Question about the Doctors (WHO)

[dogsoldierspoon]

I decided to skip Smitt, Tennant, Capaldi and Eccleston this edition because both budget and I figured they'd be so busy with only being there for one day (except Capaldi) that it wouldn't be possible to get their autograph anyway on a regular VQ. So, I was curious if they did get through all their diamond passes eventually? Did any of them personalise? Did I make a huge mistake in not trying after all?  

[autographfan]

Only David Tennant made it to VQ - in fact he managed it fairly early on despite being really chatty and dedicating if asked. I think he made it through about 200 VQ tickets by close of play?

I saw Christopher Eccleston very early in the day and he was dedicating, and I've seen on here that he was writing quotes as well. I think because of late running photo shoots he was struggling to get through all the diamonds later on in the day though!

Matt Smith was a disaster, I'm not sure he got through all the diamonds in the end and definitely no VQ. He was over 3 hours of photos scheduled, which overran by another 40 minutes, and had very limited signing time. No dedications but he was writing things like character name underneath the signature.

Peter Capaldi had a similar problem to Matt Smith - except he also had a talk on top of that, and even less signing time - but promised to stay on until 7 in order to see all the diamond pass holders. Despite him reaching pass number 240 on Saturday they started from passes 0-20 on the Sunday morning, and didn't get to that number again until about 6PM, despite there being quieter periods earlier in the day where they were actively turning away diamond passes with higher numbers, which resulted in those people staying well past 6PM in a horrendous queue. Official rule was "No dedications" but he was spending a fair amount of time with every fan, writing whatever you wanted on there (and some fairly lengthy inscriptions). A super nice guy but I feel like either his diamond passes were oversold, or they shouldn't have been so strict on DP numbers earlier in the day.

[Raylenth]

David was the only one I actually went through myself and he was brilliant, like Fan said he gave everyone time dedicated, added character names and got through a lot of people because he had more time as he wasn't doing a talk and so many shoots.  His was a brilliant experience.

[tenaciouspirit]

7 minutes ago, autographfan said:

Matt Smith was a disaster, I'm not sure he got through all the diamonds in the end and definitely no VQ. He was over 3 hours of photos scheduled, which overran by another 40 minutes, and had very limited signing time. No dedications but he was writing things like character name underneath the signature.

 

I think this was all a fallout of the delayed photos, because I went to him in the morning (10:30 ish) and it was really well managed, and they were doing dedications. I think sadly the delays pushed everything back. 

As said above, could have got a dedication from Chris too. But chose not too for that one.

 

Both were very lovely. My friend and I said Chris was like a good mentor/ teacher: polite, pleasent, and willing to answer questions. Matt was like that guy you'd want to have a pint with: cool, smiling, laughing, and telling a joke or two'. I had a great time

Edited July 30, 2018 by tenaciouspirit

[Chris164]

Can't speak for David or Christopher since I didn't get autographs from them, but I saw Matt around 11:30ish, happily dedicating away and seemed particularly engaged with the fans. Peter was the same, except even more engaged, hugging everyone and offering handshakes, and particularly for artwork, was writing longer messages and personalisations (even though we were told he wasn't). In my case, both personalised with writing my name at least, but it did seem like it was falling to shambles around 5 pm (I got my Capaldi auto at around 5:30).

[KarenRoss]

Yea Matt Smith was definitely doing personalised autographs in the morning as I got one, and not just with my name but a bit extra. But due to him being so far behind with his photoshoots I guess he wouldn't have time for personalisations in the evening.

Capaldi was a total gentleman and really caring so he was still doing personalisations in the evening even after the crew said to us that he wouldn't. 

 

[dogsoldierspoon]

Good to hear they put in all that effort, despite being so popular and being there for only a day (or 2 in Capaldi's case). Hopefully I'll get the chance to meet them next time :)

 

[Nerd Who]

Kind of regretting not even trying to get a VQ ticket for Tennant, but then again I was in at 9.40am, had 8 photos back to back, a talk, had to queue over two hours for Eccleston and Smith’s autos, so I guess it was never going to happen for me...

