Thoughts and notes from the two days

[renesisx]

The biggest problem we had was with Jewel Staite. We came back specially on the Sunday to get our photos with Jewel, only to find she'd been moved from 12:00 to 14:50. She'd had to swap with some other guy. If the other dude can't make his photo shoot, then in my opinion it should be tough ****. Don't make commitments you can't stick to. I wonder how many people turned up after 12:00 to get their photo with that guy only to find out he'd already done his shoot?

 

You can't just change times of things like this - our whole day was originally planned around Jewel being at 12:00 and it screwed up all our plans and meant we couldn't spend the rest of the day in the city.

 

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Scott Bakula talk - the seating was a disaster! The seat numbers were totally randomised - we got in the queue early so we managed to find our seats eventually, but after a while they pretty much announced you could sit anywhere to try and get people sat down, which then caused fights because people found their seat numbers, only to find someone else sat in them who refused to move!

 

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Second was that we were told that we needed to come back in an hour for Paul Mcgann at 11:30am..we went back at around 12>45 and were told to come back in another hour..then we were told half an hour..and the man was really kinda rude about it..eventually he just let us in, i think due to all the huffing and puffing and steam from the ears.

 

We had a problem with Paul McGann too. On the Sunday we really, really needed to get out of there to get a train. We got there just as they closed his queue so he could go to his photoshoot. We were told to come back in 30 mins or so. We walked away for a couple of mins, came back and they'd added a load more people to his queue!! Of course, we weren't allowed to join as the queue was "closed" again.

Edited July 24, 2009 by renesisx

[clloby]

Was anyone else in Tom Baker's queue when he went for lunch? I thought normal practice was to close the queue, sign for the remainder of people in the queue then go for lunch. I was about to hand over my money when we were told Tom was going for lunch and to come back later. Having already handed over my virtual ticket, I asked the girl at the desk what to do, who said "see the guy giving out the VT." I explained the situation, he gave me a new ticket. This was useless since when I had 10 mins to spare and went over, the same guy told me I couldn't get in till my number was up - despite me explaining the situation. In the end I had to go for my Scott talk and photoshoots and by the time I went back Tom had gone.

 

Surely it's just a case of using your common sense - maybe signing the back of the new virtual ticket to know that I was already in the queue?

 

I was the girl at the table - and Tom did pop off rather unexpectedly and we had to think on our feet with this situation (this was both mine and the VT's guy first crewing experience). Sorry it didn't work out for you. I know that other people who were in the queue came back when Tom came back from lunch and rejoined the queue straight away as both myself and the VT guy tried to make a point of remember all the people who were in your situation.

 

Signing the back of the VT is a good idea - and should this ever happen again it is definately the method that I would employ.

 

Thanks for calling me a girl...haven't been called that in a looooong time

 

 

The booing also happened at Better Than Life recently when the gold pass holders were being let in to the talks. Standard pass holders seemed to have an issue with Gold going in first. Not a nice experience.

 

Really! I usally go gold at the conventions I attend and have never experienced booing. If that ever happend to me I would have a few choice sounds for those people doing the booing!

Edited July 24, 2009 by clloby

[Queen_Sindel]

The biggest problem we had was with Jewel Staite. We came back specially on the Sunday to get our photos with Jewel, only to find she'd been moved from 12:00 to 14:50. She'd had to swap with some other guy. If the other dude can't make his photo shoot, then in my opinion it should be tough ****. Don't make commitments you can't stick to. I wonder how many people turned up after 12:00 to get their photo with that guy only to find out he'd already done his shoot?

 

You can't just change times of things like this - our whole day was originally planned around Jewel being at 12:00 and it screwed up all our plans and meant we couldn't spend the rest of the day in the city.

 

Unfortunately some things can come up very last minute and guests have to leave earlier. The store says: "We also reserve the right to change the day and times of the photo shoot subject to guest appearence days. ", and there's also a disclaimer on the tickets.

 

It is very rare that time changes happen at all, but occassionally it is unavoidable.

 

Those who had booked photos with Jimmy-Jean Louis wouldn't have been impressed if the session had been completely cancelled although he was at the show for several hours. Yes, the time change could have been a pain for some who may have come in the early afternoon, but the majority of fans is there in the mornings for Standard Entry at the latest. So that was still better than everyone who had booked for the session missing out completely. Jimmy-Jean was there for some hours, so cancelling the whole session wasn't really an option.

 

Scott Bakula talk - the seating was a disaster! The seat numbers were totally randomised - we got in the queue early so we managed to find our seats eventually, but after a while they pretty much announced you could sit anywhere to try and get people sat down, which then caused fights because people found their seat numbers, only to find someone else sat in them who refused to move!

 

The way the numbers were distributed through the room was a try to make it fairer and give those who had lower numbered tickets the better seats. Ticket 1 wouldn't have been happy being stuck at the far end of the room. I realize it looked random, but there really was a system in random order. I think I took a picture of the seating map. I'll post it when I find it.

 

I think what we need for the next paid for talks are some very large seating maps outside the talk area so that those going to the talk can get an idea of the location of their seat. I only saw one this time and that was A4 size only.

