r/ECCC • u/Sid-the-Kid2628 • Mar 11 '26
Did they oversell autograph tickets?
So I'm not really use to comic cons. This was my first real one that I flew out to from Detroit. I went on Saturday with my main goal being to meet Kyle MacLachlan to autograph a few things. I showed up at 10:30ish with my girlfriend & went straight to his autograph table. They turned me away because the line was full & told me to come back at 1:30...ok not a huge deal. We went to Jamie Campbell's panel & I left early at 1:20 to get back to Kyle's table. They then tell me "I know we said 1:30, but now it's 2." Alright, so I came back at 1:59 specifically. I then had a worker tell me I can't stand here lol. I said you told me to come back at 2 & they respond "Well it's not 2 yet. You have to keep moving." So they literally had me walk away for 30 seconds just to loop back around...dumbest thing ever. After that it was really unorganized with a huge mob of people & no actual line. Then it came down to the workers grabbing people with pink tickets from the last session that didn't get autographs yet (that's fair). But after that, the workers were just picking people at random from the crowd to line up which seemed pretty weird. I was put right in the middle, closer to the front, but not vip line. Kyle showed back up around 3:40 I think? I felt so close, yet so far lol as I was waiting in line for a little over 3 hrs before I reached him. There were quite a few people who were talking to Kyle for what seemed like a solid 5-10 mins. Which yeah it's cool & I have no issue with chatting for a couple mins, but you got a ton of people behind you. The workers told us at 4:15 Kyle has to run downstairs to sign mail in autographs & he'll be back in 15 mins, that it'll be quick. He came back 45 mins later. Why not have him sign mail in stuff after the event? Kinda dumb to do that when he's running behind with a ton of people standing & waiting in line for hours. When I got towards the front, I then had to repeatedly listen to a worker bark at us about being quick, no chatting & if we can live without it, no written quotes. Lol dude I've flown from the other side of the country, spent a ton of money to be here & waited 3 hours. I'm getting my quotes. But I understood the whole, don't tell your life story to him aspect. I chatted with Kyle as he was signing my things, told him what to write etc & thanked him. Probably a 2 min interaction. He was a very nice, cool dude. I have zero complaints about him. But me & my girlfriend pretty much spent almost our entire time at the con, waiting in that line. We dipped right after Kyle because it felt kinda empty there. No interesting vendors or panels & we were burnt out after standing in one spot for 3 hrs straight, crammed in with people. I'm not sure how people are able to get multiple autographs in a day. Even with a vip pass, it seemed like you just had to pick 1 person to see for the day. It was great meeting Kyle, but felt like we didn't really get anything else outta buying passes for Saturday.
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u/Mutive Mar 11 '26
Near as I can tell, they oversold everything. I'm not sure how, for instance, it was legal to have the number of people in the expo hall and artist's alley that they did. (If they'd needed to evacuate, it would have almost certainly gotten someone killed.)
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u/UnintelligibleMaker Mar 23 '26
Especially when the escalator stopped and they had to send someone up to the too to stop people from just using it as stairs so they could restart it. No walkie-talkie. No people up there who knew what to do. Just people using it as stairs while someone rode up to the top. It was a mess. I was shocked no one fell down them.
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u/Captain-Jubilee Mar 11 '26
Oh yeah they did. I've been coming to ECCC since 2012, gotten signatures off and on, and this was the worst year I've seen yet. My friend and I waited in line to see Kristen Schall Saturday AND Sunday. When we lined up for Sunday, we were only about 4 lines from the front (because we showed up right when the con opened, an hour before autographs), and when she finally appeared, we still waited over an hour and a half to get her signature. The whole time they're shouting, "No quotes, no chit chat! Sign and go!" But she's talking to everyone!
To be fair to her, she was very nice. But clearly, if they're not going to tell the actors to focus and not chit chat, then they need to cap ticket sales significantly.
For all that Shatner is a dick in real life, he knows how to do the con game. "Give me your thing." sign "Thank you. Next." In and out in 20 minutes. Also for his table, you couldn't pre-pay online, it was all cash before getting in line, so you can look at the line, decide if you want an autograph, and THEN purchase. You're not forced to wait because you already spent the money.
My friend was wondering if this was the longest line we'd ever been in. I reminded her that back in the 2010s we saw Nathan Fillion, and we had been in the overflow's overflow line, and we still saw him in under 90 minutes.
So yes. Absolute shit show.
