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LFCC 2018: Highs and Lows


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So.. after my account finally got approved (one week after the event .. oh well) i just would have liked to share my high / lows too, as a first time attendant.

High: Meeting a good list of Star Wars actors for my collection signing. Most of them, were also very nice and interesting to talk to.

In general the stars were great to meet - Sam Neil - absolute fan of - was quite the gentleman. Lance Henriksen mused about which pen color fits best to which signing and so on.. Nasty Boy Knobbs, Rose McIver, Jeremy Bulloch, Tom Atkins and many more.. very nice people, despite the stress of the con.

The Comic part of the section was mostly very relaxed, compaired to the movie part, the authors quite chatty and friendly (with the obvious one or two expemtions).

 

Low:

1, David Duchovny - for the price he had, he was very uninterested.. 

2, The chaotic queuing for Ray Park at Sunday.. i was finished with everything at 3 pm, but still waited for the line to get opened properly (it was most of the time only DPs, then they randomly took some low number VQs, but never really started a queue). So after waiting for over two hours for a queue to start, they still hadn´t done anything. I then gave up, would have been my 13th and last autograph..  partly my fault too, as i should have secured it the first two days already.

3, A - for me at least - unwieldy locationing of the stars. Would have been really helpful to have somewhere a plan of this. As well as of the talks.. in the end i didn´t take part in any talk, as they were nowhere clearly to look up - only thing which was, were the talks for the comic part of the convention, which i took part in quite some.

4, The no photo agenda.. why not take a quick rememberance shot of getting my auto? I won´t buy a photo session, just cause they forbit taking pics...

5, Extremly hot and absurd prices for just a water even.

 

Summarising it was an interesting (and expensive ;) ) experience.

I would like to agree with some of the previous posters - bring them Star Wars and Wrestling stars.. not everyone is a Doctor Who fan after all ^^

Also i would second that a diamond pass simply for autographs would be more interesting.. i have very low interest in photos, so paying high price for one, doesn´t seem a good choice, if i could get another auto for it.

 

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On 8/5/2018 at 10:15 PM, Dent_1 said:

I've heard a few people on here complain of Duchovny's demeanor at the show and wondered on what day those people met him.

I had a Diamond Pass and met him first at his Saturday AM photoshoot: he was all smiles, giving handshakes and enthusiastic greetings to everyone. In fact it stood out to me that rather than facing the photographer, as nearly all guests do, he was facing the line of the people coming to meet him: he gave a proper greeting with eye contact etc.

From the photos I have seen, he looked more chipper on the Saturday than Sunday. I managed to have a quick few words with him about something as well which never happens at photoshoots in my experience.

When I went for his autograph early afternoon, it was very much the conveyor belt experience but that felt more down to his management than him. He was still polite and amenable over colour of pens/personalisations for the multiple photos I had bought him to sign. He even had a laugh over what he thought my name was when reading it off the ticket wrong due to my poor handwriting.

Of the talk, people said he seemed annoyed but to be honest, I did't really get that. Yes there were some daft questions but that is par for the course. I think he is just quite dry and deadpan. He was often said to be 'underplaying it' as Mulder when the show was current. I think it's just a matter of him not being the Mr. Jazz-Hands convention pleaser some are used to. It would be great if every guest did a Capaldi for the fans but that's never going to be the case.

On balance I was happy with my interactions with him but had I only met him for an autograph I might have had a less rounded view of him over the day.

 

I met him on Saturday and was really happy with my experience - I knew he was bound to be super busy and everything would be pretty quick, but I'm so glad I did (and it was less rushed than I'd imagined it might be - although I'd deliberately tried to get a lowish number diamond pass which I'm sure helped). I too appreciated how, as you mentioned, at the photoshoot he was welcoming everyone as they stepped up before turning to face the photographer. He greeted me warmly, we shook hands, I HAD A HUG FROM MULDER!! and after the photo was taken he said something along the lines of hoping I enjoyed the rest of the day, and shook my hand again. I'm so happy with how the photo turned out! :wub:  After the morning shoot I went straight to join the short auto session he was going to do before lunch and although everyone was moved along pretty quickly he was still stopped to greet me again, chose the same colour to match the other autos I already had on my poster and signed it carefully - I was surprised he was doing personalisations, I appreciated that. We exchanged a few words whilst he was signing, and then he gave me a fist bump after (quicker than hand shakes I guess, you can do it with the pen still in hand - makes sense! :lol: ) and thanked me for coming. I also really enjoyed his talk, and didn't see anything wrong with his manner at all (I'm surprised to hear people did?) - he's a little more laid back and with a drier sense of humour and different kind of delivery than some guests but I thought he answered the good questions well and dealt with the more dubious ones without wasting too much time on them lol!

