Event Feedback

[Glowingwings]

Oh no I don't think you upset anyone :)

[Firecracker]

There's a lot that's right about these events. You've listened to the need for more rest areas (upstairs balcony), and photo collection (wearing gloves). And I will give high praise for the fact that all the crew seem to be happy and cheerful, even if slightly harrassed. Though one guy listened to my queueing question and then just wandered off!

 

But PLEASE, for the love of puppies, Christmas and all things holy, would you improve signage and queueing! I'm a PA by career, and organise work events. So I know the frustration of telling people things, cat herding, complaints about things outside your control, etc. But I spent a lot of today thinking "but if you do this, it would be a huge help!".

 

I haven't seen if there's a thread for improvement suggestions, but here goes:

 

1) an A4 sign at the entrance and little or no communication to outdoor security is NOT good enough. If you go with a partner or group then someone can go off and try to find answers, but a solo person (as I was) has to go ask and then finds themselves 300m further back than they were. I queued twice and was in 2 melées (queue is not even close to describing those). That's 4 attempts to be in the right place to get in.

 

Idea - increase the cost of entry by £1-2 for each day, and use that money for dolphin/other style banners placed at even points. Have those queue delineators (like in airports, the things that look like seatbelt material) to clearly delineate queues outside for entrance, and inside for tickets or photoshoots. These ones are £45 each, that should be easily affordable - given the number of people complaining about lack of signs and epic queue shambles, I'm willing to bet they would happily pay £1 extra. And surely these could be reused.

 

2) with huge crowds, you can't always get to the front to see what the object/topic/person is. Given there are panels surrounding areas or as backs to areas (like guest signings), then find a way to mount A1 or A0 signs on top of those - they will be much more easily seen when above eye level and above the crowds

 

3) as the photo collection is always going to be rammed, there's no way for people to get to the front to even see who the celebrity is in that area.

 

Idea - have poles (weighted bases) with the name/photo of the celeb, which can be shifted to the part of the table to identify where the photos are. It'll also help show whose photos are back much better than the small names on the mass sheet.

 

 

 

I know that you'll always get muppets coming up and asking stupid questions, even with the best communication in the world. But too much communication for things like queue direction, ticket sales, delays in shoots, calling ticket numbers - that's never going to be a bad thing.

[Indestructible]

Generally positive and got what I came for. A couple of minor gripes, but those going on Sunday might start to dread going based on this thread... It was a good day so enjoy Sunday :)

[Nottravis]

 

Idea - have poles (weighted bases) with the name/photo of the celeb, which can be shifted to the part of the table to identify where the photos are. It'll also help show whose photos are back much better than the small names on the mass sheet.

 

 

Genius idea. This would save an awful lot of hassle.

[Matt Effect]

Did everything I wanted by 12PM since I only wanted to meet Tom Skerritt and Ke Huy Quan. My only complaint is too many male cosplayers in tight or revealing outfits...seriously guys.

 

Also, do people really need to be piloting giant daleks and R2D2s around the most crowded areas of the show floor too?

Edited July 7, 2012 by Matt Effect

[discodiva]

Idea - increase the cost of entry by £1-2 for each day, and use that money for dolphin/other style banners placed at even points. Have those queue delineators (like in airports, the things that look like seatbelt material) to clearly delineate queues outside for entrance, and inside for tickets or photoshoots. These ones are £45 each, that should be easily affordable - given the number of people complaining about lack of signs and epic queue shambles, I'm willing to bet they would happily pay £1 extra. And surely these could be reused.

 

 

Good idea but why oh WHY should we pick up the Tab for these ? Dont you think we spend enough at these events ?

 

 

I'm already planning on cutting right back... 1 entry fee, only 2 guests visited for autos and 3 photos ops + a very modest lunch and I still spent over £100 not including my travel expenses.....

[LLJP]

Had a pretty good day. Started queuing about 10:30am for standard entry, queue organisation could've been a bit better but got in fairly quickly. Sadly was too late for the tickets for the free Doctor Who talk and they had swapped round the talks areas which made it even more difficult. However got my three autographs from William Russell, Carole Ann Ford and Janet Fielding in less than 20 minutes! Which was good in some respects but I didn't have any talks/autos/photos for the rest of the day! Ended up leaving at about 2:30 so we still had some stuff to look at tomorrow and weren't too tired after going last night to the preview.

