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my thoughts from the weekend


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Hi all

 

just thought I would come on here share some of what happened at the weekend and what worked and what did not and how we plan to improve the things that need improving.

 

Well the weather this needs to be improved a lot but thats a little out of our hands i think :rolleyes:

 

First to some of the points people have brought up:

 

1 Jake Lamotta. This guest was brought in by his own team of people like a lot of the boxers from the US like Tyson. They have a team of people that they work with all the time and go around with. We provide a venue and staff if its needed, but the way it's run and the people around him are his team and they run the signing for Jake. We had a space inside if it was needed but his team wanted to be with the other sports guests. I know he was an older person but they kept an eye on him and made sure he was ok. At one point he wanted to go off and when he got into the hotel fell unwell. At that point his team came into action and took him to the local hospital where later on he was released. We do look after all our guests and have things in place if they need any extra help. All I can say is his team wanted to do the signing their way and that was agreed to before the event. So we provided all that they asked for over the day .

 

2 Car park. This year we had less space than the year before as some of this car park was being re surfaced. So we lost around 30% on the day. We had been told that this would have been open or at least usable by this weekend but it was not. On friday it worked and there was no issues so we thought it was going to be workable. But on Saturday we have around a 30% increase of people attending the show than last year which created some issues that we had to deal with on the day as they came up.

 

Sunday we paid for car park marshals to direct traffic and help the public use the space we have and on sunday the event worked much better and there was little problems with the car park.

 

How to fix this:

Well by October this year the car park will be fully open. The building work around the stadium will be done. The upper seating will also be down and the stadium ring and new upper ring will also be open and fully undercover so for the May show next year. The car park space will be fully open and new car parks for the new M&S will also be available for people attending the show. So next year i think we will have around another 50% more space for cars to park. We will also have a alternative car park were the buses will stop if the main car park gets full next time. So yes, we were caught out this time on the Saturday but we did get it all under control by Sunday .

 

Busses

 

These would have been fine and would have worked if it was not for the 6 ignorant people that parked their cars over the main road entrance of the car park outside door 4. These 6 cars blocked the way in and out to the car park and meant no one could leave the place. I personally took over the clearing of these cars and managed to get them cleared after around an hour and we kept it clear for the rest of the day. But because of this the Buses we paid for to give you all free bus service over the day could not drop off or pick up because of the really dumb people that had parked across the road. The bus people did not inform us of this issue for around an hour. As soon as we found out we got on top of it and organised a new pick up point the other side of KFC. This was not perfect but was the best we could come up with on the hoof and we soon got people on their journeys again. We paid for marshals to also do this job on the sunday all day and this issue was resolved for sunday .

 

Saturday photo op A Queuing system override on Saturday

 

We have a Queuing system that we have used many time in the past that has worked very well for us. But at this show we had some factors that created an issue for the Karen Gillen photo ops. As we have said before we had an unexpected 30% more people on the Saturday of the show. That meant we had a lot more people on the stadium ring and at the same time we had few issues getting the guests to the photo ops which meant that the photo ops started late and got behind which in turn created more people standing outside of photo op A which created a bottle neck on the Stadium ring. I came in to see this was happening and felt that the only way to get some order in were people was queuing and get things organised was to use the railing and the space behind this to queue all the people that were waiting for the photo ops. So i informed as many people as we could that we would not be using the colour system or the numbers not the tickets and we would just be calling them in first in line first serve. This happened and we got everyone throughout in around 50 minutes and managed to make up some of the lost time. This is not what we would normally do but as we had things things creating this issue we felt it was right to abandon calling people up in colours or numbers and make it work as efficiently and quickly as possible I hope. I talked to quite a lot of you and I think you all could see at the end that it worked out well and helped resolve the problem for this photo op and the others later on in the day .

