KhalS Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 (edited) I had a great time at LFFC but the Stan Lee situation was tragic but I am just glad I got to be in the same room as him and briefly see him during the talk, I totally understand he is only human and gets tired especially at his age and showmasters had no way of knowing just how popular the event would be and the thousands upon thousands of us that would turn up. Part of the blame lies on myself for thinking I could waltz in early enough with an Early Bird and get a signature. I could only make the Sunday but I still should have stumped up the cash for a Gold Ticket in hindsight.queued up at 6 in the morning and was in the first 50 or so people but during the chaotic let in from outside to downstairs of Earls Court to escape the rain ended up pushed back by que mixups and people pushing in and jumping ahead ended up with a VT number 135 coupled with my Photoshoot ticket number of 766 I already knew it would be a very long day at that point.The rest of the event was awesome and definitely two thumbs up just the mixed messages about Stan signing and photoshoots and endless waiting after 2 o clock was slightly disheartening but like I said earlier totally understandable, Stan is only human and Showmasters had to play with the cards they were dealt. So while I'm gutted I was one of the many didn't get to meet Stan or get a signature or the photoshoot on the sunday i'm still happy I saw him later that day during the talk and the rest of the event was awesome. One of the crewmembers told a few of us that photoshoots would be refunded I just wondered if that is still the case or is it a sunk cost? Will definitely go to LFCC 15! Edited July 14, 2014 by KhalS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
talie Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 when we went in there was a blonde with her hair down and a brunette guiding people to Stan. I should have added the the brunette just gave orders not politely to not touch or talk to Stan. I felt like I was back in school. You surely realise people have been excited about this for a while but to be treated in the manner we were is unacceptable. But the main point has been that Stan whether he said or not should have had a lesser work load and too much was expected of him. But in all fairness to do as much as he did in that heat was amazing This is something I didn't experience, which day was this? This was the Saturday third photoshoot which I also experienced. Talie (I think it was; blonde hair, stood next to/nearest to Stan Lee) was very friendly and approachable. The other SM crew/staff inside the shoot however were not... EDIT: the guy organising the queue in Photoshoot A area also did an outstanding job! That was me! I appreciate your comments, I tried hard to be nice whilst also making sure everyone got through and not come across as a dictator in the process haha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrjdorall Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 (edited) .. Edited July 14, 2014 by Nrjdorall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrjdorall Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 I had a great experience start to finish. Yes there were mishaps. Arrived just in time for the pre signing on Friday to get through the door and be told it was cash only. Show masters fault for not having chip and pin? Or mine for not thinking about this and checking first?....I'd have to go with the latter.... Because these forums have been an excellent source of information pre show and every question asked was answered. Silver comic pass got me to 7th place in the first queue on Friday..., so yes my stress was over. Had I thought til this point I was stupid for spending so much on a pass? Absolutely. Did everything after that point make me think it was a shrewd move? Absolutely. Before anyone says "lucky you if you can afford it" .... I work full time and this trip was my annual holiday for the year....and cost me a lot less in than an overseas holiday would have. So no I'm not loaded.... I just make my choices where I spend my money and holidays. Stan did soooooo much this weekend so really think the Stan bashing needs to stop... How many of us will still be around at 91? Let alone still signing 1000's of autographs and doing 1000's of photo shoots? And a talk? An awards event? A meet and greet? All this he did to ensure his last European con appearance was memorable for us and probably for him too. So let's give the guy a break eh? Leave with a great experience not a whole load of criticism. Remember the reasons we wanted to go in the first place and what the guy means to us for us to queue so much. Now show masters.... 1)Did they try and make as much money as possible? Well yeah...they're a BUSINESS. Of course they did. They have to recoup their outlay 2)!Did they make errors that annoyed me? Yeah....are they gonna learn from these? ..... I would think more than likely yes. Will they make more in the future? ... You betcha they will. 3) Are they any different to any other business? No. All in all I guess I. Saying I'm glad I had a pass, I feel for those that did not pre book, but we all make our choices Sorry ... but the meet and greet actually didn't happen it was a huge let down for all Comic Gold pass holders, it was oversold and hyped by Showmasters.If showmasters delivered on the promises for comic gold pass holders there would be a lot less complaints on this forum. without those who spent £195 per ticket a lot of what happened might not have been possible, I was talking to a guy in the queue for Carrie Fisher who said he attended this??? Although he did say it wasn't quite what people expected by the term "meet and greet"??