I was kind of impressed that Eccleston and Capaldi still personalised and chatted with everyone even in late afternoon, they were really dedicated to their fans.

Matt Smith was the only unpersonalised Who auto for me, and knowing that he did personalise in the morning is even more frustrating. I’d have got his auto earlier if I could.  Still very happy with my auto, but meh it could have been better...

[MVronsky78]

Dog, if I'm honest yes if you are a Whovian I think you made a mistake!  I thought long and hard about it but bought Diamond Passes for Capaldi, Eccleston and Smith, ending up with high numbers for the first two - Tennant was announced too late in the day for me and I couldn't be bothered, but fortunately a friend acquired his DP and got me an autograph.  Sounds like I could have met him with a VQ ticket though, which is great for those who managed to.

I have posted about Capaldi and Eccleston elsewhere, but Matt Smith was charming and remembered people from the photoshoot (or at least pretended he did!)  I managed to see him by about 2pm and he was still personalising then, and we had a very brief chat about The Crown.  By then autographs were limited to two per person - apparently, multiple signing requests were slowing down queue progress.  I suspect it was only his final hour of signing that commenced way after 5pm that he stopped personalising and limited autos to just one per person?

I did think Showmasters had bitten off more than they can chew with 8-9 doctors, but ultimately the gamble paid off for all of us prepared to fork out for DPs and what an achievement.

[Matty-lad]

So I ended up Diamond for all 4 Doctors. Spent most of the day Saturday queuing for Peter Capaldi to be turned away at 6pm when he had to leave. 

Got there really early on the Sunday to pick up our VQ tickets before queuing for all 4 Doctors. I have to say I was worried about fitting in all 4 autographs and photos on the Sunday as I knew how busy they would be (plus I had to get Richard Wilson and Steven Moffat.) In the end I'd managed autographs from both Christopher and David by 10am.

Then the waiting game. I stood in the Peter queue for a while without moving. I had a low Diamond number for Matt so left my brother in the Peter queue while I got Matt sorted. Then back to Peter. he then went for all his photo shoots, talk, lunch etc so I got my 4 photos done.

Back to Peter's queue at 4pm and that's where I stayed until I finally got my autograph at 6.20pm.....

Long day with a few stresses but I have to say, worth it to get all 4 Doctors (and I met them in order - 9, 10, 11 & 12 weirdly....)

[fanowaty]

When I was getting my David Tennant autograph I had a VQ number 166 for him. At the time I joined the queue he reached 355 on vq. So yeah, he did a lot of those.

[Chaya]

I had Diamond for Chris, David and Peter, because I luckily have met Matt at another event already.

On Sunday I got Chris and David early without any problems and with dedications. Queuing was open to all diamond passes by that time.

For the autograph with Peter I had to wait very long. I stood in the queue at 11am and at 2pm twice for a while. Nobody told me by then that they were handling the diamonds by numbers. As I had a high number, I didn't have to arrive before 5pm actually. I returned to Peter's queue at 4pm and waited there until I finally got my autograph at 6.30pm. By that time only one autograph without dedication were given. Actually Peter dedicated anyway.

The organization from 4pm was very well, although it was disappointing for me, that the higher diamond numbers due to the time problems were reduced to just one autograph without dedication, while the ones in the morning were treated differently.

In my opinion the diamond passes for Peter were oversold. He had 5 photo shoots and a talk on Sunday and therefore not much time for autographs. The next time I would be happy when not overselling diamond passes for a guest and/or in case of many people having diamond passes for a guest to organize it better from the beginning.

Apart from this I like to thank Showmasters for bringing so much Doctors to the con. I would be happy if Tom Baker will be invited again next year, because without a diamond pass for him I was not able to get an autograph this year.