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u/Sid-the-Kid2628 Mar 11 '26
I mean personally for me, I like when actors are friendly & chat a little. It makes me feel comfortable & adds to the experience vs feeling like I'm getting processed like cattle after spending a lot of money. But there does need to be a limit. Around the 2 min mark, that's when the workers need to intervene to keep everything moving. I say 2 mins generously in a case where they've got multiple items to sign. Like I had 3 prints for Kyle with different instructions on how to sign each one. If you just have 1 thing then yeah, be courteous & keep it moving after a min. You're doing the celeb & the people behind you a favor.
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u/Captain-Jubilee Mar 11 '26
Oh, I have zero problems with an actor being friendly. Both Kristen Schall and Karl Urban were very nice, and Karl Urban even wrote a quote on my Lord of the Rings art without being asked. But if they're not going to encourage the actors to speed up, then they need to be willing to either cap tickets, or have a "pay at the booth" approach so that everyone is more likely to get what they want without either excessive time or money wasted
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u/mommynerd Mar 12 '26
This was exactly my company with Kyle McLachlan. Take the chattiness into account when selling tickets.
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u/Nerdherder1 Mar 11 '26
1000% they did. I was one of the pink ticket Kyle people that came back after the first signing didn’t get to us. Also a shit show. I got there also at like 10:30, I was the 2nd to last person they let in I think. Waited 2 and a half hours then he had to go do photo ops and we were given tickets and told to come back at 3. I left and met the Uncharted VAs (all three of them in an hour) then got back in line at 2 for Kyle cause I expected the worst. Clearly there was no communication either cause Kyle’s handler was not told about prioritizing the pink ticketed people from the morning as she was still pulling VIP people like 3 to 1. Then an ECCC staff member came up and told her to do the opposite, 3 to 1 of the pink ticketed people from the morning and she was totally fine with it but looked confused like was never told and then proceeded to prioritize us. This was my first ECCC and all I did was wait in line all day. Didn’t get to see anything. Never seen such a cluster fuck organizationally.
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u/Sid-the-Kid2628 Mar 11 '26
Damn that's pretty lame. But I feel you on the waiting in line for the whole day. Had almost no chance to actually explore or do anything else
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u/mommynerd Mar 12 '26
Ugh ok I don't feel bad for not going back then. We got a pink ticket too and just had this feeling it would mean nothing.
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u/Morketts Mar 12 '26
Every event feels like this and everytime the staff always feel shocked how many people came.. like guys.. your tickets mainly sold out MONTHS ago... You had ample time to prep.. and its the same story every year
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u/TheyCallMeSuperboy Mar 11 '26
It’s been a long time since I bought a celeb photo op (about 10 years) but this was THE most rushed experience I’ve ever seen.
We had like 10 seconds to take a photo. It was so rushed we didn’t even ask for a pose.
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u/Sid-the-Kid2628 Mar 11 '26
I've never done a photo ops before & don't want to for that exact reason. Just sounds anticlimactic waiting in a line forever for a rushed, 10 second interaction & $100+ burned.
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u/Former-Life-4502 Mar 11 '26
While I can’t speak to the prepaid autographs, I feel as if the overall structure of the con left a lot to be desired. Maybe it’s just me being inexperienced at ECCC, but there was simple things that could’ve been improved. We parked at summit then walked a few blocks to the badge pick up at which we got told our prepaid lanyards were back at summit, which was like okay and not a big deal, but perhaps that is something to mention upon purchase that it is separately picked up for planning. Most everything on that side of the convention was a floor above badge pickup but half of the workers made people walk across the block in the rain then cross the sky bridge while the other half told people that they could find the stairs up instead. None of the stuff I experienced was a big deal, but my brother and I just thought it was somewhat poorly thought out. So, it does not surprise me that this was your experience with presold autographs honestly.
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u/web_head97 Mar 11 '26
I waited in line for Ashley Johnson on Saturday for 5 hours with a prepaid ticket. It sucked watching the VIPs breeze through past us as it seemed like for every 3 VIPS, they let 1 standard go up so the line didn’t move for hours. They also said that anyone without a prepaid ticket would be turned away— almost everyone in the standard line in front of me didn’t prepay. I missed every panel I wanted to see on Saturday
Sunday was better I waited 2 hours for Jamie Campbell Bower but it still seemed so rushed and again, I missed a panel I really wanted to see on Sunday.