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrjdorall Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 To be fair I spent £170 on my pass (and only because gold had sold out) and again can only say what a great event I had and how I got a lot more than I expected done as a result of the pass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Wookie69 Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 (edited) Stan's auto queue on the Sunday was one of the hardest queues I've had to work on. Not because of volume and demand, but because all of us in the area knew how much you wanted to meet him. Up in the area, we had not been told what time he was due to arrive, but he may have started signing from 9, so we had to give out vq's. Additionally, we didn't know he was not feeling 100%. We knew he had signed up to 400 the previous day, and so, from 350 I tried as best as I could in a raised voice to tell the queue approaching that we could not guarantee an autograph and that the chances were uunlikely. I apologies if I was not heard, but I'm sure many can testify to my claim. When we found out that Stan was not due to start signing until 11, we had to reevaluate as we had lost roughly 2 hours of signing time. I am not blaming Stan or anyone for this. We were told as soon as we knew. Given Stan had the photo shoot at 12, we knew he wouldn't get through as many as we had hoped before this time. Queue priority was given to those with priority passes (comic gold, silver etc) and they could all join the queue including those with a number up to 25. I was enforcing the number up to 25 vehemently, requesting to see every persons number. I did kick some people out of the queue. We needed to close the queue not long after he started signing as he needed to make his scheduled photo shoot. I stood at the end of the queue and made sure no one else joined. At this point we were expecting Stan to return between 2 and 4 at some point, but we didn't know when or for how long. Based on this, we started telling people that we hope to get signings for up to an hour and didn't expect him to get past the 100 mark. We tried to be open and honest based on our understanding. We tried very hard to leep people informed and also to keep the area safe. Large crowds blocking the concourse are a safety risk and your safety is important to us. We started loading up priorities again... but we stopped as soon as we had confirmation that Stan wasn't coming back. I'm not going to lie, we had to pause and think, because we knew what this would mean to all of you. Jason delivered the news (as many of you know) and as far as we were concerned, there would be no more autographs. This was confirmed later for all those who had already paid. We discovered that Stan was coming back to do the signing for golds not too long before you did. I hope you can see we tried to manage expectations as best we could. We understood the severity of the situation and can only apologies for the situation, I am sorry, and thank all those who see that this was a situation outside of our control. I don't know what happens behind the scenes, but wanted as many of you as possible to have the chance. The pit boss in the area had a lot of tough messages to deliver and calls to make over the day to keep you informed and he did the best job. Safety and information management was our priority. I hope you come to future shows, the organisers see all this and i am sure they are taking it on board. Thanks for reading Luke, blue shirted tall ginger guy with beard loosing his voice Edited July 14, 2014 by Wookie 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diabolik Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 So after the talk on Sunday, did the second photoshoot go ahead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crippsy_99 Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 Its been a long long weekend for all I think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightcrawler Posted July 14, 2014 Share Posted July 14, 2014 absolutely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zahariel Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 (edited) Stan's auto queue on the Sunday was one of the hardest queues I've had to work on. Not because of volume and demand, but because all of us in the area knew how much you wanted to meet him. Up in the area, we had not been told what time he was due to arrive, but he may have started signing from 9, so we had to give out vq's. Additionally, we didn't know he was not feeling 100%. We knew he had signed up to 400 the previous day, and so, from 350 I tried as best as I could in a raised voice to tell the queue approaching that we could not guarantee an autograph and that the chances were uunlikely. I apologies if I was not heard, but I'm sure many can testify to my claim. When we found out that Stan was not due to start signing until 11, we had to reevaluate as we had lost roughly 2 hours of signing time. I am not blaming Stan or anyone for this. We were told as soon as we knew. Given Stan had the photo shoot at 12, we knew he wouldn't get through as many as we had hoped before this time. Queue priority was given to those with priority passes (comic gold, silver etc) and they could