| On Friday 21/4/2000 and Saturday 22/4/2000 David Boreanaz attended Forbidden Planet in London's New Oxford Street. The below article was released a few days before by the event organiser Scott Ferguson-Caisley (Titan).. |
| Article: "I got off the phone this afternoon with David's people in LA and boy is he looking forward to coming to England to meet the fans and appear on the TV and radio. As I said to everyone many times, I am working to bring the top Stars over from the shows that we cover and Angel is one of them. We at Titan are interested in promoting the Buffy and Angel name, that is why he is coming. We are getting no contribution from the TV shows or press at all. We want them to cover David and we want to promote the whole franchise. The signing will be charged for yes, but David can only spare us a certain amount of time. We want him to meet the fans and yes we will use the money to offset the cost but also to allow us to bring more people over.We are being honest and saying that we will charge.We wanted to tell you all up front and let you decide. The last thing I want is for people to come and not expect it. At the end of the day it is up to each fan to decide, we don't have that many signings with him. If we had more it would cost less. If he had more time we could take the signings to our shops outside London. When you watch him on The Big Breakfast and R&J or listen to him on the radio remember he wouldn't be here if we had not paid to get him over, and boy do the airlines and hotels in London charge. If you can come, do , I would love to see Angel mania hit London in a big way. That way we can bring over the next Star. Why not Sarah? Or any others of the cast? Then if you want to come to that, you can, we are offering the chance to come and meet him, or you can watch it on TV. Hope to see you there. Scott |
| Read our account of the whole experience below: |
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| The day starts at 5.45am. The alarm clock bleeps until it is thrown
against the wall as it's the only way to switch it off. After gathering various articles
of clothing and other essentials and packing them into a bag for an overnight stay, we
race down town to catch the early express to London. Safely aboard and with out bags
stowed away, we travel towards London with an expectant gleam in our eye. We arrive in Victoria Coach Station, walk up Buckingham Palace Road and wade through the masses of people as they go about their business in Victoria Railway Station. Once inside the underground we purchase an all day ticket so that we can get about London easier and cheaper than by taxi. After a quick journey on the Circle Line to Embankment, we change trains to the Northern Line and arrive at Tottenham Court Road Station with time to spare. We emerge into the sunlight and follow the directions. Keeping Center Point to our right we soon see the queue of excited children and adults all waiting patiently to meet David Boreanaz, star of the hit TV Show ANGEL. We decide to meet up with some friends and come back later in the day. After having some lunch on Oxford Street, we decide that we should join the queue and spend the next two hours shuffling a few hundred yards before making it to the entrance of Forbidden Planet. Once sufficient space has appeared we go inside after being courteously told to proceed by a member of the security team who seemed more interested in his cigarette than our apparent dislike at being treated like cattle. The first thing we are greeted by is the table with three different photos of David, all taken from the Buffy series (i.e. old prints that are widely available anywhere) and not his own series. They are already pre-signed. We are told that if we want a signed photo it will cost £20 each. We decline. We then reach another table where we are told that if we have any personal items for him to sign it will cost an additional £20 per item, we have one item each, after handing over £40 we then turn the corner and see a table with three people behind it. The first is a woman, presumably from Titan Books. In the middle is an American man with no idea how stupid he looks wearing purple sunglasses inside and to his left is David Boreanaz. We are approached by a female member of the security detail who insists that we take no photo's this close, which is fair enough, afterall who wants a bucketload of flashes going off in their face all day? When we made a move to take a photo at this distance we were very abruptly told by the female security member who had no respect - it was definitely a case of being treated like cattle... We make it to the table and are asked by the woman what we have for David to sign. We hand over the Yearbook and a photo from the series Angel (this causes some confusion amongst some of the people present as it wasn't one of the mass produced, pre-signed ones we were supposed to buy) and these are passed along the table. Our time has arrived, we are now talking to David, asking if he's enjoying his stay and hearing how he intends to catch up on some theatre while he's over here. He's very easy going and pleasant. With our little chat over, items signed, we proceed to the podium where we are allowed to take a few photo's while trying to dodge heads that seem to get in the way every few seconds. After taking three photos we are promptly told to move by another member of the security team who was severely folically challenged. We are not allowed to stand to the right of the podium as there's an interview taking place between a second hand camera crew and a young man who looked like he fancied someone sat behind the table... After spending another twenty minutes milling around and trying to find some suitable places to take photos we decide to call it a day and cross over the road to sit down and have a cigarette. We then make our way to the back of the store where we see David leaving in the red W Reg Mercedes Benz. He's looking quite annoyed at something... |
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| We were relatively happy. We had achieved what we set out to do. We heard
a number of people complain about the security staff being nasty, pushy and obnoxious. We
also heard a minority complaining about being ripped off by the star. It certainly didn't
help if you read the sign on the door to the store which stated that David would only
accept cash or personal cheque for his autograph or you had read the article that appeared
on the net stating that if it wasn't for Titan Books paying an awful amount of money he
wouldn't be here (read into that what you will article is above). Certainly £20 per
signed item isn't particularly cheap, especially when you consider that many of those
stood in the queue didn't live in London (our own travel expenses for this foray totalled
£55) or were children who are in no position to pay that sort of money (hence the longer
line of oppressed, soon to be poorer parents). So after quite a weekend travelling and getting to meet a TV star we came home and switched on the PC to do the ritual Saturday while it's cheap surfing session. After trawling through a number of pages - including the self edifying BuffyUk.org (no mention of the fact that .org is for charities NOT fan based websites) - we stumble upon something very interesting... Titan Books, who organised the event, decided that it would be better to charge the fans so they end up paying for everything rather than getting the TV and Radio companies who can afford to pay big sums of money for appearances (David appeared FREE of charge on The Big Breakfast, This Morning and Heart FM) and making the whole affair much cheaper for the fans who are just ordinary folk with little cash. So don't blame David or Forbidden Planet (although the actions of some of the security staff left a LOT to be desired) because they were the innocent parties in all of this. If you attended this event, as we did, you can blame Titan Books for making it so damn expensive! |
Email me with your thoughts on the whole experience if you attended too. |