 

Photo ops being printed on site

 

This was the first time we used the new on site photo technology and because we used it it cut down the time it takes to get the images back and even on saturday when we had sold more photo ops than ever before at Collectormaina we still managed not to have a big back log. So after this successful test of this new photo print technology we are going to expand this aspect of the show and have many more machines on site which should do away with long whats for photos to be picked up and people hang around to pick them up so all in all. This is going the right way. ;)

 

The Venue

 

The building work you saw at the weekend is the final part of the building of the stadium and by October the upper part of the stadium will be finished with an enclosed ring above the one we have been using. This will be enclosed. As well as this the Hotel ball room will be mirrored on the other side of the stadium. Also, there is another very large room bigger than any space there is available last weekend it will be around 3000 meters in size so with this and the two ball rooms and the two stadium rings this venue will be the best venue in the UK for such a free event as Collectomaina.

 

Sso thank you for holding in there whilst this venue was being built for us :rolleyes: and we can say that this was the last time that the weather will affect the event in this way and as we will have so much more space this will help with crowding and it will also help to allow us to put on many more activities and have more space for bigger talks and bigger parties and also as there will be many more rooms available for you to stay in at the venue over the weekend .

 

The party

 

What can i say wow what a lot of fun was had. I know it was just how I thought it was going to be and the guests hung out with us all and chilled out and many of you became friends with these cool people and with having a bucking broncos, bouncy castle, Batmobile and the A team van giving rides for hours I know all the people I talked to had a great time and this is something we are going to add to in a big way at future event .

 

 

Signposts for the buses

 

This also will be looked at again. This time the building work at the train station did also create some issues for us. But I do not see this being the case next time. But we are aware of this issue and we will be looking into it .

 

After every event the pit bosses and heads of department meet up to go over what worked what failed and what we need to do to fix and the things we need to fix. We work out ways to fix them. So thank you for all your posts as constructive criticism. It does help in case we have missed something .

 

Well I think that covers most of the important things. I know my team will have more to add over the next week after we all meet up and they come back into the office. We will be looking at all aspects to the show and changing things to make them work. Now and again a show will grow and this weekend Collectormaina grew about 30%. So its now down to us to look at what we need to do to keep it working well for you all .

 

Thanks so much for attending the show and we look forward to seeing you all in a bigger and better venue in 2013 and we also plan to run the show twice a year like we used to as the venue will be ready for us to use throughout out the year what ever the weather. ;)

 

See you at LFCC in a few weeks.

 

Now on with booking some more guests for LFCC :dance:

 

Jason and all the team at Showmasters :coolthumb:

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Thanks for the explanation regarding Jake LaMotta, good to see that there was room for him indoors if he needed it.

The building plans for the venue seem brilliant I can't wait to see what it will be like and to have a show twice a year!

Thanks for the show this year, looking forward to LFCC (And some more guests ;) )

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i thought it was an amazing weekend and a very big thank you to jason and the team hopfully i can attend next year but still not sure yet realy looking forward to seein who you pull out of the bag for LFACC :dance:

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Thanks for the explainations, however I have no complaints, it was well organised, the orderly queue soon started moving at 9am, and I managed to get VQ tickets to see the people I wanted.

I thought there were going to be problems, especially with it being Jubilee weekend, e.g. I didn't want to have to hire a car for five days, but I was able to borrow one for the day to get to MK and back. Also with the great guests that were coming I was concerned it would be too big for the stadium, but it wasn't that bad. The smell that was in the reception area has thankfully gone now, (I wouldn't recommend the Costa Coffee machine to anyone though!)

It's great to have one excellent event like this outside of London, so as long as it's always there I will still show up for it with my family.

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Thanks for a fantastic event, my wife and I were attending for the first time and had an excellent day.

 

I had not realised that this was the first time you did on-site photo printing, so well done on a successful result with this. Our only gripe on the day (Saturday) was the chaos at the photo collection desks, mainly because nobody really knew where each "celeb" part of the table was to enable them to find their photo. Maybe white boards behind each desk with the celeb written where the photos are would help? It would stop people getting in the way of others at the desk.

Either that or maybe have 3 or 4 separate photo desks, with one "big" star and several smaller ones on each desk, to disperse the crowds a bit.