all join the queue including those with a number up to 25. I was enforcing the number up to 25 vehemently, requesting to see every persons number. I did kick some people out of the queue. We needed to close the queue not long after he started signing as he needed to make his scheduled photo shoot. I stood at the end of the queue and made sure no one else joined. At this point we were expecting Stan to return between 2 and 4 at some point, but we didn't know when or for how long. Based on this, we started telling people that we hope to get signings for up to an hour and didn't expect him to get past the 100 mark. We tried to be open and honest based on our understanding. We tried very hard to leep people informed and also to keep the area safe. Large crowds blocking the concourse are a safety risk and your safety is important to us. We started loading up priorities again... but we stopped as soon as we had confirmation that Stan wasn't coming back. I'm not going to lie, we had to pause and think, because we knew what this would mean to all of you. Jason delivered the news (as many of you know) and as far as we were concerned, there would be no more autographs. This was confirmed later for all those who had already paid. We discovered that Stan was coming back to do the signing for golds not too long before you did. I hope you can see we tried to manage expectations as best we could. We understood the severity of the situation and can only apologies for the situation, I am sorry, and thank all those who see that this was a situation outside of our control. I don't know what happens behind the scenes, but wanted as many of you as possible to have the chance. The pit boss in the area had a lot of tough messages to deliver and calls to make over the day to keep you informed and he did the best job. Safety and information management was our priority. I hope you come to future shows, the organisers see all this and i am sure they are taking it on board. Thanks for reading Luke, blue shirted tall ginger guy with beard loosing his voice Thanks for posting Luke - appreciate the candor. I realise that the Stan area must have been one of the hardest areas to organise over the weekend. As a gold pass holder with SL priotiry who missed out over the weekend, I was slightly dismayed to find out that he did sign for us later in the day. Hindsight being 20/20 I wish now that I had stayed around his area on the offchance instead of heading back to the gold room in EC2... Edited July 15, 2014 by Zahariel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diabolik Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Can I ask those lucky enough to have gotten items signed by Stan, did his staff put a hologram sticker on your item to authenticate the signature? I saw that the prints outside his signing area had these stuck on them,so just wondered if your own items were authenticated in this way too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingRichard76 Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Can I ask those lucky enough to have gotten items signed by Stan, did his staff put a hologram sticker on your item to authenticate the signature? I saw that the prints outside his signing area had these stuck on them,so just wondered if your own items were authenticated in this way too? I had the chance after getting my Just Imagine #Catwoman and Amazing Spiderman 700 signed by Mr. Lee to get a hologram sticker on both but was told it was £5 each. And £10 may not seem a lot to most people but it wasn't in my budget and I didn't have it to spend. What I did take away from this was the fact I took my red sharpie so he could sign in a specific place so it would show up well, it turned out he didn't have any red pens with him (or if he did have red I most certainly didn't see them) he took my red pen signed where I kindly asked him to and then he gave my sharpie back to me. When he went to sign my #Catwoman comic he asked: "Where? Where?" (Short pause) "I think it would look much better here." Let's face it, who the hells gonna disagree?!?! So yep, even though I didn't get the hologram sticker - I feel I took away (in my personal opinion) something much more personal- a pen that Stan Lee has used and a bit of interaction :) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
only_jay Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Stan's auto queue on the Sunday was one of the hardest queues I've had to work on. Not because of volume and demand, but because all of us in the area knew how much you wanted to meet him. Up in the area, we had not been told what time he was due to arrive, but he may have started signing from 9, so we had to give out vq's. Additionally, we didn't know he was not feeling 100%. We knew he had signed up to 400 the previous day, and so, from 350 I tried as best as I could in a raised voice to tell the queue approaching that we could not guarantee an autograph and that the chances were uunlikely. I apologies if I was not heard, but I'm sure many can testify to my claim. When we found out that Stan was not due to start signing until 11, we had to reevaluate as we had lost roughly 2 hours of signing time. I am not blaming Stan or anyone for this. We were told as soon as we knew. Given Stan had the photo shoot at 12, we knew he wouldn't get through as many as we had hoped before this time. Queue priority was given to those with priority passes (comic gold, silver etc) and they could all join the queue including those with a number up to 