Charging fans for autographs?
steven1977
Posts: 3,968 Forum Member
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Was seeing this news item on GB as I cant get into the forums cos theirs some virus that attacks the pc if I go into their message board. Regarding this convention am the only one whos downright disguisted that Moff has the cheek to want fans to pay to get Matts autograph. Thats kinda taking the **** and certenly a child isnt going to understand this.
Their is plenty of celebs who will sign for free and not sure why these jokers reckon its acceptable even though they claim a pic is taken by a pro.
Their is plenty of celebs who will sign for free and not sure why these jokers reckon its acceptable even though they claim a pic is taken by a pro.
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Seems reasonable.
Why do people assume that everything they don't like is the fault of the showrunner? Really getting sick and tired of that attitude amongst Who fandom.
As strange as it may sound Moffat doesn't really have the time to organise a convention, that's down to the promoters, in this case BBC Worldwide. While I personaly think the price they're charging should include an autograph there are certainly valid reasons to try and maximise their potential profit from the event (not the least of which is that money goes back into the BBC according to the website so lots of profit = another good reason to keep funding the series).
Another really good reason (albeit one that fans won't like to hear) is simply queue management. There are going to be a limited number of people that can be dealt with in the two hour (2 x 1 hour) slot they have available. Charging in advance is one (fairly crude) way to ensure you only sell as many tickets as you can fit in during that time slot.
As I said I do think they're charging too much for this event (and have made that view clear on the Convention thread) but at the same time I can see that they're at least trying to offer something different. Makeup demos and a 'live' battle scene (x2, once for each track) aren't going to be cheap and nor is the venue they've gone with. Do I think they need to charge for autographs to make it profitable? No, probably not. Do they need to charge for autographs to maximise profits and thus justify the expenditure in a BBC that's stretched financialy as it is? Almost certainly.
I went to one event in the 90's and they had some big Who names there, they didn't charge and if I knew they were going to in advance, I wouldn't have bothered going. It would have made me feel uncomfortable and it also gives an image of the person charging that maybe wasn't there before....:rolleyes:
See I don't understand why you'd feel that it changes the image of a person when you're at an official event. Take Karen f'instance - appeared at Film and Comic Con this year and charged for autographs etc. Yet every single person I've seen talk about meeting her out and about has been complimentary, she always seems to have time for fans and comes off as a genuinely nice person.
Matt's another one. Yes he's charging for autographs (although how much of that money he gets of course is another matter) yet he does stuff like this:
What a total bar steward!
Really think people need to remember that it's not always as simple as "person X is charging for their signature and pocketing the money". There's a ton of different deals to get stars to these events where, let's not forget, people want to meet them. Often they turn up and don't get paid anything except what they make from pics, autographs etc. Sometimes they're contracted by the event and money earned on the day is taken by the convention in whole or in part. In the case of the Official Who Convention you'd assume it's treated as a public event, is in their contracts and the money they make goes to BBC Worldwide rather than the stars.
For me though the true measure of how well stars react to fans is how they deal with them outside of these events and from that perspective I've yet to hear a bad thing about any of the current cast (or crew for that matter).
Also, there isn't going to be time for everybody to get a photo/autograph. If the organisers did it by a free lottery then a lot of people who didn't get one would complain, and a lot of people who did would stick their ticket on eBay.
Hi Smiddlehurst,
What I was trying to say was it may cause resentment and therefore maybe people might think less of the celebrities themselves. As you say, though, there may be other factors at work that are not due to the celebrities themselves and I have no doubt most of them are nice people. Doesn't have to be their fault but I personally wouldn't go to any event where celebrities charge for autographs. Got no problem paying for the event itself, but that, no.
It's £99 for the day and £25 for Matt's photo or autograph. It was originally £20 for Steven, but that's now changed to just a free random draw.
I see from the website that "All Photograph and Autograph opportunities are currently sold out." So it looks like Worldwide didn't price themselves out of the market.
I'm divided on this, on one hand i can see there needs to be a charge for tickets, as EVERYONE would que up, and there would be loads disappointed, and the actors need something for doing this, for coming to the event and spending all day signing, it is their job, they want paid.
I can also see that fans just want something from the stars they love, and shouldn't need to pay for a simple acknowledgment , but then i am guessing they don't charge in the street when someone randomly walks up and asks for an autograph.
To be fair to the event organisers of this, if it is true that "All Photograph and Autograph opportunities are currently sold out." - hats off to them for being honest and saying so...
...A recent London convention sold tickets up-front between £20-£35 for signed pictures, there is some questions that then knew full well their sales exceeded the time it would practically take for the guests to sign all these items.
In the end, many punters left empty handed, as guests took too long to sign, or a guest turned up 2 hours late - As a result they now have to try and get a refund via the organisers.
If guests want to charge that's fine by me, so long as people know this, and how much they will charge.
Certain "big" names often refuse to sign certain images of themselves for various reasons, plus (sometimes contractually) they are limited to what type of material they can sign at an event.
(as an aside I did find it hilarious that Dame Diana Rigg stubbornly used to refuse signing Avengers pictures as "they made her look silly", yet seems more than happy to change her principles and charge £30 for them!).
But that's the guests right, as long as we, the punters are aware of it.
