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Price of Diamond Passes


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I was aware of this when I was purchasing mine but as I was going through looking at the cost of Diamond Passes for other guests I noticed it was for every diamond pass guest and I was wondering why you have to pay upto £45 more just to have the privilege of being guaranteed an Autograph and Photoshoot.

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16 minutes ago, TimDavidHunt said:

I was aware of this when I was purchasing mine but as I was going through looking at the cost of Diamond Passes for other guests I noticed it was for every diamond pass guest and I was wondering why you have to pay upto £45 more just to have the privilege of being guaranteed an Autograph and Photoshoot.

You've answered your own question Tim. You pay the extra for the guarantee of an autograph (and in most cases a gift). With vq you run the risk of not getting an autograph with a DP guest. :D

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I understand that but other cons you pay for an autograph ticket for the standard price and that guarantees you without inflating the price more you shouldn't have to pay upto £45 just to have that guarantee/privilege, the gift you get certainly doesn't total £45.

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4 minutes ago, TimDavidHunt said:

I understand that but other cons you pay for an autograph ticket for the standard price and that guarantees you without inflating the price more you shouldn't have to pay upto £45 just to have that guarantee/privilege, the gift you get certainly doesn't total £45.

Nobody was forcing you to take the diamond pass. Many are happy to pay the extra for the guarantee (and priority queueing as well) especially if you have a lot of guests to see as it takes the stress out of the experience. Its not like it was a secret charge. If you disagree with the cost you are perfectly entitled to not buy it and take your chances. It's the way Showmasters do things and it works well.

Also I have attended other events that operate a pre-purchase "guarantee" and ended up being refunded when they were unable to get round to us due to demand. Showmasters always get DP's through except in very rare occasions and circumstances.

Edited by Ravogd
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And not only autos and photo..talk as well with some guest, with best seats. Some guests a DP was a saviour when it comes to auto, when a VQ would have been a real gamble. A DP has helped me several times to cut time for doing other things at the con, instead of massive queuing.

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My brother and I were very happy with our diamond passes. Without one I would not have been able to get an autograph from Ian Somerhalder. And when I got to Haydens photo shoot I was like: "Oh my gosh, now THAT'S a queue". But I was brought right inside when showing my pass. Same counts for the autograph tables. Sometimes we were late and our batch was already being called. And we were always brought right to the table (often because they were already through with diamond pass holders or because we had a low batch number). That saved us a lot of time. Even with my DP I ran out of time. But without them I would have only half of what I have now. So I'm glad I payed the extra costs.

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It's all about how much you want to spend Tim and how much you want to meet a particular guest.  It also depends upon your commitment to the event - for example by staying to the close of the event on Sunday, you could have met just about any diamond guest you wanted to (barring one or two exceptions) on open queue.

If you've got kids, holidays, a car, a house to redecorate etc - then diamond passes are very expensive and presumably prohibitive.  If you haven't and film and TV is your primary hobby, then diamond passes have now become an essential component of LFCC for a lot of us con-lovers.  And I would imagine that most of us on the forum fall into the latter category, though by no means all as is clear from reading peoples' posts.

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Diamond Passes have been great for me. Besides a guarantee of meeting the guest, it means I don't have to stay in hotel the night before and start queuing from 5.30am for VQs like I have in the past.  I brought my 7-year-old and the diamond made everything much easier for him. 

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Showmasters are running a business. If you decide to get a priority ticket, which is basically what a Diamond Pass is, then you pay the premium. For me if it's a guest I really want to meet then I find the DP worth it. It makes the day run more smoothly. But I can understand why some people would rather not due to the extra cost. It's a balance between what's important and what you can afford. Just looking at prices charged by other cons I do find Showmasters to be very competitive. 

 

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47 minutes ago, TimDavidHunt said:

I understand that but other cons you pay for an autograph ticket for the standard price and that guarantees you without inflating the price more you shouldn't have to pay upto £45 just to have that guarantee/privilege, the gift you get certainly doesn't total £45.

Correct because you aren’t paying for the gift, you’re mainly paying for the guarantee. But like everyone else has said no one is forcing you to pay it, it’s entirely up to you and if the diamond passes didn’t work or weren’t popular then I’m sure Showmasters wouldn’t keep using them, personally I think the diamond passes are great and I will continue to keep buying them 

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I think everyone isn't understanding with TimDavidHunt is saying, he is merely expressing his opinion, he's not saying that he was forced into getting the diamond pass, it may be a complaint/constructive criticism, and that is totally fine, he's trying to make LFCC aware of what he believes, and he's right, he's not breaking any rules, he's merely voicing his matters, I do not understand where everyone else is coming from when they say, "No-one's forcing you to pay it", have you ever gone in a shop and look at a T-shirt that looks nice and see the price tag and think "that's not really worth it" or buy a T-shirt and think "oh that's not worth it",  he just wants it to be fairer, and I understand him, I personally agree with him...

