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A total shock @ Olympia Exhibition Center for LFCC - A review.


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So I was there yesterday and today...and never in my life did I see the carnage and chaos that was london film and comic con.

 

I honestly thought that I'd had seen the chaos more in Earls Court 1 last July...I guess I was wrong. Where did they go wrong I bet you're asking themselves. Autographs were great - in and out, maybe a small chat to the guests if they were able to, yes, the guests were lovely for whom I saw - Robert Englund, Jason David Frank, Erin Cahill, Christopher Lloyd and Cameron Jebo as well as Kristian Nairn (Hodor) from Game Of Thrones for my friend's poster.

 

To be really honest, no other guest apart from Michael J Fox, whom I wanted to meet but wouldn't pay the £400 fee to get the diamond pass I really wanted to see, not even Ms. Sigorney Weaver. I want to talk about moving guests around which makes it harder for people like myself or people in wheelchairs/scooters to move around to get to said guest.

 

Photoshoots...let's get to them. I only had one - Jason David Frank which was today at 2pm. however, a friend of mine, had a clashing photoshoot but couldn't get to it in time...why? - crowds of people just hanging around upstairs...I found this to be most troubling, especially when you have people just sitting down or standing up and eating or chatting about. I have no gripe about that, however, they should have gone outside to chat with friends/other cosplayers and/or eat. Photoshoot stalls were very stupidly placed with Stall "A" would be placed on level 3 and stalls C to F would be placed on the ground floor...I thought that it was easier for disabled people whom couldn't use the stairs like myself, to get to JDF's photoshoot in time when I needed to get the lift down...how much I was wrong there.

 

LIFTS - you need to make this clear. We had people in there - non disabled people/able bodied people being very rude to myself whom is disabled by rushing into the elevator and not letting anyone out as well as telling me that no one was coming out to let me and my mom (whom is my carer) into the elevator.

 

I am outraged that people were very rude like that, in fact, if it had not been for one of the managers of Showmasters (god, I never did get his name!), pulled a few people aside and told me and my mom to use the elevator after my mom had a good talk with him about putting people outside the damn lifts so that disabled people can get in easier (which, to our astonishment, when we went to the lift at level 1, that there was a crewmember positioned outside by the elevators).

 

Now let's get to the crowd attendance. It was worse today than yesterday admittedly...however, you should not have nearly over 2000 people show up and expect it to be a cake-walk. It was agonising, painful to walk around with that amount of guests and the fact that everywhere you turned, people were either bashing you in the face with their backpacks, people had suitcases there and just generally pushing and shoving without even saying "sorry". Now this was what I was talking about being worse than Earls Court last year...at least you had space (a bit of space, but space none the less!), whereas with Olympia, it was just more than a shoving match. The air conditioning was not turned on all round Olympia, just in certain places like stalls or photoshoots for example, this really again, did annoy me because it was 23 degrees outside today and a lot of people could have benefited from the air conditioning unit being switched on all the time AROUND olympia, not to mention the whole place smelt like 5 year old BO, it was disgusting and I nearly ended up throwing up because people were not using deodarant. (seriously people, it's 2015, use some flippin' deodarant!), and why were there no crewmembers at the gents bathroom when it overflooded and had to be shut down and why was that allowed to happen and where was your health and hygiene control!

 

Now let's get onto the final part of this review - the entrances. When I looked at the entrances, it said specifically - "YALC and DISABLED ENTRANCES", where the entrance was in 2013, however, when I went there, I was turned away and told to go to the "Olympia national", to which I was appauled because I was not able to walk far at all. You should have had disabled entrances there instead of being turned away and told that I was at the wrong entrance. In one sentence - NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

 

Your conventions need to be looked at in a sensible manor, planned very carefully, with your customers in the very front of your mind and disabled assistance needs to be upgraded as does young mothers with babies and small children. Able bodied people should be made aware of this fact AND MADE to use the stairwells.

 

You must make enough money from all these conventions to ensure customer satisfaction, which, I might add, at the last few conventions I have attended, have been very lacking and you have promised each year, you have said you are going to make it better than it was the previous year, but you failed miserably!

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I went on Friday and I enjoyed myself but I thought it was not as well organised as it could have been. I thought there generally wasn't enough staff/volunteers and they weren't in the right places guiding and advising crowds. Where there were people working for the event they didn't seem to know enough crucial information.

 

It was also extremely hot especially in the big signing area and I thought a bit more space and organisation in this area might have helped.

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It's hot it's sweaty it's crowded..the ques are long.

 

BUT

 

But they have some of the biggest guests in the world..

 

Making this for me an AMAZING WEEKEND.

 

Having a diamond pass..planning well and talking to the pit bosses get you along way.. Iv had clashes and they've got me through.

 

It helped have mjf and Chris Lloyd diamond pass as this gives you a lot of priroty.

 

But we all want BIG BIG names and unfortunately when the stars come so does the above.

 

The good far outweighs the bad.

 

Yes iv had to que practically for 3 days solid in sometimes blistering heat.

 

But wil I remember that or the SUPERB guests iv seen.

 

I will remember the guests.

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