FrightFest

Sorry to keep banging on about it, but as I've said, they managed to fit considerably longer breaks in all the previous years. Maybe not every single day, but this is the first year there wasn't a break of at least an hour on any of the four days.

It wouldn't be necessary to remove a film, just shift a couple by 5 or 10 minutes here and there. Soon adds up.

Of course missing a film is an option, and in retrospect skipping Fright Night or Inbred would've been a good idea. But - apart from having paid for a weekend pass and not wanting to "waste" it - it's very difficult to pick which ones to skip. I don't research the films before the weekend, I like to keep an element of surprise; and more often than not something I'd never even heard of turns out to be a gem.

If there are any spare rooms in the Empire Leicester square accessible from the foyer it would be great to have like a chill out room with screens showing clips of horror movies with no sound with cool music playing so festival goers have somewhere to sit down between films. We could call it 'THE CHILLER' - Leatherface's box freezer with the brunette inside flipping out when the lid is opened could be the logo. I see purple velvet sofas, white walls, low lighting, cold air fans so it isn't too stuffy... We could even have a boogie if we fancied it. The foyer gets packed and sometimes the square isn't where you want to be, especially when you have to stand around.

It would be nice to have this as another option where festival guests can go also, giving everyone an even better chance to talk to people in a more relaxed way, rather than trying to grab a few words in a mad crowd like some kind of stalker.

As the breaks are usually quite short I don't think it would get too manic in there. Also for peeps who miss out on seeing discovery 1 and discovery 2 movies (which I reckon will be worse this year as a lot of good films are on this time around), at least they could relax until the next film on their list comes on in a place dedicated to them.

We could make the music thingy interactive so people could be allowed one ipod playlist of lets say 15-20 songs of their choosing and put them on a 'puter and then people could choose what they want to hear from everyones offerings like a juke box OR we could raise money or chip in for a juke box and people could pay per track to have a number of songs put onto it. That would mean there would be no need for a DJ and the cost would be lower and everyones taste would be catered for.

Just a thought.

jonbly's guess is that we only had longer breaks in previous years because there were scattered problems in earlier fests... films starting with no sound or not starting at all, the marvel of waiting for a live link to Japan which never worked... so the guys fitted some slack into the schedule to compensate. Recent fests have gone much more smoothly, and we haven't needed the slack.

I did OK with the breaks this year - even when some were just 20 minutes - but the hour-plus on Sunday was very welcome

Yes, I must admit we did OK for breaks this year, only had to resort to Burger King twice. That said, we did skip the Ben Wheatley interview on Friday.

I always make sure I have a good breakfast which helps. If I don't get to eat a full meal (normally just a sandwich or the like), then it all helps towards what I call my "FrightFest" diet!

Missed breakfast on a few occasions, which can be put down to Disco queue sacrifice.

Don't need much though, just a bit of sunlight and a leg stretch and a quick check to make sure Armageddon hasn't happened.

Still can't get enough of those vegetable buns for one of the Chinese stands.

So long as there is time for toilet breaks and lets be honest for 50p a time that Leicester Square toilet is horrendous if the queue in the Empire is too long.