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what works and what did not work


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Again that woldnt work if your ticket was the same time as your photoshoot or autograph time with someone else.

 

The way it works now works FINE unless something weird and unplanned happens.

 

 

I have NEVER missed a guest for any reason other than my own lazyness/poor timing, and I always meet at least 1 or 2 of the busiest guests.

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I had a great time at this event - a COLD time, but a great one nonetheless. However this was down to the people, the guests, and the fact that I had lent a hand in the (WARM) dealers room. If i wasn't helping out there then I would have been climbing the walls with boredom waiting for the next photoshoot or VT number to come up. I miss the shopping centre!

 

I am glad that the stadium is only the stop-gap venue, as it would have made me seriously re-consider attending another Collectormania MK.

 

The photoshoots did not seem to be as well organised as in the centre, but this is probably to do with trying to get used to the new set-up. I almost missed my Natahn Fillion photos shoot on Sunday due to timing problems. The shoot was supposed to last an hour - so I turned up 20-25 minutes into the shoot to discover than apart for some of the crew I was one of the last people to arrive. I had been in the dealers room and therefore had not heard announcements for last call.

 

The crew and all the guests I met were great and I admire the crew in particular for doing a sterling job in far from ideal conditions.

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My thoughts.

 

The venue was awful, especially with the unfortunate weather we had. It was cold, windy and despite being under a roof we were rained on. I ended up going to the dealer's room a lot just to warm up, and I will say that this was the main reason why the dealer's room was so crowded all the time. We had no other place to warm up. Also the lack of places to sit down was not good (we tried to sit down at one of the seats just to eat some food, but was chased away almost immediately).

 

The guests were amazing, such troopers really with how freezing they must have all been. Yet, they seemed to always be in a very good mood whenever I saw them. Kudos to them.

 

Food was good, with the ASDA nearby I got decent food for decent prices.

 

Dealer's room was good, despite the crowd looking to warm up. I know I spent way too much money in there :blush:

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In reference to keeping up to date with web standards, branding etc... newsletters, social networks like facebook to spread the word, web design and development should not be neglected. It can be a great form of marketting etc...

 

in regards to the data...it would be easier to change for the admin's and they can add, edit and delete information far more easily making sure it looks consistent.

 

Ok, well I don't know how the SM business is structured but I suspect they do the website themselves and aren't skilled web developers. Certainly looking at the code, it's about as basic as you can get. SM maybe don't have the time or expertise to make the kind of changes you're suggesting or aren't able to employ a full time web person, especially when the site is only really "live" running up to each show.

 

I'm not saying it wouldn't be a good thing but implementing a wholesale content management system may be beyond them and the hosting they use.

 

Maybe with a new venue and the knowledge that they can carry on with the event, now's the time for a relaunch.

 

 

 

Maybe the change in weather was too late to make it worthwhile,

 

It was like 12 when it started clearing up a bit, it stopped raining at least.

 

I'd say that was probably too late to rearrange a whole days schedule and who's to say it wouldn't have changed back anyway.

 

Flights get delayed, there could be traffic on the motorway, all kinds of reasons for delays/hold ups. They do the best they can to maximise the time the guests have signing but you try doing it for x hours a day without a break, you couldn't. And the people who have paid for photoshoots should get their opportunity too, you know it's going to happen so accept it, work with it and maybe you'll end up being a bit happier to even have the opportunity to meet some of these people.

 

Inconveniencing one mass of people for another shouldn't happen. I would have gladly walked around if it was an HOUR wait after handing over cash in the queue. Should predict how many tickets are sold for the photoshoot, the scheduled time and that delays would and could occur - like putting bags/coats down etc... should be given ample time for the photoshoots too.

 

With the number of guests they have, the number of photoshoots they run etc, it'll never be an exact science. I suppose having been to many of these things I'm used to just waiting for as long as it takes though I've never had the money taken and then been told to come back later.

