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feedback and some thoughts from jason after this years LFCC


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1) It is no good saying you rarely make the same mistake twice. You should plan and organise so that there are no mistakes in the first place. For example, it is better to be overstaffed and have to send some home than to be caught out by even a 100% increase in fans.

 

I'm sorry but this is mad. On an event this size, even with the massive amount of planning and organisation that we all know Showmasters does, there will inevitably be problems. There is no way that with something this scale you can predict everything that could go wrong, and I'm suprised that you expect them to be able to. Unfortunately, realistically there will always be mistakes that have to be learnt from. Be thankful that Showmasters and Jason actually do act on the mistakes they find, and do what they can to find a solution before the next event.

 

Also, sending surplus staff home? Really? You realise that most of the crew are volunteers, they're not getting paid and so would-rightly so- be fairly unhappy on a wasted journey. Even sending the paid crew home is unacceptable and unrealistic. I'm sorry if I come off as harsh about this, but your post really is unfair criticism.

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I will say no matter how much planning goes into an event, there WILL be problems that crop up. No event is 100% perfect.

 

All any organiser can ever do is hold their hands up, say 'ok we got this wrong' and address things for next time.

 

You can guarantee something will go wrong next time too, no matter how much planning occurs.

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we arrived just before opening, we joined the queue as it went round the side of the building

We were half an hour earlier. I saw the signs when people started to move and uncovered them). No staff came along the "pay on the day" queue checking anything.
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For me, printing photos onsite, while a great idea, has unfortunately meant a compromise.

 

The crispness and colour of lab prints are superior to the onsite prints - the mitsibushi paper also isn't as good. It's a little step back in terms of the quality of product for the convenience of having a quicker turnaround...

 

 

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1) It is no good saying you rarely make the same mistake twice. You should plan and organise so that there are no mistakes in the first place. For example, it is better to be overstaffed and have to send some home than to be caught out by even a 100% increase in fans.

 

no way that with something this scale you can predict everything that could go wrong.

 

Even sending the paid crew home is unacceptable and unrealistic.

I wasn't asking anyone to predict what could go wrong. I was just saying that the queues could have been labelled clearly and that the photos calibrated to in-house printers should not have been sent out. These would have been good advance plans - not damage control after the fact

 

Over-staffing would cost a lot less than the ramifications of under-staffing.

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we arrived just before opening, we joined the queue as it went round the side of the building

We were half an hour earlier. I saw the signs when people started to move and uncovered them). No staff came along the "pay on the day" queue checking anything.

 

Having been at previous I knew to look for signs and we found them. And there was definately a man with a blue crew t shirt asking whether we had pre paid tickets because I actually took them out of the envelope they had arrived in and gave them to my daughter to hold on to.

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I said it before and I repeat it again and again until every single moaner out there did get the message: Thank you for the organisation, it was a blast to be there for three days - it was well done. From my experience there is no such thing as the perfect convention, there will always be things going wrong, and you guys handled it well!

I loved the fact that there were so many food and drink places inside the venue - past experiences at other conventions meant that I had to leave the venue and get into a totally overcrowded diner to wait for hours - and missing out on the fun at the convention. Many people did not go through this and fainted of exhaustion in the end.

Furthermore, you guys do realize that there is room for improvement and that is all we are asking for. With you trying to keep the pieces together and us fans going crazy - that is all we need :)

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For me, printing photos onsite, while a great idea, has unfortunately meant a compromise.

 

The crispness and colour of lab prints are superior to the onsite prints - the mitsibushi paper also isn't as good. It's a little step back in terms of the quality of product for the convenience of having a quicker turnaround...

 

really thats very interesting , so far its been the stuff from the outside lab thats been creating more of the issues than the on site stuff :-D , i think its more down to people do not like the thought of change and as some the aspect of the thing that has started to change is we have added on site printing everyone thinks it is down to this when it is mostly not down to this , it is funny reading this , anyway we learnt a lot at this last event and we have worked out the next step forward and we have fix this issues for our next event , if you think about it we do not want unhappy people having to stand around or for us to spend time having to send out photos the week after , and i do not enjoy having to try to work out issue on the day , and what we are good at it fixing things so we have fixed it and next time you will see that .

