How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

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

Post by Lucio Frizzi »

Well, you were right Alan...it is "different" this year. Different as in "can't get a ticket due to the ineptitude of yourself, your fellow Frightfest organisers and Vue cinemas". So, well done and have a good festival.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Lunny68 »

I was trying to get Film 4 or Horror Screen, as I wasn't sure if I'd make the late night showing of The Last Showing in the Arrow, so I wanted to avoid that screen.

After the initial hours of madness and despair, when the site finally worked, weekend passes were few and far between and those that were available, too near the front for me; so I went the day pass route instead. I then had the 'error but you've been charged' lark, so had to do it all again, and finally got passes for Friday, Saturday and Monday. Trouble is, that in my haste and hair tearing, I haven't got a clue which screens I found suitable tickets for and have a sneaky suspicion, I've got the Arrow on Friday!! Anyone know if there's a way to find out from the codes. If not, I'm in London on Friday, so I may swing by the Vue.

But, I should be (and I am) grateful, to be going in some shape or form. I've had five cracking years, starting with just one movie in 2009 - The American Werewolf reissue. I then did a collection of single tickets in 2010. Two whole days, plus the opening and closing films in 2011, and then weekend passes for the last two years.

Roll on August.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by GrimEffigy »

Wow, I expected a few technical hiccups but nothing like this absolute carnage. So glad I went up there now. By the time I got to the front, it looked like there were hardly any festival passes left. Managed to get some aisle seats in Screen 7 though.

If anybody does make any angry calls to the Vue later, try to spare the front-line staff. They were really efficient and polite this morning in dealing with the queue.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by filmster2525 »

managed to get 2 passes by booking them one at a time. it was the only way it would work. theres still a couple left, hope this may help someone. the vue are cocksuckers!!! proper stressed me out!
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by DJBenz »

Tweet from @VueHelp 1m ago:
Sorry for the problems booking for #F4FF14 earlier. Fixed now and day passes still available - call or visit http://tinyurl.com/nwzbuq6 to book!
Sounds as if weekend passes are sold out.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Wulfster »

One quick question (which might admittedly be a sore point to some of the folk who attempted to book online today. We've already started swapping stories of the "carnage" like old war veterans...)

The online festival pass which we get e-mailed to us has very limited info. It does have the seat reference, but not the screen name, which seems odd. I'm pretty sure I'm in screen 7, but won't really know until I pick up the ticket itself I suppose.
Is there any way you can pick up the screen number/name from the reference ID or bar-code?
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by scarlet_shoegal »

Agreed - after 5 frickin' hours I finally booked two passes by doing each transaction separately, right at the end of a row so it didn't tell me off again for leaving a single seat... Absolute farce. We're sitting behind each other I think, so again, if anyone wants a swap in the zone of C5 and D5 let me know... Only problem is I don't know which damn screen it is now I'd clicked so many times! I swear today has actually pushed me towards the brink of insanity... :evil:

All in all, six phone calls, (four of which got cut off after I'd been on hold forever edging slowly down the queue) God knows how much money and 5 HOURS online to buy my tickets this year. VUE have told me several different things about why we can't buy full passes over the phone, insisted that the website was running during the last phone call, (even though you can only book single seats?!) and were basically just blagging it seems to cover up some very shoddy preparation.

Horrid experience which I really hope will be made better by the festival experience itself. Might I suggest for a start that VUE reimburse the cost of calls people have racked up today? Especially since they apparently knew full well they could not sell the tickets as advertised and were making people queue for nothing. Surely a fairer solution all round when it was obvious it has gone t**s up would have been to shut down online bookings completely and put a message on the phone system to tell people a different time to try again? Or have I missed the obvious money making opportunity here....
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by filmster2525 »

if anybody would like to sit at the front,let me know. i am in a5 and a26.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

filmster2525 wrote:if anybody would like to sit at the front,let me know. i am in a5 and a26.
Do you know which screen?
I'm in Screen 5 with my girlfriend and we have split seats at C31 and A6, so I'm definitely interested in swapping for (or buying out) A5...
Please PM if interested
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by iomega »

FrightFesters,

I don't know what to say here really. Alan, Paul, Greg and myself are livid that so many of you had such a horrible experience trying to get tickets and in some cases missed out. After a fabulous start with the staff at the cinema cleareing the Sleeply Q in record time, so quickly in fact we had to bring forward the start time of the film, thanks to Signature by the way for allowing us to show ALIEN ABDUCTION, what happened with the online and telephone booking completely soured the day for us. I just don't understand what happened after the work that we put in with Vue in the run up to today to try and avoid this after what's happened in previous years at other venues.

I'm going to look into, and no promises here, the possibility of being able to release a few more passes by converting some of the other ticket types. As I said no promises cause I've no idea if it can actually be done, but first thing on Monday morning I'm going to get on the case.

Ian
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by BristolHorror »

iomega wrote:FrightFesters,

I don't know what to say here really. Alan, Paul, Greg and myself are livid that so many of you had such a horrible experience trying to get tickets and in some cases missed out. After a fabulous start with the staff at the cinema cleareing the Sleeply Q in record time, so quickly in fact we had to bring forward the start time of the film, thanks to Signature by the way for allowing us to show ALIEN ABDUCTION, what happened with the online and telephone booking completely soured the day for us. I just don't understand what happened after the work that we put in with Vue in the run up to today to try and avoid this after what's happened in previous years at other venues.

I'm going to look into, and no promises here, the possibility of being able to release a few more passes by converting some of the other ticket types. As I said no promises cause I've no idea if it can actually be done, but first thing on Monday morning I'm going to get on the case.

Ian
Ian - this is great BUT still screws over the people, such as myself, who put four hours+ effort into buying a ticket and managed to only get one in the most inconvenient place within the screen. Are we able to contact the cinema and request they change our seat numbers?

BTW - I think I speak on behalf of everyone here in stating that we know that this is Vue's error - not your own.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Eddie Krueger »

It seems that the Vue booking system has a £300 limit so that two tickets at £170 cannot be bought together! Crazy.

The blame is with Vue, no one should be having a go at the FF boys.
valido
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

I also think that if it's possible to add other day/weekend seats you should give a priority window to people who've been on line four hours for crappy seats (or even split, like myself) and give them a chance to swap for better ones.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by fish head »

Good to know Ian, thanks for that. Will be keeping eyes peeled and fingers crossed.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by scarlet_shoegal »

Eddie Krueger wrote:It seems that the Vue booking system has a £300 limit so that two tickets at £170 cannot be bought together! Crazy.

The blame is with Vue, no one should be having a go at the FF boys.
I had a horrible feeling there was a limit on the website! So basically trying to book more than 1 ticket at any point today was always going to result in an error :roll:

Totally agree as well that the blame is well and truly with Vue - they most know their own stupid system can't cope with large transactions?! I also find it ridiculous that the front desk could book passes if you went in person, but not the people on the phone who apparently use a different system. [Bangs head against wall]

If there's a way of undoing some of the mess done today I certainly don't know what it is, but I feel for the FF team who put so much effort into organising this event, only to have someone else's shoddy admin pee all over it. It would definitely be good to know if the pass swap thing comes off whether people who lost out today might be able to swap their crap seats / buy tickets they missed out on completely, as first priority? At the very least, it would be great to have a forum for people who might need to swap to sit nearer their mates, partners, etc, to share that info and see if we can work out some of the seating mess amongst ourselves.
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