 

It sounds like you want a numbered ticket with a time on saying when you'll be able to stand in front of the guest and that everyone should get 30secs or 1min each with a timer going off to tell you to move on. Not going to happen. These are people too and you need to understand the way the system works.

 

Maybe that could be a good idea, at least you can really say you MEET THE STARS. If you fail to arrive on time with your ticket, too bad. Sure the actors are people, but they are also highly paid actors that are paid on the clock for this.

 

I hope you're being sarcastic. Only on a couple of occasions have I felt really disappointed in the experience. I am there first and foremost to get an autograph in person, anything else is a bonus. I always try to engage in a conversation and sometimes you can spend time with a guest, sometimes not. I've had some really good chats with some, very brief contact with others and not even been acknowledged - that was only once (Mr Shatner). But that's the way these things go. I'm also very concious of the people waiting behind me and try not to take too long.

 

Sometimes in my view, it is unnecessarily rushed and sometimes you do have to wait a long time but you're never going to get a long personal audience with any of them so I'm not quite sure what your expectations are of these events.

Edited by Queen_Sindel
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Ticket sales are predicted I imagine. The schedule that is raised before the event shows that some guests are allocated longer photoshoot times because it is predicted they will be busier. It is impossible to predict accuratley how many people will turn up on any given day, let alone how many will want a photo with a specific guest. It can only ever be a guess.

 

I haven't read all of your posts so I don't know this but did you have a photoshoot with anyone? If so then surely you would have seen that the baggage/coats are put down way before the person who is next in line for a photo so there is absolutely no chance of a delay or holdup in a photo being taken from that. There are only two 'delays'. Number one being the person who just had a photo taken moving out and the next person moving in, which lasts mere seconds. The second being the photographer checking that the photo he has taken is blink free etc. Again a second or two.

Edited by Queen_Sindel
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My thoughts.

 

The venue was awful, especially with the unfortunate weather we had. It was cold, windy and despite being under a roof we were rained on. I ended up going to the dealer's room a lot just to warm up, and I will say that this was the main reason why the dealer's room was so crowded all the time. We had no other place to warm up. Also the lack of places to sit down was not good (we tried to sit down at one of the seats just to eat some food, but was chased away almost immediately).

 

The guests were amazing, such troopers really with how freezing they must have all been. Yet, they seemed to always be in a very good mood whenever I saw them. Kudos to them.

 

Food was good, with the ASDA nearby I got decent food for decent prices.

 

Dealer's room was good, despite the crowd looking to warm up. I know I spent way too much money in there :D

 

:blush: How did you get rained on, on the concourse?!? I was at the venue for all of all three days and the only time the concourse got wet, was when someone dropped a tray of drinks! For rain to hit the concourse, it either has to be blown at a 90 degree angle, or do some kind of crazy zig zag manouvre! Where were you?

 

Who chased you away from the seats? I saw people sat down all weekend with no trouble? Did you report this matter to the organisers desk?

 

 

Again that woldnt work if your ticket was the same time as your photoshoot or autograph time with someone else.

 

The way it works now works FINE unless something weird and unplanned happens.

 

 

I have NEVER missed a guest for any reason other than my own lazyness/poor timing, and I always meet at least 1 or 2 of the busiest guests.

 

Thats why you should be given a choice as to which time slot you want so you don't miss other events personal to you.

 

I was not present at the 2007 london film comic con, but a lot of people missed Patrick Stewart as he left early.

 

Good grief, you might actually be the maddest person here.... so you want the guests to take bookings now? 'Sorry zeezack, Mr Stewart can't make 11.22, how does 11.56 work for you?' :smile:

 

Patrick Stewart decided to go early. That is out of the hands of the organisers. They just tried to help as many people meet him as possible, given the limitations. You cannot force a guests to stay and sign..... they call that 'kidnapping' round here.