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10 hours ago, Neka said:

So.. after my account finally got approved (one week after the event .. oh well) i just would have liked to share my high / lows too, as a first time attendant.

High: Meeting a good list of Star Wars actors for my collection signing. Most of them, were also very nice and interesting to talk to.

In general the stars were great to meet - Sam Neil - absolute fan of - was quite the gentleman. Lance Henriksen mused about which pen color fits best to which signing and so on.. Nasty Boy Knobbs, Rose McIver, Jeremy Bulloch, Tom Atkins and many more.. very nice people, despite the stress of the con.

The Comic part of the section was mostly very relaxed, compaired to the movie part, the authors quite chatty and friendly (with the obvious one or two expemtions).

 

Low:

1, David Duchovny - for the price he had, he was very uninterested.. 

2, The chaotic queuing for Ray Park at Sunday.. i was finished with everything at 3 pm, but still waited for the line to get opened properly (it was most of the time only DPs, then they randomly took some low number VQs, but never really started a queue). So after waiting for over two hours for a queue to start, they still hadn´t done anything. I then gave up, would have been my 13th and last autograph..  partly my fault too, as i should have secured it the first two days already.

3, A - for me at least - unwieldy locationing of the stars. Would have been really helpful to have somewhere a plan of this. As well as of the talks.. in the end i didn´t take part in any talk, as they were nowhere clearly to look up - only thing which was, were the talks for the comic part of the convention, which i took part in quite some.

4, The no photo agenda.. why not take a quick rememberance shot of getting my auto? I won´t buy a photo session, just cause they forbit taking pics...

5, Extremly hot and absurd prices for just a water even.

 

Summarising it was an interesting (and expensive ;) ) experience.

I would like to agree with some of the previous posters - bring them Star Wars and Wrestling stars.. not everyone is a Doctor Who fan after all ^^

Also i would second that a diamond pass simply for autographs would be more interesting.. i have very low interest in photos, so paying high price for one, doesn´t seem a good choice, if i could get another auto for it.

 

Hi Neka, just an FYI the account approvals have to be done manually and the forum mod has actually been in hospital for the last 2/3 weeks so has only been dealing with the most urgent stuff.

They do publish a floor plan which shows the signing area but they can't publish specific locations of each guest as it would cause more trouble than it's worth - if they have to move a guest last minute because the location they had them isn't going to work there will be pandemonium when people go to the advertised location and they aren't there.  Also the guests do get moved between days when they have to account for day only guests who may need to be at a specific table for queue control.  I'm not aware of any event that publishes specific desk locations either.  (Please don't mention any names of events if you do no some as it's against forum rules to mention other events)

The heat is an issue at any event.  It's the middle of summer and all aircon will struggle to compete with the heat generated by thousands of people unfortunately, especially in an old building that wasn't designed for the heat.

The schedules of the talks are published on line in the days running up to the event (I took photo's of them so I could quickly reference them to see what was on and when) and there were printed versions of the schedule at various places but you may have not spotted them.

Re your guest comment, yes, not everyone is a Who fan but this is a general signing event and guests can be from any show/film.  They usually try to have a few guests from the same thing, kind of a theme, each year.  One year they had a few of the Back To The Future cast members, this year they were very lucky and pulled off a huge Who coup.  They may not be for you but that doesn't mean they shouldn't get them.  I personally have no interest what so ever in wrestling and cosplay so would be perfectly happy if they never announced another person from that but I don't object to the fact that they have them as they are popular and I appreciate people do want to meet them.  If guests aren't for you just shrug and hope next time more will appeal to you.

But I'm glad on the whole you did enjoy your first LFCC and hope you come to more!

Edited by Raylenth
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1 hour ago, Raylenth said:

Hi Neka, just an FYI the account approvals have to be done manually and the forum mod has actually been in hospital for the last 2/3 weeks so has only been dealing with the most urgent stuff.

They do publish a floor plan which shows the signing area but they can't publish specific locations of each guest as it would cause more trouble than it's worth - if they have to move a guest last minute because the location they had them isn't going to work there will be pandemonium when people go to the advertised location and they aren't there.  Also the guests do get moved between days when they have to account for day only guests who may need to be at a specific table for queue control.  I'm not aware of any event that publishes specific desk locations either.  (Please don't mention any names of events if you do no some as it's against forum rules to mention other events)

The heat is an issue at any event.  It's the middle of summer and all aircon will struggle to compete with the heat generated by thousands of people unfortunately, especially in an old building that wasn't designed for the heat.

