Moderators DavidB Posted June 4, 2020 Moderators Share Posted June 4, 2020 Dear Friends, What a crazy time the last 4 months have been! First off I want to say that we hope you are safe and well, and we want you all to stay that way. We do have some news that many of you may have worked out by now, but with the Corona Virus issue still affecting our day-to-day life we have had to take the hard decision to postpone July's London Film and Comic Con until a little later in the year, November 2020. I want to take a moment to bring you up to date on our plans with the on-going situation and also some of the things that we have had to take into consideration so we are in a position where we can deliver the events you have come to expect from us. There is a lot to go over and its important to us to be transparent and honest with you all, so please take some time to go though it. Thanks so much :-) 1). Thank you everyone for being patient and understanding as things have unfolded with the continuing fluidity of this exceptional situation. We wanted to weigh up what’s best for you all, the guests, and the hobby that we all love and enjoy, and having this time over last few weeks has been helpful to get our plan together, so thank you for that. We have been able to learn as much as we can about what we are dealing with and as such we do have a plan that will work to bring all events back online as soon as it's safe to do so and we can all enjoy them again. 2). London Film and Comic Con will now take place on 20th to 22nd November 2020. This will still be a 3 day event and will be pretty much the same as what we had planned for the summer date. There will clearly be some changes to protect peoples health and safety and we will have much more info about this and the guidelines that will be in place in the next few weeks and months, as your health and safety is our number one priority. 3). All tickets for London Film and Comic will be automatically transferred to the new November date. YALC will also be moved, but to our July 2021 London Film and Comic Con ( 23rd to 25th July 2021), and all tickets for that will also be transferred to its new date. If you cannot attend the new dates then a digital credit voucher will be issued upon request. This voucher will be good to use for any future Showmasters events up until the day after July 2021 London Film and Comic Con, (26th July 2021). At that point, should you have not used your voucher, upon request you will get a full refund. 4). Guests that have all confirmed to attend the new London Film and Comic Con date in November : Alan Ruck John Wesley Shipp Clark Gregg Robbie Coltrane Elizabeth Mitchell Steven R McQueen Andrew Gower Ashely Walters Noel Clarke Staz Nair Natalia Tena Anjili Mohindra Sacha Dhawan Misty Rosas Nick Frost Simon McBurney Mark Boone Jr Kim Coates Harry Manfredini Amanda Tapping Ben Browder Tom Skerritt Veronica Cartright Jason O Mara Mark Pellegrino Clare Kramer Karen Allen Barry Bostwick Emmy Raven-Lampman Sam Humphrey Julian Glover Julian Holloway Meat Loaf Riz Ahmed Sylvester McCoy Colin Baker Mandeep Dhillon Omid Abtahi David Ramsey - Fri only 5). There are a few names below we do not yet have the final sign off to attend the new date, but that is just a formality and it looks like they will be attending. Ming-Na Wen Aaron Paul Alice Cooper Mat Fraser Danielle Nicolet Scott Ian Jesse T Usher 6). We also have a few guests who we know cannot make the new November date and we are working on them being rescheduled to future events as follows. They are : Ernie Hudson - LFCC July 2021 TBC Henry Thomas - LFCC July 2021 Comfirmed Dee Wallace - LFCC July 2021 Confirmed Robert MacNaughten - LFCC July 2021 Confirmed David Warner - LFCC July 2021 TBC Sean Biggerstaff - London Comic Con Spring 27th & 28th Feb 2021 Confirmed 7). We also have 6 brand new guests for our November London Film and Comic Con and they are : Marc Blucas - Riley from Buffy The Vampire Slayer Anna-Louise Plowman - Osiris from Stargate SG-1 Ron Millkie - Friday 13th Sin Cara - Wrestler Road Warrior Animal - Wrestler P J Black - Wrestler 8). The above are just the start of the guest line up for London Film and Comic Con in November and now we have this new date set we can start to book in and close more amazing guests to complete the line-up . The one positive thing from the virus is that so many new guests are wanting to get out and attend our Comic Con. Productions are being bumped and put on hold and there is a back-log meaning we are now being offered amazing guests we have wanted to book for years! So watch this space as we will have a great line-up for you :-) So this is how it's going to work if you have already purchased tickets to London Film and Comic Con : 1). All tickets will be transferred to the new November date for London Film and Comic Con automatically. You do not need to do anything for this to happen. 2). If you cannot attend the new date in November then you will need to contact us on shop@showmastersevents.com and we will issue you a voucher for the amount of money you have paid. That voucher will be good to be used up until the day after July 2021 London Film and Comic Con, (26th July 2021), at which point any amount not used on the voucher will be eligible for a full refund. 3). Thank you for your support on this and because you all are working with and helping us in this crazy time, we plan to keep each of your names on file and we will find additional ways of thanking you over the next 12 months. We have great working relationships with many of film companies and we have talked at length with them with some very cool ideas in the works. So you will benefit in helping us though this crazy time as well as ensuring the next event will again be a world class Comic Con that you will play an integral part in as always. Some facts that you may not know and will help you understand why we have taken this path with vouchers for this year. 1). Because the government has not put a ban on public events all the contacts between venues and events still stand and are still binding to us. Venues are also in a tough place and while most are now starting to agree to transfer the booking to later dates, none are prepared to just return money already paid to them. So we can run an event in the future with the money we have pre-paid a venue, but we can’t get the money back. Consequently we have a lot of funds tied up with venues over the year that we cannot use right now. 2). This is also a similar case with most airlines and tickets we have booked for guests. They will only give us a refund if the flight is officially cancelled by the airline itself and that will not happen until around a week out from the date of the flight, (immediately before the show's dates). As we book around £300,000 worth of flights this also ties up a lot of funds that we again cannot get back until the show takes place. 