 

 

We had a problem with Paul McGann too. On the Sunday we really, really needed to get out of there to get a train. We got there just as they closed his queue so he could go to his photoshoot. We were told to come back in 30 mins or so. We walked away for a couple of mins, came back and they'd added a load more people to his queue!! Of course, we weren't allowed to join as the queue was "closed" again.

 

Sunday a couple of photo shoots were running late. I wasn't working in that area, but I guess that the crew got news about the delay after you walked away and decided to add a few more people in.

 

Maybe someone who worked in that area can clarify this.

Edited July 24, 2009 by Queen_Sindel

[Avengers7]

Second was that we were told that we needed to come back in an hour for Paul Mcgann at 11:30am..we went back at around 12>45 and were told to come back in another hour..then we were told half an hour..and the man was really kinda rude about it..eventually he just let us in, i think due to all the huffing and puffing and steam from the ears.

 

 

In fairness to the gentleman on VTs for Paul McCann and Frazer Hines, he had a hard job on the Sunday. He did his best, however, one guest was taking a lot longer than the other to sign autographs and speak to people.

 

 

My only criticism has been mentioned in another thread - I missed out on autos from The Phelps Brothers and Frazer Hines because I had to leave at 3 on the Sunday. I had a gold pass but didnt have time to queue. I wonder if it would be possible next time to speak to crew and try and get to front of queue so that I dont miss out again.

 

Other than that, excellent show, I'm already have withdrawel symptoms! Role on Autographica!!!

[Banished_From_Rohan]

 

*snip*

 

Sunday a couple of photo shoots were running late. I wasn't working in that area, but I guess that the crew got news about the delay after you walked away and decided to add a few more people in.

 

Maybe someone who worked in that area can clarify this.

 

That is, as far as I remember, exactly what happened - we were told to let around 5 at a time in until the photoshoot was ready. As the person who actually took Paul to his photoshoot (a break from the queue!) I have no idea what happened once I'd gone with him to the shoot though.

[touchthesky]

We were told three different times for Pauls shoot. It was an absolute nightmare.

 

Damn fans getting usall wound up ¬¬

[TrainXIII]

- Met two venders from the this show *****. Spot some other people from the ***** as well. Didn't know Anime would be so well represented at the LFCC.

 

Is the LFCC guys at war with that 'other event'? I ask because a mod here has edited out my mention of it plus over at the 'other events' forum, my posts mentioning the LFCC have been deleted

 

 

 

hi there

 

we are not at war as far as i am aware but we do not promote them and vice verser it would be good if we all worked together and we have tried to in the past but its never worked and we just mirror how we are treated now .

 

i hope this helps for you to understand

 

jason

 

Thanks for the reply. On that 'other forum', they just deleted my posts with no notification. I thought I was going crazy when posts I swore I made were no longer there

[cookies41]

The guests - 95% of the guests were absolutly lovely personal favourites for us included Scott Bakula, Keeley Hawes (who we talked to bout the film After Thomas about an autistic lad which she starred in) and when we explained Callum had autism she nearly broke into tears which was quite surprising as we've never seen this from a guest before

I met Keeley for this drama as well, seen it twice and cried both times

 

Gonna throw my own thoughts into this:

Good Points:

Guests: Most if not all of the guests that we talked to were friendly, pleasant and lovely, didn't have a problem with any of them really although i wished i'd spoken more to some of them and got some a little earlier. Special highlights were Keeley, Jewel, Justin, Alex, Peter, Thomas Sangster and the Phelps twins

 

The Crew: as i've said before were great, espeically the ones over on the photoshoot areas particularly the Sunday. For me this was the busiest day for me with 5 photoshoots some at the same time as Jewels was swapped with Jimmy's. Also because of this myself and a fair few others had Eve's photoshoot, the Phelps twins and Jewel's photoshoot to go to then the Twilight talk. Thankfully the crew were extremely helpful and got me to the front of the queues

All in all many they were all quite helpful and chatty

 

The Announcements: I mainly heard them on the Sunday but they were extremely helpful. While waiting for some of my photoshoots to come back it was announced Jewel would be leaving and so i quickly dashed over to get her auto.

 

Not so good points:

I was with a friend who had never attended a con and i think she was slightly overwhelmed especially on the Sunday as it seemed some of the guests had been underestimated in their popularity, namely for me the Phelps Twins. Their queue was huge all day and i only found out from another friend that they were handing out VT's when they had reacvhed 300+ and this was at 3pm at the time of their photoshoot, at which point they were up to 30. I then found it out they ran out of pictures and so my self and my friend run over to the queue with our photoshoots and were at first told the queue was closed but then another crew member said it's fine they are keeping it open. Thankfully we got to meet them and i know i was lucky but it might have been better to put an annoucement for any one who wasn't aware that they were on VT's

 

I know the photoshoots got backed up and i know it might not be necessarily showmasters fault but again that could be down to sheer volume of attendees that attended this year. It did seem like there were more people there than last year although i sadly didn't witness people running this year and then getting told to stop by Too Tall (always quite amusing )

 

And then my own lack of organisation meant that i was getting 8 autographs in the space of an hour and consequently missed Eve although i did get my photoshoot so at least i met her.

 

All in all a great day and i will definitely be back next year