The process of separating journalists from groupies is one of the most significant parts of operating a media center. Make it too lax, and you have too many groupies in there. Make it too stringent, and you risk pissing off legitimate journalists who forgot to accredit beforehand and happen to crawl by.
Using press ID cards for separation has worked very well in Europe – unfortunately, the two companies outlined above (working for Viva) have managed to fuxate this basic process.
Yours truly has had a press ID from a reputable journalists club for ages, and wanted to get into a backstage area to make some pics for a cop rag.
Unfortunately, the semi-simians deployed by ST security were too stupid to understand what a press ID card is. It took ten minutes of arguing until a level 2 supervisor came up and managed to rectify the situation…which made me go to another stage to get my shots there instead.
The company that lost out big-time was their employer – instead of getting some positive (and free) PR, StarGate group and ST security managed to piss me off enough to produce this rather lengthy rant.
Cutting a long story short: if you want your event to work well, stay clear from Stargate group and ST security. Feeding an extra groupie or two may cost a few cents…but pissng off a journalist is even worse…
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