 

Little worried about tomorrow after hearing about the Early Bird queuing. We upgraded specifically to get tickets to the free Doctor Who talk and a little worried that even getting in early not gonna get any which would be £18 wasted. Also gonna be fun as I got Freema Agyeman and Anthony Head photo shoots tomorrow, which are some of the latest and therefore will be hanging around probably till the end waiting for them to be printed! Plus the queues today for photo shoots and the Firefly talk looked atrocious, hoping things will be better tomorrow.

 

All in all, enjoyed today and looking forward to tomorrow. Some brilliant cosplayers today!

[kneon light]

Generally had a good time BUT having queued from 7.30 outside I was appalled at the entry procedure.

 

We all started snaking our way in when the doors opened but after about 10 mins (due to lack of staff outside) everyone stopped following the queue and just turned and charged for the door. As a result people who joined the queue nearly an hour after us got in before us.

 

We got there early as we knew we had to leave early. Due to this happening we ended up with high virtual queue tickets for Adam Baldwin and never got to get his autograph

 

The whole queue system outside was a shambles.

 

Still have not got Hayden photo (but hopefully it will be posted)

 

Other than that (apart from big queues) I had a good day.

[Not_Pennys_Ship]

Posted my mini review here http://showmastersonline.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=76828entry1746423

[Myself205]

I've done LFCC since 2009 and other events and I'm not impressed with today at all and have a few negative and a complaint.

 

I went to queue to get a ticket for Holly Mary Combs talk. While I asked for the ticket, I asked the crew member for information about Brian Krause's photoshoot for my friend. Her English is not good and she was already confused as the photoshoot was moved to 2:05pm. But when I was buying my talk ticket, we noticed the photoshoot was later. The crew member didn't give any explanation and could't give me the specific time, telling me to look at the timetable at the back. I was struggling to see the time properly. Not helpful at all. I then paid by card for my ticket and this crew member just threw back my card at hime. Really not pleased with this person which I found quite rude!

 

The queues for the photoshoot were a nightmare. All my three tickets were yellow but I still have people with much higher numbers in front of me. I don't see the point of colour coding tickets if nothing is done. I queued like 45 mins for Holly and Jewel. Crew members didn't always know where to queue or who the guest was.

Photoshoot area for Hayden: the bag thing made no sense to me and it was quite dififuclt to get our bags after the photoshoot as there were no order.

I'm not impressed with the photographer in C (for Jewel and Holly) and complained at the end of the day about my photoshoots with Holly. Lighting is awful.

When I came to queue for Jewel's photoshoot, it was a nithmare to find where to queue as the photo areas are so close to another.

Really really not impressed with the queues this year!

 

I’d like a refund for Holly’s talk (unlikely to happen I know) but I paid £15 for a 20-25mins talk where I barely heard any questions or answers. The sound of quality was very poor. Really not impressed! (again!)

 

My friend had a photoshoot with Holly and blue ticket so wanted to queue as said in the afternoon. ( I was not with her), she went to find the area for the photoshoot for Holly and was told that the photoshoot was sold out and wouldn't be happening in the afternoon and was given a ticket for Sunday!! Not nice to see that people are taking advantage of people who don't speak English very well. To be fair, I took her to the Organiser booth and talked to a great lady with a red t-shirt who confirmed that Holly was having a photoshoot in the afternoon and gave her another ticket for Saturday.

 

We were queuing for Brian's auto and it was for 1-300 (we were under 100). There was a woman in front of us with a number above 400. A crew member told us that she had to leave the queue as her number hasn't been called yet. The lady pretening not to speak English very well. The crew member left (not sure where and to do what) while this woman was saying to her friends in English that she wouldn't be moving, then talked in English with Brian. Her English was fine!

 

Finally, I was dispointed with:

- Hayden sitting on a chair for her photoshoot. + her attidude during signing and photyoshoot: not acknowleding people at all.

- Tom Skirrit has an agent with him (I think) when it was my turn for my autograph, she just moved very quickly the photo for the autograph. Tom didn't even move his head not spoke to me.

 

It is a long post but I didn't enjoy LFCC this year. Some guests were really nice which helped but the organisation and the rudeness of some people let the event down.

[Hustler]

Although the hall itself reeked of sweat and BO with so many people .

 

Yes We have to agree with that...... Made the wife feel quite sick on a few occasions.....

