Whedonesque : Comments on 7474 : UK and Irish Serenity screenings announced for August 24th.

Is anyone else having trouble finding where to book in London, or is it just me?

GO BRITISH BROWNCOATS! I'm sitting this one out, as I'm seeing it on Wednesday :). Ghost Spike, I haven't seen anyone actually purchase anything yet (over on cstsuk)...so keep trying and check there too :).

bubblecat | August 08, 21:32 CET

Gonna keep refreshing, must.. see.. movie.

Ghost Spike | August 08, 21:33 CET

No Belfast? :(

I guess it could happen eventually.

Razor | August 08, 21:44 CET

https://www.thefilmworks.co.uk/index.php?page=confirmation&perf_id=199727&tbx_site_id=11

^^ Manchester tickets

gossi | August 08, 21:46 CET

Right on :) Grats to our fellow 'coats in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Dublin. A well deserved round of sweet, sweet Serenity! Keep flying, friends.

zeitgeist | August 08, 22:00 CET

Holy crap, I'm meant to be going away that day. Hmm might have to try and go a day later.

Paul_Rocks | August 08, 22:17 CET

http://www.cantstopthesignal.co.uk/screenings/ (which is my site) has online booking links - somebody might want to put this in the topic heading thing

gossi | August 08, 22:18 CET

No London, where is London? Help! :)

DArtagnan | August 08, 22:20 CET

Trying to sort out London now - they've cocked up their sales

gossi | August 08, 22:24 CET

*is in the queue for London*

Got through...not on sale to tomorrow...*waits for further instructions from Gossi*

[ edited by bubblecat on 2005-08-08 20:28 ]

bubblecat | August 08, 22:27 CET

And after an hour of refreshing, I remember I don't get back from holiday till 4 days later

Bugger

I suppose there'll be other screenings, it says round one on the UK site.

Ghost Spike | August 08, 22:29 CET

Screw it, I'm going a day after all my friends on the train. Must see Serenity, have now booked tickets for Manchester :)

Paul_Rocks | August 08, 22:34 CET

Wahey, Paul.

*IF* these screenings sell out then a 2nd round may be on offer.

gossi | August 08, 22:46 CET

I've switched the link over from Can't Stop The Signal to Can't Stop The Signal UK.

Simon | August 08, 22:46 CET

A Serenity screening just a short bus ride away, bliss.

mjwilson | August 08, 23:41 CET

I am chasing London, if anybody is interested. It looks like they are going to wait until tomorrow morning now.

gossi | August 09, 00:02 CET

Great. Guess who happens to be in France from the 22nd to the 29th of August. Bloody brilliant. So can everyone whose going please think to yourself while enjoying the film "Wow, isnt this great! Let me save a part of my utter joy and let it represent Apocalypse!" Please?

Apocalypse | August 09, 00:03 CET

Thanks Gossi....should I just hang around, just in case?

bubblecat | August 09, 00:03 CET

I really couldn't answer properly bubblecat... I think it's unlikely tickets will go on sale now is my answer. It seems like they either don't know how to add them for sale, or they want to check with a higher up manager to me.

In unrelated news, somebody has written a bit of a threating post to me elsewhere on t'interweb because they haven't been able to get London tickets. Nice.

gossi | August 09, 00:11 CET

What? Someone threatened our gossi? Where? *sharpens the sarcasm to unleash on unsuspecting dork*

zeitgeist | August 09, 00:18 CET

I saw that Gossi *hugs*. I mean, blimey, it's not like you're geting paid to do this!

Or, he could have been sort of joking? Thanks again hun.

bubblecat | August 09, 00:18 CET

Bah that sucks. After all the praise that's been heaped on fandom in the past few days someone has to go and be a dick just to stand out. We're all very appreciative of you gossi, just ignore the mean posts and eventually they'll go away ;)

Paul_Rocks | August 09, 00:23 CET

He was probably joking, it just seems bizzare.

gossi | August 09, 00:26 CET

Huh... he'd best behave himself. You're a member of our crew, gossi, we watch out for our own :)

zeitgeist | August 09, 00:29 CET

Great. Guess who happens to be in France from the 22nd to the 29th of August. Bloody brilliant.

And guess who *lives* in france (and is moreover moving the 25th of august) and won't be able to see serenity before the 19th of october? Shall we make a contest of "who's the most unlucky"? ;)

Besides, I am beginning to be really scared: we have here in montpellier a good cinema which has movies in original version... but they don't have *all* the movies and I am now considering the awful situation where they do not have Serenity when it is out in october and I'll have to go and see it with french voices in another cinema... argh!!