 

 

hope that is of some help

 

 

jason

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We were half an hour earlier. I saw the signs when people started to move and uncovered them). No staff came along the "pay on the day" queue checking anything.

 

as i did say we had a company that we had to use running the lines outside the venue and they did not run it how we wanted it to be run , we do not plan to use them next time .

 

if we had of run them it would have been fine and thats what we intend to happen next time.

 

jason

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In regards to the sound in talks. I'm a sound engineer and my day job is actually training new engineers.

 

In my opinion, the room shouldn't really be a problem, not to the extent that it seemed to be at LFCC this year. There are a lot of things in the system that could be improved to help with the sound before you even consider the room.

 

I hope this comes across as constructive rather than someone moaning. And good work on everything else!

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1) It is no good saying you rarely make the same mistake twice. You should plan and organise so that there are no mistakes in the first place. For example, it is better to be overstaffed and have to send some home than to be caught out by even a 100% increase in fans.

 

 

If I were to book time off work, pay for travel, then travel 2+ hours to be told to go home, I would not be happy!

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just to be told I wasn't needed and to go home. I think it would put people off.

If you have followed elsewhere, you will see that I do not agree with the idea of voluntary "crew". I would only have paid staff who would have to do the job I wanted and prove they could do it to a certain level. They would be quite happy to be sent home with pay! Can you imagine doing your shopping and finding that the supermarket just took on a few dozen volunteers that morning to "try" to do the day's work? That is what we, the paying public are up against here!

 

Bottom line is, it IS voluntary, that's just the way it is.

We can and do do the job to a 'certain' level. We also go way beyond what is expected of us. Ok, so we do often have new crew, but everyone has to be given the opportunity to learn the job (paid or unpaid).

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For me, printing photos onsite, while a great idea, has unfortunately meant a compromise.

 

The crispness and colour of lab prints are superior to the onsite prints - the mitsibushi paper also isn't as good. It's a little step back in terms of the quality of product for the convenience of having a quicker turnaround...

 

really thats very interesting , so far its been the stuff from the outside lab thats been creating more of the issues than the on site stuff :-D , i think its more down to people do not like the thought of change and as some the aspect of the thing that has started to change is we have added on site printing everyone thinks it is down to this when it is mostly not down to this , it is funny reading this , anyway we learnt a lot at this last event and we have worked out the next step forward and we have fix this issues for our next event , if you think about it we do not want unhappy people having to stand around or for us to spend time having to send out photos the week after , and i do not enjoy having to try to work out issue on the day , and what we are good at it fixing things so we have fixed it and next time you will see that .

 

 

hope that is of some help

 

 

jason

 

the on site ones seemed duller and more of a matt finish it seemed, worse for me, I also thought alot of the photography slipped quality wise, some were very very badly over exposed, others badly framed! not great when paying such amounts. shame as the photographers are usually good and are nice ppl. (well 3 i know, dont know the older new dude)

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It was my first time as a crew member had a MAJOR problem on saturday but had trouble getting any direct answer from anyone on how to deal with it .

Sunday was fantastic felt i was used to my upmost doing the queue on photo B and some running work . Would love to know if I will be asked back and how i putmy name down to crew other events

 

Can someone please help me

thanks :clap: :clap: :king::whistling:

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It was my first time as a crew member had a MAJOR problem on saturday but had trouble getting any direct answer from anyone on how to deal with it .

Sunday was fantastic felt i was used to my upmost doing the queue on photo B and some running work . Would love to know if I will be asked back and how i putmy name down to crew other events

 

Can someone please help me

thanks :clap: :clap: :king::whistling:

 

As you've crewed once, your name will now be on the crew list. A couple of months before the next event you'll get an email asking you if you would like to work. If you would, you'll need to answer all the questions and send it back. The next show will be EMS and the application emails will probably be out within the next three or four weeks. Update - the application emails for EMS have gone out now so you should have had one.

 

Are you on Facebook? If you are, there's a group that's been set up specifically for crew. Message me on there and I'll send you the link.

