Thank You All

[Mercury Promotions (UK)]

We are still busy at Comic Con HQ with the whole dismantling of the event still taking place but I just wanted to address a few notes that have been raised in terms of positive and negatives from the event;

• Queues - Once again the show proved massively popular, we pride ourselves on bringing the best guests we possibly can from the various genres of comic books, film & media to the show and it proved correct with you attending in the thousands. We posted and took notes last year regarding the event's venue and the majority vote wanted us to stay in Wrexham at the University campus - so we did! I think the queues were managed much better with signage held aloft in the air so all could see - we got 99% of the earlybird ticket holders in before 10.30am and general entry ticket holders were let in on time also - something that had always been delayed before now. As long as we stay at this venue it seems there will always be queues, we are looking at ways and means to help aid this but we did warn people before that long queues were very likely - I can only apologise to those that did wait for hours to get in but from the reaction on the most part people were generally happy with the event once inside.
  
• Photo-Ops - it seems every year someone wants to throw a spanner in the works. This year we had concern when our local printers at Jessops had closed down earlier in the year and we had arranged a deal with another printer in Wrexham who would open specifically for us on the Sunday to print our shots - upon arrival to the premises with the first batch of photos we then had to revert to a backup plan and head over to the print lab at Boots - one guest arrived late to the event which put the whole photography section into a backlog which in turn ended up having a knock-on effect on the talks, to address this next time we either have fewer shoots or fewer talks as not to clash as much.
  
• Q&A panels - these largely went by smoothly and the new William Aston Hall setup proved very popular - our one concern from previous experience was that the hall would not fill up so going into the day had the rule of letting people stay, this would also in turn take a large amount of people out of the main signing hall - in a twist of fate though the large talk hall was hugely popular even with the upstairs seating, though our smaller Q&A hall only had a small handful of talks that were attended. More notes taken for next time.
  
• Photo collection - Due to the already mentioned issue with our printers we went to our backup plan and got a large chunk of photos out on the day - the collection process for anyone who did NOT receive them on the day is simple. We will upload the images shortly to a dedicated page on our website and section them by the shoot i.e. Nicholas Brendon photos link - they will then in turn be issued an ID number for each picture, all you need to do is find our picture(s) and email us the codes with your name and address so the team can send them out via post for you - apologies as there was mixed messages about what times this would be online as it would have been physically impossible to get them online within the first day because we were all still working on the day event. Once they are uploaded the links will be readily available to access and also advertised across our social networks everywhere
  
• The Venue - Once again you proved just how popular the event is becoming and we are now looking to review how we run things on the campus - the possibility of opening it up entirely is certainly one that springs to mind and have people pay on the gates rather than at the doors, but I believe the crew handled everything fantastically - many people do not realise how much goes into preparing for such an event and we had a large number of people drop out this year for exams etc so when we decided to open up an extra exit or deal with an emergency in the talk halls the team did brilliantly! Communication of course is key so we need to review that too for the next one.
  
• Sign Posts - We had our maps made up for download and also on the show guide at the event but it seems to be clear that signs are needed throughout the campus - not the most conventional venue for a convention but many events in the US are certainly making it happen - again this year was our first one outside of the sports hall with multiple things going on (last year had the talks in catrin finch only) so even the staff were getting to grips with things differently to six years previous
  

I'm not here making excuses just trying to give you answers to some feedback and questions being asked of us - by the most part from tweets and podcasts the majority enjoyed the show and I thank you all for attending. It was a great turnout and all the guests thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In terms of events we are still very young with only doing 1 a year to date so we don't get as much exposure to the everyday issues that other events might face and review every other month throughout the year.

I have said it a million times though your health and safety is paramount - it is a hugely difficult balancing act unlike a football match for example, where you have a set amount your venue can hold and know they will be in for the first minute and then out by the 90th minute - we can have people coming, going, returning, leaving from before we open until after we close to the number is always jumping up and down.

The team which is made up entirely of volunteers gave up their weekend to help run this event for you so please remember that - they did a fantastic job and handled most things thrown at them.

We will update you shortly regarding the photo-ops for collection and are already planning for the future ahead - thank you all once again for an amazing event and possibly see you in the Autumn?..

~Jaime