Star Wars at New York Comic Con

Gotcha. Old Luke's are becoming popular at cons. I saw a couple different ones in Cincinnati a few weeks back. And while Rey hasn't reached Harley Quinn levels, you see a ton of her.

Here was Hamill's tweet.

 

I was happy to see a variety of less popular cosplayed characters at the con. I took a photo of an Enfys Nest one; and it was only after I took the pic that I realized the guy standing next to her was cosplaying a young Han lol. There was a nice Ahsoka cosplay, which I've found pretty rare (posted the picture in the "Mega" Ahsoka thread in the tv forums). A girl cosplayed Rey and sat in an X-wing prop marketing the new Resistance series (posted the picture in the "Official Resistance" thread in the tv forums). Out in the main lobby, a small group of cosplayers dressed as Rey, Maul, and Ventress posed for a nice picture in "attack" mode. I left the link of my NYCC 2018 photos in the "Comic Con" thread of the Community forums.

 

Was anyone at NYCC? If so how did their panel queuing work? I know they did 50% lottery and then a "virtual queue" using RFID rather than wristbands for the other 50%. What was it like on the ground? Were the queues ok, did the system work? Thanks

 

I was at NYCC throughout the day on Saturday but none of the panels I was interested in occurred during my time there; so I couldn't tell you how it worked.

Here's a picture of the aforementioned cosplayers posing as Rey, Maul and Ventress.

 

I'd be interested in this too, although it's not a great comparison to the demand of Celebration.

 

Just a note that TFN Main has some of the SW panels available to view - check the main page.

 

Yeah, can't compare the panel queues to Celebration, just interesting to see how it ran and (ideally) how it compared with previous NYCCs.

Edit - updated with info from reddit

Ok, hunting round on the NYCC reddit it seems like the morning queues were no where near Celebration levels (I read that the people at the front of the line got there at 6:30am but not sure which day that was). Big plus was reports that getting through security at opening was much smoother this year. Which is great as by all accounts the convention was totally packed, so for entrance to go that smoothly early in the morning is a big win.

Lottery had a few issues. It seems winners were only notified by email (presumably nothing shows on their online account) so people weren't sure if they'd not won or if the winner email was late coming through. People were having to chase up for clarification. Also sounds like some winners had some problems queuing for the main hall panels despite winning the lottery but I can't find any details on what the issues were.

Interestingly the BIG panels that were held at Madison Square Garden and Hammerstein weren't part of the lottery. So they required people to just queue before each panel. And like SDCC's Hall H, they weren't cleared so people could go into an earlier panel and camp out. And on top of all that both venues required additional security checks and did not allow in food and drink.

Other comments seem to be the familiar convention comments - volunteers not trained well enough, Funko Pops needing a separate area (or at least a position where the crazy exclusives queue won't affect people trying to move around show floor, apparently the booth staff literally made a human chain around the line to prevent queue jumpers).


Sounds like the lottery system worked well enough, but it wasn't even for some of the biggest panels (those held off site) so it definitely can't be counted as any kind of stress test for Celebration. Like I mentioned above, the AM lines didn't even start until after 6am. Contrast that the Celebration Orlando where both the 40th and TLJ reached live capacity by 10pm the night before. Using RFID in the badges and tapping them rather than getting wristbands could work, but I'm definitely not convinced by a lottery for 50% of the seats for reasons already mentioned in the constructive criticism thread.

Based on NYCC we can almost definitely expect additional security checks going into the Wintrust arena (unless they find a way to mitigate that by using the connecting sky bridges) and it's possible other policies for the arena (no umbrellas was mentioned as well as no food for NYCC) could affect what you have on you over night and for the rest of your day at Celebration. Hopefully ReedPop will make sure cosplayers are ok with their stuff in the arena.

Sounds like the Funko crowd was crazy at NYCC. Hopefully that will be taken into account when deciding their booth location for SWC.

