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Thoughts about show after our debrief & how to move forward


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The event costs just seem to be going up, and up and up.

 

More exclusive tickets, and higher prices is all that I see.

 

Instead of tacking the real issues, its just going to get worse, and more and more people are going to be disappointed. :grump:

 

That's the issue though. If you keep everything open to everyone and cheap, this weekend happens all over again. People just wander up at a random time and fill up the hall or the queues outside. And then those are the vocal people who will complain and call the event rubbish because they were too cramped or didnt get in.

 

And it's not liek we can easily just go somewhere else. There's only really the Excel (which is expensive to hire lots of) or (and it'll sound crazy) the O2 arena. I dont think there is anywhere else in London big enough for how big this event has become. So if SM cant afford those 2 places without making tickets crazy expensive for us, then they have to stay at EC2 and work out ways to cut down the attendees slightly. So pre-paid only is a great way to do that.

 

EVERY walk of life has increased prices these days. I'm sure all the stuff Jason and co have to pay for to run these events has gone up recently, so they have to make that back some how.

 

 

I have no issue with the pre-paid idea.

 

I'm just miffed why it has to be 'exclusive' and therefore higher prices.

 

Why not just sell pre-paid tickets for autographs at the standard rate?.

 

Thats the bit I'm having trouble with. You could make it better just changing the way you do things, there is no reason to invent new price levels!.

 

.....and I don't want a photoshoot!, mug, or lanyard, or badge. I just want an autograph.

Edited by farmer
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The event costs just seem to be going up, and up and up.

 

More exclusive tickets, and higher prices is all that I see.

 

Instead of tacking the real issues, its just going to get worse, and more and more people are going to be disappointed. :grump:

 

That's the issue though. If you keep everything open to everyone and cheap, this weekend happens all over again. People just wander up at a random time and fill up the hall or the queues outside. And then those are the vocal people who will complain and call the event rubbish because they were too cramped or didnt get in.

 

And it's not liek we can easily just go somewhere else. There's only really the Excel (which is expensive to hire lots of) or (and it'll sound crazy) the O2 arena. I dont think there is anywhere else in London big enough for how big this event has become. So if SM cant afford those 2 places without making tickets crazy expensive for us, then they have to stay at EC2 and work out ways to cut down the attendees slightly. So pre-paid only is a great way to do that.

 

EVERY walk of life has increased prices these days. I'm sure all the stuff Jason and co have to pay for to run these events has gone up recently, so they have to make that back some how.

 

 

It is going to have to move because at some point Earls court is getting torn down. On the radio yesturday they said it would be closed by the end of the year.

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Thanks for the update, Jason.

 

Stopping walk-ins on a Saturday sounds sounds great as, provided the online store tickets are capped at a sensible level, that should keep the hall from becoming too overcrowded as it was that day (I'm prepared for wading through lots of people, but that really was a bit scary at times). However, I hope some thought is being put into the policy re online sales cut-off, though, as it means that people who would come for last-minute guests wouldn't be able to do so (assuming that ticket sales were still at an acceptable level for this to happen). E-tickets would be a solution here - less hassle on the office, less chance of the wrong ticket being sent out, more flexibility for the fans, more sales for SM (and smaller queues at the sales desks!). I know it's a big investment, but I hope it's still an option being considered.

 

Hot and squishy conditions aside, I had a brilliant (if exhausting!) time and am looking forward to the next one.

Hmm, Not sure E-Tickets are the right thing... When you go to a concert doors open around 1830hrs , main show starts around 2100hrs that means staff have time to scan the Bar codes.. Think Saturday.. It would take much longer to get in if each ticket had to be Scanned. It's not the fastest way, not in my book.. Staff on the door collected your Early bird ticket and you were straight in...

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Well its nice to get some feedback.

 

Not sure how I feel about the exclusive tickets for big guests. It would all come down to would it be a fair price for that guest or would it be a higher price just to make more money.

 

But there are more issues that need going over. The outside queueing needs metal barriers to control the crowds and to use the space better. So there is not the dangerous situation of buses and cars squeezing past lines of people.

 

There needs to be barriers inside for the queue lines. The tape on the floor does not cut it anymore when there are 1000 people trying to get into a photo shoot with Stan.

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This year was my first time at lfcc and had and excellent time, yes I got there early with my prepaid early bird ticket and had hours of queing but Tbh that's what I was expecting with a lineup as good as it was, any issues I had with saturday were all sorted by sunday and I was impressed with how much staff did try to help, they couldn't sort everything but all did there best to try after all they are all only human. I appreciate this post from you explaining things from your side and look forward to my next trip to one of your events....... Keep up the good work :)

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I do think that it's time to invest in e-ticketing, I think the event has gotten to that point where it's become necessary. I like the sound of the exclusive tickets though. I've done normal gold in the past and was considering that for next year but might be interested in the exclusive ticket depending on the guests.

