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Queuing and Layout


U1RiC
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Wow! The queues for autographs is poorly organised again! Maybe all the crew should know what’s going on and how the system works. 

Some barriers/plastic chain links between guests would be a massive help to stop so many people queue jumping. 

Any thoughts?

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I think the holding area for queuing could have taken up less space, however it is dry today, I'm sure I'd have a different opinion if it was peeing down. 

And perhaps "roped" queues for some guest signing. This may have helped prevent some of the Robert englund/Danny Glover queue issues with VQ's etc. It seems to be running smooth now despite witnessing a few crew/pit bosses getting their ears chewed off.

I can understand people getting peeved about the problems, but remember it's not life or death folks! 

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1 hour ago, Brasco said:

It seems to be running smooth now despite witnessing a few crew/pit bosses getting their ears chewed off.

I can understand people getting peeved about the problems, but remember it's not life or death folks! 

Nope, because the guy who was sorting out the RP queue has just been replaced by a couple of others who have changed all the rules.

I'm not normally one to get peeved, but I'm peeving all over the place right now.

Edited by natedammit
I insulted the wrong queue, thats how peeved I was.
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3 minutes ago, natedammit said:

Nope, because the guy who was sorting out the RE queue has just been replaced by a couple of others who have changed all the rules.

I'm not normally one to get peeved, but I'm peeving all over the place right now.

In that case CRAP!

I am however glad I used peeved and not pi**ed, because I don't think the cleaners would like to clean up after the bear! 

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No Ray Park VQs in place first thing this morning, he’s always busy at SM events. Later on they added VQs but the line is very poorly managed. Scratch that, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of queue management over at the autograph section. 

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After attending today it seems there was very little preparation for how busy some guests were obviously going to be. I think partially the reason was due to how close together all the guests were seated, at points it was very difficult to tell which queue was for who, especially with no line barriers in place. Also a lot of guests who were obviously going to be very popular weren't on VQT, which would have helped ease the congestion. I understand that some guests aren't going to be as popular all day, compared to people such as Robert Englund, but surely it makes more sense to start off all the likely busy guests on the VQT system then remove it later on when it is less needed. Also, coming back to Robert Englund, surely calling people in batches 1-50, 1-100, etc. is a little bit too large a group of people to be waiting in a relatively small queuing area. I'm sure doing it in batch sizes of about 30 would have worked much better, as the whole area around him was manic, especially with Bella Ramsey having a queue that bent round the back of his queue.

I still managed to meet everyone that I wanted to and be out of the venue by 11.30, but the queuing could do with some serious improvement.

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Comicons = queing up. It's a rule everyone should get used to.

Robert Englund was my most painful wait but that was only because he was signing agonisingly slow.

As with every main showasters event

I get to London at 5am opens at 9am

I got to Birmingham 7:30am opens at 9am.

This dedication enables us to get the low VQ tickets.. enables us to avoid the chaos. 

If you really really want an auto.. early bird catches the worm. 

I thought it was a great event today and improvement on last year and it's growing nicely.

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Did think the queing for ray park? (I think it was) was redicolos could barely move round that area, and i found it confusing with other guests on what que to get in... on the other hand I thought the organising for the green screen photo shoots was good and the crew was very helpful and happy... though I do think they both needed to have been behind a screen so that people didn't take photos whilst people where getting there professional photo done... still people were ignoring the crew. 

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51 minutes ago, Baggieboi said:

If you really really want an auto.. early bird catches the worm. 

I completely agree, but I was 87 for Robert Englund and 107 for Ray Park, and was still getting kicked out of queues past 1pm.

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I was in the first handful of people outside the door at 6-something this morning. I went straight for the available virtual tickets as soon as my wristband was on, and my virtual ticket for Robert was in the low 40s. I stayed in his queue for the first hour leaving only after he had and we were encouraged to, being told that we'd be the priority upon his and our return (other queues had grown drastically in the meantime, at least one having turned into a VQ, so I ventured off for a short while), and when I rejoined the queue, it still took several hours to reach the front due to problems like a lot of people successfully pushing in close to the front. No offence to the staff, but it wasn't as simple a matter as getting there early and Robert moving slowly (I was with him for less than a minute when I finally got there, somewhere between 2 and 3).

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I hope this all gets sorted out for tomorrow (usually does by past experience). 

I remember Robert Englund being somewhat busy in Cardiff in 2013, but still saw everyone, and he had no queue by afternoon at Collectormania 20 in Milton Keynes too. 

So with that thought, I decided I might as well get there tomorrow by midday and I'm now regretting not booking an earlier train from London >_< 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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31 minutes ago, Graphic_Delusions said:

I hope this all gets sorted out for tomorrow (usually does by past experience). 

I agree. I thought the queueing system for various guests was a bit of a shambles but I have to give SM their due, if there are any issue on the Saturday they will usually be resolved come the Sunday.

Got off the plane from Glasgow at around 8:30 so I knew I wasn't in the best position for VQ tickets. Still queued up before 9 and was in earlier than I had expected but there were no VQ tickets in sights for some of the more popular guests. I missed out on Christopher Lambert and Danny Glover today and will make sure I will join the queue early tomorrow morning. I am glad however I managed to get some of thr more popular 'Saturday only' guests e.g. Adrian Edmundson and Phil Taylor.

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4 hours ago, Baggieboi said:

Comicons = queing up. It's a rule everyone should get used to.

Completely agree and understand that comic cons are about queuing up, that's just the way it is. I just felt like had most of the busier guests started on VQT it would have meant less time for people standing in very long queues, especially those that were slowly moving. More time could then have been spent enjoying the rest of the convention, rather than standing awkwardly close to people in the heat for extended amounts of time.

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Overall I thought it was a great day. Showmasters do lots brilliantly, but issues such as VQ tickets seem to come up fairly regularly at events.  It was a little bit irritating today but it didn't spoil my day. I still can't believe however that the best way to organise photoshoot queues is by one man trying to shout across a noisy hall though........

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Thinking back to yesterday, even having the layout that photo A did with the tape on the ground marking queueing areas  for autos might make it a bit easier to marshal? It would certainly made it easier in photo areas B and C at the very least giving a boundary for folk to wait behind unless called. 

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I’ve been coming to SM events for 10 years and think the auto layout and early management was a bit of a shambles for the busy guests. 

I didn’t understand why the guests weren’t on an actual hall wall like last time. The big queues for some guests were getting out of control and blocking the general thoroughfare for that main aisle. 

I think the problem was inexpericed crew being put in charge of VTs for busy lines and generally getting the day off to a bad start. This particularly happened with Robert Englund’s queue. Thankfully I saw expedited SM crew take over the situation and tried their best to help annoyed fans (and all my support goes to them as that is not a fun job) but most of the damage was done by then. 

Thankfully the only autos I was getting were Daniel Bonjour and Aimee Garcia. But I was annoyed in Aimee’s queue by a man pushing in near the front and making the man in front of him step aside so he could snipe pictures of Billy Boyd. Aimee’s assistant did nothing to stop this and was looking in that direction

So I agree that next time some roping off lines would help prevent pushing in problems 

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