Quite a few people have sent along their experiences at the latest Collectormania. More than a few of them have been negative, and if you include the tales of woe from TORN pal Irascian and even TORN’s own Leo (review coming soon), it seems not all is well in the Collectormania PTB’s.

Sorne

This was my first time at a Collectormania event, and ‘mania’ is a good description. People had queued since 4am to get tickets for ‘the Hobbits’ and the crush was so bad, that you could not even glimpse them without one. My friend managed to see Elijah and Dom by accompanying another (ticket bearing) friend in order to take photos. The only person I had wanted to meet was Lawrence Makoare, and fortunately I only had to queue for about an hour. It was worth every minute of the wait. What an incredibly charming man he is. Despite having been meeting people and signing autographs all day, he still had smiles and warm handshakes for everybody. He asked everyone’s name, sent messages to those who couldn’t make it and posed happily for endless photos. I have met a few actors in my time and I know that the reality is often a disappointment over the expectation. Not this time. Not only was Lawrence friendly, sincere and endlessly patient, he was also a man of very great physical presence. I consider myself to be pretty level-headed but I have to confess a hug from Lawrence had me in a bit of a tiz!

Norma

I would just like to say how much I agree with the comments of irascian about collectomania 4. Although I myself had the chance to talk to Sean Astin and Andy Serkis on Monday, and they were great, My daughter had a different experience when meeting Elijah wood and Dominic Monahan, the stars themselves were very pleasant ,but the organizers seemed to be rushing everyone through like branding cattle.My daughter got the impression that the guests themselves were fed up with it and on occasion slowed things down themselves as a protest.Plus it would have helped to have been forewarned about the prices of autographs , many people ran out of cash and went to the cashpoints to find them empty.However saying all that it was an experience I’ll never forget.

Steve

I and a large group of my friends attended Collectormania 4 in Milton Keynes expecting to have a great time, we have attended one previously barring a few complaints about there staff the event was ok, we decided to give it another go.

We have been following the posts on there message boards regarding tickets and so on and followed there instructions, expecting tickets for the Lord Of The Rings guests to be made available from 10am, which was fine and gave everyone a fair crack of the whip, but when we found that all of the tickets had been made available from 6.30am in the morning and by the time we got there they were all gone, we were to say the least not impressed, we stayed at the event but it became ridiculous, the amount of upset children that were there just trying to get a glimpse of Frodo, but when anyone got near there area they were pushed physically away by the show masters security, no asking them if they could move but shoving them away.

The show masters staff were very abusive along with one of the organizers who we have now found to be named ‘Mark’ something or other!

There is no surprise that one of the parents of a child decided to hit one of them, as there total attitude towards fans was totally out of order!

We knew that a lot of people would be at the event, so accept that, we did not go there with any preconceptions, but the total attitude that was portrayed towards fans was very bad, the whole experience was both upsetting and something that neither myself or any of my friends will endure again.

we go to these events as general autograph hunters with no one in particular to get, we also heard the numerous rumors that Orlando Bloom was at the event walking around in disguise! This was overheard being said by one of the organizers, what a way to start a frenzy! Then to start telling people that both Viggo & Orlando were going to Collectormania 5 was an out right lie, as we have contacted his agent and they deny it totally.

Whilst looking at there message board during the event the organizer Mark had his mother post on there apologizing to fans and attendees alike, saying that they were not doing the event for the money, what total rot, we all know they do it for the money, not just to benefit the fan, but we will not go into that.

It is fine people making money if they run a business but be honest about it, also have the courage to answer questions themselves instead of grown adults having there mothers post on a message board for them!

I felt so strongly about this negative experience that I felt the need to share it and we will never be attending another Show masters events or Collectormania as there was no organization, total lies and abusive staff,

I know this post is very controversial, but lets for once be honest about things for once and warn any future fans and if Orlando or Viggo did attend any o there vents in future I am sure that after everyone has written to there agents telling of the negative experiences they will thanks twice.