The Escalating Cost of Meeting your Heroes

It's huge. It's at Olympia in London, big exhibition center. It has got bigger in recent years. The first one I went to was probably back in maybe two 2008 or something. In those days, it was at Earls Court. And it wasn't as big then. London Comic Con 2015 was the big one, it was the Back to the Future one.

They had Michael J. Fox there, Christopher Lloyd, they had Lea Thompson, they had loads of other people from the film. I thought I've got to meet all these people get my poster signed. Little did I know how difficult it is to actually get to some of these people. Because what happens is you have to queue to get in. Before the doors open, the queues go down the street, all around the block, hundreds and hundreds of people, they get there at six in the morning, it opens at nine. The point of getting there early is you have to then go and find the person you want to meet.

Once inside there's no map, there's no one to tell you, you have to go running around aimlessly trying to find this person, then when you find them, you have to get in the queue. Now if this person is really popular, it's a virtual queue because they don't have the queuing space at the table. So they give you a number in your place in the queue, they have a person handing out tickets. And if you get there at 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock, and you finally find them you get number and says You are Number 250 in the queue, what they do is they give priority to Diamond Passes.

I quickly discovered that if you pay more to get a Diamond Pass for particular guests, then you are guaranteed to meet that guest, get your stuff signed, get your photograph, because you can jump the queue. Everyone else who doesn't pay the Diamond Pass, they have to just get there at the crack of dawn. But sometimes even if you have  Diamond Pass, you still might not meet them. That was the case with Christopher Lloyd because he takes a long time to sign. And he had so many Diamond Pass people who paid and he was still signing for VIPS at the end of the day. Back in 2015.

Let's talk about and so what was it like meeting Denise?

Yeah, so I went on Sunday, because on the Sunday, she also did a talk. So the Diamond Pass included her talk. It turned out I didn't even need a Diamond Pass for her. There was nobody handing out tickets. She didn't have a very big queue of people. I looked at the price and thought well that's a lot more than if you just buy one autograph and one photo shoot. If you've got a Diamond Pass, you pay in advance with your card online. And then they give you a tag a Diamond Pass tag that you get stamped. For one autograph, it used to be two. They've now changed it to one which is really as good as Christopher Lloyd takes 10 minutes to sign one.

So they stamp it when you get one item signed, because you pay for that in advance. They stamp it when you get your photo done. They stamp it when you go to the talk, because there was a talk for two days. And also if you get it done and pass you get a free gift mug or something. And I often forget to get the gift because it's just not really very good.

Denise Richards was charging 55 pounds per autograph, and 55 pounds per photoshoot. That's good I thought, I'm happy to pay that. It's not too extravagant. I mean, Michael J. Fox, he was charging hundreds and hundreds of pounds per autograph. But to be fair to him, it was going to his charity for Motor Neurone Disease. .

I heard that there was some disquiet from Denise about something that happened during one of the photos. Can you speak about that?

When I when I went for my photo shoot, they line you all up. Someone in charge of the queue and getting the Diamond Pass people to the front of the queue. This guy then briefed us before she arrived and said, "Okay, when Denise gets here, no touching. It's shoulder to shoulder only I'm afraid. There was an incident on Friday. And as a result, I'm afraid it's no touching, but you can do shoulder to shoulder with her".

Now what's that all about them? I thought. Did someone touch her inappropriately or something? I mean she seemed she didn't seem particularly germ conscious. She was happy to shake my hand. She was shaking people's hands at the table. So I don't know what happened there. He didn't elaborate and I didn't ask but I'm assuming it's something like that.

Are film fans being priced out now because of how much it costs to get autographs and meet their heroes?

Yeah, it has it has got it has got a bit more unaffordable in recent years. And as I said, the Diamond Pass used to include two autographs now it's only one. It's a shame really, but I suppose it depends who you're meeting. I mean, if they're really big stars, then obviously Showmasters have to pay them a lot of money.

This whole charging thing became a thing because this was never a thing before Ebay. I mean, I'm I'm a dinosaur. I went to these events in the 90s. I went to conventions at Pinewood in 1992 and Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell, George Lazenby, Eunice Guyson they never charged, you pay your ticket price includes their fee. It was a lot of money. It was like 110 quid in 92. So that covered your your meal, it covered the tour of the studio, it covered the film screening, it covered all your autographs, but post eBay, then obviously, they like, oh, we better start charging people because they're selling our stuff on eBay.

I remember in 2008 when I went to my first Bondstar event, which was Goldfinger at Pinewood, and they had everyone there. Margaret Nolan was there who played Dink. She was at this event, and she felt so embarrassed about charging. She felt really genuinely bad. "I'm so sorry to ask you for 20 pounds or 15 pounds. But you have to remember us actors, we don't have pensions." She said. "So this is what we have to live off."

You can catch the full interview with Rob Smith and get to know more about autograph hunting on the There Must Be Bond YouTube channel.

Other comments and contributions from movie fans about the increase cost of autograph hunting

Sadly convention and autograph prices just continue to rise. It also becomes an "arms race" mentality because the celebrities see what others charge and they think they're a bigger star so they'll charge even more. I really enjoy the conventions and getting to meet Bond film actors and actresses. My biggest regret is not going to the one convention that Diana Rigg attended. I considered it briefly but it would have been quite expensive since it was in the UK and I'm in the US. My big fear was that I'd spend all that money and she'd cancel. - The Danger Man 

I’m old enough to remember when obtaining a celebrity autograph was a spontaneous thing. Today, Comic-con and similar events have quantified and monetized what used to be a moment of pure joy for fans. They see it as providing a service and they’re not wrong, but the service being provided is an expensive knock-off. I cringe when fans post the photos taken with their favorite celebrity at such events. Anyone who’s attended a con knows that those photos are not records of spontaneous expressions of appreciation but instead capture the moment when the fan was shoved next to the celebrity with instructions not to touch the celebrity in an encounter just long enough for the photographer to snap the photo. Those encounters are transactional and cynical. - Chas Fairbanks

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash