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Remember SM is a business and has to cover costs.


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There's 2 ways of doing this high prices and fewer attendees or reasonable prices and big crowds. I personally would have rather pay more and have a bit more room and shorter queues.

 

High prices won't keep attendees away if the guests are great. This event has proved that, biggest turnout yet for LFCC with multiple high priced guests.

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I thought Stan Lee was very cheap. When you look at there has been guests at Autographica that have been 3 figures. It was 45 and let loads of people get a autograph or 90 and let half as many. You've got to remember Stan's in his 90s and it seems the pace goto Jenna Coleman who is in her 20s. I think the number of people he saw should be commended but it was always going to be first come first serve. You do read a lot about people worrying about safety and crowds etc but then in the same breath they'll work a guy in his 90s 12 hours a day with no breaks in high temperatures.

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My feeling is that they turned away so much business by being so disorganised, this event could well have made a loss. A little investment in staff, signage and above all management could have kept virtually everybody happy and turned in a big profit.

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It was poor organisation on everyone's part really but look at some of the posts recently. Extra Stan Lee sessions, the complicated entry post and asking for more crew for LFCC post. It wasn't great but it's wasn't Gaza or Hillsborough either. It was a popular event in London it was always going to be chaos. I am surprised there was no police there, you've got to think at Stamford bridge around the corner there would be police there. It might have kept a little order and stopped the queue jumps at least.

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Personally I think after yesterday no one is under any illusion that Showmasters is a business and 'has to cover costs'. I would go further and categorically state that as a business it does not only have to cover costs but PROFIT from it. Otherwise it goes against any business model. Unless your a community based business of course but that's special cases.

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There's 2 ways of doing this high prices and fewer attendees or reasonable prices and big crowds. I personally would have rather pay more and have a bit more room and shorter queues.

 

SM is a business that had no regard for health & safety on Saturday.

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I would pay higher ticket prices if it meant I could walk around without getting injured, crushed or ending up feeling faint and anxious from the claustrophobia!!!

Showmasters are a business yes and as such their priority should be customers welfare and that was clearly not the case this weekend it was clearly all about the money, take that awards ceremony on sat night for example it was in no way worth £20 and undoubtedly cost far less to put on considering it had no guests, no awards and was in a hall already set up for talks so that to me is already a profit right there.

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There's 2 ways of doing this high prices and fewer attendees or reasonable prices and big crowds. I personally would have rather pay more and have a bit more room and shorter queues.

SM is a business that had no regard for health & safety on Saturday.

They also have a duty of health and safety to the guest remember. They are guests not slaves and you can't expect them to work non stop for 10 hours.

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There's 2 ways of doing this high prices and fewer attendees or reasonable prices and big crowds. I personally would have rather pay more and have a bit more room and shorter queues.

SM is a business that had no regard for health & safety on Saturday.

They also have a duty of health and safety to the guest remember. They are guests not slaves and you can't expect them to work non stop for 10 hours.

 

 

I never said anything about making the guests work non-stop for 10 hours. I was talking about health & safety for the ENTIRE event, which includes EVERYONE present. The queues outside the venue, the over-crowding inside the venue, the lack of aircon, the locked fire escapes..... do we need to go on because the list goes on.

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I only read the title of this one ... my reply - yes any business needs to make a profit but all businesses have responsibilities and a duty of care to staff / volunteers and customers - so really whatever the good or the bad opinions are from this event they need to take them all on board and learn from them in either case - those where failures occurred though are most important as any business should know any negative feedback spreads among a population and potential future customers more than positive feedback

 

I had good and bad experiences over the weekend and my opinions on this forum will show both my good and bad feedback - but to indicate that SM are a business at the end of the day to in some way excuse the negative feedback of customers ? wrong ... sorry

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It was poor organisation on everyone's part really but look at some of the posts recently. Extra Stan Lee sessions, the complicated entry post and asking for more crew for LFCC post. It wasn't great but it's wasn't Gaza or Hillsborough either. It was a popular event in London it was always going to be chaos. I am surprised there was no police there, you've got to think at Stamford bridge around the corner there would be police there. It might have kept a little order and stopped the queue jumps at least.

it could have been hillsborough if the fire alarm had gone off, especially in those little autograph bunkers that jenna coleman and john hurt were doing signings.... i would've hated to see how people would of got out of those enclosed spaces in a hurry, especially as there was no signs in there to show the evacuation route to the nearest emergency exit

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There's 2 ways of doing this high prices and fewer attendees or reasonable prices and big crowds. I personally would have rather pay more and have a bit more room and shorter queues.

 

Nice for you. And what is a bit more?

Remember the problems this year arose by a lot of people wanting to see Stan Lee, for which they wanted to pay a bit more.

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SM are a business?!?!?!?! Really??????? Hey they kept that quiet didn't they!!! Would never have guessed that in a billion years!!!!!!!!

 

This year problems with queues outside. 2013 problems with queues outside. 2012 problems with queues outside. Also at Newcastle there was problems with........yep queues outside and lot's angry people. Least there's consistency.

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Up entry to 20 quid and have a limit on sales. Do the event over a full 3 or 4 days like the 2 similar sized cons in Us and Canada cons.

I'd up it further to 50 quid and give a free 15 pound autograph similar to what they did at Autographica/Boxingmania at Birmingham.
50 quid a day or as a package deal for the weekend? Edited by stevie_g
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50 a day early bird. San Diego is 45 dollars standard entry. London was 8 quid. I know it's relative but personally I think entry is to low and is part of the problem.

That comes out at just over £26 pounds for san diego.

 

I think the prices are fine as they are but maybe there could a wider time difference between early bird and standard. I'd make standard from maybe 12 or 1pm

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Cost of living and taxes etc are lower in Cali and a good chunk of guests are from in state so no airfare. You also get promotional guest which appear for free, I'm not sure we get that over here.

 

I goto all the Collectamanias and how annoying is passing through types. I was in KFC last year and listened to a family talking that had been in the arena and just taken pictures of guest on their phones and they were saying "why pay for a autograph when you could just hang around the car park".

 

I'm not saying price families out of the market but I think what happened the other day was people that had never been to a con before paid 8 quid expecting to meet Stan Lee and Carrie Fisher then when they were hidden away they got the hump. The heat didn't help (but then there was a con yesterday that people were stuck outside in heavy rain). Like I said maybe they could give a voucher away so you could get a 15 pound autograph free with the increased admission.

 

I'm spit balling really.

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