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EVENT CANCELLATION - Middle Earth


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  • Showmasters Admin

Hi there,

 

We are very sorry to announce that Middle Earth will no longer be taking place!

 

Jason and I had very much wanted to make this event happen and had hoped that with the release of The Hobbit enough interest would be there. Unfortunately, despite The Hobbit being an AMAZING piece of cinema, with just 16 tickets sold, there just is not enough interest in an event like this to make it viable.

 

We will be bringing as many guests as possible from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to some of our signing shows over the coming year and so hope you will enjoy meeting them there.

 

All tickets that were purchased for Middle Earth have already been refunded today onto the cards they were purchased with. It usually takes a couple of days to appear on back in your account but should your refund not be with you by Wednesday of next week then please do contact us on info@collectormania.com

 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank those of you who supported us in trying to bring Middle Earth back to the convention circuit and we hope we will see some of you at our other signing shows.

 

Take care

 

Mark

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I'm not really surprised at the ticket sales with only 1 minor guest and 2 extremely minor guests. It would've taken the annoucement of a big guest or 2 to win people over with this event. Hopefully any big guests will now be going to Collectormania and LFCC.

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For what its worth I'm not sure if I have the interest to spend a whole weekend at a LOTR/Hobbit event but rarely pass up the chance to meet guests from the films when they do signing shows so although I am sorry for those that wanted to go to this event I will be very pleased to see some more guests from the films at other SM signing shows.

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As is nearly always the case, you really need great guests to sell tickets...and people with the right marketing skills to sell/promote the event.

 

There's nowhere near as many people these days who blindly buy a ticket for events solely based on the fandom.

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I suspected this would happen, despite more guests being promised, since the event has been booked and cancelled twice before I think people were understandably reluctant to buy tickets on the strength of the line up already in place in case it all got cancelled or moved again. It is a shame, my daughter turned down a role in a play because it would have clashed with this event, but hey ho. Such is life. Plus with the new big Comic-Con event in Cardiff now announced, then I guess more emphasis and work will be put on that.

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Too bad, with the Hobbit cast being in Europe that week I didn't think it would be a huge stretch that they visited these shores as well - I wonder if there is a way around this in future?

 

Perhaps you could provide a list of potential guests together with a counter of how many autographs need to be sold to secure them and have a pre-order system with a running total. It would make it so much easier to bear than all these cancellations before big name guests are even announced.

 

For instance, if you listed a Christopher Lee or an Ian Holm I would almost guarantee their pre-sale autographs making it viable to book them (mainly because their autographs are wanted in other fandoms as well). Wasn't there a prior poll where it was voted positively that people would pay between £45-85 for names like these? People would (I for one know that I'd pre-order 3 Ian Holms and a couple of Lee's at these kind of prices).

 

Unfortunately, however much I like meeting Jed Brophy (and his son) they're not a major draw and I'm sure that you know that.

 

PS. With Hobbit shooting commencing again in May, I'm guessing that there's not much hope of there being any major Hobbit cast announcements for shows this year (with the publicity tour starting again at the end of the year for the next films release).

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Jason and I had very much wanted to make this event happen and had hoped that with the release of The Hobbit enough interest would be there. Unfortunately, despite The Hobbit being an AMAZING piece of cinema, with just 16 tickets sold, there just is not enough interest in an event like this to make it viable.

When this event was announced (and it was only a little over six weeks ago - and we've had the holiday period in there), we were told that there would be a great guest line-up and "The first few updates will be coming after New Year". I assume that I'm not the only one that was waiting for those New Year updates to see if the event attracted me, but as far as I can see, the updates never came.
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This cancellation came as no surprise to me, considering the lack of guests. I know some people (including Showmasters) work on the idea that you book a ticket for a convention so you can meet like-minded fans and have fun, or having faith that good guests will come. To be honest, after Lockdown I have never been able to have that viewpoint and the lack of ticket sales shows the majority of fans feel that way too. The same applies to any convention - big or rare (and well known) guests will guarantee ticket sales.

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Rock and hard place.

But the strange thing is, Massive Events seem to be the only convention organisers who work this way and have this problem (waiting for ticket sales to allow them to get good guests, while fans wait for good guests before buying a ticket). Everyone else seems to manage perfectly well getting impressive guests to their conventions, which then makes the fans buy tickets.

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@Zagreus, the other conventions that have the simular themed events tend to get sponsered guests who are getting paid to be there regardless of autos. I hope Massive Events never work this way as i always feel those events are a total rip-off .

 

I like the idea of a system of "how much to secure big guests" suggested by Tolkienerd, i think that could work really well.

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Hate to say it but agree with everyone else. Guest announcements make ticket sales. For example Im pretty sure ticket sales have rocketed since Peter was announced for LFCC.

 

Would have loved to do this event to Jed wasn't a big enough draw for the money. Was waiting on further announcements to make a decision which sadly never came.

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Jed was a big draw for me, but I was simply waiting for the promised updates of further guests...

 

Agreed. As much as I want to meet Jed, there is no way I could ever justify the minimum £88 standard entry programme price for him alone and so was waiting on the further promised announcements.

Edited by dangermouse
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