[Cube1701]

The directions at Earl's Court station are extremely confusing. There were big signs saying that to get to Kensington (Olympia) you had to get one towards Wimbledon and get off the next stop and get the Overground. Upon arriving there we discovered the Overground was closed. We were told to to back to Earl's Court and to get a bus. Back at Earl's Court, I asked someone and was informed that there was a train to get from Platform 4. I was still rather confused until I overheard someone talking that the Olympia train was at 24 and 44 minutes past each hour, and the train simply doesn't appear on the electric signs on the platforms. I discovered that there was a sign on the station somewhere, but when you arrive at Platform 3 and there are big signs there with directions, you wouldn't move off the platform to look for different directions (why there isn't a note on the signs telling you to use the Overground, I have no idea).

 

Because of this, I missed Jewel Staite's photoshoot. I was told to go to different places in order to find out if there was going to be a pick-up photoshoot (there wasn't) but I was allowed to pay £5 to swap it for Adam Baldwin's (where I waited from 15:25 to 16:45 for it - I've expressed my disappointment in a different thread). Even if some of the staff didn't know everything, they were always very friendly about it.

 

The venue was much better than Earl's court (despite the problems getting there), and there were a ton of great costumes. Adam Baldwin was very friendly once I finally got to him. I also was extremely relieved when I got there and found out that the anime stuff had been massively toned back from last year.

 

Overall: mixed feelings, but I enjoyed it overall. Next year I won't be doing any photoshoots, so I won't have the worry, stress and everything that comes with them.

[Kinggodzillak]

The directions at Earl's Court station are extremely confusing. There were big signs saying that to get to Kensington (Olympia) you had to get one towards Wimbledon and get off the next stop and get the Overground.

 

Yeah, I saw that sign and nearly fell for it too. Was going to try walking there when I happened to glance back and noticed that the arrow had appeared next to Olympia, so stuck around...

[Kinggodzillak]

My thoughts on today;

 

Got there at about 9.50 am, and with a 10am photoshoot I was thinking I'd be just in time for that.

 

But unfortunately not. I'd left buying my tickets at the online store until the absolute last minute, but that was the day when the online store suddenly decided there were no more early bird tickets to be had and so I had to make do with a standard. That's okay, we were told on here, you can just upgrade on the day.

 

So where did you have to go to do that? To the back of the pay-on-the-day queue. The really really really long one that quite clearly wasn't going to be moving in the next ten minutes. Luckily one of the attendants was going along the queue asking if anyone had a photoshoot starting soon, and by then mine had started five minutes ago. So she rushed me down to the front of the queue, which I was very glad of, and once I got in I went to the nearest desk to pay my £6 to upgrade - only to be told that I couldn't do that at that particular desk, I had to go over to the next one. Since there were no signs up or anything to explain that, how was I to know? Surely £6 in cash is just pretty much the same no matter what desk you're at, no?

 

So that was a bad start, and something that really should have been considered in advance. I would have bought an early bird had it been available when I bought the rest of the tickets, but since the website was acting up it simply wasn't possible. The assurances that it would be a simple matter to upgrade just didn't hold true in the end, unfortunately.

 

I missed the photoshoot, by five minutes - but a huge thanks to Megan at Photo Area B who arranged for Elizabeth Dennehy to come back at 11 just for me. Of the three photos I had today, that one's by far my favourite.

 

Unfortunately the cockup at the start had a knock-on effect, because I had planned to get a Gates McFadden shoot today too, but needing to be back for the pickup and then the late start for the morning Jeri Ryan shoots scuppered that. So that was £20 extra Showmasters lost out on.

 

The venue itself seems okay, but once again the stalls get the prime space and the guests are out the back sweating in the dark. I understand why this is the case for CMK - even though I don't agree with it - but why shouldn't the guests get to see a bit of sunshine in that nice centre hall?

 

Got my three photoshoots done by 12, then nipped across to Earls Court for lunch (wasn't going to pay venue prices!) before coming back to get my autos. All done in about 2 hours, got to meet everyone I wanted and they were all really nice (in particular the group of three TNG ladies). It was also a nice surprise to find that William Russell was only charging £10, not £15 as was previously announced, and that he was letting anyone who wanted to have photos with him. The man's just terrific, a real pro (if you'll pardon the phrase).

 

So with all autos obtained, that meant there was only one thing left to be done. One grim ritual that needed to observed, one hellish ordeal that you just have to knuckle down and pray you survive without killing anybody; the customary photo-shoot collection scrum.

