There’s a saying that you should never go back.  Be it relationships, careers, and indeed hobbies. The world is changing around us, and the speed of that change is gathering pace.  It’s possible to make the case that the majority of these changes are NOT for the better. However, if you feel you can improve things, you become convinced to get back in harness again.

So it came to pass that I was tempted to revive the live weekend celebration that had been the CULT TV FESTIVAL. Something that was part of my life from the middle of 1993 (the start of the run-up to our 1994 event), right up until the end of 2007 - when we concluded proceedings at the excellent Heythrop Park venue in Oxfordshire.

This weekend would have been the debut of the CINEOLOGY WEEKENDER. Taking the best elements of the Cult TV Festival, and improving what we thought had kept people away in the later years of our first format.  We had major sponsorship in place to help make it happen – in fact, we’d been invited to get ‘back in business’. And it all would have been a huge success… ten years ago!

Back in 2007, we still had a core of around 150 people who we knew would join us, come rain or shine wherever we happened to be.  They were not concerned with who we might have along as celebrity guests. Rightly or wrongly we were trusted to do the best we could and to put on an excellent show.  Not only that, charity fundraising was absolutely core to our efforts, keeping alive the altruism of fandom that has been part of true media appreciation from the beginning. We had a ‘professional’ approach, with non-commercial intentions.

I was approached by Pontin’s in July 2009 with the offer to format a new version of the Cult TV Festival. Within a couple of weeks I had tabled a new weekender, and it was warmly welcomed. Unfortunately, it took until the end of January 2010 to get everything was signed off; this is the problem with new ways of working, it takes time to iron out the rough corners.

The real upside was that Pontin’s were prepared to underwrite everything – meaning it was no longer my house (or that of any of the Production Team) which was at risk should everything go horrendously wrong.  We could concentrate on the organising of the programme, the charity fund-raising initiatives, and getting the talent ‘on board’.

Unfortunately, it appears that this radical way of thinking was way beyond the comprehension of a few very-vocal people, at various TV-related society meetings around the county. As far as they were concerned, we had ‘sold out’ to ‘the man’. The fact that the only way I could be tempted back onto the scene was by not risking the rest of my life on such a venture was not something they wanted to pay attention to. The fact that charity fund-raising was still at the core of our format was also dismissed. Yet these self-same people will be seen at the commercial media events happening at various ‘aircraft hangers’ around the country, handing over their dosh, knowing full well none of the profits will be going to charity (unless a celebrity makes that decision themselves).

That was one barrier to success. It’s actually a very minor one, simply because in reality these people only have power when no-one comes to the defence of the side being attacked. As we have known for ages, the problem is that our core of attendees actually kept their interest in Cult TV (the event) to themselves: they never acted as ‘brand ambassadors’, spreading the word to anyone who would listen.

Getting the word out is now more difficult than ever – no-one should believe that the internet gets you instantly to a mass audience!  In terms of genre magazines, we’re now down to two generic ones – SFX and SCI-FI NOW. There are many reasons for this contraction, but one major clue to the reason Cineology failed is how many magazines now out there which are dedicated to specific series – more on that later. But in the case of the generic mags, we just couldn’t find a way to illustrate the difference between us and the other weekend media events out there.

And now the big blocker to getting the stars people want to see at an event such as ours. Celebrity agents. If the stars only knew how their representatives tarnish their image and reputations, many of these doozies would have no clients left. It was nigh on impossible to get them to understand the concept – professional charity fund-raising if you like, so I take full responsibility for not getting through the cotton wool between their ears. The fees being quoted were, quite frankly, laughable. To book them would have been financial suicide – none of them would have brought in what they would have cost.  It’s complete madness.

What of our proposed venue, Pakefield? It’s on the east coast of England, and is definitely the best location Pontin’s has in its portfolio by a long chalk. Once more, we had complaints that we were ‘out of the way’. I believe this gets back to the problem that our prospective supporters never wanted to see Cult TV Weekenders as being a holiday. What they thought our event actually was is still difficult for me to comprehend. The first sign of trouble this time out was, again, that we were having people asking what the ‘day rate’ was.  Therein lies a nice little contradiction… we’re so out of the way for some to get there and stay for a weekend, and then others wanted to get there and back in a day (despite it apparently being such a hike). You can already see how it is impossible to even get close to pleasing everyone.

What we also get back to is that despite having run the Cult TV Weekender for 14 years, still there were those who didn’t have us on their radar. Then there were those who knew of us, but didn’t associate it with being something for them. This is where ‘brand image’ comes in. For instance, are you one of those people who heard the initial press last year that ‘organic’ food was no better for you than ‘ordinary’ food?  After the headlines, the small follow-up articles actually said that they’d effectively got it wrong, and organic products were indeed packed with higher levels of valuable nutrients.  This didn’t stop organic sales going through the floor – I was picking up a plethora of organic stuff cheaply for a long time afterwards. The lies stuck, and to some extent I think the early bad press that Cult TV got (thanks, SFX magazine et al) never went away – it was always an uphill struggle to sell.  It didn’t matter what amazing things we managed to pull off, they never get reported.

For instance, we were the first organisers to have Philip Glenister along as a celebrity guest. A year later and a commercial organiser would have you believe that THEY were the first event where he had signed autographs.  ALL Cult TV’s guests signed autographs – and what the commercial organiser didn’t mention was that at our show you got the autographs of most stars included in your registration price…

Indeed, the cost became the final unsolvable mystery with Cult TV. Some looked at the overall price and considered it was too good to be true, so didn’t sign up. Others thought it a lot of money to go for a weekend at Pontin’s, so didn’t sign up. Many didn’t want to make a commitment in advance – why should they when the aircraft-hanger events demand none such? So, they didn’t sign up. And despite it being virtually an ‘all-in’ package price, some couldn’t do the maths to see how much they were getting – the bang for their buck. Guess what? They didn’t sign up.

And on top of that there were those who had already made their plans for the year, and others who simply said in the current climate they couldn’t afford to come along.  So, even our core audience couldn’t help us out, either. With less than 50 people having signed up, early July saw us all agreeing that we had to pull the plug.

Unfortunately, this means that I have to admit something which is the ‘elephant in the room’ concerning television fandom. TV is a passive medium – the majority just sit there and consume. When there was little access to the shows, and no DVDs with extras where you could find out more, then conventions had their place.  For sure, that has all changed now. You no longer have to spend a weekend away to ‘have a look’ at a celebrity.  Or get their autograph.  No point watching their interviews onstage at an event as you’ll have heard it all on their DVD commentaries or specially filmed extras on the discs.  Not many actually want to ask questions of these stars (although plenty use ‘question time’ to ask for a hug or a kiss … yuk). 

The result is that the hit-and-run aircraft-hanger events have taken over the market.  As for interacting, you can get all that online, and not have the inconvenience of having to go anywhere to mingle…!

And that’s the final nail in the multi-series event format. Fans actually don’t want to mingle with fans of OTHER shows. These people won’t have the same central interest, so Heaven’s above, there might be some debate about the merits of various series.  Don’t have comedy, some said. Don’t have this. Don‘t have that, don’t have the other.  Just include what ‘they’ like. Rather than be supportive of others who find similar apathy to their own favourite shows and stars, fans make their appreciation incredibly insular. They don’t want to know about other shows discovered by what could be like-minded people, they’d rather stay obsessed with their own series.  Until they get bored of it and move on to the next obsession, that is…

So, what of live events in the future? Well as Sean Connery said, ‘never say never again’, but the answer stems back to something cynical I once said, and I stand by.  In the case of some fans, you could hold a convention (they say) they’d really love to go to in their own front room, and they’d still choose that weekend to go out! Equally, the number of acquaintances in the last year of Cult TV who said to me “I really must get along to a Cult TV weekend some time”, to which my reply was “you’ve missed 13 already, you’re obviously just incredibly unlucky!”, well, it’s too many to mention. They were given a final reprieve with Cineology, and they failed once more.

To summarise … I don’t know what real fans want from a live event any more, if there are indeed enough ‘real’ fans out there. Put it this way, if it’s only autographs, traders and home by teatime, I’m not interested in serving that market.

Which is why internet broadcasting is the next stop for Cineology. We’ve tried podcasts, but I realised from feedback received that many TV fans can’t cope with ‘radio’ as a medium!  They need pictures in front of them. And that’s the thing. This route of delivery CAN be straight into their front room, as more and more people will be able to view the internet on their main telly. And they can choose to go out whenever they like, but we’ll still be there when they get back, on a re-run. Which will leave them with just one thing left to say: they are simply not that interested to make the time to watch.

At that point, we’ll finally know what the truth is!