You scalpers ruined celebration 2 for many of us...

You know who you are... the ones who hogged all the special issue George Lucas action figures. There was supposed to be a limit of two per person.. and some of you jerks... (you know who you are) walked out of there with shopping bags full of them. Now you are selling them on ebay for hundreds of dollars. You should all be ashemed of yourselves for your selfishness, your dishonesty, and your contribution to bastardizing the and ruining the true spirit of collecting.

Thanks to you I was not able to get a figure for my kid who really wanted to have one for his collection.

 

I have to agree. I got in early with my fan club lanyard and still ended up empty handed. It was so sad.

 

I was able to get some on Friday morning...no, make that Friday afternoon..by the time I got in and stood in line for the Celebration Store...lol

I saw one dealer with a sign on his booth that said..."Will buy Celebration figure for $25.oo"...how sad

 

Just wait a little for the ebay price to drop as the demand goes down. I do wonder how someone could get bags full of them though? People who got a lot of the figures probably missed most of the celebration. Also, limiting the figures of 1 per person probably would have gotten everybody one.

 

Right now there are 472 people selling these figures on eBay. I am so glad I'm not a toy collector.

 

I saw one of the vendors in the exibit hall, take four from his wife then give her forty bucks, and told her to get there daughter, and go get four more. There seemed to be alot of under the table dealing going on there. I still can't figure out why ILM and Hasbro made so few of the them?

 

I couldn't agree more. It wasn't just the figure; the Carrie Fisher line was inundated with fans who "just had to get" her to sign the maximum number of items (ten), completely screwing hundreds of fans in the line behind them who honestly only wanted to meet her and get a single autograph. Just take a look at ebay right now for perfect examples. As for the limited figure, there was a guy I saw who met his friend in the Celebration store bathroom and they'd trade off buying figures and stashing them there until they had over a dozen. It made me sick, since one of the guys in my group couldn't even get ONE.

I predict there will be a special, extra unsanitary room reserved in Hell for scalpers.

 

this:

"I saw one of the vendors in the exibit hall, take four from his wife then give her forty bucks, and told her to get there daughter, and go get four more."

is sad. wrong, even.

this, on the other hand:

"I saw one dealer with a sign on his booth that said..."Will buy Celebration figure for $25.00"...how sad"

is not that big a deal. supply and demand, people. nowhere did they say that with your Celebration ticket purchase you were guaranteed even one figure. go blame Wizards of the Coast, they are the geniuses who sold 50,000 tickets for Saturday, knowing there were only 26,000 (or 36,000, from what i hear now) figures available for the whole event. like one woman said in the McCallum spectacular that i attended, "if the true fans are here, how are we supposed to get presale tickets for opening day of AOTC?" if you get shut out of opening day because you were at Celebration, who you gonna blame then? Wizards, for having Celebration the same weekend tix went on sale?

everybody wants something for nothing. everybody wants to blame someone else when things don't go their way. and if they don't get their way, they come on the Internet to whine about it. it's a tough world, folks. get used to it.

some first post, huh?

 

The sad thing is, this event was for THE FANS -- not the vendors and exhibitors! THE FANS are the ones who should be given access to the special figures, and no one else.

Limiting action figure purchases would have been a lot easier with a punch card system. One punch on your Celebration II badge for each purchase. Two punches and that's it, no more. Simple.

They could also have a seperate line in the store for that figure, and someone standing at the back of the line could turn away anyone with two holes in their badge.

Letting SW Fan Clubs members in first also ruined this. By the time I walked into the building at 10:03am Sunday, they were all sold out.

 

Hey,

Letting us Fan Club members is early wasn't the problem. My friends, who are non-Fan Club, got in 20 minutes before I did on Friday!!!
I don't even want to get started on the "having to get in line-to get a ticket-to stand in line" thing...
We can only hope WotC will learn from their mistakes again...

 

With no system like the"punch card" smartly suggested earlier, you had to know this was going to happen.

Speaking for myself, I purchased one figure and opened it, along with all my 385 other figures in my display I do feel lucky to have gotten the figure, although I got in line at 6:30 Saturday morning to make sure I got one. I am truly sorry to everyone who didn't get a figure. Just know I am not one of the jerks who is putting up one or more figures on ebay.