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Very informative, there were problems but overall I had a great time, I suspected that he wasn't feeling too good, I did get a little stressed as I didn't want to miss my photo with Helen Slater, I ducked out of the queue and risked missing Stan, I managed to get back to the queue before Stan had arrived. I completely understand the no touching rule, but the two biggest guests, Stan and Carrie, touched me anyway, Carrie rubbed my my beard and Stan grabbed my arm as he walked passed :)

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This was my first time ever going to LFCC and appart from it being hectic and stressful, i still managed to get all photo ops done and most of the autographs i wanted with the exception of 3 missed. Also when is the expected duration of time to wait for refunds on photo ops that were cancelled before the show? Like Natalie Dormer/Finn Jones photo cancellation.

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Hmm, Not sure E-Tickets are the right thing... When you go to a concert doors open around 1830hrs , main show starts around 2100hrs that means staff have time to scan the Bar codes.. Think Saturday.. It would take much longer to get in if each ticket had to be Scanned. It's not the fastest way, not in my book.. Staff on the door collected your Early bird ticket and you were straight in...

 

You can do the scanning in the queue though. As people queue 2 hours before the event starts anyway, its better use of that time. Then straight in when the doors open.

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e-Tickets are a great idea and would've gotten rid of my 2 hour wait to collect my online tickets that didn't arrive. On Friday there was a constant queue of at least 50 people trying to sort out problems with wrong tickets or tickets that hadn't arrived. e-Tickets would've avoided issues like this and allowed you to apply team members elsewhere in stead of having to sort issues like these out.

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it was my first show on Saturday and I went with my wife, son , daughter and her boyfriend ..not one of us had a bad day and we all came away buzzing. Maybe its because we haven't been to a show before our expectations were lower who knows ? all I know is i expected it to be hot , busy and organised chaos so was not disappointed :dance:

 

My son got his Stan Lee photo and is chuffed to bits as was I as i got to see the legend himself . :clap: who incidentally is 91 and to get through what he did over the 3 days makes him even more of a super hero in my book

 

Thanks for a great Saturday and I look forward to nxt years line up :coolthumb:

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- 'Package deal' tickets for A list guests=good idea (assuming the price is within reason)

- .

And assuming it doesn't undermine the value of the gold passes further and that those will still work, and keep the numbers more limited again. It will get very expensive if you have to buy a special package to meet each "big" guest on top of any other tickets/passes you might need etc. Should be thought about very carefully.

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e-Tickets are a great idea and would've gotten rid of my 2 hour wait to collect my online tickets that didn't arrive. On Friday there was a constant queue of at least 50 people trying to sort out problems with wrong tickets or tickets that hadn't arrived. e-Tickets would've avoided issues like this and allowed you to apply team members elsewhere in stead of having to sort issues like these out.

Having e-tickets is surely becoming almost essential now with the size it's getting to. Would allow people to buy right up to morning of the event, limit the queuing at the sales desk and free up staff there for other things potentially, prevent all the emails/queries and issues on the day about lost tickets, should allow much faster refunds (though that has improved a bit it seems) and they could still charge an admin fee instead of losing the postage fee but would save someone having to trundle to the post office with armfuls of envelopes all to be sent recorded delivery, save having to match up lots of tickets to the right order and even save the cost of printing the tickets. Worth looking into now, surely.

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The only suggestion I can think of is to not do what San Diego Comic Con does and give those who attended the previous year first preference. This has totally destroyed any chance of first timers attending. For me personally I thought the event went very smoothly. Oh the a better selection food vendors would be welcome.

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I am assuming the exclusive guest tickets wouldnt be the ONLY way to get those guests. So you can still get the guest for a usual price, but just maybe not as early or as 'for definate' as the exclusives.

 

So if they are too expensive for some people, those people wont lose out on that guest entirely.

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One problem not addressed here.

An actual 'professional' setup is needed if your going to have venues the size of the Super Stage. The sound system used would have struggled in venues with good acoustics; let alone in that hall. This should all be contracted out to a professional company from the start; this is a necessary cost of putting on a large event; especially when you have paid talks in addition to entry tickets. There seems to have been sound problems all through the weekend for both paid and free talks.

 

Also queing seems to have been chaotic..and when going in for the stan talk; some of the rows of seats had been pushed forward so much you couldn't actually sit in them (this is actually against H&S fire regs by the way tinyurl.com/owwtc54).

Having sat down for the free dr who talk after queing for 30 mins..we were asked to move seats......twice.

