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Well this was my 2nd Showmasters event and im sure and very safe in saying that it will be my last.

 

My girlfriend was kind enough to buy me early bird tickets to this event for my birthday as she knew i wanted John Hurt's autograph. So we at Earls court at 10am on the dot, went straight to John Hurt's line and got a VQ ticket...number 418!! :D. Well we werent to bothered since we wanted a look around and also wanted to get Sean Patrick Flanery's autograph. To our surprise we arrived at Sean's desk and he wasnt a VQ guest. We went right to the front,got his autograph,had a chat and a photo and we were off for a look around the stalls. after a couple of hours we returned to John Hurt's line to find that he was now taking numbers up to 290 but had gone to his photo sessions. We decided to leave and come back later, We had a seat on the steps of Earls Court as it was in the shade out of the sun. One of the door men who was VERY rude told myself and few others to move...not asked...TOLD. given that we were not in the way of anyone why did he do this? EVERYONE was sitting in the same place at around 4pm and no one was told to move so why were we told to do so at around 1pm by this very rude member of staff? .

 

Anyway, when we returned at around 4.15 we went straight to John Hurt's line as we knew by this time we should be able to get his autograph as the board said `numbers 0-530. As soon as we got to the line we knew right away that there was a problem. A member of staff stopped us and said that we couldnt join the queue because John had a talk at 5 and that the queue had been stopped and to ome back at 5.30. We explained that we couldnt do this as we were about to leave for our train and couldnt she just let one more person join the queue even if we didnt get the autograph at least we would be in the queue but she wouldnt have any of it even when i had a lower number that what was being called.

 

Concidering i as bought early bird tickets to avoid the disappointment of missing out on the autograph we wanted we really didnt believe that we would leave without it and we did. This was the 2nd time in a row we have been left disappointed by one of these events and im very sad to say it will be our last. It just isnt worth the time,effort and money we invested to come down just to be turned away. It felt like if your not a dealer,Gold pass holder or camping out on the steps your not going to get what you want.

 

Sorry if this sounds like sour grapes, it really isnt meant to. But when someone buys train tickets,early bird tickets and tube tickets for a birthday present all to obtain just 1 autograph...just 1, it really does disappoint.

 

All the best.

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It's tricky - if you've turned up at 10am, then that means there's an hours worth of people taking VQ tickets before you. There's absolutely no way of estimating for every guest how many they'll give out or get through during the day etc.

 

I don't think you necessarily have to "camp out" but at 10am, I do think you have to expect a certain number of people to have been in before, and it's always going to be a risk.

 

I'm sorry you didn't get what you want. That's not something anyone wants to hear. I completely respect that you don't want to take a chance anymore but that is certainly something that everyone has to take into consideration.

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We had a seat on the steps of Earls Court as it was in the shade out of the sun. One of the door men who was VERY rude told myself and few others to move...not asked...TOLD. given that we were not in the way of anyone why did he do this? EVERYONE was sitting in the same place at around 4pm and no one was told to move so why were we told to do so at around 1pm by this very rude member of staff? .

 

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't get what you wanted. However, I'm not entirely surprised as you left it quite late to arrive (though I appreciate you may have had transport issues making it impossible to arrive any earlier). As to the staff mentioned above, those were venue staff not Showmasters crew.

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I'm sorry to hear abput your dissapointment, but I don't really see this as entirely Showmaster's fault, if at all.

 

You got an early bird ticket, yes, but you arrived there an hour after opening time so really couldn't expect a low number for a popular guest. With guests doing talks, it's always advisable to check their talk times so you know when they will be away from their desk. If you were outside when you could have been getting his autograph, how is that the organiser's fault?

 

With regard to them letting you join the queue, if they did that with you then they would have to do it for everybody else as well and soon enough they would have a big problem on their hands. There has to be a cut off point somewhere.

 

I understand you are disappointed, and I don't mean to sound harsh, but you have to be responsible for managing your own time at these events. You can't blame the organisers for sticking to their schedule.

