Sherlocked Convention Review

Throbbing feet and a practically deceased bank account was all the confirmation I needed to prove that Sherlocked 2016 wasn’t a dream. The weekend was fuelled from excitement and coffee, and certainly displayed an array of highs and lows, all of which I will try to remember now.

As mentioned above, this event completely slaughtered my bank account. I’m not talking ‘made a little dent’, I mean it grabbed my purse, took a shit on my bank card and set it on fire – it was that expensive. 

Originally I had only planned to go on the Sunday with my friend (as she was busy on the Saturday), so bought a day pass; however, once Andrew Scott was announced, I quickly changed my mind and bought a day pass for the Saturday too. This is something I definitely won't be doing again, as the day passes cost around £35 each, and this literally only allowed you entry to the event and the ability to buy more tickets i.e photo passes (I know, it's so generous!). 

On top of this, the photo passes were all averaged at around £25, as were the autographs, and you also had to buy the photo for them to autograph for an additional £3 each at a different section of the venue, and this wasn’t refundable if you didn’t get the autograph (which is why I know have a random photo of Benedict Cumberbatch floating around my room). 

Not that I'm complaining!

The photographs were one of the main things that really made me angry, as a ‘conveyer belt’ style system was in place. If you spoke to one of the stars for even a couple of seconds after the photo was taken, a member of staff will quickly move you along, which is slightly more understandable for the bigger stars I guess, but still not quite what I expected. On top of this, the photo quality wasn’t overly great, and several of mine were overexposed or blurry, and a reshoot was rarely on offer.

I feel like I should also quickly mention that when buying photo passes and choosing the photo batches, my friend and I got confused as we thought that each batch would take place at a set time slot, so we made sure that no two batch numbers were the same. Ths isn't the case though, and in fact, the batch numbers only decided how quickly you will be called in the celebrities designated time slot. (I feel like that made no sense...). Basically, what I'm trying to say, is try to pick the lowest available batch number on offer, as you will then get your photo a bit quicker, and won't have to wait around so much!

Over three weeks after the event, the digital copies of the photos were made available…TO BUY! I myself am a photographer, and still can’t quite understand why an unedited digital copy of a photo costs an additional £5 when you already spent so much on the photo ticket itself. It just feels as though it is a case of people trying to get as much money as possible, and at first, I thought that this was the only way the photographer were getting paid, but seeing as the event must have made so much money, that seems a little unlikely.    

Okay, now that I have already spent 500 words complaining, I feel like I should break this up with a couple of positives from the event. The cast who were there were absolutely lovely. Andrew Scott was completely amazing and down to earth and made sure to have a little chat with everyone at the signing table, and, unlike Benedict Cumberbatch who remained cut off from the rest of the cast during the signings (which is discussed more in my video linked below), Andrew Scott sat amongst everyone, which is also something I appreciated. His talk was fantastic and genuinely inspiring, and I really do hope he attends next year.

As well as having the paid talks on, there were also some free talks on, of which I caught a few of. The Baker Street Babes were incredible, and have definitely gained a new follower in me. The free talks were definitely a good idea, as, with the exception of them and a small exhibition, there wasn’t much available to do when waiting around. It would be amazing if there was a bit more there to do or even just have a screen on to play some episodes.

I realise I’ve already started to pick up negatives once again, so I might as well carry on by complaining about the organization of the event. There were several time clashes over both of the days, and the staff didn’t quite know how to help out with that unless you had one of the bought privileges.

The privilege packages were a huge headache throughout the whole event, and often lead to people with ordinary tickets missing out. I honestly didn't realize how the differences between ticket types would influence and effect my overall experience. 

Platinum passes were the main cause for so many of us (for lack of a better term) peasants to not get all of the autographs we wanted and to top it off, for the talks you were seated in sections depending on your ticket type. This is completely understandable, but it’s also a bit of a kick in the teeth when there are empty seats closer to the stage, but no one is allowed to move forward. I am considering getting the platinum pass for next year, but I’m also not too sure if it would be worth it, as I feel like everyone who came this year will get one, and I highly doubt that the number of tickets would be limited, purely because it gets the organisers so much money.

The last thing I shall now complain about on here will be the merchandise on offer. I cover this issue in the video below, but it angered me so much, I felt it was worthy to also mention on here. Not only was there not enough merch for the Saturday, meaning there were literally only furlocks and about nine pens for Sunday, they were also selling last year’s merchandise as if it was this year's. I picked up one of the programmes of the event and my mum picked up the official convention mug, and it wasn’t until we got home that we noticed the fact they had last year’s date on…we were not amused.

However much I have just sat here and complained, I did still really enjoy the event, and will still probably go next year. It would be amazing if those issues could be sorted out, but I guess this is only the second year of running so a couple of hiccups are expected, but I didn’t expect any of them to be this major.

Feel free check out my video HERE which is also about this event, but discussing everything in a bit more context, as well as explains other points that my aching fingers didn’t want to type.

Thanks for reading, and congratulations on making it to the end!