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11 minutes ago, Dr.1963 said:

I think everyone isn't understanding with TimDavidHunt is saying, he is merely expressing his opinion, he's not saying that he was forced into getting the diamond pass, it may be a complaint/constructive criticism, and that is totally fine, he's trying to make LFCC aware of what he believes, and he's right, he's not breaking any rules, he's merely voicing his matters, I do not understand where everyone else is coming from when they say, "No-one's forcing you to pay it", have you ever gone in a shop and look at a T-shirt that looks nice and see the price tag and think "that's not really worth it" or buy a T-shirt and think "oh that's not worth it",  he just wants it to be fairer, and I understand him, I personally agree with him...

Firstly he's not expressing an opinion he was asking a question. He asked " why you have to pay upto £45 more just to have the privilege of being guaranteed an Autograph " People were just telling him the reason why. Secondly as PeterCapaldiFan has said Showmasters is a business. Business' offer services at a price. They offer you the option to pay extra to obtain another service i.e. priority queueing and guarantee of the auto. Being fair doesn't come into it. I can't afford a Mercedes but I'm not going to say it's not fair because other people can.

Anyway we're getting into prices and things and this has been debated in the forum before I'm fairly sure this thread will get closed once mods see it as it is rehashing old ground.

Edited by Ravogd
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Its own personal choice whether you feel it is worth it or not.  Personally if there is a guest i definately want to be sire of auto and i know they will be busy   e.g ian somerhalder and christopher lloyd i get DP.    Yes  you pay more but personally i feel its worth it for the guests i feel it worth it for... no stress of needing low VQ and also not having to check back all time if your vq is called.   Also saves time for photo too.   Its personal to each person and as i say only the individual can decide if dp is worth it to them for that particular guest.   You can always roll the dice with VQ if you dont want to pay for guarantee with DP

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The problem I have with Diamond passes is that so many are sold now that if it is becoming more frequent that people in the VQ will not get a look in, or at the very least the VQ numbers will not get very high.  

Jenna Coleman was a good example this year.  By the time I had to leave the show at around 4pm on Saturday she was only up to VQ 60.  Now I know I can buy the Diamond pass if I want to, but I never want a photo, I just want an autograph and so I cannot justify paying 3x the price of the autograph to have that guarentee.  So I left the show without an autograph and disappointed.

And yes, Showmasters are running a business, but if things continue this way, they will lose me as a customer as there is no point going if I can't meet the people I want to using VQ.

So, do I think Diamond passes are fair...not entirely.  Yes, they are available to everyone but they simply will not suit everyone.  I think what would be ideal is having more variety of diamond passes.  If there was such a thing as an autograph only Diamond pass, I would absolutely use it!!

 

 

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Just now, Andrewmoore0 said:

The problem I have with Diamond passes is that so many are sold now that if it is becoming more frequent that people in the VQ will not get a look in, or at the very least the VQ numbers will not get very high.  

Jenna Coleman was a good example this year.  By the time I had to leave the show at around 4pm on Saturday she was only up to VQ 60.  Now I know I can buy the Diamond pass if I want to, but I never want a photo, I just want an autograph and so I cannot justify paying 3x the price of the autograph to have that guarentee.  So I left the show without an autograph and disappointed.

And yes, Showmasters are running a business, but if things continue this way, they will lose me as a customer as there is no point going if I can't meet the people I want to using VQ.

So, do I think Diamond passes are fair...not entirely.  Yes, they are available to everyone but they simply will not suit everyone.  I think what would be ideal is having more variety of diamond passes.  If there was such a thing as an autograph only Diamond pass, I would absolutely use it!!

 

 

It has always been stated for DP.guests that only way to guarantee is with the DP...... SM cant control how fast a guest will sign or how many breaks they may need  so if they are slow or need a few breaka then of course they might not get to vq or many of them.     Guests are only human at end of day.      I took a gamble with 2 guests for vq and i got rhem luckily one last thing sunday but i knew i took a gamble and was my choice.  Not sm fault if i didnt get them.

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Closing here cause the initial question has been answered. Plus we've been through this 1000 times and I know where this inevitably is going. ;)

It's been explained repeatedly: without Diamond Pass the guests would not attend, and a Diamond Pass is the only way to guarantee an autograph. There has been a variation this year already with the daily Diamond Passes, but I honestly don't think we'll get "pick your own package" any time soon. 

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