At recent events Christopher Lee / Michael Crawford are two other examples who refused to sign Dracula Shots (Lee) and Crawford would only sign his biography. It was just a shame that the organisers didn't state this.
At least the events organiser seems to be communicating all the relevent info to us, even if perhaps we don't like the outcome !
Imagine the excitement of a child/adult meeting someone that they admire, that they have only seen on the telly and then meeting them and having that moment, along with the bonus of a photograph or autograph to prove that it happened. Some people have little books filled with autographs. I think that is lovely.
I was staffing at NEC Memorabilia at the weekend. My group of celebs ("stars of yesteryear" would be the polite way of putting it) were stationed just round the corner from Arthur Darvill. Arthur was £15 a go, and his queue was never less than 30 people long all day.
People are quite able to charge for a signature, especially when they are at the top of their celebrity. Attending a convention, signing or PA is going to be an expensive do, and I am not surprised to hear that MS is charging.
I met MS a couple of months before he was cast as the Doctor: he was in a play with Lindsay Duncan. It was mainly her autograph I was after, but I got him as well as he was passing by. At the NEC at the weekend, i did not begrudge paying Sarah Sutton and Ian McCulloch for signatures.
Matt Smith and Steven Moffat are both perfectly good at signing through the post. Send then an SAE and you can get them for the cost of a stamp:
Matt Smith
c/o Troika
3rd Floor
74 Clerkenwell Road
London
EC1M 5QA
Steven Moffat
c/o Berlin Associates
7 Tyers Gate
London
SE1 3HX
Hope this helps!
Dame Di has declined Avengers for many years now. There was a ripple of surprise that she was signing Avengers at the stagedoor of Pygmalion recently, and her Memorabilia/Autographica/Collectormania appearance was shortly after that.
Many actors will not sign anything. Some will only sign selected items. I had a letter from Helen Mirren's agent once, explaining that she doesn't sign through the mail anymore as she feels there are already quite enough of her autographs out there in the world. I supposethe curse of Ebay.
Michael crawdford only signing his book? That does happen quite often at book signing events. I saw Joanna Lumley at a book signing recently: the queue was VAST. Must have been 300 people wanting a signature. Normally, Ms Lumley will sign anything you put in front of her, but she was adamant "BOOK ONLY" on that event, and it's quite reasionable to see why.
Lis Sladen once phoned me, in response to my fanletter. She said that she had mixed up her fanmail and wasn't certain which photos I had sent to her. "Oh, by the way, that's a really unusual photo: where did you get it?". It was not an unusual photo at all, so i can only assume she was clamping down on copyright fraud.
It seems likely that Matt Smith will have a mega queue at his signing, and in order to get the chance to speak to the fan standing inf ront of him while signing there photo, limiting numbers sounds quite reasonable.
If it was a signing thing like yesterday I could understand the outrage but surely a convention is there to make money for the promoters etc
It's warming to know that Diana appears to have started signing Avengers, she adamantly refused for decades. Perhaps a change of heart ?... I know Linda Thorsen had a bit of a pop at her last year at some private event saying she couldn't understand what her problem was !
Yes, Lis was very VERY propriatorial about people using her image. Her cut out of any promotional work and TV repeats from Dr Who was appalling low, compared to the amount Tom was (and still is) paid per broadcast episode. You would expect Tom/Jon of course to earn more from royalties but the difference Lis got was just "unfair".
We had Lis for many many events in the 1990's/2000's when Dr Who was not as popular as it is now, and as the years went on she became more and more aware of people "cashing in" on her, citing Sadie her daughter as the principal motivation, as she wanted to make sure Sadie got something out of it.
To be honest, it did become very tiresome as Lis would scrutinise every photo passed to her for signing. If it wasn't something she authorised (and there we'rent that many), she simply wouldn't sign, and as you rightly observe chuffnobler, would ask them where they got the item, and she would try and stop them distrubuting anymore. Fair enough I suppose, tho' many in the queue genuinely bought a very good quality item, but Lis felt she couldn't sign as she did not receive any royalties from it.
She had issues with SlowDazzle for years as they were "authorised" but Lis insisted that she hadn't received any royalties from them for years, and was "persuing them".
S&P Parker MovieMarket also infuriated her, S&P were a legit outlet, but again I guess only the photographer owned the rights and Lis got bugger all.
Genuine fans would take pictures of her from Who books, and pop to Boots to get them enlarged for her to sign - They were poor quality (you could also see the written captions below the photo taken from the book!). But to be honest there wasn't a lot of "legit" Lis photo's about, so people "made do".
Lis did sign a lot of stuff like this upto around the late 90's and then she just gave up. Once her stint in Dr Who came, she really protected her "brand".
Lis hated the official promo photo taken for The Five Doctos. Postcards of that pic are very rare as she wnated them all destroyed. Likewise, Carole Ann Ford's 5Drs postcard is as rare as a rare thing.
Swine
The thing is though their charging 99 quid for the event anyway which to me with thousands of fans going the company will make a huge profit as doesnt cost that much to hire a hall. Saying that though signings should be included in the price not a separate fee. One way you could look at it is greed greed greed.
I think their was a backlash of fans claiming this isnt child friendly. Thankfully their are other actors about who arent like this and will sign for nothing like they should.