3). The guests that are booked to attend our events we either have already part paid or fully paid in advance, which is fine normally. Also, most of these guests have agreed to attend the new dates so again this is funds that are tied up with them and not with us! So I think you can see what we are saying here. We have a lot of money that we have already paid out to venues, guests and flights that is safe but we will not be able to get it back before we run the event! Everything here is in a good way but if we were to refund everyone right now it would start to limit the planned guest line-ups and could make it harder for us to get the shows back on track as soon as we hope. There are people saying that things will not be back to normal for years, but we have a plan to buck against that with issuing the vouchers and transferring the tickets to the new date. It will make it possible for us to deliver the amazing events you know and love and get back to how they used to be, or even bigger, sooner. Your money is totally safe and in many cases it's 100% where it should be, with the guests, the venues and the flights needed to run these huge events! The issue is we have just had to move the dates. It does sound so simple when I say it like this!!!! :-) We now have all this in place and it has taken a lot of our time up to ensure we have the best system for this to work smoothly. We can now spend our time on new guests. As said before many films and TV shows are on hold and its looking like the backlog of production is going to help us with availability of guests for the next few big events so closing some of these A List guests is now our first priority and booking them in to the November show :-). I am sure all organisers find themselves in differing situations as every event is unique. We have acted to solve our challenges this way. Our events are quite different to other comic cons where we book around 500+ guests and many big names a year, and we are locked in and dependant on booking guests. So this is our fix and it may be different to other organisers who also have there own challenges to deal with and we do wish them and everyone in the hobby well in this odd time. We will implement all health and safety requirements at all our events until this virus is under control. We care and respect your safety and we all need to look after one another to get though this tough time. No one could forsee any of this last year and we are stable and sensible people and would never risk damaging the trust you have built up in us and the events we run. With such an unexpected chain of events we wanted to be honest and upfront and tell the truth and share with you all that we have planned and the challenges we had to deal with. We have been running events in the hobby for around 30 years and we are good, honest, trustworthy fans that just want to get back to putting on some of the best Comic Cons in the world. With your help and trust we will get back on track very soon. We really do miss you all and it has left a big emptiness with the entire team here. Fandom is a very powerful thing and together we will once again create many amazing new memories that will last a life time. Thank you, friends, and we will see you soon. Take care and stay safe! Jason and the Showmasters family OUR COMIC CON DATES FOR 2020 & 2021 2020 15th & 16th August Film & Comic Con Glasgow Braehead Arena, Glasgow 5th & 6th September Collectormania Birmingham The NEC, Birmingham 12th & 13th September Collectormania Milton Keynes Planet Ice, Milton Keynes 20th to 22nd November The London Film and Comic Con Olympia, London 2021 27th & 28th February London Comic Con Spring Olympia, London 8th & 9th May Film and Comic Con Belfast Titanic Exhibition Centre, Belfast 23rd to 25th July The London Film and Comic Con Olympia, London 14th & 15th August Film & Comic Con Glasgow Braehead Arena, Glasgow 20th & 21st November London Comic Con Winter Olympia, London 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 No surprise there really. Can’t see anything happening con wise from scheduled until November anyhow, so I think the others will be postponed too. Fingers crossed it’s all good by then... will be interesting to see if a certain event scheduled end of October occurs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitewillow Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Sad, but expected. I think I would like to attend the November event, and plane tickets will probably be cheaper, but there's the issue of a potential second wave of COVID-19 in autumn. So I will keep my fingers crossed and wait and see, hopefully the November event will take place and I will be able to attend. So I won't request a voucher just yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitewillow Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 OK, question: is there a cutoff date for when you can request the voucher, if you can't attend in November? I won't know for sure until closer to the date, so should I ask for a voucher now or wait until, say, October, and ask for the voucher then if it turns out I can't attend? Will I still be able to ask for the voucher in October? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yellowmarlin Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Can I assume that there will be some flexibility over photoshoots if one can no longer attend on the specific day that it was purchased for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DavidB Posted June 4, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted June 4, 2020 13 minutes ago, whitewillow said: OK, question: is there a cutoff date for when you can request the voucher, if you can't attend in November? I won't know for sure until closer to the date, so should I ask for a voucher now or wait until, say, October, and ask for the voucher then if it turns out I can't attend? Will I still be able to ask for the voucher in October? I've asked and apparently no cutoff date :) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebster118 Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Disappointing but expected and understandable. Unfortunately, I won't be able to go on the November dates due to other plans and commitments. But am keeping an eye on the Collectormanias, and next year's LFCC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DavidB Posted June 4, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted June 4, 2020 2 minutes ago, Sebster118 said: Disappointing but expected and understandable. Unfortunately, I won't be able to go on the November dates due to other plans and commitments. But am keeping an eye on the Collectormanias, and next year's LFCC. Hopefully you can make it to another one in the future :) not sure I can go myself, but itching to get back to something! