How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Taking place over the Bank Holiday weekend, 21st - 25th August 2014
bernal316
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by bernal316 »

so is screen 5 the arrow screen
screen 6 the film four screen
And screen 7 the horror channel screen???
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sevcham »

bernal316 wrote:so is screen 5 the arrow screen
screen 6 the film four screen
And screen 7 the horror channel screen???
No.

Screen 5 is Film4, Screen 6 is Arrow Films, Screen 7 is Horror Channel.

Screen 6 is the smallest, Screen 5 and 7 are pretty much the same.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by DGB »

Really really sad. Thought the vue staff were exceptional this morning - best sleepy q experience by a long long way.

As Ian says, this has soured that somewhat. Feel for my fellow non-Londoners (and probably some Londoners) who couldn't make the sleepy q.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by UKKid35 »

Eddie Krueger wrote: The blame is with Vue, no one should be having a go at the FF boys.
Agreed.

You (FF) were relying on the assurances you were given, sadly they weren't worth anything at all.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Wulfster »

DGB wrote:Really really sad. Thought the vue staff were exceptional this morning - best sleepy q experience by a long long way.

As Ian says, this has soured that somewhat. Feel for my fellow non-Londoners (and probably some Londoners) who couldn't make the sleepy q.
Thanks DGB.
I'm actually local to London, but this was the first time after 9 years, that I couldn't make the sleepy q. Sod's law ... :roll:
To be fair, I don't think anybody (bar one or two examples) are blaming the FF gang, as they know the extent to which they try to pull everything together.
And despite being charged for a "refused" transaction, and being unable to get passes online, the Vue call-centre guys I spoke to were very helpful and apologetic and I couldn't find fault with them.
The problem definitely lies with the Vue infrastructure and any mis-guided promises that the middle-management may have made to the FF guys.
That's my view anyway...
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sevcham »

Wulfster wrote: The problem definitely lies with the Vue infrastructure and any mis-guided promises that the middle-management may have made to the FF guys.
That's my view anyway...
Definitely. Why on earth would you put a limit on value of orders? Whoever managed this on Vue's side of things should have been aware of limitations and ensured extra measures were put in place to avoid such problems.

Hearing excuses of high traffic and only allowing single ticket purchases online is an absolute joke. We're in 2014 here and using one of the largest Cinemas in UK, whoever is in charge of their web transactions/IT should be ashamed of themselves. Again, no excuses from their side, they failed big time.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Jon H »

I hope the contract with Vue is only one year :-)

Seriously, I think the immediate impact of today's debacle is that the 2015 sleepy queue is going to be double, treble in size. No-one will have any confidence in the Vue booking system after today and it's going to mean that turning up in person is the only way you can guarantee a weekend pass. What that means for the nature of the festival and the ability of non London residents to attend Frightfest, I don't know - but personally I would not like to see Frightfest go that way. Maybe we just need more capacity.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by DJBenz »

If anyone wants to try and swap out their tickets for a more suitable seat, there's a new sub-forum here: http://www.frightfest.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=62
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sevcham »

Jon H wrote:I hope the contract with Vue is only one year :-)

Seriously, I think the immediate impact of today's debacle is that the 2015 sleepy queue is going to be double, treble in size. No-one will have any confidence in the Vue booking system after today and it's going to mean that turning up in person is the only way you can guarantee a weekend pass. What that means for the nature of the festival and the ability of non London residents to attend Frightfest, I don't know - but personally I would not like to see Frightfest go that way. Maybe we just need more capacity.
I work just round the corner from Leicester Square, I feel like I should have just joined the queue as if I was going into work, around 9:30 ish. I don't care if I'm not the first few, I just want a decent seat and it now seems this is probably the best option if Vue is chosen again. I feel bad for those who missed out, it was never meant to be this way and I hope no one feels the FF guys let anyone down, it was the Vue team that failed.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by domdunc »

Eddie Krueger wrote:Vue are tweeting that festival passes are all sold out.

6.5 hours trying and I couldn't get the tickets. Very, very sad - and I need a drink now!

