Celebration was great, but not due to Reedpop, the ones that ran it. MOst of us were able to have fun despite their mismanagement. Here are my key points on their failure:

http://dantedreams.tumblr.com/post/159858998801/reedpopswco

 

Nice letter. I think your being generous on saying they looped us 1 mile around outside. I bet from where I started which was at the entrance, going westbound (to the wall, about 100 yards), looping back to the entrance, then clear around to the very back north west corner of the buildind, then back to the main entrance, I say the complete trip... 1.7 miles. I still regret not bum rushing in at the far north entrance esp once it past the 1030 am posted doors opening time, but no I was being too civilized

 

To think that the 40th Anniversary kick off panel was happening and then to still be stuck in that line until well after the panel ended. I don't even want to imagine the mixed array of anxiety, anger, and disappointment that must have been going through everybody's head while waiting in that line.

Here's a news report I found about the line on Thursday. I posted it in another thread on here but wasn't sure if you had seen it. Scroll down to the end of the article and there's a video taken from a news helicopter that was hovering above it. I really hadn't appreciated just how bad it was until I saw this video.

http://www.clickorlando.com/enterta...ration-organizers-apologies-after-bumpy-start

It occurred to me that even if they wanted to open up more entrances as the line built up they probably couldn't knowing what a mad rush it would have created and how much more dangerous that would have been.

Does anyone know if single day Thursday badge holders have been requesting refunds? For that matter even four day badge holders ought to be entitled to a refund for a quarter of the cost of the badge. I'm just curious, not that I'd want to go through that effort myself. But certainly for single day badge holders at least, those tickets were not cheap. And especially families with, say, two adults and two kids, for whom staying overnight was hardly an option, that's a good two hundred bucks. All to wait in line for half the day just to get in? I don't know, maybe the demands just aren't pouring in. But I think it would be an appropriate announcement to Thursday badge holders on how they can be issued a refund due to the tremendous debacle that day. It's interesting that with such a passionate fan base most of the complaints are about missing out on the experience itself. A refund would almost be more of an insult than anything. Whereas if there was a more passive attitude towards the event by those attending there would certainly be a lot more demands for refunds since people would really just care about getting their money back and moving on.

 

I had a couple of times I could have snuck in and totally disregarded security but I chose to be a boy scout. I have to admit I partially regret that. But then I wouldn't have been able to see and document that train wreck that was reedpop's doing on Thursday morning.

 

Very good letter. I was there all 4 days and experienced tons of frustrations as well, albeit different from yours. I sincerely hope that ReedPop either gets their crap together, or they get the boot.

 

I wrote a letter asking for a refund/partial refund for the almost 1/2 day wasted Thursday..just for fun, to see what should happen, here's their response.

Hello Eric,

In an effort to provide the best security for our fans and exhibitors, we worked with the building and our security company to provide a plan we hoped would move everyone in the building as safely and securely as possible. As you saw firsthand, this made the queues to enter the building far too long on Thursday morning. We know many fans were unhappy and for this we are sincerely sorry. Unfortunately our policy states that tickets are non-refundable after purchase, so we will not be able to process a refund for you.

Thanks,
Customer Service

Love how they put some of the responsibility on OCCC and the security company, blah, blah blah...
Some times there's bad policy, other times doing the right thing should trump policy, and sometimes maybe rewrite the policy.

 

That's the real problem. RP blames everything on to the OCCC and security, the OCCC and security blame RP. So literally for 4 days, one company wouldn't take responsibility and the other would be like "that's not my job". no wonder the volunteers had zero clue what was going on.

This is TOPPS's sign for their refund booth and in my opinion, a great representation of all that was wrong with all companies involved

 

That image is truly emblematic of the situation many people found themselves in over the weekend. And for RP to hide behind some "policy" after such a blatant display of not delivering on the service being offered is ridiculous. I can just imagine Lucy Van Pelt (girl from Charlie Brown) turning up at that desk to give some excuse as to why she can't issue you a refund but to thank you wholeheartedly for your business.

 

I'm glad to see so many people speaking out about the mess that was SWCO. That being said, this was the best and the worst for me. I was lucky enough to have VIP which made the con amazing. I was able to get into the panels I wanted to see and navigate the floor without issues. If I had not had VIP it would have been a very different story.