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DavidB Posted June 4, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted June 4, 2020 5 minutes ago, yellowmarlin said: Can I assume that there will be some flexibility over photoshoots if one can no longer attend on the specific day that it was purchased for? Yes - I don't have exact details right now, but yes there will be flexibility. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serscottypoo Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 That is great news for me, it was obvs the July event was going to get cancelled but the fact they got almost all the guests back is great! I was worried that I was going to miss out. Got a spring im my step today and I cannot wait till November now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurdamoni Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Thanks SM! I’ve put it in my schedule I’m attending as soon as I’m sure! Can’t wait to meet Robbie Coltrane really... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewrolar Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 (edited) not really too upset as it's made my mind up for me whether or not to do both or either of LFCC and DST . now with them a week apart , DST will be my preferred option ( if either still happen) LFCC was always going to be a "not sure" this year ,even before covid, due to other issues and the lineup With 30-40% of the actual lineup I was interested in, not going now, its really made my mind up my first missed LFCC since I started in 2013 Edited June 4, 2020 by andrewrolar 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DavidB Posted June 4, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted June 4, 2020 1 minute ago, Kurdamoni said: Thanks SM! I’ve put it in my schedule I’m attending as soon as I’m sure! Can’t wait to meet Robbie Coltrane really... Me too! Definitely right up there at the top of my list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenArrow2046 Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Sadly it was inevitable. I don’t think I will be attending a comic con for quite a while to be honest, although we don’t know what procedures will be put in place yet I don’t really want to pay a fortune just to keep a massive gap between me and the guest, that wouldn’t make for a great memory. It’s understandable but I think I will probably wait until things go back to normal 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victoria Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 I have to say I think that is a very intelligent, honest and thoughtful response from Showmasters given the circumstances, I personally think it has been very well thought out, and the bigger picture is this benefits EVERYBODY. (I know some are not happy about a non refund for 14 month but the bigger picture is essentially that money is tied up, Showmasters would loose a ridiculous amount of money if they started issuing refunds to the detriment of their reputation and it would set them back about 3 years as a business, that would also mean for the next few years smaller (cheaper) guests) I was essentially going to attend for Henry Thomas so it looks like I may give Nov 2020 a miss and look to 2021 Unless of course one of the 'biggger' (subjective!) guests for November appeals to me.. Much respect to Jason and the team. Hope to see you in 2021. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DavidB Posted June 4, 2020 Author Moderators Share Posted June 4, 2020 I've tidied up this topic and responded to a few people by private message with instructions :) Thanks everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Effect Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Thank you for the update. Good job on getting so many of the guests booked for the new dates, fingers crossed Alice Cooper can also make it :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsCorleone Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 I LIKE!!!! Hotel and flight rebooked without any problems. Great to see that my Sons of Anarchy are still on the list. Hope it will work out in november. Cant waaaaaaaaaaait :) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benweblight Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 (edited) So it would appear that Cardiff Comic Con has gone to the great convention hall in the sky.... Edited June 4, 2020 by benweblight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeartDT Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 (edited) Thank you for the update. I know we were all anxious to hear but its obvious you guys were doing lots behind scenes in regards to options and getting as many guests possoble to attend in Nov. Good work!!!! Edited June 4, 2020 by HeartDT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiga Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Well done Showmasters. A very well thought out message. So happy with this announcement. Cautiously optimistic for November now and so excited to still be able to meet Robbie Coltrane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerj Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 12 hours ago, benweblight said: So it would appear that Cardiff Comic Con has gone to the great convention hall in the sky.... Very disappointing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicAvatar Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, GreenArrow2046 said: Sadly it was inevitable. I don’t think I will be attending a comic con for quite a while to be honest, although we don’t know what procedures will be put in place yet I don’t really want to pay a fortune just to keep a massive gap between me and the guest, that wouldn’t make for a great memory. It’s understandable but I think I will probably wait until things go back to normal Agreed. Much as I'd love to see some of the guests, I can't see it working with social distancing in place. It'll be a shame if I can't go, as I've missed only one "main" LFCC since 2004. Will wait and see how things progress over the next few months, but suspect a voucher in my future (at least I can spend it on LFCC in 2021, so thanks to SM for that idea)... Edited June 4, 2020 by CosmicAvatar 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jangojohnny Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Cool 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Lucas Posted June 4, 2020 Share Posted June 4, 2020 Quote OUR COMIC CON DATES FOR 2020 & 2021 I notice DST isn't on the schedule, is that still happening? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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