25. I was enforcing the number up to 25 vehemently, requesting to see every persons number. I did kick some people out of the queue. We needed to close the queue not long after he started signing as he needed to make his scheduled photo shoot. I stood at the end of the queue and made sure no one else joined. At this point we were expecting Stan to return between 2 and 4 at some point, but we didn't know when or for how long. Based on this, we started telling people that we hope to get signings for up to an hour and didn't expect him to get past the 100 mark. We tried to be open and honest based on our understanding. We tried very hard to leep people informed and also to keep the area safe. Large crowds blocking the concourse are a safety risk and your safety is important to us. We started loading up priorities again... but we stopped as soon as we had confirmation that Stan wasn't coming back. I'm not going to lie, we had to pause and think, because we knew what this would mean to all of you. Jason delivered the news (as many of you know) and as far as we were concerned, there would be no more autographs. This was confirmed later for all those who had already paid. We discovered that Stan was coming back to do the signing for golds not too long before you did. I hope you can see we tried to manage expectations as best we could. We understood the severity of the situation and can only apologies for the situation, I am sorry, and thank all those who see that this was a situation outside of our control. I don't know what happens behind the scenes, but wanted as many of you as possible to have the chance. The pit boss in the area had a lot of tough messages to deliver and calls to make over the day to keep you informed and he did the best job. Safety and information management was our priority. I hope you come to future shows, the organisers see all this and i am sure they are taking it on board. Thanks for reading Luke, blue shirted tall ginger guy with beard loosing his voice Thanks for sharing very insightful and shows how hard of a job it is to man these ques! I was lucky enough to box it off on the Friday, and after hearing this so glad I did but still can't help but feel sorry for all the people who didn't get the chance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
animefan1984 Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 i know when i went to the early signing friday had no stickers there mentioned so I just took a few of the items into photo shoot to act as a proof of authenticity type of thing instead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zemo Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Can I ask those lucky enough to have gotten items signed by Stan, did his staff put a hologram sticker on your item to authenticate the signature? I saw that the prints outside his signing area had these stuck on them,so just wondered if your own items were authenticated in this way too? Yeah, i did the early friday signing and didn't hear anything about any stickers but when i saw some people had some things signed over the weekend the stickers were all over the place. Little bit disappointed if these were supposed to provide provenance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
touchthesky Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 A fiver each though? Just buy your own Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullseye Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 The early Friday signing was a godsend. Thankfully got my signature on that day. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel Jack O'Neill Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 (edited) This is my first post on here in a very long time, used to attend the Milton Keynes and London events religiously but over the last few years I have barely been to any but my friend mentioned going to LFCC last year when he discovered Stan Lee was going so I said we could go together as I knew my way around these events and he had no idea what to expect. I warned him that we would have to be there early if we wanted a chance at meeting Stan Lee as he would probably only sign 400-500, I guessed that amount on the fact he would only be signing for around 4 hours in between photo shoots and it turns it it was right on the money but luckily due to having pre-paid early bird tickets and being there early we got VQ tickets 58 and 59 and later in the day we queued up and got our prints signed and paid the extra £5 to have the authentication sticker put on them. I really feel for the people that didn't get to see him, while in the queue a man walked up and asked if he could join, the crew member asked to see his ticket and it said 1250 and I couldn't believe it, there was no way he was ever going to get that high so why did they hand them out and give false hope to hundreds of people. My friend is looking forward to the next one but that was enough for me, the overcrowding and heat in the main hall was unbearable and I never wish to set foot in there ever again. Edited July 15, 2014 by Colonel Jack O'Neill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockstar6662 Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Can I ask those lucky enough to have gotten items signed by Stan, did his staff put a hologram sticker on your item to authenticate the signature? I saw that the prints outside his signing area had these stuck on them,so just wondered if your own items were authenticated in this way too? Yeah, i did the early