 

This has always been the absolute worst aspect of any Showmasters event. Every year we're always promised it'll different, and of course it never is. It was certainly a far cry from a certain weekend in early May, and that was something I heard more than one person say actually. My three photos - all of which were taken between 11 and 12 - weren't back until about 3, but the 'they'll be back within 2 hours' thing has never really been the case in my experience. Thank God it was only three, couldn't have lasted out much longer.

 

It really is beyond a joke now. Where are these promised improvements to the photoshoot collection service - were they invisible today or just non-existant? Certainly having two rings of tables that back onto each other thus reducing access space certainly added to the problems rather than solved any. I appreciate that it's a huge operation, but the 3+ plus hour wait is unacceptable when it's been proved this year that it is perfectly possible to have the photos back within ten seconds, thus completely negating the need for a collection area (and all the accompanying problems, such as a long queue at Boots or misplacing a memory card or needing to take details from people have to leave) at all.

 

You've been doing this for years now. Please, please, please do something to improve this - don't just say you're going to and then carry on the way you always have. Having seen the way it should be done, you guys really are lagging far behind where you could be.

 

So overall...great guests, but a few problems, some of which are to be expected just because they always happen (the photoshoots) and some entirely new ones which a long-standing con organiser such as yourselves really should be able to avoid by now.

 

Had a good day overall despite the setbacks, but I'm quite relieved I'm not going tomorrow.

[EveFlex]

Not been to LFCC before but the organisation didn't seem up to standard with other SM events I've attended...

 

Firstly, the queues for entry? What was going on!? There were two lovely, straight forward queues, one for early bird entry and one for general. until we were asked to move down towards the north entrance(?). We just ended up following the crowd to yet another queue (one which winded), which then went to total shambles with no barriers in place to keep people from jumping the queue, so it eventually just went to a huge mass of people crowding around the doors.

 

Secondly, Hayden's photoshoot. That poor woman, but what a damn trooper. Seriously? I gathered there were at least 600 tickets sold and she did it all in one sitting? Surely if she'd sold out on the online store (which I was told what happened) it would make more sense that she'd be popular and split it in two like with Gillian Anderson and with Karen Gillan last year? I did say to her she did a fab job trecking through all the photos and her response wasn't wholely enthusiastic about it. Apparently she was being told there were always just a few more and a few more and a few more, etc. But still, she was lovely, smiley and I found her to be relatively chatty, considering she must have been pretty exhausted.

 

As always, some crew members where lovely and easy to talk to but others not so much. Also, the photoshoot pictures seemed quite iffy, some had a lot of background/un-used space.

[jael001]

I managed to get 10 photoshoots done, 5 autographs and do 1 talk, but it was a very stressful day. Photoshoots over-running or running late meant a lot of running around for me and even more standing in endless queues. Of the 10 photoshoots I had done, I only managed to get 4 of them back before I left at 6pm which was obviously disappointing.

 

My biggest issue was with the queuing for the photoshoots. I only had 1 photoshoot at area B but it was the best one. We were called in batches by ticket number. Since I had numbers 1 or 2 for most of my photoshoots and under 50 for the rest, it would have been nice to have been able to go through in the first batch but that was the only one I could do that for (Charles Dance). All my other photoshoots were just a free-for-all, everyone queuing together, which meant that I had people with numbers 200+ in front of me. I'm not really sure why I bothered booking straight away if there's no benefit to it anymore, especially when you have huge photoshoots for guests like Jewel Staite, Adam Baldwin etc, whose queues really needed to be sorted in a better way than just letting everyone queue, so that we were queuing for an hour or even more in some places.

[sirjim]

It was very busy and organisation could have been better but that has been done to death elsewhere already.

 

In the end, I got all my autos that i wanted and I got all my photos back even Adam Baldwin (though it was 6.45 by then) though I know a lot of photos didn't get to their owners for various reasons.

 

Guests were all awesome and meeting Gillian was better than I hoped in the end as it was end of day and she was on open Q and not overly rushed through, and Gillian was gorgeous and charming beyond my expectations!

[TommyT]

Idea - increase the cost of entry by £1-2 for each day, and use that money for dolphin/other style banners placed at even points. Have those queue delineators (like in airports, the things that look like seatbelt material) to clearly delineate queues outside for entrance, and inside for tickets or photoshoots. These ones are £45 each, that should be easily affordable - given the number of people complaining about lack of signs and epic queue shambles, I'm willing to bet they would happily pay £1 extra. And surely these could be reused.