 

i hate scalpers. i saw people buying the figs from little kids and then laughing about how the kid didnt know what he had. my friend said that he saw some guy standing outside of the store selling one for 65$

 

I don't see how you could claim that the figures should have been sold only to the fans, then say that the fan club people shouldn't get in first, since they paid just to be officially "fans." I think that everyone should have two punches on their badge. Tickets would be a bad idea because those could easily be sold. Granted, badges could be traded, but no exhibitor is going to trade for a three day. No matter what system they create, it won't be fool proof. Where there is profit, there will be greed. I personally think it's unethical to sell anything on Ebay less than six months or a year old. Ebay and scalpers are creating artificially rare items. As for Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro, they claimed in the forum that they wanted everyone that wanted any figure to be able to get it, yet they invite places like Brian's Toys to the show, even though it was selling the newest figures (like Bespin Luke and that big blue senator) for $25 and up. There's capitalism, and then there's gouging. Unfortunately, some people will always have more money than brains, so as long as there is a market, there will be scalpers.

 

Brian's Toys...they are no better than the greaseballs who bought 15 Sacul figures. $25 for a Dooku, $20 for a Royal Guard....geez, do they give you a free jar of vasoline to go with that?

 

I just wanted to make a quick clarification, slightly off topic but it was mentioned here so here goes:

to RishOutfield: the original maximum number of autographs for Carrie was 12. I was in line for 8 hours saturday and thats what the kept telling us. Later it was cut to 8, then down to 6, and but he time I got into the home stretch only 4.

Now on topic, It is sad, I did manage to get my 2 figures friday, only by accidentally getting into the cash only line for the display outside the store when I thought I was getting into line for the concert tickets, for once my cluelessness paid off. I did try and get another on Sunday morning, I wanted to get one for another friend who could not make it, I believe a 3 day pass should have entitled me to 2 per day. This was my first time in the store, what a mess, they went from single file line to mob infront of a table. They sold out when I had 2 people infront of me. The j@ck@ss at the front of the line was agonizing over which pin to order.

If they would have kept people in single file and after their sale made them leave through the exit it would not have been as big as a problem. peopele just went from table to table buying 2, then stashing them or having a friend hold them off to the side, and then getting in line at another mobbed table. This is why it took so long to just get intot he store, most people in there were not leaving.

Its sad, because its such a cool figure. When is hasbro going to figure out that when they call something "exclusive" it's just keeping the scalpers in business.

 

I would like you all to know that I very easily could have gotten severaly Jorg Sacul figures, since we had 6 in our group, were in line at 6am everyday and were amongst the first in every line each day. However, I had my husband get 2 figures, I didn't buy any, and we never went back to the store. I also was amongst the first in line to see Carrie on Saturday (we began where the hallway curved to go to her door, was maybe a hundred feet away) and it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to her door thanks to the people that had 6+ 12" figures for her to sign. I could have gotten 2 personal items and 6 pictures signed. I got 2 pictures, one she personalized for me. I will be opening 1 figure, keeping the other in the box, and keeping both pics of Carrie in my own collection, wouldn't trade them for the world! I would have felt like a total a$$ if I had prevented another fan from having the same chance and experience that I had of meeting Carrie, or getting the figure. I heard stories of folks that were going to pay for their entire vacaation by buying extra figures and autographs! That sucks! I could easily have done the same but I would feel horrible if someone waited all day and didn't get something they wanted because of me! Shame on anyone who did that!

 

I waited 2 hours in line just to watch people get out of my line and get into a cash only line. They got figures and came back to stand in the store line again.
Once again, WIZARDS should be blamed for the screw up. Where were the signs for a cash line or a store line? Hell, any sign for any lines?

Good job Wizards !! I've seen better organization at a YARD SALE. AT least they'll throw up a couple signs here or there. Here's a question. How did these people get in line and get so many figures? When so many didn't even get the opportunity?