 

As for the doorman, I think this would have been a member of Earls Court staff, so not really under Showmasters's remit. He was probably quite right to tell people not to sit in front of doors - in the event of an evacuation they would have got trampled sitting there. Why that policy wasn't carried through later is anyone's guess. The doorman on Saturday was polite enough, and I even had a laugh with him about the number of people trying to go in for the wedding show, so no complaints from me there.

Edited by scoop1107
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I am confused by this too as I got in at about 09:30 and got a VT for John Hurt under 200. My brother went back and got a ticket for himself about 45 mins later and got ticket 319. I got my auto before the photoshoot and my brother got his after. About 4:40 we started heading towards the talk area to queue for the JH talk and the queue was showing 560+ and the queue crew lady was stopping people joining the Queue because of the impending talk time, but she relented and let a couple (boy and girl) join the end of the queue when they explained something to her.

 

However, what confuses me most is that if you travelled all the way for a specific auto, you should have checked the queue more regularly, especially if you have experienced this before! I wouldn't have missed my slot for anything (plus I had photo and attended the talk!)

Edited by BigBangPenny
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Out of interest - what did you do for the three and a quarter hours between being told to move off the steps and wandering back to John Hurt's queue?

 

 

Have to agree with sdog why wait that long, photo shoots are rarely more than an hour, and if I had been there for just one guest in particular then I would have been checking the VT board regularly.

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1. Always know what the guest you.are meeting is up to. He/she could have a photo shoot or like David two!

2. Always allow to be there till the end of the day.

 

Go with either of these two you are on the right track, I mean if you know where he'll be you can plot your times around him knowing when he'll be at the desk and when he'll be elsewhere. If you wait till the very end you'll not go wrong.

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like a lot of us we have to travel i cant get to earls court till 10 am and thats traveling from tutbury and hatton 15 miles from derby at the earliast train from here 6.56am so some of us cant get 2 thease places at 7am,8am to q for early bird tickets and unlike 2 day i buy standed at 11am but paid £12 just so i could get a david tennent auto q ticket got no 760 had photo shoot at 1.10pm so from10.15am till1pm decided to go round the natral history musuam 4 a few hrs with the kids which thay found better 2day than spending 7 hrs waiting 4 a auto only spent 3hrs insted so there r things 2 do in london while u wait 4 vq nos to come up:o) if u dont want 2 wait around all day

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It is very difficult for a lot of people. I know some who get hotels the night before so they can make sure they're there early the next day .. but then you'll get people who can't afford hotels etc.

 

In the end, these events are not going to cater for everyone. Not every single attendee will get absolutely everything they wanted from a day out at a show. That's the harsh reality of it.

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It is very difficult for a lot of people. I know some who get hotels the night before so they can make sure they're there early the next day .. but then you'll get people who can't afford hotels etc.

 

In the end, these events are not going to cater for everyone. Not every single attendee will get absolutely everything they wanted from a day out at a show. That's the harsh reality of it.

 

Indeed but part of getting what you want is time management. Find out if the people you want to meet are having photoshoots, doing talks etc, factor in a lunch break, keep an eye on how quickly the VQ ticket numbers are being updated etc etc and you can guestimate when your number might come up.

 

The other option would be to consider a gold pass but if a hotel is out the question, that might be too. But it's an option, albeit an expensive one, and means you don't have to miss out on anything.

 

Never nice not to get what you hope to get but the responsibility is very much on us, as the attendees, to keep track of things and manage our time. The crew can only do so much to help as when there's talks etc, there has to be a block put on queues otherwise if you let one more person in, why shouldn't you let the next etc and if doing that makes things overrun, the knock on effect can be pretty bad. As when the photoshoots overrun. The Joe Flanigan one on saturday was cancelled and moved right to the end of the day so the proper running order could be re-established. I fully understood that and thought it was a very sensible option.