Well done to all who prevailed! (Did anyone manage to get a pair together?)
I managed by pure luck. Had to book one then quickly book the other.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Jon H »

I don't care if I'm not the first few, I just want a decent seat and it now seems this is probably the best option if Vue is chosen again..[/quote]

Same with me - I know that if you want to be at the front, or want to guarantee certain seats you need to be in the queue - and that's fine. I just want a weekend pass - I don't mind where too much - it seems like in person will be the only way to guarantee that now. Maybe that's just the way the festival is going, with more people each year wanting to go?
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by kickasschewgum »

Just thought I'd point out that there are still quite a few day passes for all days except Saturday left.

I know it's a little more expensive and offers little consolation for those that didn't get a full weekend pass this year but, if you did miss out, at least it's still a way to attend the festival which surely must be better than nothing.

Also hopefully Ian will manage to persuade Vue management to convert some of the single ticket allocations into Weekend passes.

I know it's no excuse but the Vue systems probably aren't built to deal with such an overwhelming demand for tickets and, having never hosted an August FrightFest before, they probably wildly underestimated how crazy it would be. Demand was simply staggering this year. WAY higher than any previous year. Just one look at the sleepy queue made that abundantly clear.

Even if more pass allocations aren't made available, sometimes, nearer the time, people post on this forum with tickets for sale that they cannot use. So keep an eye out on the forums, twitter etc. too.

Good luck to everyone.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by JimmyTheZeke »

I had the same dramas, 30min MOBILE call (Jeez, that's gonna hurt!) to VUE customer services followed by a 45min ride into town to hand-purchase a weekend pass. Consider myself v.lucky to be able to get into town and to have finally gotten get a pass, though it is in the small screen and close to the front.

Just to throw my next concern into the mix. When I booked my ticket (at 13:15!), the guy's screen showed no weekend passes in screens 5 & 7, and a few in crappy spots in screen 6. As I'm attending on my own, not a huge issue and I chose one at the front. What concerns me is that hours later on I checked the website to see if it was up and running yet. It was, but showing seats available in screens 5 & 7? Also, refreshing the booking showed seats in these screens that were not available 15 seconds before?

Can anyone explain this? Were they releasing tickets incrementally? I am hoping that this is not the tell-tale sign of a 'double booking' fiasco.....
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sevcham »

JimmyTheZeke wrote:I had the same dramas, 30min MOBILE call (Jeez, that's gonna hurt!) to VUE customer services followed by a 45min ride into town to hand-purchase a weekend pass. Consider myself v.lucky to be able to get into town and to have finally gotten get a pass, though it is in the small screen and close to the front.

Just to throw my next concern into the mix. When I booked my ticket (at 13:15!), the guy's screen showed no weekend passes in screens 5 & 7, and a few in crappy spots in screen 6. As I'm attending on my own, not a huge issue and I chose one at the front. What concerns me is that hours later on I checked the website to see if it was up and running yet. It was, but showing seats available in screens 5 & 7? Also, refreshing the booking showed seats in these screens that were not available 15 seconds before?

Can anyone explain this? Were they releasing tickets incrementally? I am hoping that this is not the tell-tale sign of a 'double booking' fiasco.....
I think they had some sort of split allocation of seating for online and in-person.

For example, I never saw any seats available past row 4 for online purchase. It seemed as if none of the first 3 rows were purchased by anyone in the sleepy queue because the only seats available to purchase popped up there, as if they were only available for online sales (as a side note, I was only interested in screen 7 so only looked there).

I never saw a single seat available at the back or middle, so assume these were reserved for day passes or offline purchases.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by DJBenz »

kickasschewgum wrote:I know it's no excuse but the Vue systems probably aren't built to deal with such an overwhelming demand for tickets and, having never hosted an August FrightFest before, they probably wildly underestimated how crazy it would be. Demand was simply staggering this year. WAY higher than any previous year. Just one look at the sleepy queue made that abundantly clear.
My guess is that experienced Frightfesters know from experience with the Halloween All-Nighter that the Vue ticket system will crash under any kind of load, so opted to queue even if they wouldn't normally. The result was fewer tickets for online/phone bookings and a scramble to get them.
JimmyTheZeke wrote:Can anyone explain this? Were they releasing tickets incrementally? I am hoping that this is not the tell-tale sign of a 'double booking' fiasco.....


Somebody mentioned earlier that the system would lock out any chosen seat for 10 minutes while their booking was going through, so seats became unavailable and then available later.
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