How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

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

Post by bloodyburger »

TheDukeAbides wrote:
bloodyburger wrote:Very frustrating conflicting reports of everything selling out or not. Decided to give up with al things frightfest yesterday at 2pm when Vue posted on twitter that all day & pass tickers had sold out. Now I see on here they were put back on sale at 7pm last night and remaining tickets were available again.
If you are referring to Ian's last post, I read it different.

All available passes are being held back until these issues are fully resolved.

Of course I could well be wrong.
I really hope you're right, it could be read that way, it's not clear. Another day of waiting by the computer I guess...
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

Lucio Frizzi wrote:Is anybody gonnna risk buying online again?
I definitely wouldn't feel safe.
Even if they fix the £300 cap shamble.
Unless they somehow put a cap on the number of people allowed to join the sleepy q.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by jonbly »

jonbly wrote:Victory!

On the third time the website showed me a seating plan (rather than just an error), it accepted payment. Confirmation email received.

So I've paid either £170, £340 or £510 and got one ticket.
FYI - I was charged three times. Refunds can take up to ten days, but it's usually three to five (depending on bank incompetence, rather than Vue incompetence).
Refunds can be done via the (probably cheaper) 0345 308 4620 line - no idea if that'll work from overseas.

(Oops, didn't see this post from Ian - http://www.frightfest.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =61&t=6677 . Oh well...)
Last edited by jonbly on Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by ArghZombies »

If the ticket booking was so chaotic then I'd be a little apprehensive about possible double-booked tickets too. I can picture dozens of people turning up and having the same seat and screen number as other people, and everything going all crazy again.

I'm sure that's happened before at the Empire with a small number of tickets, but it's never been as chaotic a booking experience as it apparently was this year, so who knows what's going to happen when everyone turns up there in a few months.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by StuartB »

I just called Vue after getting a confirmation of an online festival pass booking on screen but not receiving an email. They confirmed that I had secured a pass, that there have been email problems too, and that I had been charged twice.
I asked for a refund so I haven't overpaid but also so any possible ticket held could be released for someone else. The operator stated that they hadn't actually sold out they had just removed them all from sale due to the issues and that they would be rereleased for sale some point soon. Obviously I don't want to get anyone's hopes up that might have missed out, and there have been mixed messages from Vue so far, but there could potentially be a chance again once they have their systems back in order.
The lady that I spoke to, Jane, was very helpful and apologetic.
valido
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

StuartB wrote:there have been mixed messages from Vue so far
This is why I'm not worried at all about the "lack of communication" from the organizers.
I've been to Frightfest every year on full weekends since 2008 and they've always been incredible, way beyond what you can expect from any festival, any size.
I understand that silence is weird compared to their usual behavior, but it's way better than keep saying "I don't know yet" or, especially worse at this stage, going out and confuse people by stating something that isn't 100% accurate (unlike the guys at Vue).
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Eddie Krueger »

valido wrote:
StuartB wrote:there have been mixed messages from Vue so far
This is why I'm not worried at all about the "lack of communication" from the organizers.
I've been to Frightfest every year on full weekends since 2008 and they've always been incredible, way beyond what you can expect from any festival, any size.
I understand that silence is weird compared to their usual behavior, but it's way better than keep saying "I don't know yet" or, especially worse at this stage, going out and confuse people by stating something that isn't 100% accurate (unlike the guys at Vue).
I'm entirely speculating here, but my assumption is that the whole thing is a result of a massive balls up that is entirely Vue's fault, possibly on issues that they gave assurances on, which leaves the FF chaps in a very difficult diplomatic situation about what they can say publically at this stage. There's also the possibility that they are not getting much info back from Vue at this stage so there's little they can say.

I just hope there's going to be some pairs of full festival passes available at some point, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

Eddie Krueger wrote:my assumption is that the whole thing is a result of a massive balls up that is entirely Vue's fault
I'm 99% behind you on this, but unfortunately I'm also 1% with "lucio frizzi" above about the £300 cap.
It's clearly not the first thing you'd check, but it's definitely one of them if you know your ecommerce stuff.
Unless obviously they've been lied about it.
And then again it's entirely Vue's fault that their website is not able to catch that kind of situation and treat it with the proper error information - as the Odeon site does, for instance.
This would have saved hours of debugging.

Anyway, enough blaming game, let's wait for some official news...
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by HeadOnAStick »

You mean holding my breath won't help? I've been doing that for nothing?