Edited by Rockstar6662
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If people choose to wander off for hours and then miss something, that's their choice. What do they expect SM to do, page them when the photo/talk/auto is free?

 

I'm a big girl - If I miss something because I got the time wrong or chose to go off shopping/sunbathing/museum-going for hours, it's my mistake, my fault.

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I would have been gutted if it had missed John as he was one of my main guests. I was on a 6:45am BA flight from Glasgow to Gatwick, arrived at Earls Court at 9:45am. I had a slightly lower number than you, think it was something like 380, but met John at 3:20pm.

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Sorry, I'm with everyone else. You should have checked the VQ number on the board earlier. I'd never leave it till 5pm to check if my number came up as some guests leave early... though that was pretty unlikely with such high numbers for VQs. I would also have checked if he had talks and photoshoots.

 

I don't think this is Showmasters fault. I attended a con a few weeks ago in another country and Showmasters system is far superior to theirs. And much fairer. You just have to work Showmasters system the way it was intended.

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I understand what you are all saying about time management and such, but why put out on the board that he is allowing up to number 500 (example) knowing full well he won't be able to do those numbers because of a talk? You should of put it to a reasonable number that allowed him to do those autos then attend the talk, when he gets back, then raise the number. Otherwise I'm sorry, but this is a form of false advertising.

 

I completely understand where the initial poster is coming from, I would be pissed off if I was in that situation where I wanted that particular guest and I sure would demand to be in that line.

 

The VQ system allows you to join the auto queue if your number has been called, if that guest has a talk then don't raise the number so high until they get back, simple.

Edited by ClockworkOwen18
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I understand what you are all saying about time management and such, but why put out on the board that he is allowing up to number 500 (example) knowing full well he won't be able to do those numbers because of a talk? You should of put it to a reasonable number that allowed him to do those autos then attend the talk, when he gets back, then raise the number.

 

 

The ticketer has to keep a steady flow of people coming in. If there's a break coming up it's really tricky to find the right cut off point. The guest may be chatty, but then suddenly there's a number of people who are that impressed that they don't get a word out and line moves faster. Or there's a sudden rush of people coming back from the photosession and the line jumps out of nowhere.

 

Sometimes a crew member tries to be nice and tells you you can go in because your number is really close and he's about to call the next batch anyway. You wouldn't believe how many people rather wait for the numbers to go up on the whiteboard despite being told by the ticketer "you can go in now if you like."

 

I haven't seen the line in question. But normally the number would have been removed and "line closed, talk/photoshoot at XX XX" would have been put, possibly with a "back at X time". That's how I've always seen it done in the past.

 

Why it looks like this has not happened here I really don't know.

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If people choose to wander off for hours and then miss something, that's their choice. What do they expect SM to do, page them when the photo/talk/auto is free?

 

I'm a big girl - If I miss something because I got the time wrong or chose to go off shopping/sunbathing/museum-going for hours, it's my mistake, my fault.

 

 

But isnt that the whole point of a VQ ticket? That you can leave and come back when it is best for you to do so in order your not standing in a queue for hours on end?.

 

Some of you as i would have expected have totally mis-taken what i said. I never believed for a second that i would have a low number even with an early bird entry (i knew dealers would have taken lots of numbers before me). I was simply bought those tickets as a gift to give me a better chance of getting the 1...just 1 autograph i really wanted. I had caught the train from Suffolk around 7 in the morning to get to london at around 8.55am. The tube took around 45 mins to get to Earls court. By the time i got there it was 9.45. By the time i actually got in it was nearly 10am.

 

To answer the question of where we were while John went for his photo shoot (even though i dont see why i should tell anyone as it doesnt make much difference). Since we hand been walking round and round since 10am my girlfriend and i decided to take a walk to the Doctor Who experience (thanks to SM for putting out the £5 off leaflets by the way! :) ). We took our time walking there and back due to the heat and afterwards had something to eat. When we returned it was about 4.10pm and we knew by then i would be able to get in the queue. Sadly it wasnt to be. After reading here that the member of staff did let people in the queue eventually iam slightly annoyed as we explained that we had come a very long way. I would have thought more of the staff member if she had said "ok you can join the queue but i cant gurarentee you will get the autograph". At least i would have felt like i gave it a shot or i was in with a shout of getting it.