Le Comité | August 09, 01:04 CET

Yeah, one of my French friends made plans months ago to come and stay with me once Serenity is released because he can't stand the thought of watching it dubbed. He was even planning on coming over for the Edinburgh screening but I didn't get tickets. Oh well, at least I get to see it soon enough, even if it is without Joss.

Paul_Rocks | August 09, 01:19 CET

Sorry about the extra link to this, my bad. Thank you for clearing away my mess, Simon!
But this is really exciting news, I am so happy for all the UK Browncoats (and I do wish we were having another Advanced Screening in North America). Enjoy!

embers | August 09, 02:25 CET

I have tickets for Birmingham.

OK, I'm going have to sort out what's happening with the kids as I'm meant to be camping at my Aunt's in Wales for a big family gathering, but hey, minor details. ;-)

TheDivineGoat | August 09, 12:32 CET

Manchester apparently is sold out, no idea on the status of the other cities.

Simon | August 09, 13:08 CET

The others are still open Simon I think. But London is giving us a massive run around. They don't seem to know when they are going on sale! I'm just going to keep trying.

bubblecat | August 09, 13:14 CET

Vue West End is now saying to call back at the weekend. *deep breaths*

DArtagnan | August 09, 13:15 CET

Manchester apparently is sold out, no idea on the status of the other cities.

Good thing I decided last night then :) It was down as being in screen 4 when I book which only holds 144 people so not that surprising it's already sold out. Screen 18 holds 485 so there's plenty of room for an upgrade if required.

Paul_Rocks | August 09, 13:56 CET

Paul_Rocks, don't depend on an up-grade: in the USA they put the Advanced Screenings in the smaller of the screening rooms, and when the tickets sold out then that was it.
I'm glad to see some buzz about this, it was too quiet and I just couldn't understand that. I would think there would be a lot more excitement. Have a wonderful time at the BDM!

embers | August 09, 14:51 CET

Birmingham is sold out now.

TheDivineGoat | August 09, 14:57 CET

The ONE day I'm not in London.

I'm never venturing outside the M25 EVER again.

I'm free on the 29th. Joss?

Bad Kitty | August 09, 15:02 CET

Birmingham has sold out along with Manc.

Vue Head Quaters are saying London WILL go on sale today. The staff on the phones in the actual cinema appear clueless, though.

[ edited by gossi on 2005-08-09 13:17 ]

gossi | August 09, 15:16 CET

Paul_Rocks, don't depend on an up-grade: in the USA they put the Advanced Screenings in the smaller of the screening rooms, and when the tickets sold out then that was it.

Oh I'm not, I got my 4 tickets so it's not that important...except for the screen size as screen 18 is massive and behind the IMAX where all action films need to be seen. Hopefully that's where it'll be shown once it's released properly though.

Paul_Rocks | August 09, 15:16 CET

Ok Le Comite, we draw!

Apocalypse | August 09, 15:44 CET

I'm not sure where to post this but I feel that I have to. This morning I mailed UIP in Sweden and asked them for information on if there's a chance of a prescreening happening in the near future. Just a few hours later I recieved this reply. Here follows an translation of the mail that I sent and recieved...

My mail:

As you might be aware of there has been a few prescreenings, or they've been more like fanshowings since the fans has acquired all of the tickets and they've paid for them, in the US of Serenity during this summer, I think about 35 of them. I also know that UIP in England, Australia and now also Holland and Ireland arrange/arranged their own prescreenings of the movie and I'm now wondering if UIP Sweden is planning to do the same and, if that is the case, when and where.

Best Regards
/Anders Hammar

The reply:

Hello Anders,

I know of all the screenings in the US - the movie is really brilliant and we hope that we'll be able to get a large audience here in Sweden as well. Why won't you call me so that I can hear if you have any ideas about how we could show this movie.

Best Regards
Mats

The phone number followed in his mail but I'll keep that for myself for the time being. But here's what I can't really grasp. It sound to me atleast that he wants me to help them arrange a prescreening somewhere in Sweden. Could that even be remotely possible? I mean, all I did was asking for a date and a place and they are asking me to run things? Sounds odd to me. I will definately take him up on his offer and call him after I've done some research (found a suitable theatre somewhere etc) but in the mean time I'll would like someone to comment on this.

Djungelurban | August 09, 16:25 CET

Djungelurban - Mats will likely organise it with an exhibitor but he'll want some kind of idea of the amount of people interested, and help getting them to turn up and such.

I organised a screening with fans at UIPs head office tomorrow. I basically asked a load of fans, they mailed me all their full names, and I told UIP that.