The schedules of the talks are published on line in the days running up to the event (I took photo's of them so I could quickly reference them to see what was on and when) and there were printed versions of the schedule at various places but you may have not spotted them.

Re your guest comment, yes, not everyone is a Who fan but this is a general signing event and guests can be from any show/film.  They usually try to have a few guests from the same thing, kind of a theme, each year.  One year they had a few of the Back To The Future cast members, this year they were very lucky and pulled off a huge Who coup.  They may not be for you but that doesn't mean they shouldn't get them.  I personally have no interest what so ever in wrestling and cosplay so would be perfectly happy if they never announced another person from that but I don't object to the fact that they have them as they are popular and I appreciate people do want to meet them.  If guests aren't for you just shrug and hope next time more will appeal to you.

But I'm glad on the whole you did enjoy your first LFCC and hope you come to more!

Hello there and thank you for the eloquent answer!

First things first, i wasn´t complaining about the guest list at all, the mentioning of Dr. Who was just an answer to one of the posts, who meant that there´s no interest in the star wars/wrestling fans ;) As it was i´m fully for the varied roster the show offered, pls keep it up!

Regarding the floor plan/talk schedule.. i only visited some smaller cons previous to this one, so there really was no need for them to make plans. But with the size of LFCC it would have been helpful indeed, although i understand your reasoning with last minute changes. As for the talks i really didnt see any printed schedules, my bad again i guess.

Also sorry to the hospitalized mod, hope he/she´s better now. Thanks again and have a nice day!

 

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Post string removed because seriously... 1. no need to give people ideas how to get around the rules, 2. promoting abuse of the system and 3. I can't write what I just said or I will have to censor myself. Yes, this removed post string was completely against the rules. This is not cheeky by any means - the only non-forum self censored word I can come up with is "cheating." 

This will be reported to the office and to our  Extra Help people and I can guarantee you that this excuse will not fly again - original poster, congratulate yourself for hurting attendees who genuinely need extra help. 

It is beyond my understanding how you can be proud of doing this, and even admit to doing this on the official event forum.

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1 minute ago, Queen_Sindel said:

Post string removed because seriously... 1. no need to give people ideas how to get around the rules, 2. promoting abuse of the system and 3. I can't write what I just said or I will have to censor myself. Yes, this removed post string was completely against the rules. This is not cheeky by any means - the only non-forum self censored word I can come up with is "cheating." 

This will be reported to the office and to our  Extra Help people and I can guarantee you that this excuse will not fly again - original poster, congratulate yourself for hurting attendees who genuinely need extra help. 

It is beyond my understanding how you can be proud of doing this.

I'm sorry if I said anything wrong. :(

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1 minute ago, The Friendly Dalek said:

I'm sorry if I said anything wrong. :(

No, not you. Why do always the wrong people apologize? ;) You're not the original poster, you were just the second reply to the original post. I hid your post adn tompain's too  because my phone at the moment refuses to edit quotes, and you quoted the post. Sorry for the confusion.

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3 minutes ago, Queen_Sindel said:

No, not you. Why do always the wrong people apologize? ;) You're not the original poster, you were just the second reply to the original post. I hid your post adn tompain's too  because my phone at the moment refuses to edit quotes, and you quoted the post. Sorry for the confusion.

Alright then, thanks for the explanation.:D

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I started to do a write up of my weekend (totally original idea, not copying anyone). I didn't even get to the end of Friday before I got bored and gave up.

Low: The guy in the Jewel Staite photo queue on Friday who described someone's Kaylee pink fluffy dress cosplay as "increds".

Low: When I realised that by using my fan in a queue behind a hella stinky person, it was actually sucking in their stink and blowing it directly into my face.

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I thought Duchovny was not particularly engaged in his talk either.  That said, I really like the fact that I attended the talk and know that, now.  I think that, for me, the talks are the best value for money at LFCC.  (Especially when there are free ones!)  But even if I don't learn much from the things the guests SAY, I find watching the different ways different actors interact with the fans fascinating.  I mean, when you open it up to questions from the audience, you're bound to get some stupid questions, or (at the very least) questions that the guests don't really want to answer.  And learning which guests were skilled at turning the question into something they WANTED to answer, or finding a way to weave that humorous anecdote into an answer no matter what the question, was really interesting to me.  Duchovny, to be sure, did not seem to be that good at it.  (But there were a couple times when he got a good audience reaction, so he did more of the same to get the reaction again.)   But the fact that I learned he's not the best at this, and he went for it anyway, was worth the money for the experience for me.