 

I really i enjoyed going to these events as i find them exciting and the stall holders are great. However this is the second time in a row i have left disappointed and i feel that the only way i would be certain of an autograph is by either being a dealer or a gold pass member...sadly im not a dealer nor do i have the money to spend on gold passes just to obtain 1 autograph.

 

Sean Patrick Flanery was great...no VQ. I walked right up to the table,paid my money,said hi, got my autograph and had a photo...an excellent experience.

 

 

 

I totally agree with clockworkown18 here. Why bother telling me on a board that numbers 0-530 are now being called (i was number 418) when you know full well that the guest isnt going to get through those numbers anyway due to a talk. A member of staff stopped me at 4.10pm but ended up letting people join the queue later on anyway so what was the point? What annoyed me the most is that the people in the queue proberly had higher numbers than me...which totally defeats the object of the VQ. The VQ is designed so that i dont have to stand in a queue for hours. I can leave and come back when it best suits me. We returned to John's queue 3 or 4 times before we left (when we left he was up to around 200+ i think). How im i surposed to know when my number is going to be called if i pop away for a few hours in order for the queue to die down? Unfortunately i wasnt gifted with psychic abilities at birth.

 

 

Anyway. I feel i have said to much and i will leave it there. I wasnt going to answer the questions posed to me however i felt one or two did need a reply. Just remember that If you did leave with exactly what you wanted then good for you. But some people just like me who put a lot of effort in,money and time didnt leave with what they wanted. I did everything that i thought was expected of me, i turned up as early as i could,went right to the queue,got my ticket,checked the numbers 3 or 4 times before i left and i returned at a decent enough time. Apart from missing my train home in order to stay till 6 theres not much more i could have done, and whos to say i would have gotton the autograph even then?!.

 

All the best to you all and the best of luck for future events :)

 

It's tricky - if you've turned up at 10am, then that means there's an hours worth of people taking VQ tickets before you. There's absolutely no way of estimating for every guest how many they'll give out or get through during the day etc.

 

I don't think you necessarily have to "camp out" but at 10am, I do think you have to expect a certain number of people to have been in before, and it's always going to be a risk.

 

I'm sorry you didn't get what you want. That's not something anyone wants to hear. I completely respect that you don't want to take a chance anymore but that is certainly something that everyone has to take into consideration.

 

 

 

 

I understand what you are all saying about time management and such, but why put out on the board that he is allowing up to number 500 (example) knowing full well he won't be able to do those numbers because of a talk? You should of put it to a reasonable number that allowed him to do those autos then attend the talk, when he gets back, then raise the number. Otherwise I'm sorry, but this is a form of false advertising.

 

I completely understand where the initial poster is coming from, I would be pissed off if I was in that situation where I wanted that particular guest and I sure would demand to be in that line.

 

The VQ system allows you to join the auto queue if your number has been called, if that guest has a talk then don't raise the number so high until they get back, simple.

 

I would also like to thank you both for your reasonable replies too, Thank you.

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If you have a problem with the way that queues are being handled or any other aspect of the show, you really should speak to a pit boss (they're the ones in the red t-shirts) or someone at the organiser's booth at the time.

 

Problems/issues can only be resolved if they're raised at the time they arise. Coming on here and complaining afterwards doesn't really serve any purpose as it is then too late to do anything.

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If you have a problem with the way that queues are being handled or any other aspect of the show, you really should speak to a pit boss (they're the ones in the red t-shirts) or someone at the organiser's booth at the time.

 

Problems/issues can only be resolved if they're raised at the time they arise. Coming on here and complaining afterwards doesn't really serve any purpose as it is then too late to do anything.