[Sassy1988]

On 30/07/2018 at 11:58 AM, Nerd Who said:

Matt Smith was the only unpersonalised Who auto for me, and knowing that he did personalise in the morning is even more frustrating. I’d have got his auto earlier if I could.  Still very happy with my auto, but meh it could have been better...

 

Yea I kind of wished I went for Matts auto earlier too, I think I tried twice to get Matts auto earlier in the day but was turned back both times as he was either going for lunch or something. So alas we never managed to get his auto until around 5pm when the Crew where rushing us and we where forced to only one auto and no dedications, kind of gutted about it but I'm still happy, after waiting for years for this opportunity just to be able to finally meet him was enough for me lol

As for Tennant I got to his auto table at around 10am I think but only managed to get a VQ of 438 or something stupid like that, obviously never going to happen at that number. However at around 5pm shortly after I got Matts auto I found out Tennants auto queue was closed and I was impressed to hear he managed to get to 400, I was so close lol

Not sure on Capaldi or Ecclestons auto queues though as I have already met Capaldi several years ago thus opted to leave him out and I managed to pre-order Ecclestons auto online

 

 

[jonedney124]

I was in Christopher Eccleston's auto queue from 16:50 - 17:15, they were just trying to get through all of the Diamonds while debating what to do about his TARDIS photo shoot, which was meant to start at 5 but as we all know, Matt's overran. They said Chris was meant to leave at 6, which is why I didn't want to come back later so just managed to get Chris's autograph before rushing over to be the very last of David Bradley's photo shoot (seriously, he was sitting there on his phone, all other people gone apart from the crew and one or two waiting to pick up the one with Colin and Paul from earlier). Matt didn't return to his signing area until after 17:30 but got in his queue with my 66 pass and then was finally allowed into Peter's queue coming up to 18:00. It was stressful getting them all within the last 90 minutes of the day but had no choice, my Eccleston and Capaldi numbers were too high, Matt's was on 1-50 for ages and I was very busy with shoots throughout the day. The chaos of Matt and Peter did allow me to get Bonnie, Colin, Rory McCann, Paul McGann and Peter Davison in the space of 15 minutes, as they had little to no queue for the last official 15 mins of the day.

[Kurdamoni]

I think SM was a bit overexcited as well with all these doctors attending, and they wanted everything they could for themselves and the fans. All the possible photo shoots, signings, group shoots....It was a once in a lifetime probably so they wanted to make the most out of it.

[SamA96]

I have to admit I never really had my heart set on 'chasing' after the doctor actors but when you've got so many of them in one place it's very difficult to resist especially given that it might never happen again so I'd say it was definitely a dedicated convention for whovians.

[Jason S]

I was in the late Matt Smith Tardis shoot, but it actually had an unexpected benefit. I'd earlier gained a VQ ticket of 307 for David Tennant but seeing what had happened with Tom Baker not reaching VQ's on Friday, (which made my decision to get a diamond pass, a sound choice there) and how busy Matt and Peter were, I didn't think I had any realistic chance of a Tennant auto. However since Davids auto section was just down from the photo shoot where Matt was, I decided to try my luck, and sure enough found someone in the queue saying he was signing up to 400. Funnily enough though there was a girl in front of me with her brother or boyfriend who had a number higher than 400. In speaking to her, she said at one point a guy staff member had said to them, just to join the queue. However a lady came out at that point to tell the crowds that there had been a miscommunication and that it was indeed only up to 400. And shortly after that, we heard the announcement to close the queue behind us. However the girl to her credit, just took a chance and stayed in the queue, and sure enough she got through and met her hero. Which she was overjoyed at. As was I when I got to see him too. It meant missing the Sam Neill talk I had a ticket for, (and was already late for when I came out of the Matt Smith Tardis shoot) but hey, sometimes sacrifices have to be made. And I'm happy with my choice there! I gained two dedicated autos from David Tennant and got to see him signing autos in a Scottish bunnet Haha! And he was lovely to meet. All big smiles and handshakes!

Edited August 2, 2018 by Jason S