Toy Show Experience - Convention Centre..mmm

marley123

Well just wondering if anyone else was at it today ??

We got in nice & early for about 8.30 - straight into the queue for the meet & greet ( about 100 people on front of us ) ... got in the Front door of the Convention Centre about 9.45 which was great as it was FREEZING Outside:) about 10.15 " Jeward" came bouncing out singing Lipstick which my daughter loved & they did get close to her at one stage which she loved when they were singing... HOWEVER the meet & greet was disappointing - they had John at one door & Edward at the other - their security stopping people taking pictures, Edward did take the time out to give my little girl 2 giant hugs which was great but no time to get poster signed & not allowed to take photo...

Went inside & after about 1/2 an hour there was tons of comotion where Jedward had been - think they may have finished after an hour? Bedleham with teenage kids running amuck which is why they maybe pulled the plug on Jedward a bit early... There must have been at least 1,000 people queuing up outside waiting to get in & queue didnt seem to be moving very fast at all...

Was a bit annoyed none of the stands took credit/debit cards as stupidly hadn't brought any cash with me...

All in all I think there may be alot of disappointed "Jedward" fans who didnt get to see them.

Fittle

I was hoping someone would put a review up of today's Jedward meet & greet because my lad had me hounded for tickets and I almost bought them. He's gone past wanting 'toys' so we would only have gone for the Jedward 'experience'. My gut feeling was that what you had described might have happened OP - glad that you daughter got the hugs though - but also glad I didn't go and bought the panto tickets instead;)

marley123

tbh - my little girl was thrilled with how it went & thats the main thing... just feel very sorry for the hundreds of people left standing outside!! Was talking to one couple who has come from Donegal & were still stuck in the queue when we were leaving:eek:

marley123

mmmmm their Facebook Page is gone ( the toy show experience ..... strange?

smelltheglove

Prettmuch the same experience as the OP here. Girls got cuddles from Edward and I had my camera with me, one security fella said if I stood beside him I might get a couple of pics, which I did, natural not posed so happy there. It was worth the 20 odd quid for the girls to get their cuddles from Edward, they were delighted, inside was brutal tbh, I feel sorry not only for those left queing outside but for those who are going tomorrow and sunday if all they have is the show, no special guests like Jedward.

On the other hand though, it was clear from the beginning that Jedward would only be there for 1 hour which is why we arrived early, we got there at 8.45 and even then I was afraid we might only just catch them but luckily there were only around 100 in front. We left after spending half an hour inside after the meet and greet and felt terrible for those still waiting to get in.

eko

We're going to the show on Sunday. We only realised that Jedward were appearing only on Friday last week, but I don't think our son is too disappointed - might well be less crowded and hectic then.

Good tip on bringing cash to buy stuff, wasn't thinking of this before.

Is it worth driving and parking at the centre? Or am I better off parking elsewhere in the city and getting the Luas? If so, what's the nearest stop to the convention centre?

marley123

We got Parking in the Convention Centre its self - €9 for 3 hours BUT took the hassle out of having to find parking & take public transport especially with a young child:)

eko wrote: »

We're going to the show on Sunday. We only realised that Jedward were appearing only on Friday last week, but I don't think our son is too disappointed - might well be less crowded and hectic then.

Good tip on bringing cash to buy stuff, wasn't thinking of this before.

Is it worth driving and parking at the centre? Or am I better off parking elsewhere in the city and getting the Luas? If so, what's the nearest stop to the convention centre?

smelltheglove

Ah yeah drive, we parked in behind the hotel just before it, jurys I think. It was 9 euro for the parking but handy enough, only took around 25mns to get in from Lucan at 8 in the morning.

I will be honest, there wasnt much, girls had a little look at a few things, they wanted to visit the toy hospital but that wasnt going to be open until 2 we were told and I wasnt waiting around for hours for it. Bring some snacks, a contour drink was 2.50 and popcorn 3 euro. Mind we didnt stay long enough to want snacks but was glad I brought some just in case!

baddebt

marley123 wrote: »

Well just wondering if anyone else was at it today ??

