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My friend just posted this interesting blog by actress Ann Mahoney of The Walking Dead fame. Interesting read for sure, especially for newer con-goers. The article begins with an apparently clueless con guest who was irked by the thought of having to pay a (fairly minimal) fee for a selfie with Ann.
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That's a great blog post. Is it her blog and your friend works for her?
No, I meant she just posted it on her Facebook. I should have clarified that.
I honestly don't understand how someone ends up at one of these conventions without any clue that everything costs something.
If it's their first time, that's not too surprising.
I haven't been to tons of cons, but the experience can vary drastically. If I'm being shuffled through a Stan Lee-like assembly line, then that has very little appeal to me. If it's a low key convention (like most horror cons), then it can be very enjoyable with more loose interaction to go along with the lower prices.
The first year I went to Wizard World in Chicago, it was already a big, heavily attended event. But I think it was only $25-30 to attend and all the autographs were $20 - 40, with perhaps William Shatner being the only exception. Most of the celebs offered a free photo op or selfie (non professional) with an autograph purchase.
The following two years were still enjoyable, even as the prices and attendance rose noticeably. But a few years down the road, I just found the event barely tolerable. You couldn't freely photograph or video the event as you could years before. Traffic was disastrous and the entire event, despite have much, much more physical space available, was overcrowded. Add to the fact that they rely on unpaid, untrained volunteers, the whole event can just be overpriced and miserable.
Rich, Adam...this is a great debate. What hit me half way through it was that for many people these days, the photo with a celebrity is replacing the autograph.
Again, it comes down to what you want. Obviously, autographs can be bought and sold. Photo ops - not so much. That's sort of what my blog post was about a while back, and before that a debate about whether the selfie/photo op was better than an autograph. The answer is that it depends on the individual fan and the celebrity. It didn't realize until fairly recently that there were people who collected photo ops in a manner very similar to pro autograph collectors. With social media being what it is, and the quality of personal photography equipment having grown significantly over the past 15 years, I can see how the photo op has drawn even with or perhaps even passed autograph collecting.
Having a collector mentality and being a fan of any franchise, tends to put the fan in a situation where they want to get everyone involved in a particular show or film. I am sure that Ms. Mahoney will be able to sign plenty of posters and photos for those die-hard fans, but in reality I had to look at her photos to see who she was. I have seen every episode fo TWD, yet I had no clue who she played. She is not Norman Reedus or Andrew Lincoln or even Chandler Riggs. She was a bit part player for a couple of seasons of one of the top shows on TV. If she was in Star Wars, she was in essence: an Imperial or Rebel officer with a few lines. Most casual fans will not be lining up to get her autograph or take their picture with her. It is highly doubtful that she would be involved in any professional photo-op, unless there is one featuring a cast grouping.
Many larger shows, especially those with a guarantee for the guest, require the celeb to charge for everything, and many times the person seated at the table is keeping track for the promoter.
The shows where celebs take a selfie with the fans are pretty much a thing of the past. You can thank Froggie's and the other professional photo-op providers for that.
Promoters are at a point where they are making more on the photo ops than they are at the autograph halls......what do you think that they will focus on at upcoming shows?
A celebrity guest at a show is spending better than half of their show time doing photo-ops, while autograph collectors wait at an empty table, standing in line,l hoping that the guest gets back on time....or at least before the show ends.
I can certainly get behind a guest offering a free selfie with the purchase of an autograph, but if a fan wants to take time away from a guest's ability to sign for just a selfie with no signature......I can completely understand a small fee for the guest to do so.
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