 

Deleted - double post.

 

That doesn't really make me any more or less optimistic.

I'm a Funko collector, but I'm not going to mess with that. All of their exclusives are usually shared with retailers and not hard to get online. I'm not going to waste hours on that.

 

I wouldn't say I'm a Funko collector; but I do purchase those of characters I really like to put on display around my home. As I mentioned in the Comic cons thread of the Community forums, I bought a pop of Taarna from the "Heavy Metal" movie; and had it signed by the franchise's original design director. That's the only one that I'm keeping inside its box; they even gave me a plastic protector for it.

 

The Funko line at every con I've been to is always the worst. I don't understand why they are so popular. I don't dislike them, I just can't understand why they are as popular as they are. Especially to the point of creating some of the havoc I've seen as a result.

 

It's a gimmick. Some people like to collect them and keep them within the boxes as if they're going to be of any value in years to come. Even so-called store "exclusives" can't be much more valuable than the regular versions. Over the Summer I got the Hot Topic exclusive Ahsoka in her Force pose on the day it was released; and shortly afterwards I saw plenty of them still available on the shelves. At least the convention exclusives are numbered; I think the one I got for "Heavy Metal" was only one of about 300.

 

I like them because they are fairly cheap and they have a wide range across pop culture. So it's fun for me to collect something from my different fandoms in a similar style.

But yeah, why bother with the line at Celebration (and you have to win a lottery to do that) when you can just buy the same figure online? The only difference is the sticker on the box is slightly different.

 

I've got a few Funkos. Bought two of the Porg so I could display one. BB8 is on display and the other boxed ones are Boba Fett, Admiral Ackbar, and Captain Phasma.

 

The people I know who collect them don't ever really bother with convention lotteries or waiting in line. I've seen them have plenty of fun shopping vendor to vendor trying to find the ones they want. That seems like a good way to go about it.

 

The question is how much are you willing to spend on the one you really want. I went to NYCC not even thinking about buying a new Funko pop; and I ended up spending $40 on the Taarna exclusive.

 

I haven't really seen too many Funkos that I want. I got the Ackbar because I saw it had been vaulted, the Fett because it's Boba, and the Porg because I thought it was cute. Phasma and BB8 were from seeing them in a local store.

 

I think the first Funko I ever got was a old con exclusive; being sold at an ordinary vendor's booth at a reasonable price (around $20 or so). It was of the main character from the anime (and former Manga) series, "Black Jack"; of which I'm fond of. Considering how rare it is (I haven't seen it being sold anywhere), I probably should have kept the box.

 

I haven't branched out to any other franchise with the Funkos, though I have seen quite a few non-SW ones.

 

$30 is typically my cap. The last couple years, my brother got me the bank robber Joker from TDK and the Jedi Conan for Christmas, which was cool because I would never buy those myself on the secondary market. I'll usually buy 2 or 3 at a con from the mom and pop type vendors. I'm at over 300 pops now, about half of which are Star Wars.

 

I have a few, mostly stuff I can't get other versions of. I picked up TFA Luke at Celebration Europe because I really wanted a TFA Luke and Hasbro and Hot Toys were miles away at that point. Other than that I have a couple of Smallville ones and a few Aladdin ones. They're fun enough, I just don't get why everyone goes so crazy over them at conventions, especially when it's literally just a sticker and you can buy the pop from other places after the show.

Tbh, it wasn't that crazy at CE, my friend picked up a full set of the exclusives on the last day, no lottery, no queue. I think people go crazier from them in the US than they do here. That said, I am getting a little fed up of them being all I can find at some conventions these days. They're at almost every stale at UK cons these days and it's making me miss the variety there used to be. CE didn't have that problem so I'm hopeful for CC next year.

 

This thread got way off topic in a hurry...

 

Well considering the con's over there's not much else to talk about it. I guess I could post some of the SW related cosplay pics I took at the con.

 

Sounds good to me!

 

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