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:blush: How did you get rained on, on the concourse?!? I was at the venue for all of all three days and the only time the concourse got wet, was when someone dropped a tray of drinks! For rain to hit the concourse, it either has to be blown at a 90 degree angle, or do some kind of crazy zig zag manouvre! Where were you?

 

I'm not sure how things worked for misskitty, but Friday afternoon the wind did blow so hard that I actually had photos get wet in the Ben Browder queue near door 5. So either the rain got blown in somewhere or there was a leak in the roof. :smile:

 

But that was fixed quickly by adding additional gazebos.

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At certain points the rain got through with the wind on Friday- the curls in my hair are proof :blush:

 

Yeah, while i was waiting in Ben's queue on friday afternoon, the wind picked up and blew the rain under the roof almost horizontal. Luckily I was just under the tent covering his photo selection but did get a few spots on my signed picture, luckily nothing that caused a problem.

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Who chased you away from the seats? I saw people sat down all weekend with no trouble? Did you report this matter to the organisers desk?

 

 

Me and my friends got chased out of the seats too by SM people and when I asked them where else was we going to sit they said there are seats all along the concourse and I said back that these are the seats along the concourse.

I didn't report it as we moved 10 foot along and sat down again at which point the SM people gave up

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:blush: How did you get rained on, on the concourse?!? I was at the venue for all of all three days and the only time the concourse got wet, was when someone dropped a tray of drinks! For rain to hit the concourse, it either has to be blown at a 90 degree angle, or do some kind of crazy zig zag manouvre! Where were you?

 

I'm not sure how things worked for misskitty, but Friday afternoon the wind did blow so hard that I actually had photos get wet in the Ben Browder queue near door 5. So either the rain got blown in somewhere or there was a leak in the roof. :D

 

But that was fixed quickly by adding additional gazebos.

In addition to the obvious gap in the centre where the big piece of grass was, I noticed that there were various 'gaps' at the top of outer walls at various points around the councourse where rain would blow in

 

I got rained on on the concourse. It wasn't a full blast of rain, but the sides were exposed - the only way to NOT get rained on was if the rain was falling perfectly perpendicular to the ground.
Perpendicular?! Are we allowed to use large words like that :smile:
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:blush: How did you get rained on, on the concourse?!? I was at the venue for all of all three days and the only time the concourse got wet, was when someone dropped a tray of drinks! For rain to hit the concourse, it either has to be blown at a 90 degree angle, or do some kind of crazy zig zag manouvre! Where were you?

 

I was in the venue, can't say my specific location at the time of impact, but I was walking past stalls where some guests were signing and felt the rain hit hit me from above. Whether it was blown in or it was a leak, I dunno. I was as surprised as you were by my comment, cause with the roof above my head I thought I would be free of the rain. Clearly not.

 

Who chased you away from the seats? I saw people sat down all weekend with no trouble? Did you report this matter to the organisers desk?

 

Didn't get a name. This was my first showmaster's event, so I have no idea who is who. First we were told not to leave rubbish behind, which was fine. All I wanted was to sit down for five minutes and get some food, and I had every intention not to leave behind rubbish. Then less than a minute later we were told to get up.

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To some extent I admit I do wonder what form the contracts take regarding how long the guests should be there signing for etc. If it says x hours per day, they should really do that but I'm sure there's all sorts of get-out clauses to allow for other things cropping up.

 

Same way I get annoyed with guests cancelling when they've signed the contract to attend. If that's been done first, they should really honour it however, the TV/film companies are rarely able to change shooting schedules and that after all is their job and if they turn a role down to attend an SM event, who knows when they might get another role? so you can kind of understand that, however annoying it might be.

 

But back to your suggestion of hourly slots, how can you judge how many people they'd be able to get through in that time? It'd never work in an environment like this. Ultimately, you have the VQ ticket, it's up to your to make sure you're around to use it.

 

I don't know how many tickets are sold for the photoshoots but it might be an idea to control the numbers a bit. You have a better idea there with how many people you can get through in an hour or so. That might be an area where you could keep some better timing control.