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the on site ones seemed duller and more of a matt finish it seemed, worse for me, I also thought alot of the photography slipped quality wise, some were very very badly over exposed, others badly framed! not great when paying such amounts. shame as the photographers are usually good and are nice ppl. (well 3 i know, dont know the older new dude)

 

I have to agree about the photo quality, particularly the framing.

I know that there were issues with the on-site versus lab printing affecting the colour balance, but it sounds like that will be sorted for next time and SM did deal with my photos that had that issue - so I'm not overly concerned about that.

But I got quite a few photos this time where the guest and I are very small in the midst of a massive expanse of backdrop (particularly that very ugly plain blue one, which was rather similar in colour to the tops being worn by Jewel and Ciaran - If Ciaran hadn't been wearing a jacket over his blue t-shirt I could imagine him being just a floating head! I much prefer the swirly patterned backdrops).

I've also got some where there's a lot more space on one side of myself and the guest than on the other, and in some of those the guest's arm isn't in the picture but there's space on my side. What I mean is, we're not central to the shot.

This is the same for a few of my CMMK photos - which was the first time I'd ever notice framing type issues on my photos.

It was disappointing, so I really hope this is also sorted for the future.

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1) It is no good saying you rarely make the same mistake twice. You should plan and organise so that there are no mistakes in the first place. For example, it is better to be overstaffed and have to send some home than to be caught out by even a 100% increase in fans.

 

 

If I were to book time off work, pay for travel, then travel 2+ hours to be told to go home, I would not be happy!

I cannot believe that so many people are missing the point that staff love to go home on full pay!
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just to be told I wasn't needed and to go home. I think it would put people off.

If you have followed elsewhere, you will see that I do not agree with the idea of voluntary "crew". I would only have paid staff who would have to do the job I wanted and prove they could do it to a certain level. They would be quite happy to be sent home with pay! Can you imagine doing your shopping and finding that the supermarket just took on a few dozen volunteers that morning to "try" to do the day's work? That is what we, the paying public are up against here!

 

Bottom line is, it IS voluntary, that's just the way it is.

We can and do do the job to a 'certain' level. We also go way beyond what is expected of us. Ok, so we do often have new crew, but everyone has to be given the opportunity to learn the job (paid or unpaid).

Of course they do but many people have posted here over the years that they have come up against unprepared and therefore untrained staff.
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We were half an hour earlier. I saw the signs when people started to move and uncovered them). No staff came along the "pay on the day" queue checking anything.

 

as i did say we had a company that we had to use running the lines outside the venue and they did not run it how we wanted it to be run , we do not plan to use them next time .

 

if we had of run them it would have been fine and thats what we intend to happen next time.

 

jason

Thank you.
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i think you are missing the point Sdad the crew do this to make the events happen and they are now being used of some other events we are partners on which after see in our crew in action felt it was better to use these amazing people to run the event than using a company that provide crew that do not understand what the event is about and what people want from the event , our crew are the best are are all human and have bad days and have to learn the jobs that take place over the weekend , thank god we are all aloud to learn and are not all fired before we have the chance to learn, at showmasters we give everyone a chance to shine and if you are happy to give up a day or two to help us run these amazing event we should help you in return and help you grow and give everyone the chance to shine , many people have crew these events over the years and many have found that they have learnt so much that also helped them in there full time jobs and we have also found people that have a real talent that we have given more responsibility to one the years which also helps make these events better and better , so helping people grow helps make the events better , i must say its easy to sit back and say that you meet a crew person that was not good or did not do what you wanted them to do , well our crew are there to help everyone have a good day and i know there is no were else you can go to get a better crew anywhere else , and event the venues them selfs say how amazing our crew are and that they stand out , one last thing if we were to book outside crew they would cost more no understand what you the fans want or understand your passion and as the componeys that provide crew and charge for this the crew would cost at least 3 times the price like Group 4 did for the olympics compeard to the police so your entrance fee would cost twice as much and also your autographs would as well so the crew are amazing and they help you all to be able to meet the guests you want to and afford to at the same time .

 

at the end of the day the people that are the crew are YOU , they are just the fans like ourselves that love these shows and want to get more involved and help make these events happen.