 

Also, when we tried to queue for Brian Blessed, the crew member told us not to queue for him yet. It turned out he was oblivious to the queue forming the other side of the door, and when we returned 10 minutes later we were way down the queue, in a separate queue, and had it not been for an illness delaying photos elsewhere, I'd have struggled to make my next photoshoot with JP Kennedy, so I wasn't impressed with that crew member. Maybe some form of rails/barriers/fencing to make queues more orderly would be useful, it does get a bit of a free-for-all at times.

 

Otherwise, fabulous event, thanks!!

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Thanks for the update...really great to hear that it will be enclosed next year, and really hope that it happens!

 

I felt really bad seeing the guests all wrapped up and still cold, whilst I had a bit of time waiting for some guests to come back I took the time to sit down (very much needed) and it didn't take long before I was rather cold, at least I could go to the dealers room and warm up a bit!

 

So a BIG thank you to all the guests, troopers all!

 

Looking forward to LFCC.

 

Darryl.

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It's always great to see that Jason comes on here and takes note.

 

It's particulary good, as some things take time (like changing of photoshoot to printing!) and people cannot see the change, even if it's happening.

 

I really hope that he's negotiated a good deal on the stadium though - it's been years and each year we here 'next year!'. I hope it is finished though.

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Can I just say, this was my first ever visit to something like this, and I got to meet Jason Momoa!!! I had a fantastic weekend. Yes it was a bit chilly on the Sunday, but hey. Welcome to the UK. ;) On the Friday and Saturday I didn't even need my coat. Loved the venue actually.

 

My Momoa Photo clashed a bit with the Barrowman talk, but a lovely member of your team made sure I got to the front for the pic and therefore made it to the Barrowman talk just as he arrived.

 

Many thanks to you and your team for all the hard work they put in and I will definately be seeing you all again next year. (When is the earliest I can book the hotel?) ;D

 

Happy girly!!! :D

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I like to say a huge thanks to everyone who works for showmasters and to Jason and Mark who's way of working is great. Proffessional and thinking of they customers and try keep them happy. I've always found you great value for money as well. I have been to other events and you guys are the only ones that in fact listen and work with they customers to make things better. You guys are my favourites and I never feel like I can't approach you with issues I have.

 

To those people who complain I think you need to take time to either talk to someone at the event look out for the people in red shirts or on at the info desks. Or think of ways to can offer advice on how to improve things.

 

I've been going to showmasters events since Collectormania 3 and they are always improving.

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Thanks for the response, but I one thing that you did not touch on is your overall policy for putting ageing guests in the cold.

 

You mentioned Jake and I believe you did all you could on this occasion, but what about other ageing guests. Were the Tottenham players offered a place inside or in a tented area to sign autographs, or were they always going to be placed in one of the coldest part of the ground. This is not the first time it has happened and I would be interested in knowing if all guests of over 75 which applies to all the Spurs players, are offered the opportunity of being based in a warmer area?

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Can't thank Showmasters enough for such a great event! Will definitely do another Collectormania in the future. This is one of the largest events I've ever attended here the UK and was thrilled by how well it went and how well it as run. A few delays here and there, but considering the massive amounts of people, that is nothing to complain about.

 

Thank you so much!!

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I had 5 photoshoots on the Saturday, Three in Photo A, and 2 in Photo B. The only time I encountered any of the crew members asking about photo op ticket numbers was for the John Barrowman shoot. Which was a pity, because that was the only shoot I had a high ticket number for :rolleyes:. . For all the others I was just told to join the queue (if it was short enough) or go away and come back later (if it wasn't). I found it all a bit confusing (my first visit to this event!), as I was expecting my ticket number to have some significance. Fortunately, I wasn't in any way pressed for time, so it didn't really matter.

 

Otherwise, a fabulous event - had an absolute ball! :dance: Was mostly too busy squee'ing to get too cold :D

 

Thank you to all involved :clap:

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I think next near we be a lot better this year (wet and drippy wise) with is out of the control of showmasters really. The stadium will hopefully be finished and more water tight. The parking will be completed also so that would help with peoples stress levels, hopefully.lol

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  • 1 month later...

I love this event but my only improvement would be to have some seating where you could sit, have a cuppa and chat to other attendees. I know you can face the pitch but you cant socialise there and there is plenty of room around the concourse for seating areas.

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