Er those are retractable advertising banners that you've linked to. I assume you mean something like this? Thing is, with only 2.3 metres / 7'6" of tape per post, you're probably going to need scores if not hundreds of them. That's a significant capital outlay (not to mention a fair amount of extra kit to lug around and store between shows). I'm surprised that the venue doesn't have a large stock of them that they can hire out to organisers, since you would have thought that they have some sort of call for them pretty much every week between one event and another.

2) with huge crowds, you can't always get to the front to see what the object/topic/person is. Given there are panels surrounding areas or as backs to areas (like guest signings), then find a way to mount A1 or A0 signs on top of those - they will be much more easily seen when above eye level and above the crowds

Yes, BIG signs with BIG Clear Writing suitably loftily suspended so all can see is an excellent method of disseminating information to the masses.

[loveamyadams]

a word of praise to the guy who was in charge of organising the queues for Photoshoot B area, don't know his name but recognise him from many other events, he got everything done timely and politey at the same time as dealing with a ton of questions from people walking past. Nice one.

[guy_smiley]

My first ever Con - deffo won't be my last! Thoroughly enjoyed it!

 

Let's get the bad points out of the way...

• The BO. Jesus Christ guys, shower, or at least carry a small can of deoderant with you.
  
• The tube was delayed for ages on the way home, and so was jammed solid. And it was hot in the carriage so again, BO. Not good.
  
• The queuing system for autographs was a bit hit and miss. (I didn't bother with photoshoots.)
  
• Jeri Ryan, Gillian Anderson, Karl Urban being shielded from mortals' eyes.
  

 

Good points...

• The cosplayers. Some amazing costumes, and everyone was very happy to pose for pics. My faves were the very tall Lara Croft lady ( ) and the guy in the seriously impressive Dark Knight outfit (there were a few of these I think).
  
• The guests. I met Ke Huy Quan, Alex Winter and Martin Kove. All three REALLY struggled to understand my Welsh accent (!) but all three were smiley and seemed genuinely pleased to meet fans.
  
• "Surprise" guest - I hadn't seen Martin Kove (Karate Kid/Rambo) advertised?! I actually saw him walking through the hall and thought "Wow, that guy looks like the Cobra Kai dude off Karate Kid!"
  
• When I arrived and saw the queue I serioduly considered going home, it was HUGE. However it was fast-moving and so I was in the venue in around 20 minutes.
  
• The people! It was very crowded but everyone was polite and well-mannered - lots of "excuse me" and "no, you first!" going on. BUT, the BO...!
  

 

Will deffo be going to more events. And will save up cash to buy some proper photoshoots! And noseplugs. Did I mention the BO?

[discodiva]

Yeah....Body Odour always seems to be a problem....not always sure it's because of heat and bodies...some of it smells like clothes haven't been washed for like weeks or even in some cases ever......tip - take a small bottle of your fav perfume in your bag (very small so as not to take up too much space)...keep your wrists lightly scented with it and every time it gets too much, just sniff the wrist for a few secs at a time..:)

 

 

Does help....

[Gordon The Gopher]

Yeah BO was a huge issue, after a few hours it really started to make me feel sick. People should be made to take deodorant with them. From walking about I saw loads of sweaty people which explains the smell,i can only imagine those in costume were even worse

[dexterror]

Yesterday was one of the worst SM events I've been to! Very badly organized! Maybe it was due to change of venue and the amount of people this year? I thought Olympia Grand Hall was a horrible venue, really hope its back at Earl's Court next year!

Queuing is always an issue, but this year it was just a complete mess. And is there any members of the staff that aren't sarcastic or patronizing?

Only highlight of the day was the amazing Judge Dredd panel!!! Well Done for that, but i have a feeling this was less to do with SM and was more of a promotional media vehicle for the movie?

[Goonie_Marky]

I thought all the crew were immense yesterday,all deserve praise :)

[Clarkey]

I didn't see or hear any staff being sarcastic or patronizing yesterday, and don't forget they volunteer and accept that people will be rude to them. I applaud them.

 

And i thought the Olympia venue was great! Easy to get to and there was tons of space! Ok the photoshoot areas were a bit of a mess being too close to each other. But there was plenty of room in the venue over all and if other areas had been utilized a bit more like moving the photo distribution up to an area on the balcony then there would have been a bit more room down below.

 

Overall I like Olympia and I hope there are more events there.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Clarkey