

The Venue

This should never have been billed as Earls Court 1 because it was merely the second floor of Earl's Court 1. As you inclined up from the escalator, the first thing that hit you was the darkness. I couldn't believe just how dark it was. But then it got worse as the flooring was just disgusting. This event needed a carpet, even if it just covered the walk-ways. It was like an abandoned warehouse and to make matters worse, the floor plan was incredibly confusing. It just created a very depressing and dank atmosphere, and after 5 minutes I wanted to leave.

 

Show content

A real shame that nothing happened with the Star Wars zone and more so the fan zone. On a side note, a quick messages in the forum along the lines of 'Sorry, we haven't had time to implement this' was all we needed and asked for.

The Total War guys made good effort and while that doesn't appeal to me, I could certainly appreciate it. But apart from that there was very little to inspire.

The talks were good though (especially the Lost talk), but the MC shouldn't have left the guests to it as soon as they came up on stage and we had the token microphone tech. problems.

It was a shame that the auction didn't go ahead. We were told this was down to a lack of auction items but surely this should have been sorted long before Sunday afternoon, lol.

 

Autographs

I didn't get any autographs because after spending a few moments at the show I simply didn't have the will or desire. And while I'm sure those who did manage to get autographs from the BIG guests walked away happy, you have to work out what percentage of the paying public ended up happy because I bet it was a minority and consequently, saying so-and-so loved the event because they got Hayden's autograph is not representative.

At midday, I was sat in the corner with some friends eating lunch when a couple came up to us just to vent their sheer disappointment of the show. I think that summed the general mood pretty well.

 

Overall

I have very few positives, namely the talks, but everything about the show and everything leading up to the show just disappointed me. I say this with a heavy heart because I want to go to these shows and have a great time, but that was just impossible this time round. I think, maybe, SM have too many events these days and need to think about the actual quality of the shows rather then the quantity. I think for this show next year, you need to go the whole hog and use the real Earls Court 1 or play it slightly safely and use Earls Court 2, or all of EC2 once again as it's far, far superior to the second floor of EC1. If you want a flagship and premiere event, you do have to throw money at it but to get it right (and increase the chances of making a profit), you need to do it right and this was far off the mark.

 

I know I wont win many fans with this damning report, but better to be honest and ultimately, I hope it gives SM a better idea of what to do (and what not to do) for the next one which I hope will be a return to form.

[Manbeast]

Pros:

 

- Excellent line-up of guests. Everyone I met was very friendly despite being very busy.

 

- Nice selection of stalls. Not really up to Showmasters but I thought they were more varied than past shows.

 

 

Cons:

- The signing area was a complete mess. I felt like I was back in Milton Keynes trying to get past a crowd of curious shoppers who weren't even going to get autographs. Putting all the big guests together made this worse.

 

- No where to sort your self out after getting an autograph. Especially when you have posters it's very difficult and you feel like an annoyance having to roll them up on the floor.

 

- Layout of the stalls became confusing after a while, spent a while trying to find a stall I was looking for.

 

Suggestions:

 

- Please put a few tables around the signing areas so people can gather their stuff together after getting an autograph.

 

- Seating. Not really for me but it got depressing seeing loads of people sitting on the floor.

 

- Use Earls Court Two next time.

 

- Improve the value of money for the Gold Pass. Maybe a few free autographs on personal items or discounted autographs.

[dufresne]

saying so-and-so loved the event because they got Hayden's autograph is not representative.

 

Neither is claiming without proof that the vast majority of the attendees went away "disappointed", just because feel that you did !

Edited September 3, 2007 by dufresne

[srbarker]

I must admit being a bit confused about peoples complaints about having the big guests together if they had been at other sides of the hall how would you ever hope to get VTs for them.

At least when they are all togeher you can hopefully get one then easily go to get the next VT and so on particularly for the heroes guests as most people would probably want to meet more then one.

Regarding handing out vt tickets outside when there is more than one queue. Easier to do at LFCC as just one entrance point than MK may be the tickets could be different colours. One crewmember goes down prepaid early bird with one colour and either another crew member does ther other Q with a different colour or if it is done early enough the same crew member does the other Q and then when they start signing they have say blue and yellow upto say 30 going through rather than starting with 1-50. An so on.

[God L'Eponge]

Well, I only came there on saturday and I really had a great day then.

I didn't know what to expect as I was there for the first time, and I was afraid this was going to be very "commercial", I mean guests only signing autographs and exchange some quick words but all the guests I met gave me the impression they enjoyed meeting us as we enjoyed meeting them.

As far as I'm concerned, they were all very kind (William Mapother talking to me in french is a great souvenir).

The organisation is perfect, the crew staff being very kind as well... it's not always the case elsewhere...

So a very good souvenir for me.

I'm finally glad I came only on saturday as I think it was much more difficult to see the guests on sunday. Unfortunately, this is the weakest point : too many big names on sunday only. It was really hard to see Dom Monaghan on saturday (arriving there at about 10.00am I get number 516... at 16:15 the queue was "1 to 400" ???) so I guess that was hell on earth on sunday !