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David was spammed with some seriously stinky questions haha I felt for him by the end.

I would say they need to vet the questions first as some are just time wasters.

But then you have Peter Weller who also took some stinky questions and ate them up and spat the people asking the questions out haha He wasnt afraid to call stupid out haha

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/30/2018 at 1:31 PM, trekkerjonathan said:

my highs

meeting sam neill was a great experience for me. told him that I recently watched reily aces of spies he asked me if it was still that good I said yes it was and his reply was I haven't seen that in over 40 years i'll have to take your word for it.

tony robinson was great too peter weller (more on that in my lows) was ok for me also met guy siner on Friday and i'm still laughing about him and the others from allo allo being dressed up as gruber her flick and Helga lol @(it made my day) james caan was also a high for me too said hello and thank you even joked with me about my asking if he would use my gold pen as he finished I ask can I have my gold pen back please he laughed and said no i'm keeping it before giving me it back)

had time on Friday and sunday to look around the stalls and get exactly what I wanted.

another high was meeting a lady called Christine and her son alex I saw them in the que for james caan on Friday and we got talking I found out alex is autistic and doesn't like queing as we was waiting we found out james caan was not singing until 12.30am so we left the que I said to both of them have a lovely day and didn't see them again until Saturday queing to get a vq ticket for sam neill  as we were waiting alex wanted the free dr who comic so Christine asked me if I would stay with alex I said yeah sure as we was waiting people were just barging past and alex kept saying sorry I said to him not to as it was them who should say sorry not him this was still happening as Christine returned and she told him the same thing. then we finally got our vq tickets for sam neill as we waked off Christine told me that they were getting all the doctors over the weekend and that was the last time I saw them was looking for them on sunday to say this I hope you have a lovely time and get all the doctors you want and hopefully i'll see you both next year

 

my lows

on Friday I joined the ray park que I then had a 2 hour wait for him as he was chatting to everone n the que (I don't have a problem with this) but it did annyoy me that a guy (I guess he was a dealer had loads of lightsabers for ray to sign and then ray park decided to do a lightsaber display while he had a very long que also I heard he had been talking to someone in the que for his autograph for 35 to 45 mintues.

 

another low was peter wellers que I went with my brother and as we got there my brother said join the que you have your gold pass so I joined the que my brother went off to get who he wanted. I must have been in the que for about 10 mintues when  a guy in a red shirt was going down the line as he got to me he looked at me and said do you have a vq ticket for peter weller I said no I do have a gold pass though guy in the red shirt said i'm sorry sir mr weller is a DIAMOND PASS GUEST and you'll have to leave the que. that's when I said um no he isn't but the guy in the red shirt said no he is i'm afraid you'll have to leave the que by this time I was so angry I said that I had been told to come back by the girl in the blue shirt (i'd been going back and forth looking to see if I could join either sam neills que tony robinson que or peter wellers que from 9.30am till 2pm) but was told to leave so I did I decided to call my brother told him what had happened he told me to stay there and he was coming to find me (by this time I had walked off  so as I walked back) as I got to the que my brother turned up and was just about to have a go at the guy in the red shirt. when the red shirt spotted me he called me over and said sorry sir MY information was wrong so he then slotted me back in the que were I was before I walked off while I was waiting in the que the guy that was behindme said that he had shown the guy in the red shirt that peter weller was not a diamond pass. and while I was waiting the guy in the red shirt kept apologizing to me everytime he passed

 

Should have reported the red shirt for being rude and unprofessional

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14 minutes ago, CrazyHorses said:

Should have reported the red shirt for being rude and unprofessional

Trouble is for whatever reason the crew member obviously was convinced Weller was, and therefore he was doing the right thing.  I mean you would expect the redshirts of all people to know who is diamond and who isn't but everyone is human, errors are made and with so much going on I guess it's sometimes easy for stuff to happen like this.  I know it could have meant someone less clued up could have missed out if they had done what the pit boss said and left though.  Best advice if you are sure - ask them to look on the website to show them the guest isn't, or insist they check with someone else if you know you are right.  I know it's not always as easy as that at the time though.