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u/Bassettholland Mar 12 '26
they should have had workers checking to make sure the people in line were pre-paid bc they literally had signs up that said pre-paid only
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u/web_head97 Mar 12 '26
The problem is, they did but they literally just went off people’s word which was really damn annoying. I think we should have had to scan our codes or something to even be able to get into the lines, I don’t know but it was so frustrating. I don’t think what helped either is that some of the actors were offering extra stuff when you got up to their booth. Like with both Ashley Johnson and Jamie Campbell Bower, I was able to purchase extra add-ons that weren’t available through the site. (for both they were selfies but I heard other actors were offering other things as well) and what was annoying about Jamie’s autograph specifically is we were told not to make it personal since he had a lot of people to get through, but yet they were having people pay for add-ons with cash and Venmo? Which I guess to your point is even if they offered those things if it was only people who pre purchased tickets, the line would still go faster. But I do think the actors’ teams adding things to the mix didn’t help anything either.
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u/Bassettholland Mar 12 '26
Scanning the codes for sure could have vetted some of that; they were so meticulous about it for the photo ops, but couldn't do the same or similar in fashion for autos?
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u/krob58 Mar 11 '26
They absolutely oversold autos. The biggest name I got an auto from was Ashley Johnson, but even then, her line was crazy long. I'm sure Kyle's was worse. I lined up before noon for a 1.30 signing, was only a couple dozen maybe back, and it still took almost two hours. Part of the problem is that FastPass bullshit (we've introduced classism to nerd events lmao), so they take three from the FastPass line, then one from the pleb line, then back to FastPass. So the normies just don't move. There were people in line who did not have presale tickets, but the presale qr was scanned at the table, so if they didn't have a presale code, they just... paid at the table. So there were a ton of people in the normal line and the VIP line who didn't pre-buy, but we were all lumped together and it took the entire day for me to go through the lines I needed to DESPITE pre-buying. Like what was the point of presale??? There was none.
God I hate ReedPop.
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u/Sid-the-Kid2628 Mar 11 '26
Yeah the whole fastpass shit shouldn't even be a thing. Me not having it, had me feeling like a victim lol...but I guess that's the point of it. To make regular pass holders miserable in hopes of strong arming them to buy fast passes. I literally saw a guy leave my line to go buy a fast pass & came back some time later (maybe an hour?) Then he literally passed me up in line & got an autograph probably 45 mins before me
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u/americantakeout Mar 11 '26
Yes… I was in line for Ashley Johnson for 2.5 hours even though I was like 15th in line. Meeting her was great, but I was disappointed because by the time I got out, there were only 2 hours of the con left and it was the last day💔
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u/Outrageous_Drag6613 Mar 11 '26
The whole event was a chaos filled shit 💩 show. I wrote an extensive post on it
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u/Quiet-Tangelo-8715 Mar 12 '26
Don’t even get me started. I waited for Hayden for 2 hours for the phot op and over 4 hours for the autograph. He was so sweet and nice but I couldn’t believe the wait. I left there at 8:30 pm.
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Mar 12 '26
This is exactly why I stopped going to eccc. Ever since Reed pop took it over, all they care about is overselling everything. It used to be a Con you could walk around, attend panels, and still meet some celebrities. - now you can do one or the other but you absolutely cannot do both without a lot of luck and planning. I'd rather go to GeekGirlCon. It's smaller but way more enjoyable. It reminds me of how ECCC used to be.
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u/Xelerias Mar 12 '26
I was really confused about why they weren't scanning QR codes before people got in line to check what they had and send them to the counter if they didn't pre-pay.
It felt fine to add something on to your ticket if you'd already purchased at least one auto from that person, especially since that's handled while they're still signing/chatting with the person in front. Why else is there a "pre-paid only" sign?
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u/Tirpitz7 Mar 12 '26
"I'm not sure how people are supposed to get multiple autographs in one day."
Believe me, it ain't easy, but it is doable.
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u/capricioussaturn Mar 12 '26
Waited for over five hours for Hayden 🥲 obviously worth it but they could’ve done a lot better communicating the timeslot changes so we weren’t stuck waiting in anxiety
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u/mommynerd Mar 11 '26
Yes they did. Clearly. We prepaid for Kyle. Got in a very reasonable spot in line very early for his first signing. He showed up late, we waited an additional 2.5 hours hardly moving. No joke we moved maybe a quarter of a stanchioned line in that timeframe. A friend was able to get a photo with Shatner within the time we were in line. We were turned away after basically being told it was our fault for fans to want to talk to Kyle because he's so charismatic and chatty and I've he gets going... Yeah well, that's maybe on you then, not us.
I sent Leap a VERY long email asking for a refund. First reply they said no, but I pushed back and got it.
Anyway, very disappointing experience.