Try to have some on both days next time please.

[mattman81]

Neither is claiming without proof that the vast majority of the attendees went away "disappointed", just because feel that you did !

 

Yes, hence why I said I bet the minority would actually be happy. Of cause I have no way to prove the stats, but how many people went to LF&CC and how many post here whether they liked it or not? A tiny, tiny percentage so either way we can't conclude what the general feeling was, all I know is that when complete strangers come up to you just to say how unhappy they are, things aren't going well.

 

I've said why I didn't enjoy the show and I've hypothesised what I felt the general mood was based on what I experienced. The thread is for feedback, both positive and negative and I've just told it like it is :)

Edited September 3, 2007 by mattman81

[Charisma]

Pro was meeting dom he was so nice jack was nice too.

 

Cons - how everyone was treated with the heroes con like me being pushed back cus milo was walking past!!!! not allowed to touch them! the hall was cr*p I really didnt enjoy myslef at all excpet to see my friends was SM's worst one i think, even the qing outside was wrong everyone pushed and i was like 100 ppl behind the ones i was with!!!

[Cookie]

Cons - how everyone was treated with the heroes con like me being pushed back cus milo was walking past!!!!

 

Yes, that happened to me too... i litterally had to jump aside to avoid being trampled over as they marched to the photosghoot area.... felt like a President of some country was passing by... I was almost expecting to see holsters under the jackets there, as well as ambushed snipers "just in case".....and the whole "sunglasses and suit look" the guests were supporting didn't helped dissipating the feeling :)

 

Not to mention that someone was holding Hayden around the shoulders, as if she was some victim being escorted out of a crime scene..or as if she was in immediate danger....

All of that just seemed so strange... so "eerie"...

 

And all people running after them with cameras and filming the thing...that made me chuckle..

 

 

When i compare that to some other guests wandering around all alone, not stressed the least (and left alone by people, except for an occasionnal nod or smile or photo request)... Makes me smile:)

[Manbeast]

That happened to me too. I didn't realise what was going on until I saw Adrian walk past. No need to push people out the way, especially since I was browsing the stalls.

[madmonster*]

It was precisely because they weren't being allowed to wonder around alone all unstressed that they were escorted so quickly to the photo area. It was all the people chasing with cameras and trying to grab at them that prompted the "march".

 

We weren't exactly an intimidiating group. Two female guest assistants, both of us not exactly tall (I'm 5ft"2), one security guard and Davey ( sorry Davey, but you aren't exactly a "bruiser"!) Yes we were trying to clear a path, we were all asking people to "excuse us" and trying not to push into anyone, but we also didn't want to get into a situation where we stopped because when we did we were literally mobbed.

 

As for the sunglasses and suits complaint! SORRY... these guys were on the last day of a very hard promotional tour, they were tired, the amount of flashes going off as they walked around was killing on the eyes! They also knew that they had to go through a photo shoot, again with flash, so they rested the eyes when they could from the flash!! Adrian didn't for one minute wear his glasses in the photo shoot, or whilst meeting people at his desk. And as for the suit, I say "well done! They were dressed smartly because it's what they wanted to wear, knowing they had a photo shoot to attend. If they had turned up in jeans and t.shirts then you would have complained that they didn't care!

[Darth_Owl]

Saturday was fine - had no problems at all (though was disappointed that MSPG didn't have their folders out as I usually like browsing through those at SM events!).

 

Met everyone that I wanted to on Saturday - Dom Monaghan, William Mapother, Gary Kurtz, Ralph Brown, Al Lampeter, Christopher Malcolm

 

However, the only other guest I was at the event for was Patrick Stewart. How disappointed was I to find out that - not only would he not get there until 11, but he would also only be signing until 2.00!! We had gotten VT number 255 and 256 so we were relatively low. Problem for me was my train was leaving Kings Cross at half 1, so sadly I missed meeting Patrick, but my friend who I went with managed to get my photo signed for me - so not all lost there.

 

Sunday ended up being a bit of a nothing for me - spent the money on the hotel for the saturday night, the early bird entry, got up early, queued for ages and then did nothing while I was in there...

 

Perhaps that's a lesson learned there - and certainly not an issue of SM's. However, I do feel they should have advertised the PS 3 hour stint thing. There was nothing before the show to indicate that he'd only be doing 3 hours and I guarantee that a lot of people would have come to the event on the Sunday simply to meet Patrick - false advertising?! Or did SM really not know until half ten on the day that would be the case?

 

I think everyone else has covered the other main cons. It seemed as if the traders weren't as busy because of the layout - it was nice being able to browse - unlike at MK, but to be honest, there just wasn't the CM buzz about Earls Court - maybe it was all the dark lighting (just had to get that in this post....)

[Enigma62]

This was my first time at LFCC and was there both days.