 

so if anyone thinks they can do better then , then stop saying it DO IT put in to crew and see it for your self and understand it from the either side and also fix it from the either side as many have done in the past .

 

thank you to all the crew and i look forward to hearing from new people that want to have a go.

 

jason

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I cannot believe that so many people are missing the point that staff love to go home on full pay!

 

Out of interest, if this happened (paid staff) and the entry ticket went up to £100 and the auto's to £25 to pay for it - would you still go?

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1) It is no good saying you rarely make the same mistake twice. You should plan and organise so that there are no mistakes in the first place. For example, it is better to be overstaffed and have to send some home than to be caught out by even a 100% increase in fans.

 

 

If I were to book time off work, pay for travel, then travel 2+ hours to be told to go home, I would not be happy!

I cannot believe that so many people are missing the point that staff love to go home on full pay!

 

I get your point, but, as I said, it's voluntary and that's the way it is!

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just to be told I wasn't needed and to go home. I think it would put people off.

If you have followed elsewhere, you will see that I do not agree with the idea of voluntary "crew". I would only have paid staff who would have to do the job I wanted and prove they could do it to a certain level. They would be quite happy to be sent home with pay! Can you imagine doing your shopping and finding that the supermarket just took on a few dozen volunteers that morning to "try" to do the day's work? That is what we, the paying public are up against here!

 

Bottom line is, it IS voluntary, that's just the way it is.

We can and do do the job to a 'certain' level. We also go way beyond what is expected of us. Ok, so we do often have new crew, but everyone has to be given the opportunity to learn the job (paid or unpaid).

Of course they do but many people have posted here over the years that they have come up against unprepared and therefore untrained staff.

Training is something that happens over a period of shows, no new crew member is expected to know everything right away and it takes doing every job to know everything - which takes time being that there aren't that many events every year to get the experience. We're only human and aren't perfect all the time, though we do do our best!

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I cannot believe that so many people are missing the point that staff love to go home on full pay!

 

Am i just missing the sarcasm or ironical point of your post or is there just none and you definately mean what you say.

Seriously can't believe THAT

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Hi Jason,

 

I understand that the people controlling (sic) the queses outside were a hired company and not your staff or volunteers, hence some of the problems were beyonfd your control. One of the issues I found on Saturday was these guys were saying if you have a ticket go "that way." That is an really unhelpful piece of information considering that there are various different types of tickets. All they were doing was sending all ticket holders in one direction.

 

As a suggestion to try and clear this up, should you find you have to use a different company next year, or even if you use the crew. Would it be possible to have different tickets printed on different colour paper? Gold tickets are yellow, EB are blue and so forth. It may make it easier for everyone to remember where they should be sending them. Yellow here, blue here and so forth rather then EB, Gold, Standard etc.

It could also help keep things more manageable when not being assisted. After everyone was being sent off randomly in "that way" people were left seeing more than one lines not knowing which they should be in. Quite often you were asking other fans is this the queue for .......? Some people would say" yes," most were saying "I think so" or "I don't know I joined it and hope it's right."

Purely on a visual level this can be cleared up with coloured tickets. If you are holding a blue ticket and you see a line where people are holding or looking at yellow tickets that isn't your line to be in.

 

The other issue, although that is too big a word for the problem I noticed is that on the windows of the door there was a sign that said Gold Tickets Entry. As this was in height with people it became completely obscured by people so you would walk right past the door unless you have been there before and know where you are supposed to go to get in the building. That sign needs to be higher even if it is outside the building so it is above head height. People can see it and know that is where they are supposed to go in or join the queue for that door.

 

Again, towards door opening time an unhelpful comment I was given was I now need to go that way (yep in the opposite direction I was orginally sent) and I need the middle door. Never having been to the building before and not knowing the design of it's architecture that means nothing to me. It's not like you have three doors beside each other and the middle door is obvious. Again i was asking fans is this the line for the middle door? Again getting i don't know I just stopped at this one as I don't know what is happening and where I should be.

Clearer door or entrance labelling is something that needs to be looked at to help the people attending as well as the staff or volunteers that are trying to keep things running smoothly.

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