1ST FAN REPORT & PHOTOS FROM BIG EVENT 11
- 11/20/2016 (1:37:29 pm)
- Bob Mulrenin
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Good Evening, I attended today's Big Event in NY and wanted to share a few words on the event.A few months ago I found out this was going to be Bruno Sammartino's final public autograph signing and there was no chance I was going to miss out. This event is notorious for being unorganized and a complete mess at times. I arrived before 10am, there was already a line of fans waiting outside the hotel. They had two security guards letting groups of ten inside the building. I was surprised by this and optimistic that things might run smoother once inside, after arriving inside the hotel and getting into the line for Bruno Sammartino I was clearly wrong.
This is where my headache began, in typical unorganized Big Event fashion we had people who purchased "VIP" tickets aka scalpers all over the place. Venues like this allow them to purchase "VIP" tickets and it ruins everything and slows things down for people like myself. This was a complete mess. People were coming in late after meeting other superstars in the main lobby while we had certain Big Event "staff" members stopping the regular line to let their friends and people they knew cut.
Around 12:30pm I made it up to about fifteen people ahead of me when one of the Big Events "head" staff members announced that Bruno would now only be signing his first name. He said "a autograph is a autograph so be happy". This pissed everyone off including myself. You allow these scalpers who are clearly reselling these items on eBay to have multiple items signed which ruins it for everyone else. He stated to us that they had Bruno sign a few 8x10 photos last night and if anyone wanted to turn their tickets in and get out of the line they could have one of the 8x10 photos. Unprofessionalism like that is what will turn away people like myself from attending another "Big Event" in the future.
After a few more minutes of waiting I finally meet Bruno Sammartino. This was my first time meeting him and I have to say he was a class act. In the midst of all the chaos I was able to tell Bruno what a honor it was to finally meet him and be able to share that moment with him. I asked if he would mind signing his younger photo with his full name. He replied "of course, don't worry about security I'll sneak it past them" Bruno also said to me that he didn't like the way they told everyone he could only sign his first name. That really bothered him. He thanked me for being there and I thanked him for everything he's done for this business. Mr. Sammartino is a icon and it was a pleasure to finally meet him. ~ Thanks David
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