Photoshoot and Talk Tickets

[enrohm1963]

I will start by saying that I have had a great weekend in Milton Keynes. The weather was not great but the opportunity to meet so many great people totally outweighs something that is outwith anyone's control. I do however have once main concern that arose out of the weekend - the possible thorny question of the queue at the organiser booth on Saturday morning.

 

My son and I travelled down from Edinburgh on Friday evening - I had to work Friday - arriving in MK at 1.30am. We got to the stadium as early as we could but were still at the end of the queue round by the Asda side of the stadium. It was also not clear if there were separate queues for Karen Gillan / John Barrowman in the way there had been for Alex Kingston last year. Although the queue moved fairly quickly, we got into the stadium to then find a very long queue for tickets for photo shoots.

 

I was confident that we would get most of what we wanted but our main concern was my son wanted a photo with Paul McGann. While tickets may have been on sale online prior to the event, the actual timing of the shoots was not announced (as far as I am aware) until after the online sale ended. We were very tight for time - the shoot was scheduled for 9.50am and by 9.45 am we were still well back in the queue. We were then told that for shoots about to take place that you should move to the front of the queue. However, in doing so you would only be able to buy tickets for these specific shoots anmd not others for later in the day. We therefore had no choice but to split up and my son headed off to the front - or at least a few bodies nearer the booth than I was.

 

In the end all was well as my son (some of you may remember him as he was dressed as the Phantom of the Opera) got his shoot......................... but only just!

 

Would it not be a better idea to have two or more queues for such eventualities ? If two, one could be clearly marked for "popular guests" or "immediate" shoots and the other for all other later shoots / talks.

 

If it was dealt with in that way people are travelling from distance on the day they would still have less of a panic than might otherwise be the case.

 

In our case all was well in the end and I am sure it will be likely that Showmasters will take the view that the organisation all worked because of that. That being so, I would not agree fully with that view - but I am speaking from having experienced LFCC where I drove from South Wales on the day to get a photoshoot with the cast of Being Human and was then directed into the wrong queue in the first place. MK is smaller scale than LFCC in terms of attendance numbers but there were a lot of people in our queue at MK who were expressing the same concerns at the time.

 

Just thought I would raise it as a possible suggestion to improve things for the future.

Edited June 7, 2012 by enrohm1963

[jael001]

John Barrowman was announced on 12th May, online sales only closed on 18th May so there was time for people to buy shoots before the event so I doubt it was simply down to John that there was such a queue.