The Official Celebration Horror Stories... post/complain here.

here is mine... had nephew and sister fly in from dallas to chicago. (nephews birthday a few weeks ago) drive from rainy chicago to indy... 4 1/2 hours.. get there around 1ish. Go to get nephew some exclusive swag for him to remember the event... NO CELEBRATION STORE OPEN??? it says here it is open to 8pm. huh? sorry we closed it at 10am. WHAT???? 10am???? are you joking? nope we are not...talk to the ceo of gen con over there.... blah blah blah... i am not good at planning try tomorrow... but i have a one day pass... sorry you are ***. then he says quoting him "It is sad if you just came for the figure" implying I am sad. ... I am sad i paid $40 for your lame convention in which i can buy nothing to celebrate it... better yet I will credit card dispute your tickets for false advertising. (You see mr. ceo I would not need the exclusive figure to sell on ebay if your prices for admission were reasonable in the first place) Gen Con what a joke of a company... nice way to ruin any "celebration" i thought my nephew and i may have.

Edited title...this is the complaint thread too.

 

"sad" would be overkill, to be sure, but really, you are at a convention with thousands of fellows fans with costumes and exhibits and working R2 units and yet the ONLY way you can think of to "remember" the experience is to shell out money?
What about pics?
What about video?
What about the dealers room?
I know that it is intoxicating to hear the word "exclusive" and say "OH MY GOD I JUST GOTTA HAVE IT!", but it is all just overblown pack-rat mob mentality. There is absolutely jack to be proud of in owning the talking vader if 500000 other people have one too. Get a picture with yourself and a few costumes. Those are unique to you, and as far as I am concerned, far more valuable. I flew over 5 states to get here, and I do NOT have a Vader. What I do have is two rolls of film with me enjoying the ambience, and 60 min of video footage. The pics can be framed and put on my wall, and that is going to be infinitely more personal than a talking action figure.

 

amen echo

 

There were more "exclusives" then just the figure. Maybe they wanted the C3 shirts, the poster (that was sold out) or one of the other items from C3.

And you know what, if he (or she) wanted the figure ---that is their perogative and who are you to judge them?

GenCon screwed this convention up in a big way...how do you close the store line an hour or 2 after the doors open?

How do you get told different stories by every person you encounter. I have no doubt if I asked 4 "event" people which way was up, they would each point in a different direction.

What is sad, mr gencon CEO, is that you had years to plan this and it was a big mess and most people I encountered in various lines to get in, to get in the store, to get into the opening cermonies and the rest were not happy campers....

 

just to clarify above post by "ME",
I did not post that,I am at the hotel and used there pc and I forgot to log out.SO whoever got on the pc after me posted that messege. Sorry if it upset anyone.
E-

 

im sick of everyones bitching about this thing. i had a great time, and i even got into the store. with like 40000 people going, you have to know that if you want to get into the store everyone wants into, you have to get up and in line very early one morning. as for closing the store, it wasnt like they just said "we dont want to sell anymore". the fact is they already had so many people in line so early, that they didnt let anyone else in so they could get thru those people first. dont blame the store. blame the other thousands of people who got in line ahead of you!

and while his tact was lacking, what the gencon rep said is pretty accurate. If your whole visit is based on or ruined by your lack of buying a figure, youre there for the wrong reasons, and you were destined to be disappointed. THAT is kind of sad. Im not saying that YOU are sad.

 

salacious, then your one of the 40000 people that did like it.

 

You can't go after them for False Advertisement, it's their right to close the store when they want to, it's not illegal, just bad business, get over it and move on.

 

My beef is they should have had multiple C3 merchandise Kiosks, not just one that people would mob. They said with C2 they learned their lesson, they sadly did not.

 

What they need to do next time for the 30 years of Star Wars convention in 2007 is give out wristbands for the store. Example: blue wristbands would be for 9-10, green 10-11, yellow 11-12, etc and ONLY 500 people per hour. That way you have time to go and do other things before your appointment instead of wasting valuable time standing in impossible lines.

Gencon, are you hearing this? Mary Franklin please make a note of this.

 

I was only there Thursday and Friday and except for the line to get in on Thursday didn't really have a bad time. Can't believe the mess with the store, I did get a t-shirt, a JC friend who managed to get on line early picked one up for me but I didn't get any of the other store merchandise. Maybe it was a blessing I had to come home and missed Saturday. And I woke up this morning with an awful cold I'm pretty sure I caught there. But I'm glad I went and I did have a pretty good time.

 

From what I heard, the state fire marshall had to close the store due to overcrowding issues - fire hazzard and all. I believe that Gen Con royally screwed up this Con. Nobody had any idea what they were doing. The people at the registers had no idea how to operate them, GenCon people were moving perfectly organized lines into perfectly disorganized messes for no good reason.

They really ought to have included the cost of the figures into the price of the badges and sent vouchers with the badges, to be redeedemed at several different locations (other that the store) for the figure. This would have prevented some from making off with boxes of figures - apparently some of the people working the store "forgot" to stamp badges.

