Wednesday 13 August 2014

WDYTYA?Live in Glasgow: Revised dates

WDYTYA?Live on Twitter. What a difference four days makes.
Less than three weeks from the doors opening on Scotland's very own three-day Who Do You Think You Are? Live show, the organisers have decided to restrict the event to just two days – Friday 29 and Saturday 30 August.

First word of this came yesterday when the website, carrying no explanation, dropped its Sunday timetable page and amended its Buy Tickets page, and the show's logo took on a new look with the revised dates.

Even by mid-afternoon today, there were several pages on the site still sporting the original dates and information. No one was available to talk when I phoned the organiser's office*.

Late this afternoon/early evening, the website appears to have caught up with events and the organisers have issued this statement:

Dates for Who Do You Think You Are? Live Scotland at Glasgow's SECC have been amended to Friday 29th & Saturday 30th August.

If you have a ticket for Sunday, you would have received an email informing you that you could exchange your ticket for another day or apply for a refund. Please contact us here if you have any further enquiries.

This was an extremely difficult decision for the team behind Who Do You Think You Are? Live to make and we apologise for the inconvenience and disappointment caused for our visitors and exhibitors. Our team are doing all that they can to contact and assist those affected by this closure.


Let's hope the accountants (for it will be they who made the 'difficult' decision) have factored in the knock-on ill-feeling from exhibitors and visitors whose hotel, ferry, train and plane bookings can't be changed so close to the event. I feel especially sorry for the small vendors and especially the family history societies who struggle with the costs of these events in the first place.

WDYTYA?Live's re-location from London to the NEC in 2015 was already a bit of gamble. Might be more of one, now.

UPDATE, 14 Aug: The organisers got back to me this afternoon. They had nothing to add to the above, except a snotty attitude.