SWC17 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

One other thing that I forgot to mention in my other post in this thread...

Was it just me and my friends, or were others of you confused by the "rock concert/rave" atmosphere before the Mark Hamill tribute to Carrie Fisher? I realize that we were there to celebrate Carrie's life and work, and that it wasn't a funeral, but I was certainly not in the mood to yell and scream and jump up and down, etc. I felt the warm-up host and DJ were just a little too intense for the subject matter that we are about to witness.

 

I saw people on Twitter who said they walked into the TLJ live panel without wristbands just by hanging around outside the door. That annoyed me on behalf of all the people (including me) who slept on the floor in order to attend...not to mention the people who slept on the floor and ended up getting shut out of the live room.

 

Eh, it didn't bother me. Honestly, that's probably how Carrie would have wanted it.

 

That whole "warm-up" thing annoys the **** out of me overall. I get why it's needed and I know it's a tough job for the people who have to do it, but I'd rather see segments from the films or TV shows or any of the 10 million "making of" documentaries or Star Wars YouTubers or hear cuts from the soundtracks, or, ... anything, really.

 

Usually, I think it's okay, but for that event I just wasn't in the mood. I agree with you that I would prefer some behind the scenes footage, or interview footage, etc.

 

Took me a while to put my thoughts to "paper"; the wife and I stuck around after Celebration to hit the parks and do the Star Wars RunDisney the next weekend.

The Good
Star Wars fandom is in great shape. I couldn’t believe it when I read here fans were lining up 18 hours (or so) before to score wristbands to panels. Maybe my fandom isn’t that strong or maybe it has more to do with my age and that I’m unwilling to sleep on a convention floor or in a chair when I have a hotel room to sleep in. Kudos to everyone willing to suffer and sacrifice for the Warz.

The Bad
That line Thursday morning. I was in it two hours and I was still at the back of the building and hadn’t even hit the turn around point yet. I gave up and never went back. I was so mad I even blew off the rest of the weekend and all the autograph preorders I had spent money on. I’ve been to Celebration 4, 5, 6 and 7 and I thought Orlando was so much better than Anaheim and I was pleased as punch to be heading back to Florida. What a shock! I would have been better off to stay at home and watch the panels on YouTube like I did for the European Celebrations.

The Ugly
Me. I can get pretty ugly and I really hold a grudge. Anger leads to hate. I’ve sworn I would never go back. Will my fandom recover or will I nurse this grudge? Will I give up my pride to try again for the next Celebration? Will I give it another shot if REEDPOP gets replaced or it moves back to Anaheim? Time will tell but right now I’m still so angry I doubt I’ll be back.

 

jedimika I'm sorry that was your experience but I understand completely. I also never thought it would be worse than the out of the blue crowd surge at Anaheim but was obviously wrong.

The more I hear from attendees that, while they had wristbands to the 40th or TLJ live panels, people without wristbands sat in the live room and refused to leave the room creating even more chaos and stress for them, it just makes me mad. Or the fact that even free swag given for attendees by attendees to share the SW love is now on ebay for $50+... it used to not be like that. It's really sad. Celebration used to be attended by SW fans. Now it seems everyone goes just to see what it is, because their favorite actor from a non-star wars movie is attending or to make money from exclusives.

 

Padme501st I'm selling some of the swag I brought, because 1) the swag trading was not what I picturd it to be first off 2) I brought waaay too much. 3) the nightmare on Thursday threw me for a loop and when we finally got in, wasn't looking to trade right away as our time was limited and we were only going for a couple hours fri 4) to recoup some of the $ spent on the swag... it was a lot! I'm not asking the rediculius prices tho that I see some buttons on eBay going for. It's crazy. With any sales I've been tossing in free gift pin(s). I'm glad I didn't trade a lot of my stuff for buttons, etc cause I think a lot of it would've been auctioned and thats a pretty lopsided trade value buttons for pins. I did he most giving away in the thurs line I have been doing some post SWC trading with some folks that have reached out which is nice.

 

See that's different, they are yours. It's the people who were given some by the SWAG group that is selling them that's annoying. The ones who made them aren't recovering expenses but others are making a profit off their work


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Even those bags being offered for free in the queue hall are being sold on ebay for $15-25 right now. I spoke to a vendor where I saw some exclusives being sold for much higher than they were purchased for, the Hasbro Luke going for $150 and a Kotobakuya exclusive going for $80, and the woman working straight up told me that they are in the business of making money, and that's what they come to these events to do. It's not just SWC though, there are people at every big Con who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the event itself and are there solely to get exclusives, shirts, posters, autographs, and whatever other swag they can get their hands on to re-sell. And it's because they have no interest in the event that it's nothing on them to wait in lines and do whatever they have to to get them.

As far as the lines and wristbanding goes, one thing that did bother me was how often I saw people rewarded for not abiding by the rules, such as those skipping the lines and hanging out in front, whereas all the people who did things the right way by getting in line, getting a wristband, going where they were told to go, etc., were often at a disadvantage by doing that. The prime example I saw of this was in the 40th Anniversary and Last Jedi panels, where they had all those VIP seats blocked off at first, but then as it got closer to the panel start time they opened them up, meaning that people who entered the room dead last ended up getting way better seats than the people who were there first and made that effort to be first. And at the end of the day it's nothing on the people working who ends up where, so there's nobody to keep order.

 

I saw those bags, I was wondering where they came from during SWC. Wow, I had no idea that seating fiasco happened for the panels, that's freakin lemon. So my experience this year in regards to the vendor exclusives changed my view about them abit as well. Of course they are in biz to make $,I'm good with that, however, the inflated prices for the pops which weren't even "that "exclusive and the exclusive lego were lame. I've always held lego with high regard, but have noticed since Disney took over their SW sets have gone down in build quality and $ up. Cest la vie with all thing popular. Also what's up with hasbro calling the box with Vader with the display backing a "legacy pack"? It sounds and looks like a "pack" of action figures when in fact, the only "pack" was the "packing" of a figure & stand in the box. It's all good by me, the way the vendor booths were so crammed together and from what I experienced, I had no interest in shopping for anything, saved some $ on that front: