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A while ago I ran across a Techcrunch article which seemed kind of nifty – a startup that was doing live video autographs!

Well, I have people I have to buy presents for – so I decided to give it a shot, and although there wasn’t a huge range I did see some of the LOST stars were up there and so I decided to get an autograph for a friend who is as much into LOST as I am.

That was around 6 months ago, and the LOST event just happened recently so I thought I’d give some feedback on the experience.

Firstly, I signed up for a video autograph by Matthew Fox, paid, ordered the extra dvd to come with it so that we could keep that as well and waited.

Basically we went for a couple of months without hearing a thing before I contacted them to get some feedback on when they thought the event might take place – their blog is pretty sparse on details too but it seems that they don’t do anything regular, but wait until they have enough orders and an opportunity to run a session… it also seems like they don’t actively promote sessions coming up in order to try and fill them quicker.

So basically the feedback after the first couple of months was nil, and when I heard it was basically a note saying don’t expect to hear from us too soon – expectations were reset, and you can understand it must be difficult to run these things.

It was also at this time that I found out the event had changed to become a sponsorship to a cancer charity, so you can’t exactly complain when your money is going to a good cause.

Two months later (around Jan) I received a new email apologising for the delay and saying that the item that I’d ordered to be signed (a LOST poster) was being updated to the current seasons promotional gear – more than happy with that.  Great to hear that nothing has been abandoned and it was still on the go.

End of March I get another email – basically filming delays in Hawaii has changed the event and they can no longer do the video and gave me the option of three choices – a signed poster by the cast, a video message from Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, or my money back.

Fair enough, I went for the poster – hey, I’m not only getting one signature, I’m getting now eleven, and it’s turned from a unique, one of a kind gift to one of 75 in a set.

Also, disappointing is to lose the video which is the reason for the service, the differentiation and losing the personal side of it… but what are you going to do?

It was going to be signed by: Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Henry Ian Cusick, Jorge Garcia, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell, Terry O’Quinn, Ken Leung.

Just as an aside – here’s some spoilers for LOST for you – now that the event has taken place, funnily enough Charlotte and Daniel have died recently, which explains why Ken Leung (Miles) was the only new cast member on the list, and Sayid has disappeared in the jungle which is why he wasn’t – which is disappointing.

Anyway, the package finally arrived and we opened it, and it turned out not to be the poster at all – which is a shame, because we could have mounted it and hung it and it would have been AWESOME – but a copy of the Pilot script, which is difficult to work out what you’d do with that as memorabilia, even though the pilot of LOST is also awesome (and kind of funny to have so many characters who weren’t in the first few seasons signing it!)

So we got the script and a certificate of authenticity saying that the eleven actors had really signed it – which is ironic because, again, the reason for the service is that it’s more believable than any old certificate of authenticity to actually see the actors signed it.

There was no personalisation whatsoever, either, which is a shame.

But, I can honestly say that it’s a unique gift – because when we looked at it, only ten out of the eleven actors had actually signed it!!

Looking through the scrawls it looks like Terry O’Quinn must have missed it – dude, Locke! Damn it! I’m always on Terry O’Quinn watch – he was on The West Wing, Alias, The X-Files Movie! Millennium! So it’s another big disappointment hoping he’d sign and then not getting that either.

Anyway, this is turning into a bit of a rant of disappointments… but I have to say, they were upfront the whole time – a little uncommunicative, but what is there to say other than they tried their best to put together an event, when they couldn’t deliver they made it clear and offered a full refund – and in the end we still ended up with a pretty nice piece of memorabilia?

Would I do it again? Hm… probably, if it was the right people – I mean I know my nephew would kill for someone like John Cena, and anything Joss Whedon I would jump at – so yeah, if those sorts of celebs were doing this sort of thing I would possibly take the chance.

Again, even though there were set backs and disappointments, and it took a while to get there – the guys from LiveAutographs.com were upfront and open as things happened, offered refunds or options and you really can’t ask for more than that I guess!

Hope that helps, if you’re looking to use them!