Edited by Queen_Sindel
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But surely that's little different to the current system? You have a numbered ticket and they let in so many of the numbers and when the queue goes down, they let the next batch of numbers through. Maybe the control of when they change the numbers or how many they put through in each batch needs addressing but while it doesn't give you an exact time, you can see the numbers changing and get a rough idea of when to go back.

 

I dunno, I've always thought it works pretty well to be honest. Either that or I just hang around until the end of the day when most people end up with open queues anyway and you can just walk through.

 

Have never missed anyone I wanted to see and without having to queue up for hours in the morning, although sometimes those who do go through first get the personalisations and/or posed photo which gets stopped later on.

Edited by Queen_Sindel
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Well this was my first CM:MK event and me and my friends all had a blooming great time :blink:

 

 

The weather was mostly miserable but you can only blame mother nature for that.

I think the venue was really easy to find so i'm quite shocked people had difficulties seeing something that big! (we just followed the brown signs and it took us straight there)

 

I don't think the set up at the venue worked as well as it could as the dealers room was too claustrophobic to walk round and actually look at stuff! And the guests were really spread out and sectioned off. But since you guys say it's going to be in a more fit for purpose building next year the problem should be gone.

 

We got there at 11.15 on sunday and save for the cancellations we got to see everyone we wanted and have a few photo-shoots.

 

Big thumbs up to all those who came in costumes they were brilliant and very entertaining.

 

I was disappointed there were no guest talks as a convention goer i love those and was excited to see them listed at signing events too. Hopefully though they'll be on next year.

 

Also the waiting for photo collection at the end of the day was badly organized to begin with but then seemed to get sorted out.

 

All the crew were lovely so thanks to their efforts, as well as all the lovely guests we met too :D

 

Live longer and prosper spock-spock-star-trek-smiley-emoticon-000554-large.gif

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:o How did you get rained on, on the concourse?!? I was at the venue for all of all three days and the only time the concourse got wet, was when someone dropped a tray of drinks! For rain to hit the concourse, it either has to be blown at a 90 degree angle, or do some kind of crazy zig zag manouvre! Where were you?

 

I was in the venue, can't say my specific location at the time of impact, but I was walking past stalls where some guests were signing and felt the rain hit hit me from above. Whether it was blown in or it was a leak, I dunno. I was as surprised as you were by my comment, cause with the roof above my head I thought I would be free of the rain. Clearly not.

 

Who chased you away from the seats? I saw people sat down all weekend with no trouble? Did you report this matter to the organisers desk?

 

Didn't get a name. This was my first showmaster's event, so I have no idea who is who. First we were told not to leave rubbish behind, which was fine. All I wanted was to sit down for five minutes and get some food, and I had every intention not to leave behind rubbish. Then less than a minute later we were told to get up.

 

;) blimey, I think the stadium designers got something wrong then!!

 

Hopefully Jason will pick up on the comments about the seats, I can t understand any reason why you or any others should have been chased off them.

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A quick thanks to the freezing Roxy who was taking the money on Ben's queue late friday afternoon, for keeping us amused while waiting for him. You wouldn't know me but it helped ignore the cold and rain that started blowing in.

 

Bless you, I'm really happy my plan of distraction worked lol. Seriously thank you for that, you were all so great to talk to it was a total pleasure and distracted me from the weather too :-) next time you see me please come and say hello!

 

 

Oh and please try to get Amanda Tapping back asap. Was so disappointed when she had to cancel.

 

Yes ditto, look forward to it when she does :D

Edited by roxy
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hi peeps,

Went to the show on sat afternoon to get a feel of the venue. It felt strange at first but thought it was good, is was refreshing just to see dealers and stars. in the centre you had people who werent at the show and other things in the background, this gave it an more exclusive feel. Went on sunday, and apert from being a tad cold, really enjoyed myself. cheers sm! :D

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A quick thanks to the freezing Roxy who was taking the money on Ben's queue late friday afternoon, for keeping us amused while waiting for him. You wouldn't know me but it helped ignore the cold and rain that started blowing in.

