Star Wars Celebration III Thread

Here is Greenville's official Celebration III thread (offical/unofficial, who cares, lets just talk about CIII)

Who among us is planning on going to Celebration III?

I KNOW I AM FOR ONE. This will be my first celebration convention to go to. I've had a lot of questions to ask about the last ones, so I can kind-of know what to expect from this one. Dal--Intrepid is a wealth of information and I will probably continue asking his advise even after Celebration 3 is over.


What do you hope to see and experience? What do you expect?

If you have been to a Celebration, please enlighten us on what goes on. Spill the beans, we want to know. What did you enjoy most, least, etc...inquiring minds want to know.

Jedi Master Kel
(The Fixer)

I'll be there in my Rogue Squadron best dress!!!

Anyone up for a mighty Caravan??

Huzzah!!!!

Count me in! I'm going let's see I have my choice of Solo, Royal Guard, or The Emperor.

Wait, Riff's the Emperor so I guess it's Guard duty! Of course I could always do Darth Sidious.


Hmm.



-UD

I'd like to know when/where it is, and how much....

Most of this is from a post I did back in the Winston-Salem forum back in August (when we all thought the announcement was coming in September), but most of it still applies --
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So do you drive or fly? I hate to drive across town, so there's no way I'm driving to Indy.

Roundtrip Flight - Probably around $200 if you book early enough.

How close do you want to be? Then, do you intend to get there Thursday night so you can already be there or will you fly in really early Friday morning to save a night's hotel fare? At C2, the doors opened at 10am Friday morning for Fan Club members, but by the time our portion of line even got to the doors, it was after 11am. We flew in really early Friday morning, but next time I want to get there Thursday night. Also, we stayed at a hotel several miles away from the convention because we booked late, plus it was significantly cheaper. But by the time you figured in cab fare, we could've just stayed in one of the convention hotels had we booked early enough, which we will also do next time.

Hotels (away from convention) - $70-90 a night

Hotels (at the convention) - at least $120 up to over $250 a night depending where you stay (of course you'll get to split this with your roomies, plus figure how many nights you'll stay)

I assume anyone coming from NC is gonna get the full three day pass.

C2's 3-day pass - $75

Those are the essentials (not counting food). They'll get you there, a place to stay, and in the door. Now once you get there, there are tons of free things to do and see: panels, props, museums, gaming area, vendors, and a ton of other stuff. Plus most vendors give away freebies also. You could conceivably go to this thing and not spend another dime, but you would be showing patience beyond any Jedi I've seen.

The non essentials:

Dealers: I'm not even gonna guess what you could spend with these guys. Remember you'll have to take all this stuff on the plane unless you ship it home.

I don't know if there will be another concert or not. The Indianapolis Symphony did a night of Star Wars music at C2, but it was extra. I had fortunately just seen John Williams conduct the Pittsburgh symphony a few months earlier, so I didn't want drop more money on another concert.

C2 Star Wars music concert tickets - $12

Autographs, autographs, autographs - this is where the bulk of my extra money went at C2. There were at least 40 people in the autograph signing area, not counting the 25-30 other celebs that were there, but not officially signing (authors, artists, Hayden Christiansen, Rick McCallum, Daniel Logan, Temeura Morrison, Nick Gillard, and tons more). You had to be extremely lucky to get autographs from the ones not officially signing, but at least they were free if you got them. As for the ones in the signing area . . .

Autographs prices at C2: You could buy a coupon good for one autograph from any of the signers for $15. Or you could buy a book of 10 coupons for $120 which got you 10 autographs. There was no difference in whether you got one of their pictures or if you brought something to be signed. Now if you wanted at least 40 autographs, you can do the math.

Anyway, it is not a cheap trip, but it is unbelievable fun. You will see things you won't believe and meets tons of cool people. I had an incredible time and will be on the phone making reservations the day I found out where C3 will be held. I will try to find the link to the old C2 forum and post it here. The first post on that thread had a really thorough rundown of things as they became announced and it should be a good starting point for how things could be laid out for C3. It sounds like GenCon is now putting on the show instead of Wizards of the Coast. GenCon should have tons more experience in hosting something this large, so hopefully a lot of the pointless lines will be eliminated for C3 and getting into panels and Q&A's will be easier.

ok, dont think im gonna be going....unless I won the lottery anytime soon....

Don't say that! There's still around a year and a half to start saving. You could probably save a lot by driving and then if you're splitting a room with two or three people, that also shaves a lot off the prices.

Yeah, I started a special account where they pull a little money out of each of my pay checks. By the time C3 rolls around, I'll be set!

Also, the Jawa Hunters have been doing some great fund raisers! I suggest the same for you guys.

I've started a Celebration III fund myself. I can't wait to go!