 

Coming on here and telling me that after the event doesnt help me either as how im i surposed to know that i can talk to a `pit boss` regarding another member of staff stopping me from entering the queue :headscratch: barring in mind this was only my second event. This member of staff seemed pretty final on the matter and turned away 3 or 4 people behind me.

 

And anyway i believe this does help. How can events such as this not iron out problems if people dont raise them afterwards. Its sometimes impossible doing it on the day as everyone looks so busy managing one thing or another . Had i known there was a `pit boss` i would have gone and spoken to him/her. As it was i didnt know so raised the issue here.

 

And for the record i wasnt complaining. I said i was disappointed (hence the thread title). I simply wanted to raise the issue in the hope that maybe one day it will help someone else in the same boat. If i was complaining about anyone it was the VERY rude guy who told me to get off the steps outside , however it has already been pointed out that this staff member was NOT with showmasters....so all well and good. :)

Edited by Anthonyharrison11
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My friend turned up at 1330, she couldnt cope with "mooching" around from 1000 like i always do. She decided at about 3pm, after buying an Alien related t-shirt that she wanted it signed by John Hurt. We wandered to his line and got a ticket with 624 printed on it. After an hour or two, which allowed me more time to admire Dame Diana & swoon over Jane Wiedlin :wub: , we returned to the queue. My friend got her T - Shirt signed, got a pic with John Hurt and we even had time to attend his talk.

 

I think this may have been luck as he was pretty busy, but my two friends are "virgins" to all this and despite their apprehensions genuinely had a good day. Too be honest, as others have said, if you really want to see someone you just have to keep a check on the line number and sometimes be cheeky.

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My friend turned up at 1330, she couldnt cope with "mooching" around from 1000 like i always do. She decided at about 3pm, after buying an Alien related t-shirt that she wanted it signed by John Hurt. We wandered to his line and got a ticket with 624 printed on it. After an hour or two, which allowed me more time to admire Dame Diana & swoon over Jane Wiedlin :D , we returned to the queue. My friend got her T - Shirt signed, got a pic with John Hurt and we even had time to attend his talk.

 

I think this may have been luck as he was pretty busy, but my two friends are "virgins" to all this and despite their apprehensions genuinely had a good day. Too be honest, as others have said, if you really want to see someone you just have to keep a check on the line number and sometimes be cheeky.

 

Agreed. However as i have said we did check back with his queue many times. He seemed to be getting through the numbes pretty quickly before his break for photos. This is why we were confident about leaving and coming back later. This is the whole point of the VQ system isnt it? so your not standing in a queue for hours? We didnt just get a VQ ticket and then leave, we stayed for another 2 hours . We got our VQ ticket for John Hurt at around 9.50am- 10am and it was numbered 418. I wasnt shocked by this at all and i never expected to have a low number. I knew that at some point id get in at somepoint however that was not the case EVEN with buying Early Bird tickets. We returned at 4.12pm-4.15pm and thats when we we stopped from entering the queue even though the number being called was higher than the number on my ticket...And as already discussed the member of staff who stopped us did eventually let people join the queue even though we pleaded with her to let us in....So what more could we have done? Should we have missed our train and end up paying £50+ for more train tickets back home when there was no guarentee id get the autograph? I agree that if you want to meet a star then yes you can make an exception but sometimes common sense needs to take control.

 

However all of this is totally pointless as it could have completely been avoided by just not calling numbers that were obviously not going to be served due to the impending talk in the first place. The numbers should have been capped at a certain point, Had we turned up and seen that our number was nowhere near being called we would have just shrugged our shoulders,turned round and came home not being disappointed. As it was that didnt happen and we were refused entry to the queue even though it was our turn. Truth be known the people in the queue had higher numbers than we did.

 

 

I think we are going around in circles now. Ive said my piece and i dont think theres anymore to be said. Could i request that a mod close this thread?

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