Long story short, film distributors occasionally do film screenings ('talker' screenings) - but not like you've seen in the US and UK before, not to this scale. As such, one of the reasons why they'll ask for help and ideas with things like this is they don't know 100s of browncoats or generally have any idea what the demand is like.

Suggestions, if they don't have it already: Serenity Sweden website and forums. Build a community of people. Do you have any Swedish Buffy and Angel forums? Pump them and see what the interest is.

The UK screenings announced yesterday stems from this topic, started by myself in April this year.

gossi | August 09, 16:36 CET

London bookings are now open.

TheDivineGoat | August 09, 17:16 CET

Indeedy..

gossi | August 09, 17:26 CET

Goddammit, can't book on the website. It says I neeed to call the branch, who maintain that they are not on sale quite yet. Anyone else having this problem?

Andy Dufresne | August 09, 17:40 CET

Wow, gossi you are quite the go-getter. I'm very impressed. Go you.

newcj | August 09, 17:59 CET

Okay, now I am coughing blood. Sold out already and when I couldn't buy online the staff told me that they weren't on sale yet. Lying %^&"&^*"%^£&*%^"&*%"^&*

Man I need to drink less coffee at work.

Andy Dufresne | August 09, 18:18 CET

Djungelurban, lets us know how things develop with a Swedish screening, do you know of any good Swedish websites for Firefly/Serenity interested people ?

jpr | August 09, 18:35 CET

Djungelurban, UIP will be looking to the fans a great deal as in how to market the movie in your country. Go you for contacting them. I wrote an open letter to UIP on behalf of the Auusie BC's and got the reaction we all wanted to today in regards to ways of utilising the fanbase in a more hands on way.

Gossi - I am utterly disgusted that someone has blamed you for thier not getting a ticket. You've done SO MUCH for the BC's in getting us info and tid bits about the BDM. I think he's misunderstood the kind of power you have and I hope he gets it straightened out soon. I kind of feel like Zeitgeist on this.
Huh... he'd best behave himself. You're a member of our crew, gossi, we watch out for our own :)

nixygirl | August 09, 19:01 CET

Ah, he was just upset - he did apologise. Vue completely cocked up the London sale.. They randomly put it online this afternoon, finally, but unfortunately didn't tell their staff this so as people were phoning they were being told it wasn't possible the tickets were on sale. Sigh. It sold out in a few minutes online.

Dublin has been withdrawn from sale until tomorrow, in case theres any Irish browncoats here.

The reaction has basically been well received by TPTB - work will start on a 2nd round of screenings around the UK soon, with any luck. They will be announced and sold slightly differently next time due to the lessons learned from this time (ie some of the exhibitors clearly didn't know what they were dealing with here).

gossi | August 09, 22:46 CET

What a roller coaster day I'VE had! The website said "Tickets available Tuesday" so, since today was my day off, I woke up at eight and checked the website. No change. Checked at eight fifteen. No change. Eight thirty, no tickets. Eight forty five... Can you see the pattern here? I have two things planed for today, dentist at twelve thirty and then I'm helping my brother at his work for the day. No internet access at the dentist and no net at my brothers. Tickets no online when I left home and they wont take phone bookings. So I called work and told someone there to go online and keep checking.

Dentist. Not fun. Helping my brother move one of his clients offices, not fun. Called work, I have a ticket! Whoo! And Hoo! I have a ticket to the London screening for eleven of my English pounds.

Now here's where it gets interesting...

My work friend booked them with his credit card, in his name. So do I have to take his card when I go? Or will they accept me using someone elses card? I'm white and my friend is asian (India, Pakistan to our American friends, not Japanese) with a very asian name on his card, so no way I can try and bluff my way with his card. Even though I have the confirmation email and the card details.

I could get there and be thrown out! If anyone here goes I'll be the one sobbing and wailing from outside the theatre. Hope I don't spoil anyones enjoyment of the movie.

And big thanks to Gossi.

[ edited by zz9 on 2005-08-10 01:11 ]

zz9 | August 10, 03:10 CET

Hee, "tickets available tuesday" was my description ;)

Can you go in advance? You can pick tickets up at any time if the automated machines, I *think*. That way, if you have problems you will have days to sort it out still.

Edit: you will have been very lucky, by the way, as they were only on sale for a few minutes.

If anybody is interested, through the UK (so excluding the US site) 2133 unique people tried to book tickets in the first 24 hours.

[ edited by gossi on 2005-08-10 03:06 ]

gossi | August 10, 05:05 CET

August 08 2005