 

I would have felt like a total a$$ if I had prevented another fan from having the same chance and experience that I had of meeting Carrie, or getting the figure. I heard stories of folks that were going to pay for their entire vacaation by buying extra figures and autographs! That sucks! I could easily have done the same but I would feel horrible if someone waited all day and didn't get something they wanted because of me! Shame on anyone who did that!

Well said Mirax T. I applaud you.

 

I was under the impression that they were going to mark your badge or something when you purchased your figures. Instead, I saw people buying figures by the bagful, apparently going from one line to the other just for figures. One person in front of me had a one day pass and was told to come back tommorrow, and when he replied he was only here for today the cashier replied "oh well".
I feel sorry for IndyKnights because Wizards really tied their hands the way they ran everything. At least I got a figure for me and my little brother Sunday morning.
And what was up with the VIP lounge? I was under the impression there would be food and drinks for the club members, not just somewhere to sit and chat. I saw tons of people walk in and walk right back out when they realized there was basically nothing there. And then there was the concert tickets. But I digress; for to give in to the dark side would only worsen the situation. At Celebration 3, let the local clubs run things, not a company interested in pushing everyone around just because they run the fan club. I'm a member and got screwed waiting to get in, then waiting 30 minutes for my badge, then another 30 for my laynard! At least I got to see the Fan Film Awards.

 

If Wizards would have incorporated some kind of bar code on the badges, it would have helped against people buying multiple figures by re-standing in line.

Shame. Maybe they'll do something like this for C3.

 

We discussed this very situation with our group, and agreed they should have had a better system. Punching the card would have been good, but maybe having some sort of sticker on the card that would be removed when you got your figures would have been better. That way if you don't have the sticker, you don't get another figure and your card isn't "marked" for your own personal opinion. My husband and myself were fair and only got 2 figures each. The lines and organization of the lines was TERRIBLE and that has to be better addressed for next time!!! Overall though, we had a blast and are eagerly awaiting the release of ATOC.

 

Wizards had no real control over the figures. It was the dealers. Ahh yes the dealers who ran out of the women's t-shirt the first day. But of course the dealers pass the blame on to LFL or WotC.

"The lack of communication is very disturbing."

Don't get me wrong, though, I have great faith in WotC. Yes, there are some people that think they're all that and aren't, but the real people in charge are very cool and easy to work with. I know this first hand.

And as I reminded people in line who got pissed off for not getting their Jorg Sacul figure, you knew going into C2 that there would be a limited number and not everyone would get a figure. You also knew there would be a limited amount sold every day.

The number from Saturday were around 27,000 not 50,000. The original 50,000 was from a hot-headed manager of some stars that didn't know what he was talking about. The 27,000 was from Steve Sansweet's assistant when I met with her yesterday.

All I have to say, though, is Fight the Scalper Scum. Scalpers ruin it for all of us. But until a company makes sure everyone gets a fair share of their product, we will always have scalpers and the people to buy them.

 

And people would also complain that their precious badges were defiled if they were hole punched.

 

For those of you who did not get a figure, I apologize.

Yes, I agree completely that there should have been some type of system to prevent the cheating ripoff artists and vendors from hoarding the pretty cool figures. And yes, I'm sure the lack of signs at the event helped contribute to the chaos of the day, which helped spur those conniving thugs into getting all they could.

Is there a way to get back at these jackholes? Sure, just don't buy anything they're peddling on eBay or wherever. These guys live off the fact that any joe unfortunate enough to have missed going would be willing to sell his parents off for an exclusive figure like that. Don't give in to the system and these retards will drown in their own crapulence once they realize no one will buy their ill-gotten gains. At least, not anytime soon.

I was fortunate enough to have gotten two figures, so maybe I helped contribute a tad to the debacle. But I can assure you, one of them bad boys is coming out of the package. The other? I intend to keep it. I won't be selling that figure at all unless some dire financial crisis hits me. Why? It's a memory of a great time, and I don't sell memories. I don't think the true Star Wars fan would either. SW means more to us than money (else we'd all have more, right?). The bastards selling their wares on eBay are, for the most part, profiteers capitalizing on our love.

I hope you fans who didn't get a figure won't hate those of us who followed the rules and bought our allotment.