How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

[Doctor_Stupid]

What a strange smiley!

I think I meant

with a bit of

[MattP]

If Robert Englund does turn out to be a guest and this is the on time I don't (get to) go I just know what I'll do

[horrorkid78]

Today was absolute carnage from VUE, I did manage to get a ticket (just) and I hope people got tickets they wanted.

[anaana]

Ridiculous freaking shite.

I finally got to the end of my phone queue exactly when the website let me in to book a pretty craappy seat in god knows what screen.

AFter 53 mins on my mobile from Spain I stayed the last two positions just to let the poor lady on the line have a piece of my mind.

FRUSTRATED SATURDAY !!!!!!!

[valido]

The other question is: do I still get a chance if I go to the Vue Cinema in person right now? It will take me 90 minutes.
Can you imagine how "fun" it would be if I've been clicking for three hours and then I decided to get there and it's sold out?
I can't even understand how many tickets are left.
Sometimes I get to the seat plan and there's still 6 or 7, sometimes none.
And it's been like that for almost 2 hours now.
I'm about to give up.

[MattP]

Congratulations to those who got tickets. I'm still getting my card declined. On my way to giving up soon.

[WJB]

I'm literally standing in a rainy Leicester Square as I type this.

Wasn't having any luck on the site, so made the 40-min tube journey to the Vue.

Upon arrival, Paul McEvoy was at the counter asking about how many tickets were left. Not many.

There were a couple of front row (!) seats left in screen 7. By the time the cashier had selected one for me to purchase, they'd all gone.

No more weekend passes in any screen.

I'm really rather frustrated, and will be missing out this year.

Obviously nothing to do with the FF team, but there were huge problems this morning, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one who is disappointed and slightly angry.

[HeadOnAStick]

That looks like the end, even when I get to the seating page there aren't any available. Well, that's a real shame. I've done every weekend pass since 2002
Over three hours of battling with phone and website to no avail. I liked the look of this year's selection too...

[valido]

Nice. Very nice.
Well, enjoy your londoners only event, goodbye and [abuse deleted].

[MattP]

I'm still at the payment page. Can someone tell me if I am wasting my time and the seats have all gone or have the seats I have chosen still available until I stop trying

[MattP]

Ah ive now got the error with your booking but you may have been charged crap!

[Jekyll]

Well thats disappointing,

After finally convincing a friend to do the whole festival, he's done the odd day pass since I have been coming since 2005, he was unable to get us a pair of festival tickets via the online booking despite repeated attempts,

Is gonna seem rather strange not being in Leicester Square over the Aug bank holiday,

Anyway have fun guys and hopefully we won't see a repeat of this complete shambles next year.

[UKKid35]

I think I was very lucky to get a pass, despite spending 90 mins on the site, and 30 mins on the phone.

It was never straightforward getting through the Empire booking system, but this was in a different league altogether. The info given out over the phone seems to have been incomplete, contradictory, and grudging; I tried very hard not to be rude, but each piece of info about the booking problems had to be prized out one by one.

I was tempted to get on the tube and try to buy my pass in person, and I appreciate that I was lucky to have that option. I do feel for those of you who had to rely on the web or phone.

[Rue-morgue Jay]

Nice. Very nice.
Well, enjoy your londoners only event, goodbye and [abuse deleted].

Um Valido, it's not "Londoners' only, i actually live way way outside of london and made the journey last night and was in the q at 6am and still didn't get a seat i wanted. i saw the carnage this morning and VUE was in a tough spot. I'm sorry if you didn't get a ticket i nearly thought i wasn't going to get one. It was a close call.

These things happen and no-one ever knows how it is going to work out...

[AdeBrown]

I gave up trying to get day passes earlier, due to the kind of problems mentioned here, but just tried again and got my required two seats for two days.

But here's a thing, I had no way of telling which screen I have booked for as all three just appeared to say "Premiere Screen".
(I may have missed some obscure small print)

For the Saturday, the first option had no seats, the third option had two seats not side by side, the second option had several seats either side of the central area, which I presume is for weekenders? So I booked for the 2nd /middle option on both days.

So (1) how do we know (guess) which screen we are in, and what happened to any sense that we could choose which order we saw the batches of three films?
This is particularly important on the Saturday with some good looking films in the Discovery screens. I was hoping to get Cheerleaders up against Show Pieces so I could see the latter. But, less choice on the discovery screen this year unless we get some extra screenings.
Maybe a large area in the cinema needs to be put aside for people trading seats. It could be based on the trading sceens from Trading Places.


A tough job for the Frightfesters when an organisation like VUE cannot get its house in order.