 

Bless you, I'm really happy my plan of distraction worked lol. Seriously thank you for that, you were all so great to talk to it was a total pleasure and distracted me from the weather too :-) next time you see me please come and say hello!

 

My pleasure, I was cold and getting rather bored so it helped. I'll say hi if I see you next time though even at my old age I'm not the most outgoing of people. I've been going since C4, on here for 6 years, know loads of the names but never spoken to any of you directly. You were talking to a group in front of me mostly as you obviously knew them but it helped pass the time.

 

Was worth the wait though, Ben was really nice despite being so cold and busy.

 

Oh I hope you found something warmer to wear for the rest of the weekend btw :D

Edited by sugar_mouse
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i got moved by the stadium staff a few times when i sat down on fri/sat , when i asked where i was suposed to sit they said that there were seats at at tables all around the venue ( the places that were being used to sign im asuming) ..... so maybe brefing the stadium staff could be done.. im not able to walk for a great amount of time so i needed to sit down.

 

the cold couldnt be helped it was frezing and the dealers room was far to crowded. i had an operation on my knee a few weeks ago and trying to manover was a nightmare. also the down right rudness of some people and inconsiderateness of people it was no better than the shoping center for pushing and shoving. i ended up having to use an umbrella as a crutch because somone pushed me over at one point.

 

also a few of us ran in to problems trying to use vouchers that were given to us at eclipse over the weekend although all the members of the crew that we talked to were helpful about it. also in a venue that size it would have been helpfull to have a white board at either side of the venue as you used to at the shoping center so we know what the vts are up to and maybe using the tannoy for calls for photoshoots? the hanging about at the photo area was sometimes needed to know where things were up to.

 

i spent a fortune so you were doing something right lol

 

the coachs needed better sign posting and did seam to turn up when they wanted but they were appreciated only had to get a taxi once all weekend.

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also in a venue that size it would have been helpfull to have a white board at either side of the venue as you used to at the shoping center so we know what the vts are up to and maybe using the tannoy for calls for photoshoots? the hanging about at the photo area was sometimes needed to know where things were up to.

 

I agree with that, its a stadium they must have their own tannoy system you can ask to borrow. When I saw Nathan's queue on Sunday when they were shutting it the only announcement was someone walking a few feet up and down outside and yelling and being a noisy place the announcement was generally not heard.

 

Bus, I found easy enough on the Saturday it was parked outside the main entrance, i think I employed a reasoning of walking around and looking through the exits for it. As for Sunday it was ridiculous as the photo pick-ups were so late there was a general crush for the bus and loads of people got left behind. I think a double decker like Saturdays would have been better.

 

Agree with the no where to go apart from the dealers room. Maybe a attendee green room would have been nice.

 

Biggest peeve for me was Naoko cancelling, half way to Milton Keynes from Birmingham I got a text from my friend telling me she'd be there Sunday, when I get there the information had been changed to cancel all weekend. My friend who had gotten to the stadium before didn't know this till I told her. Bigger announcement please. Also does anyone know why she cancelled so suddenly?

 

Positive was that the TW queues were so small I got way more then I bargained for, Burn was sweet enough to answer my question about The Hub3 and to let me hug him which Nathan didn't do.

 

One last thing, it'd be nice to have somewhere to put our bags safely while we walk around, I hit so many people with my golf umbrella it got to be troublesome.

Edited by owl post 1992
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By and large I enjoyed the event.

The cancellations on Saturday of Naoko and Darren Campbell meant it was largely a wasted journey for me and I could have saved the hotel bill and just done Sunday but otherwise it was as good as could be expected in the circumstances.

 

Just out of interest, do you use Twitter? I don't think there was any announcement made on the subject of those cancellations, but would you have found it useful to find out about the last minute cancellations?

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