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On 7/30/2018 at 12:24 PM, Faerie Tanith said:

Oof. I hate poor guest experiences like that. D: I'm sorry. My dad was quite interested in meeting James Caan but the queues put him off. I'm kind of glad about that now since I'd have hated for him to go to all the trouble just to be ignored.

I have to defend James Caan. He was my absolutely high. I met him on friday.He was lovely at the photo op. Talked to me while he was going to his panel, because I showed him our photo op which  I put in this James Caan frame which they sold there. He liked it very much and his manager had to tell him he has to leave because of his panel. Later I saw him at his table and gave him this frame to sign and he was again sooooooo lovely. Just looked at me and said, "I had to talk the whole day. Just let me watch you for a second" When I was leaving I told him he was the reason I came and he took my hand and gave me a kiss. So sorry to hear that some people didnt have a good time with him, but to me he was one of the best and nicest guests I ever met. 

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So my highs:

James Caan!!! Like I explained in my last post. One of the best guests ever. 

Almost all other guests I met. Again very friendly and I got some great pics.

Peter Capaldis photo op was so full of energy and very much fun. Great guy.

Matt Smith and David Tennant did so many pics but took great pics with every fan.

Nice staff. Well organised.

Toilets clean.

Peaceful fans

Announcing Tennant in the hall. Will never forget the moment!

 

My lows:

Air con was ok, but to be honest we were  lucky that saturday and sunday was not as hot as friday. Friday was very very warm and the only reason it was ok was because it was not as crowded as the other two days. So please improve air con. 

Rory McCan was ok with me. But he was not really friendly in general (from what I saw). At my photo op he was all the time like "hi" "bye" "hi" "bye"- not looking at his fans and to the woman behind me he was actually very harsh, because she hugged  him. Ok, its not nice to hug without asking, but well I found him not cool.

Biggest low for me was probably that if you didnt que for the the stars you didnt see lots of them. This was different the last years. I dont take pics of them but I liked it better in 2016 when you got the chance to just see them on the tables. This year the tables were so far away. This was a little sad.

Oh and stop increasing the photo op prices. Its getting insane.  ;)

All in all. Perfect three days with some great memories I will keep forever in my heart, again.

 

 

 

 

Edited by MrsCorleone
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22 minutes ago, MrsCorleone said:

 

 

My lows:

Air con was ok, but to be honest we were  lucky that saturday and sunday was not as hot as friday. Friday was very very warm and the only reason it was ok was because it was not as crowded as the other two days. So please improve air con. 

Rory McCan was ok with me. But he was not really friendly in general (from what I saw). At my photo op he was all the time like "hi" "bye" "hi" "bye"- not looking at his fans and to the woman behind me he was actually very harsh, because she hugged  him. Ok, its not nice to hug without asking, but well I found him not cool.

Biggest low for me was probably that if you didnt que for the the stars you didnt see lots of them. This was different the last years. I dont take pics of them but I liked it better in 2016 when you got the chance to just see them on the tables. This year the tables were so far away. This was a little sad.

 

 

 

 

 

Showmasters don't own the venue so the aircon is nothing to do with them, there is a lack of venues in London large enough to host an event like this so they don't have many options really, they don't have the luxury of having modern venues to pick and choose from.  The events that do run over the summer could all feedback to the venue management, that is true.  Unfortunately it's an old building, and especially in the auto area the ceilings are low so it traps the heat in more.  Air con upgrades aren't cheap so the venue probably know it could do with doing, but that's more of a long term plan if it's on the cards.

The auto area was in the same location and other than some layout differences the tables were all in the rough same location.  If you mean you couldn't see them because the queue's were long and you couldn't go forward, that's the way it is unfortunately  The area gets very busy and if lots of people are hanging around just trying to see the guests it soon means area's become jammed.  On the flip side of it you get people commenting about how they couldn't get forward to see the display boards to see where they had called up to because there were so many people.  I know it's nice to see them if you aren't meeting them though.

Edited by Raylenth
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45 minutes ago, Raylenth said:

Showmasters don't own the venue so the aircon is nothing to do with them, there is a lack of venues in London large enough to host an event like this so they don't have many options really, they don't have the luxury of having modern venues to pick and choose from.  The events that do run over the summer could all feedback to the venue management, that is true.  Unfortunately it's an old building, and especially in the auto area the ceilings are low so it traps the heat in more.  Air con upgrades aren't cheap so the venue probably know it could do with doing, but that's more of a long term plan if it's on the cards.

 

Lets just hope next year is not as hot as this year. :) Good thing is there wont be a heatwave in march! :)  

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