How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

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

Post by moviemad »

Looks like there might be one for sale soon. The girl who has her tablet stolen at the sleepy queue screening has been put off going to the whole festival now :/
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sevcham »

valido wrote:Anyway, my personal two cents: it's probably time to get rid of single movie tickets and just go with day/weekend passes?
After all, they usually sell out in a few days and it's not like you can go to Glastonbury and spend £10 just to see one band mid-afternoon.
The previous years was a bit frustrating to see dozens of empty seats on less famous movies while knowing that some friends couldn't find a weekend pass because they all sold out in a few hours.
Why not fill it properly and with real fans, and resort to single movie tickets only as a last minute option if needed?
I wonder what the split is between weekend/day/single tickets and if some tickets are only available in certain areas of the seating plan.

It might be worth considering a little shuffle by increasing the number of weekend passes and lowering the others, or make day passes available at a later date like the single tickets (mid July). This way they can sell all the weekend passes and get a feel for demand, and release more 2 weeks later, converting the day seats into additional weekend seats. In my opinion, single tickets should only be available for passers by to fill seats that no one else would have purchased (because of awkward seating/view).
valido
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

Just for information, the £300 cap is on the Odeon site as well, I've found this out once while trying to book tickets for 15 mates at the IMAX.
At least their system tells you straight away that you cannot buy that many tickets in one go, without having to call support or keep trying forever.
I suspect it's a standard thing on most cinemas, someone definitely should have known.
I also know it's not the kind of thing you can fix straight away as it involves agreements with the external payment service.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by horrorkid78 »

I will be your friend sandwoman, horror rules.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by raventomb »

In my opinion, a lot of the grief and disappointment could have been avoided in part by some regular, clearer communication from Vue or..

The fact that frightfesters had to muddle through the ordeal, spending a lot of their own money on the phone (to a company who will likely do nothing to amend for this debacle) finding out important bits of info that should have been laid out since the start is a disgrace. Festival passes not being available on the phone and the decision not to sell them/The website cap/duplicate payment issues etc.. Even the site frenzy and resulting crash could have been overcome if there was clear /regular instruction as to what was going on from 12 onwards.

I feel truly sorry for those who look forward to this every year and ended up missing out due to all this, as well as all the couples and friends who are now sitting in vastly different seats and different screens. It will be a very different experience for all involved. No doubt, the fans will do their best to work through these difficulties and try to make the best of this situation.

Thanks to everyone on here and twitter who posted throughout yesterday and retweeted necessary info. It helped with the stress and I did manage to get a ticket due to this, so again, thank you!
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Wulfster »

Thanks to everyone on here and twitter who posted throughout yesterday and retweeted necessary info. It helped with the stress and I did manage to get a ticket due to this, so again, thank you!
That's a nice point Raventomb. I was flip-flopping between here, Twitter, and Facebook, (in-between refreshing and submitting requests on the Vue site of course), and the updates from all the Frightfesters were invaluable. It prevented me from making at least one pointless 30 minute call to the call-centre (although I still had to call them about something else). That usual Frightfest feeling of camaraderie came through as well, the we'll-get-through-it/keep-going-skipper attitude of the sleepy queue, was replaced by the we'll-get-a-pass-or-die support of the Vue online war!!
So I'll say thanks to those that used social media to pass on news and help. Nice one guys!

I did get a pass after 1hr 50mins, (and one charged/failed transaction), but it was such a panic of activity I STILL don't know what screen I'm in, just the seat number (B29).
The online passes don't carry this info.
I think it's 7 (Horror channel), but I know this info is on the "real" tickets and lanyards.

Quick question: As I'll be uptown next week, can I get my pass/lanyard at any time from the Vue West End, or do I have to wait until Frightfest itself?
I just need to confirm my screen so I can make plans for accommodation and disco screen choices. It's driving me nuts!!
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by raventomb »

Wulfster wrote:
Quick question: As I'll be uptown next week, can I get my pass/lanyard at any time from the Vue West End, or do I have to wait until Frightfest itself?
I just need to confirm my screen so I can make plans for accommodation and disco screen choices. It's driving me nuts!!
I'm fairly certain the passes may not be available until before the event (we usually pick ours up on the Wednesday prior) although, it looks like there were physical passes handed out at the vue yesterday for the queuers so perhaps you can pick it up now? Anyway, i'm sure vue will be able to tell you your screen from your booking reference.

Good luck!
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sandwoman »

horrorkid78 wrote:I will be your friend sandwoman, horror rules.
Ha! Thanks horrorkid78 :D
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by jonbly »

sevcham wrote:It might be worth considering a little shuffle by increasing the number of weekend passes and lowering the others, or make day passes available at a later date like the single tickets (mid July). This way they can sell all the weekend passes and get a feel for demand, and release more 2 weeks later, converting the day seats into additional weekend seats. In my opinion, single tickets should only be available for passers by to fill seats that no one else would have purchased (because of awkward seating/view).
The complication there is that the overall ticket pricing does rely to some extent on individual / day passes subsidising the weekenders - so to make more weekend passes, they'd need to up the price.
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by valido »

jonbly wrote:to make more weekend passes, they'd need to up the price.
I'm sure they've already made up for it with all the calls to the Support Center ;)
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by thatcambridgebird »

From what I understand according to their Twitter feed, Vue are now saying all day passes are sold out? If that's true I'll be devastated. Money crap means we have never been able to do the full festival but always gone for Sat/Sun day passes. I know I'm now one sob story among many, by the sounds of it, but again, money issues meant I couldn't buy immediately on sale day, and if I recall correctly, there was still plenty of day pass seating available for a fair few days after ticketing kicked off last year so I stupidly assumed we'd be ok to leave it until next week.

Sounds like I'll not be there this year, which actually makes me so sad because I count down to it every year. I am genuinely gutted right now. :(
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by brad1000 »

How did no one notice that the limit would be breached by two purchases ? Neither the FF crew nor the VUE people thought to ask ? It's really beyond farcical.Look on the bright side.Those of you with tickets will have an ideal chance to make new friends !!!!
the house shot her !!!
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by Ak30rigg »

Have to say, I don't care too much who's fault it is. But I tried to buy a ticket for an event, the money was taken, I haven't been allocated a ticket and I need to spend even more time on the whole process to sort out a refund

I'm just one grumpy old sod, and the event has successfully sold all the tickets. But i really doubt that I'll have the confidence in the organisation to buy tickets for any future events

It's good news that most frightfesters are more forgiving than me and that there's enough community goodwill to overcome these problems. However that goodwill is unlikely to last that much longer.
thatcambridgebird
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by thatcambridgebird »

Out of interest - how many tickets did the event reduce by in the move to Vue? I'm guessing it was a significant-enough amount to make chaos ensue and have everyone who was having trouble with festival passes buy up day/single passes instead? I mean, it's great that the festival's sold out for the fans and organisers, but it's still a real shame that there seem to be a lot of extremely disappointed people who struggled to use the system and missed out.
sandwoman
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Re: How Film4 FrightFest will work in 2014

Post by sandwoman »

Empire Screen 1 had ~1,300 seats, I believe. Totting up the three screens at Vue, I think there are ~1,000 seats in total. So I can't answer the question precisely, but bearing in mind they'll have needed to keep some seats back for single ticket sales, my guess is that the event reduced by a substantial number of festival passes this year.
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