friday signing and didn't hear anything about any stickers but when i saw some people had some things signed over the weekend the stickers were all over the place. Little bit disappointed if these were supposed to provide provenance. I was very late to the Friday signing and heard nothing about this but I know it's real. Possibly would have done it though. However I went again on Sunday on behalf of a friend who wanted his xmen guitar signed having just missed out on Saturday and I got that authenticated for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerraHawk Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Can I ask those lucky enough to have gotten items signed by Stan, did his staff put a hologram sticker on your item to authenticate the signature? I saw that the prints outside his signing area had these stuck on them,so just wondered if your own items were authenticated in this way too? I had the chance after getting my Just Imagine #Catwoman and Amazing Spiderman 700 signed by Mr. Lee to get a hologram sticker on both but was told it was £5 each. And £10 may not seem a lot to most people but it wasn't in my budget and I didn't have it to spend. Was that his people, someone independant or Showmasters? I suggested that form of optional authentication would be a good way to offer it to those who wanted, but the general opinion on here was that would slow things down too much and be unworkable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Wookie69 Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Can I ask those lucky enough to have gotten items signed by Stan, did his staff put a hologram sticker on your item to authenticate the signature? I saw that the prints outside his signing area had these stuck on them,so just wondered if your own items were authenticated in this way too? I had the chance after getting my Just Imagine #Catwoman and Amazing Spiderman 700 signed by Mr. Lee to get a hologram sticker on both but was told it was £5 each. And £10 may not seem a lot to most people but it wasn't in my budget and I didn't have it to spend. Was that his people, someone independant or Showmasters? I suggested that form of optional authentication would be a good way to offer it to those who wanted, but the general opinion on here was that would slow things down too much and be unworkable. This was Stan's people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerraHawk Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Can I ask those lucky enough to have gotten items signed by Stan, did his staff put a hologram sticker on your item to authenticate the signature? I saw that the prints outside his signing area had these stuck on them,so just wondered if your own items were authenticated in this way too? I had the chance after getting my Just Imagine #Catwoman and Amazing Spiderman 700 signed by Mr. Lee to get a hologram sticker on both but was told it was £5 each. And £10 may not seem a lot to most people but it wasn't in my budget and I didn't have it to spend. Was that his people, someone independant or Showmasters? I suggested that form of optional authentication would be a good way to offer it to those who wanted, but the general opinion on here was that would slow things down too much and be unworkable. This was Stan's people. Thanks. That makes sense, they're experts at this sort of thing and know what some customers want. Still, proves it is a workable way of doing things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiniDawson Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Managed to get a auto on the Friday afternoon session. a bit miffed about not having any option to get the authenticity sticker one one of my bits, had a copy of "Scream Along with the Merry Marvel Marching Society" signed but i guess i will have to send off all my evidence i was there and get it authenticated for later in life. my one gripe is this, on the Friday a very nice SM person was handing Stan the bits to get signed, she couldn't have been more careful with some of the rarer items, she was a pro. but at some point Stans manager mover her out the way and took over, this guy! seriously couldn't have cared less abut the items just wanted to push them through, i had to be a bit short with him as he almost folded the sleeve of my record in half! im lucky i took the record out before giving it to him. Even Stan remarked on how old it was and that he dosnt see them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomMajor Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 This comment is not aimed at Stan Lee but the organisers: you know the age and health concerns of someone who is 91 years old and you ignored them to make money. you knew he would a large draw for numerous people, so why didnt you take the option of making of making the friday an all day event. i tried to get Stan Lee's auto on sunday and arrived at queue at about 8:15 and there was already several hundred people in the que, at that point i realised along with my partner that there was really no way of being successful in obtaining his signature. i feel that this event has probably jeopardised his health and this is coming from my partner who works in the health care community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zemo Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 So why did they not put the stickers on things at the Friday signing? Jeez... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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