-UD

Sebulba-X (Brian) of the Indy Knights FanForce has started a C3 thread over in the Conventions forum. I guess you could call it the Unofficial-Official C3 Thread since the real announcement hasn't been made yet. But you can pretty much believe whatever S-X says as the Indy Knights were a large part of the staff at C2. He is also very knowledgable about the Indy area as far as hotels, restaurants, bars, etc. He's provided a few links to the convention center and its surrounding hotels which will be useful when we start reserving hotels.

http://boards.theforce.net/FanForce_Conventions/b10290/13818804/

All right everyone! It's officially announced now! They've actually extended to four days this time, so start putting in for vacation now and saving up those Republic credits! Best of all, they're opening up the entire convention center to the event, so here's hoping the lines become less of a problem!

Announcement at starwars.com

An official forum has now been created for your Celebration III needs! Add it to your favorites so your anticipation can build for another year!

http://boards.theforce.net/FanForce_Celebration_III/b10611/

Spoke with Tommy yesterday and he is now definitely going.

Yes I'm on my way to Celebration III. Now that I know what to expect, I plan to have even more fun than last time. The experience with Dalton and Christian was something I will always remember. I have a wealth of video from the last and memories that I will never forget. The last time I concentrated more on autographs than shows. Autograph lines were long and tough. You often lined up at 6am and stayed in line until lunch, only to get something to eat and jump back into the race. The autographs were worth getting and if there are people worth getting there John Handcock, I will this time around too. But, this time I really want to concentrate on the shows. It's an awesome experience to go, and you will meet so many people from all over. It's a must see!

Tommy

Tommy, glad to see the post. Can't wait roomie. It's going to be awesome. I'm going to rely on you guys.

Jedi Master Kel
(The Archangel)

at the recent march meeting, Kevin H. suggested a fundraiser, I believe we should use this money to go towards Celebration 3. I have been talking to an old friend recently and they got me re-excited about going to C3. What do u guys think?

my mom suggested that we could have a bake sale as part of a fundraiser. sounds corny but we could probabaly make more money than a carwash (not that carwashing is a bad idea). She said we could even talk my stepdad into baking the suff. he makes GOOD cakes and all from scratch. we'd probabaly havta provide all the stuff to make it all, but we could make some real money off it if we can properly organize this... what do u guys think?

[image=http://www.starwars.com/community/news/2004/04/img/20040407_bg.jpg]

There's the new Celebration III logo. And though there's nothing we didn't already know, here's an article from starwars.com about things to expect. It's closer than you think!

You guys have some really good ideas going....

By the way, I already have reserved a suite for some of our Rocky Mount group going, but I am going to get the info to J9 so hopefully they can be right there with us. Kel, if you want that info, too... give me a yell on my cell phone at 883-5399. And we were also passing around an idea on renting a bus. If we do, would you guys want to ride up with us, too? I am pretty sure Jacksonville will come along with us if we go that route.

ALSO... I dont know what you guys plan to do for Episode III, but the theater here in Rocky Mount is going to let us camp out the night before the night its released, and we are going to make a huge shabang about it. You guys are more than welcome to come! I need to pass that info along to a few of the other places close by, as well.

Let me know!

All right - I've reserved a room at the Embassy Suites which is right downtown from the convention center. I will email those who are definitely in our foursome the numbers dealing with price and such. Honestly, this is a little more than I'd care to pay, but it'll be split over four of us. We've also agreed that not much goes on during the last day of the convention so we'll leave sometime late on Sunday. This is really just a first shot at getting something close. When the Fan Club blocks become available, I'll likely take a shot at those if they're cheaper and just cancel the Embassy Suites reservation if necessary. Also, as the end of this month approaches, a lot of the other hotels will finally start taking reservations without much hassle and I'll do some price comparisons on those too. My old college roomie works for Expedia.com, so I just sent him on a "get us a good deal" mission, so we'll see what happens there. So anyway, if nothing else, we've definitely got a "walking distance" room.

The RM Eastern Rim will also be in the Embassy Suites! See you there!

So how many of you Rocky Mount FF'ers are planning on going? We've got a definite four in our room, though one isn't a G'ville FF member and another who has come to one meeting, but rarely posts.

There are only five of us confirmed at this time. But at least three more seem seriously committed to going, and another five or so have expressed interest but haven't committed one way or the other.

Right now it's me, Kevin, and the two guys that went with me to C2. I'm thinking one more of our FF is seriously considering going, but after that I'm not sure. I've had a couple of other friends of mine ask about it, but it's so far off, it'll be a while before they'll know if they can go. I just wanted to make sure our "committed four" had a room which is why I went ahead and booked something. Hopefully we'll get a fan club room later that is significantly cheaper.