As for Lucas, I'm not sure that if this is true, but from what I heard was that the original plan was to have George give 1 presentation inside the RCA Dome. As the dome seats some 50,000 people, everyone would have gotten the chance to see him. But as this weeekend was also NFL draft weekend, the Colts took the RCA dome away for their own draft party.

Don't know if there is going to be a Celebration 4 but fans better hope that Indiana expands that convention center and that GenCon stops hiring monkeys to organize these events.

 

It was fun when I got in line for George Lucas just before midnight, was maybe #250 in line, and then when they moved us inside about 500 people got infront of us somehow. Yet, still greatful that the Hyatt let us inside. The lines were unbelievable, preventing attendance to several shows I really really wanted to see. I was in the store line at 12:15 on opening day (outside line 6am), and they did the lines all wierd so that people who got in line around 11am got ahead of me. That really sucked.

 

The store did not close at 10 AM. However, there were so many people in line by 10 AM, that anyone else gettign in line after that wouldn't get in by 8PM.

I went to the store on Friday. I got in line outside by 5AM in the fan club line, and went straight to the store. After 3 more hours of lining up, I got to the front. So even if you got there by 5 AM, it was still a 7 hour wait.

 

I totally agree the fact the store was so poorly setup run organized etc didnt ruin my weekend but was a major disappointment. I didnt get one single CIII item except the vader figure and I had tp pay a vendor 45 for it, It was cool meeting people in line and the 5 mins of footage they showed was worth the trip but what a terribly run event it was. I also met some awesome Forcers, shout outs to Poodu, Mrksinnie, James Vader, and the great folks who came from overseas

 

This isn't REALLY a horror story, and this thread is about the store by now anyway, but I have to share.

After Lucas everyone was migrating slowly out of the arena, there were 3300 people trying to go down TWO ESCALATORS, so it was obviously crowded. I was being shoved from behind (probably by someone who was being shoved from behind who was being shoved from behind etc.) and the lady in front of me turned around and says in the BITCHIEST tone of voice "You want to go ahead, why don't you just go ahead of me? I'd rather you not shove me down the stairs."
I would have gone off on her if I hadn't had just an hour of sleep, but at the time I was just grateful to be 6 inches closer to getting out of that mob and closer to my nap.

We were all pissed off and being squeezed in, I honestly don't know what her problem was.

 

fate, how many people do you think actually got injured.

I mean seriously, three thousand people and no one including security at the site was willing to assist in preventing accidents you described.

I am not saying its Gencons fault for that but it is the owner of the facility that is responsible. NO one wants another Chicago nightclub incident.

and Fate whats up with the sig. did you spend the night with Dashy or more.

 

Just FYI the store closing was the decision of the Fire Marshall. He ordered the store line capped or threatened to shut it down immediately, and he came back everyday. Unfortunate to be sure.

 

darthgrouchy,

Agree 100% with you!

The "Ball" Sat night was a big joke inside and out.
The lines started very orderly and then the R.A.P let everybody,My guess 1000 people or so mass right in front of the two doors.Every body in line was screaming at every one about cutting in line. Then once inside,the live band was a JOKE! They played one SW song Calypso style and then played something from the Lawrence Wilk show! I got so tired of hearing my beloved SW music into a joke,I left.

 

I'm glad I left Thursday Night. Waiting in line for 10 hours was enough for me.

 

Here are some things that upset me.

The fact that not only the store closing early-fire marshall or not, that sucked. One reason to go from Detroit WAS to get that Vader for my 3 year old son who sweeps the feet of the Dark Lord even if he's watching the PT. What chomps me is (rumor?) there were people who got in to get the SWC3 Vader but their badges were not punched. So they got back in line and bought some more. The part that really chomps is I watched this idiot walking around the con cen waving the Vader in the air trying to sell it for $75!!! Instead of the exclusive, I got Mr Prowse to personalize a pic to my son so to me, I made out.

Next was standing in line for an hour, being moved into a room for another hour, only to be moved to ANOTHER room for a while. then settled into 500 hall to watch Ep IV in the most uncomfortable chair I've seen in a lifetime. And on a pesonal level, to have to sit behind peole who knew nothing of what they were saying to their wives. If you don't know, and I openly tell my wife if I do not, then shut the Hell up.

But as someone above me said, I have pictures, video, and the fact that I actually went, met Mr Prowse and Bodie Taylor and posed with them behind the tables for my pics, and have seen the faces of my kids when I told them we Will go to Cel 4.

 

Not a rumor. The lady at the Figure Only register in my line was in a bad mood and didn't feel like punching holes anymore, so I know a couple of people who didn't get theirs punched.

 

I had to leave right before the ball..

I thought..maybe I'll get to dance with som nice star wars fan girl before I go.. nope, got cut out of that too..

I was lucky to even get in, seeing as how I had to purchas my pass from someone leaving.

I lost my official fan club membership card, (think I set it down when I played the two player ROTS game; just after digging in my wallet to bye an old school lightsaber) but that was ok because all it bought me was a quick entry into the center.


Oh and Fate, not to mention the company you had while waitng in line for Lucas

 

Some of the company I had waiting for Lucas was really cool, that lady just kept sticking her head over the barrier and being annoying.