We got in nice & early for about 8.30 - straight into the queue for the meet & greet ( about 100 people on front of us ) ... got in the Front door of the Convention Centre about 9.45 which was great as it was FREEZING Outside:) about 10.15 " Jeward" came bouncing out singing Lipstick which my daughter loved & they did get close to her at one stage which she loved when they were singing... HOWEVER the meet & greet was disappointing - they had John at one door & Edward at the other - their security stopping people taking pictures, Edward did take the time out to give my little girl 2 giant hugs which was great but no time to get poster signed & not allowed to take photo...

Went inside & after about 1/2 an hour there was tons of comotion where Jedward had been - think they may have finished after an hour? Bedleham with teenage kids running amuck which is why they maybe pulled the plug on Jedward a bit early... There must have been at least 1,000 people queuing up outside waiting to get in & queue didnt seem to be moving very fast at all...

Was a bit annoyed none of the stands took credit/debit cards as stupidly hadn't brought any cash with me...

All in all I think there may be alot of disappointed "Jedward" fans who didnt get to see them.

jeward aside ...was the show itself any good , I'm going up to it tomorrow with the wife and 2year old .........................how much lego is there ?

marley123

Em... it was ok based on what I saw... There is a bit of Lego in the Hamleys section - Lego Santa & Lego Woody from Toy Story - in saying that there could have been more .. tbh just spent half an hour at it after seeing Jedward.

baddebt wrote: »

jeward aside ...was the show itself any good , I'm going up to it tomorrow with the wife and 2year old .........................how much lego is there ?

Rew

marley123 wrote: »

HOWEVER the meet & greet was disappointing - they had John at one door & Edward at the other - their security stopping people taking pictures, Edward did take the time out to give my little girl 2 giant hugs which was great but no time to get poster signed & not allowed to take photo...

Has she got an autograph from them? I have some left over from work I did with them earlier in the year, I know its not the same but better then nothing.

smelltheglove

Baddebt apart from Jedward no we didnt find it great, in fact we had a walk around and realised there was little to stay for. There was a little bit of lego in the Hamley section, life sized woody but not a huge amount of stuff to do at all. I had a 10yr,9yr and 5yr all girls and they were happier to go get mcdonalds than stay.

marley123

Wow - no she doesn't !! She would love an Autograph - she has been a Fan for ages but today was the first time I brought her to meet them! She is disappointed she didn't get her poster signed so an Autograph would really make her year

Rew wrote: »

Has she got an autograph from them? I have some left over from work I did with them earlier in the year, I know its not the same but better then nothing.

Tayla

marley123 wrote: »

mmmmm their Facebook Page is gone ( the toy show experience ..... strange?

Yep I saw that, some people are complaining on the toy show page..........even though that one is for a completely different expo in the rds which will be on in 2 weeks time.

Brofamily

We got there this morning at 9.20 after getting a puncture en route to get luas in. We then queued freezing until 10.45 when we got in the door to find loads of teenagers blocking the way for our 7 yr old son to even get a glimpse of Jedward he's was elbowed and stood on by the screaming teenagers as we tried to see them before they left. got a photo of them by putting phone up as high as I could and snapping randomly. The show itself was very cramped with not a lot for the kids to play with. I will disagree with a post here I found at least 5 of the stalls accepted credit/debit cards. We spent maximum 1 1/2 hours here wandering around thinking there must be more to the show but alas nothing else. We left and saw a queue still around the side of the building. Disappointing day

tinker

A very disappointing day, a meet and greet with Jedward to me means you get to meet both of them and at least get an autograph. We even brought merchandise so we could get it autographed. I couldn't believe that we weren't allow take photos and the staff/secuity were very abrupt about it too. Has two very disappoint children today.

EraseAndRewind

Check out their facebook page its madness the amount of complaints going on they erased their original facebook due to the amount of bad reviews

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Toy-Show-Experience/281049045259322

they have erased a huge amount of bad comments today

Cazita

We went on Friday and I have to say it was the worst family day out I've ever taken the kids to. 2 and a half hour queue for an over crowed over priced toy shop. Didn't get to see jedward could barely move around. Afraid to let go of my girls hands. Nothing worth seeing. Left after an hour. Very disorganised. Surely they knew how many people were going they sold the tickets. I feel very angry at spending money on this joke of a show. At a time when people need every penny we spent this money on a day out for our kids that we thought they would enjoy and it was a disgrace. I'm just very angry over the whole thing.

Orion

EraseAndRewind wrote: »

they erased their original facebook due to the amount of bad reviews

"Unfortunately our Facebook page is still down … we are really doing our best to get it back up and running"
Facebook should sue them imo. They're implying that a facebook page can be down outside of Facebook's control. Blatant lie as far as I can see - The only way a facebook page can be down is if you delete it.

SerialComplaint

I'm just amazed that so many people seem prepared to pay a substantial entrance fee to get into a toy shop. That's the kind of wasteful nonsense that got us into this economic mess that we're in today.

If you want to go to a Toy Shop, go to Smyths or your local toy shop.

Brofamily

Attended the toy show again today and it was a much better experience than Fridays. I felt like I was at a different event. Well done for fixing the problems

LegacyUser

found the Toy Show Experience to be a disaster, queued for an hour and a quarter in the freezing cold, not a hope of seeing Jedward and it was just manic inside, couldnt see anything with the crowds and the pushing. Had 3 kids with us ranging in age from 6 to 13 and they were all glad to leave after an hour or so

GeorgeBailey

SerialComplaint wrote: »

I'm just amazed that so many people seem prepared to pay a substantial entrance fee to get into a toy shop. That's the kind of wasteful nonsense that got us into this economic mess that we're in today.

If you want to go to a Toy Shop, go to Smyths or your local toy shop.

I think people were expecting it to be an EXPERIENCE as opposed to just going to a shop, i.e. that it'd be like that part of the toy show where they show a big bunch of kids playing with all the toys.

Sounds pretty shambolic all round if what people are saying is true.

Clementine2010

It was like something from Fr. Ted, utter rubbish and no fun, thought rip off Ireland was gone, seems not! they're Facebook page was shut down as they were running a competition on their page and broke FB rules, you have to run promotions and competitions on FB through a FB app. Again just shows these organizers had not clue what they were doing, and doubt they'll have the neck to try put this on next year.

My 4 year old asked to leave after 10 minutes, which after being excited all week was pretty disappointing! Everything was just badly run even down to my 18 month old being handed free hard sweets, she then had a breakdown when I took them off her...thats just common sense, you don't give babies with no teeth hard sweets!! Toys in boxes, long queues, nothing to see one you got in there, sad affair all together!

syklops

Clementine2010 wrote: »

It was like something from Fr. Ted, utter rubbish and no fun, thought rip off Ireland was gone, seems not! they're Facebook page was shut down as they were running a competition on their page and broke FB rules, you have to run promotions and competitions on FB through a FB app. Again just shows these organizers had not clue what they were doing, and doubt they'll have the neck to try put this on next year.

My 4 year old asked to leave after 10 minutes, which after being excited all week was pretty disappointing! Everything was just badly run even down to my 18 month old being handed free hard sweets, she then had a breakdown when I took them off her...thats just common sense, you don't give babies with no teeth hard sweets!! Toys in boxes, long queues, nothing to see one you got in there, sad affair all together!

They will have the brass neck to put in on next year just under a different name. They booked Jedward for one hour on a Friday, but made it look like they would be there all day for the 3 days, so loads of extra people bought tickets for that. Put very little effort into the experience, and cleaned up. Of course they will be back, and until the standard of events like this improves they will keep coming back.

SerialComplaint

Clementine2010 wrote: »

It was like something from Fr. Ted, utter rubbish and no fun, thought rip off Ireland was gone, seems not! they're Facebook page was shut down as they were running a competition on their page and broke FB rules, you have to run promotions and competitions on FB through a FB app. Again just shows these organizers had not clue what they were doing, and doubt they'll have the neck to try put this on next year.

My 4 year old asked to leave after 10 minutes, which after being excited all week was pretty disappointing! Everything was just badly run even down to my 18 month old being handed free hard sweets, she then had a breakdown when I took them off her...thats just common sense, you don't give babies with no teeth hard sweets!! Toys in boxes, long queues, nothing to see one you got in there, sad affair all together!

Are you talking about the one at the Convention Centre, or the one at the RDS last weekend?

Clementine2010

Convention CEntre, although heard RDS one wasn't great either