 

Pros: I got to meet everyone I wanted, Patrick Stewart, the Heroes people, Dominic Monaghan, Nana Visitor and Tom Baker. All of them were friendly enough, especially Nana and Tom.

 

Cons: (1) The lighting was really dim, so most of my photos are really bad, especially of guests who didn't want you to use a flash. (2) Sunday was just manic - I had an early bird ticket, got there really early and still founds a huge queue waiting - then the mad dash for VTs. I'm a fairly fit bloke but felt exhausted after all that! (3) The VT queuing 'system' for the major quests was a shambles with a queue for the queue! (4) The bag area for photo sessions was under-staffed and a mess (the girls did a great job though under loads of pressure - so hats off to them). (5) It was really hot and I mean hot - I had to go back to my hotel 3 times to get changed and refreshen up (ran out of t-shirts so ended up buying one off a stall for £25 - what a rip-off!)

 

I ended up on Sunday running between the autograph lines and the photo sessions trying to fit everything in, especially with Patrick Stewart only being there for a short time.

 

It did seem that all the tickets (early-bird, VT's, photo sessions) are over-sold. Why give out over a thousand VTs when there's no chance of getting to see the guest. Why sell hundreds of photo tickets when it's not physically possible to take that many photos in the time alloted for the session - causes them to over-run and upsets everyone.

 

I think it's unfair to visitors and the guests, after all lets not forget the guests who are under so much pressure as well (they are only human, so get tired like everyone esle).

 

Overall: Was I happy? Yes, in that I got to see all of the guests I really wanted to see. Would I go there again? Unlikely unless it improved. Was it 'value-for money'? Not when I take into account travel and hotel costs as well.

Should have been a pleasurable weekend, but ended up being stressful and exhausting (for me and probably the major guests as well).

 

Advice to Showmasters: stop over-selling tickets.

 

Note to the crew: Well done on Sunday for doing all you could in a bad situation.

 

And finally, time to start planning for C12!

Edited September 3, 2007 by Enigma

[Cookie]

My comment was in no way agressive:) it was more to be taken in a tongue in the cheek manner;) Don't be mad...

 

Made me smile, the whole "paparazzi chasing style"..

 

(eh, you had TooTall there with you and he's impressive, at least for me that is quite short- i know he's nice )

[Lucy Lu]

What happened to early and standard entry? We had early bird tickets which we understood would get us in at 10 am on Sunday and that people with standard entry tickets would get in at 11 am. We were all in the same queue and all got in at 10, no one actually checked that our ticket was for the people with early entry - no wonder there was such a crush upstairs! I felt that this was not fair on those who had bought the early entry tickets for the extra money when it seemed that everyone got in at the same time.

 

Lucy

[imcaufieldholt]

I just wanted to add our comments:

 

- We've been to a number of Showmaster events over the past couple of years and enjoyed them all until this one! As many have said, the hall was so badly lit, no seating and just looked grotty (maybe it was meant to be an industrial effect ;-) )

- The stall layout was very confusing.

- Arrived at 1pm Sunday, wasn't expecting to get any autographs from the biggies ie PS and HP, just wanted to have a gawp. Fat chance, they were too well hidden, even at Milton Keynes you can usually see the guests, although Shatner was well hidden.

- All the crew we met were really nice, even when I was probably the 1000 person to ask if there were any VT tickets left for PS.... answer, yes but number 1200+

 

 

To make the event better from our experience:

 

- Go back to Earls Court 2.

- Allow people to be able to see (from a distance, not affecting the queue) the major guests.

 

 

Best bit for us was the Total War sword fighting. Our kids loved it..........

 

After that the Milton Keynes event seems very tame with all the shoppers.

 

Cheers.

[Count Fooku]

I suppose for me I met all the guests I went to see (including Patrick Stewart and Mohgnihan), got a photo with Mads Mikkelsen which I wasn't expecting to be able to get, got a sketch of Andy Tong which was good and bought a decent Liverpool montage photo from a stall for a reasonable price.

 

I suppose looking back, some kind of area to sit down would have been good and the venue wouldn't have suffered from being better lit. I had a stinking headache on Saturday which I guess was due to the lighting. I can't say I struggled with the stalls that badly, there was one area that was a bit congested but I got around them all OK. Maybe it was the benefit of being there two days, I was able to spend Sunday mostly just pottering about rather than on any specific mission.

 

I have to say for me all in all, it was a pretty decent event.

[Psychosis]

There were plenty of places to sit down. Namely, the floor and the stairs outside.

[Darth_Owl]

There were plenty of places to sit down. Namely, the floor and the stairs outside.

 

The floor and stairs outside are for tramps. If you are a tramp then happily sit there, but me, I expect to be able to park up for a bit somewhere.

 

I guess that's the beauty of the shopping centre environment at MK - plenty of seats in the many cafe's and eateries, but you probably just go and sit outside on the steps don't you "Psychosis"?...