I'm also going to hold out some hope until it's finally dashed, but I suspect the solutions to our problems lie with Vue, so it really depends how willing they are to offer help. Assuming the films are all projected digitally (very likely these days) they should be able to offer FF another screen and pipe the same projection to it as one of the main screens. Without knowing how many extra screens they have, how big they are, and several other details It's impossible to know whether they'll do this but from a technical perspective it should be possible.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Eddie Krueger »

[quote="HeadOnAStick"]You mean holding my breath won't help? I've been doing that for nothing?

quote]

I needed a smile over all this, and that made laugh - thanks :lol:

*Makes mental note not to use clichés too readily again!*
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by TheDukeAbides »

The right and accurate information is far better than constant updates with little or no detail.

That is what we are here to do with our speculation.

I'm not suggesting people continue with their breaks when something like this is going wrong but what I would suggest compounds all this is, despite us apparently living in a "24 hour world" people still do take weekends (especially Sundays) off.

It is a worry if their are double-booked seats and how this can be found out and sorted prior to any embarrassment at festival time.

Its 8 weeks away - I know other things need to be booked and expenses worked out but there is time for all this to get sorted before the festival proper.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Jon H »

It’s difficult not to speculate – especially when you are desperate to get hold of a ticket, but I think there are things we do know for (nearly) certain from Ian’s posts

Weekend passes are sold out

Day passes are not all sold out but at some point on Saturday FF and Vue decided to withdraw them from sale. What hasn’t yet been sold will, presumably, be put back on sale at some point in the next few days. One caveat to that, this that I think it unlikely that day passes for all days are still available. During my efforts to get a ticket, the Saturday day pass screen was showing sold out before any of the other days – so I think it less likely they will still be available (and it gives me no pleasure to say that as Saturday is the only day I failed to get a day pass for…)

Anything else (have tickets been double booked, have Vue sold weekend passes in single film ticket seats etc) is speculation, but god know where we will be if that does turn out to be the case.

Btw – I agree that the ideal solution would be to put on another screen, but I can imagine that proving very difficult in the short term (existing terms of the licence, nature of the contract with Vue, keeping to expected visitor numbers etc.) Re-housing existing attendees is one thing (e.g the extra screening of Willow Creek last year), inviting another 200 or so in, is quite another
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

Jon H wrote:the ideal solution would be to put on another screen
Can't stress enough that I'd personally be very pissed off if this happens without letting people like me, who spent 5 hours on line and then resorted to split seats, getting a chance to swap :evil:

Anyway, I have a new bit of information for you to enjoy speculating about!

I just went down to the Vue to get my physical tickets and rest my heart.
This is how it went:

"Hello, I'd like to collect my tickets for the Frightfest, here's my email confirmation"
"Sure, here you go, and here's a voucher as well. Remember to bring both at the event."
"What's the voucher for?"
"I don't know."

Hold on to the voucher. You will need this to get your tickets for the Discovery screen tickets.
So here you go.
I got my tickets - just the tickets, not any of the stuff you'd usually get when you join the sleepy q, and a voucher.
The voucher is a normal receipt that reads "Voucher - 1" and nothing else (one for each ticket).

If they're planning a way to make up for all this mess, I hope it's at least a hand job from Sasha Grey :p

You need to hold onto this voucher. I'm afraid there's no hand jobs involved and while I appreciate your attempt at humour, or at least that’s how it looks to me, if you are to speculate, speculate about something other than the nonsense that you have suggested. The voucher has a very much more practical purpose.

The voucher has a barcode on it and when it is scanned into any of the tills or the automated ticket points within the cinema, it will allow you to chose your tickets for the discovery screens. We hope this will be a vast improvement on FrightFesters having to arrive at some ridiculous time in the morning to get tickets.

The plan is to make them available in the evening of the day before the film is due to screen rather than leaving it to the morning of the day of the screening.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sherbetbizarre »

Lucio Frizzi wrote:I still appreciate that Vue must take the brunt of the blame but SURELY the organisers should have checked the system/asked the right questions of VUE
They did...

http://www.frightfest.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =15#p60498
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by DeanoG »

RE: The Voucher you get.

I am pretty sure Ian said during the sleepy queue screening of Alien Abduction that the voucher is for booking your discovery screen tickets ( you scan the barcode and select the day before )....hoping this won't just lead to a bunch of queues at ticket machines 6pm every evening, in theory though, it is a great idea !

I attended the sleepy queue and have to say it was really well done, much better than last years queue, don't feel like being too excited about having tickets until all this is sorted for most people, feel sorry for the guys and girls who don't live in a place commutable to London.

Hopefully it all works out.
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