 

I understand this is maybe a first time of dealing with a stage this size but lessons need to be learned.

Edited by benweblight
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I was there friday afternoon and got in to meet stan and get autograph, done this as i knew waiting for him on saturday was going to be a nightmare.

 

on saturday had early bird ticket, got to queue around 8:30 doors opened at 9 got in about 9:30 went and got all my v.t 472 for summer and this was at 9:40, number 200 for michael biehn or as the ticket said natalie dormer, and 200 for david hewlett, got photo shoot with david and stan as well also on the spur of the moment went and met curtis armstrong great guy, only 2 problems i had was the heat, i could not feel ac on, had a few puffs of cold air but that depended on where you were standing, and the summer glau queue, one minute it was up to 120, then went too 500 which caused a huge queue in the middle of the hall.

 

i also managed to leave and re enter without any problems.

 

thank you for a great weekend loved it all and will be back to lfcc, i go to collectormania regularly as i live 10 mins away, myself i think the stalls are better managed at cmk and easier to access then at lfcc, but that's just my opinion.

 

p.s get some more almighty johnsons guests only had 1 so far, you like getting power rangers guests, 1 of the cast of almighty johnsons was in power rangers, 2 birds 1 stone me think.

 

thanks again for great time

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May I ask what happened at the Game of Thrones screening and who the special guest was meant to be? Cheers Jason!

 

I will be back for sure non the less :)

 

I'd also like clarification on this as how the guest speakers were decided when 2 had no lines in the episode that was shown and the 3rd wasn't even in it!

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There is Earls Court 1, with a capacity of 20,000, whereas Earls Court 2 has a capacity of 10,000. It's. right. there.

 

My big problem was simply the over-crowding. The layout didn't help, that to access the back of the hall you have to push through the dealer's tables, it meant for very poor movement through the room, plus if you wanted to browse the stalls it was too crowded and rushed with people pushing through. To my mind, the simplest answer to 99% of the problems would be to use the larger hall next door.

 

The other simple change that would have improved the weekend would be to allow the side doors from Earls Court 2 to be used as exit only. They empty out onto the roadway surrounding the building, and unlike *certain other conventions* setting up one-way entrances and exits, it's not a huge chore to walk around. It makes sense to use the main entrance as the entrance, but to have a one-way exit would allow more movement.

 

Also, above-head height signs are vital.

 

Bless Stan Lee for being such a trooper! But a lot of people are assuming that the next con, without his presence, will be quieter and changes therefore aren't important. I disagree, geeky events are a hugely growing market and it's only going to get more popular!

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Personally, I had a wonderful time and met most of the guests I wanted to meet. Can someone please elaborate on the touching thing for me? All the guests I shook hands with seemed fine with it.

 

It is to do with the Stan Lee photo shoot. People were asked not to touch him when having their photo taken.

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Hi Jason

 

Thanks for the post.

I was there for the Friday preview and all day on Saturday.

The organisation was very good, as ever, but moving around the hall on Saturday from about 10.30am - 3pm was very difficult due to the sheer volume of attendees. Trying to get from the main talk stage to a photo op was nigh impossible - I'd suggest a couple of 'express' lanes through the hall so those not shopping can get through, and these might help the wheelchair users and those on crutches get by without getting battered and bruised!

 

Thanks to all the crew for coping in very trying conditions.

 

Firko

 

An expressed line would be great - I have a walking stick and even with it close to me it kept getting knocked out from me and people hitting into me. I really needed to get out by 10.40 and they wouldn't let me out the side exit and I couldn't go around the talk area as someone stopped me. The help I got at Summer Glau photo op was awesome.

 

As others had said the pre-paid early tickets weren't in by 10.05 more like 11.05 - I managed to get out of the hall by 11 and they were asking the early bird people to hurry up because otherwise they might as well have got standard tickets.

 

Overall I had a fantastic time but there are some serious problems that weren't addressed in your response - mostly it was about Stan Lee and I manged to meet him. I do like the ideas you have come up with - the special packages and to only allow those in on Saturday that have pre-paid but even then there was too many people.

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Thanks for this Jason, hope it helps people understand why certain things happened. I think you guys did an incredible job over the weekend especially with the much greater than expected turnout. The proposal of having big guest specific packages does sound like a good idea and will help put people's minds at ease knowing that they will be guaranteed to get an auto/photo with their sought after guest.

 

I'm so pleased to hear that Stan had a wonderful time here and I hope we all left a great impression on him. As you've said before Jason, after getting Stan Lee, we can expect even more bigger guests to attend in the future. And I'm positive you'll strive to make future events run even smoother and fairer!

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