My problem was with Topps and Star Wars Authentics. I usually plan to get 1 to 2 autographs per convention that I attend. I decided that I would take advantage of the line jump option I had with VIP this time. Unfortunately the nightmare that was the autograph hall completely negated my advantage that I paid for. I also wrote a letter to Reed explaining my issue. It is in the link below.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pU7FsbYM8ooB72Tq4IjQZAcg9JZ1u-VtMAa6k6dCBjc/edit?usp=drivesdk

 

Ok my solution, when you buy your Celebration Badge/Ticket you automatically get the chance at a Ticket or Voucher for the panels of your choice basically tickets can be bought for panels with your badge, my idea is because the Badge for celebration is so expensive that the panel ticket is either cheap like $20.00 or free. basically first come first serve like when you buy movie tickets! it can be like an event tickets go on sale at either 9:00PM or 12:00AM on a certain date! I don't know if this is an issue for others on here but I cant camp out over night on the ground, I'm not a kid anymore I am 35 years old 36 on June 5th and I have a bad back and need my sleep. and waking up at god awful times of night to get on line at 5 AM I cant do that either.

I left my house on Friday for Celebration at about 7:30 AM got to the convention center parking lot at about 10:00AM and bused over to the west concourse! When I got to the west concourse It was free flow and there were like three people ahead of me in the security line to get into the main floor. obviously I couldn't get in to any main panels but I was able to get into non wristbanded panels and there was enough stuff on the main floor to last a whole day of just walking around and checking it all out! I loved the Star Wars Show Stage, I saw Anthony Daniels and Warwick Davis and Andi Gutierrez up close like a few feet away! I really liked Rebels Theater caught a few episodes in the Afternoon was a cool wind down in the afternoon with cold water from a water cooler and the water was free! All in all it was a great day and If they don't do my ticket idea for panels I would do it again definitely when it comes back to Orlando!

just one question How do you get a fast pass for the Celebration store, where do you pick it up and how much does it cost?

 

I don't know how practical that is to book panels prior to the event even starting. Especially since tickets for these things go on sale well in advance of it actually happening. I don't see a scenario in which doing something like that wouldn't royally piss off an even larger number of people than the amount of people who are being accommodated by it. Think of how many people will hold their spot all that time and then not end up going to that specific panel. And it would be entirely too cumbersome to require names on individual panel passes and to have staff check them in the effort to prevent people from selling them ahead of time. More problems would arise from it than would be solved.

The real issue was in the venue. As has been said numerous times on here, that room in which the major panels were held this year was entirely too small. Looking back I can hardly believe it myself, because it wasn't any bigger than something you would see at a hotel convention. And to hold two of the most highly anticipated panels not only of Celebration, but in the entire nationwide Con circuit this year, in a room that size was just one of the biggest flub ups I've seen since I've been attending Cons. The other panel rooms weren't much bigger. Whereas at other convention centers, particularly Anaheim, there's a huge 7-8 thousand person capacity arena that major panels can be held in. Plus other rooms on top of that with a capacity for up to a few thousand. And having Celebration at a convention center that has something like that would resolve nearly all of the complaints received this year. Moving forward I don't see how that isn't the obvious solution. It shouldn't be on us to have to come up with every which kind of measure to solve these problems. It's on them to accommodate us, not the other way around. We're paying good money to be there, and the simple solution is get a bigger venue.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing them sell some sort of "panel pass" badge like they hinted at in the post Celebration survey. Say it's in a 7,000 seat venue. Sell your 300 VIPs with first priority seating and the other perks. Then have like 2,000 people with panel passes that you can sell for say $200-$300 on top of the regular badge price. If you have a panel pass, you have to show up before regular seating starts (say 40 minutes before) to be guaranteed a spot. The remaining seats go to campers. That way you can still "control your destiny" if you are willing to put in the time.

I'd also require anyone with a vip or special badge to have to pick them up at the event with a photo id to prevent scalping.

 

That's a good idea. But practically speaking I think that could prove difficult to manage trying to usher in one group of 1 to 2 thousand people, who will probably be more demanding since they paid, and then another group of 4 to 5 thousand after that. When really they could just have all 6 to 8 thousand people line up as they choose and then file them in when it's time. Like I said the main issue is just having the arena with that capacity. It should be pretty smooth sailing once that's figured out, and most problems would be solved by doing so.

 

My solution would be to use the space that was there. The main room could have held 6000 people. The exhibition hall could have been converted to holds tens of thousands.
Another thing that disappointed me but I didn't put in my letter was the lack of a Celebration Mixer at the convention. There was one at the other 3 Celebrations I went to. Bummer.

Also Reedpop did give me a refund for $69, about the cost for a one day pass.

 

dante144 wow lucky. I asked for a refund explaining the situation and they said no. My aunt who's an attorney said I should file a small claims suit against them because the suit will get filed in the county the tix was sold too. Asking for 1/2 of expenses for time wasted, and a few other things. She seems to think they won't show up and just pay up, cause it's not worth it to them.

 

Hopefully, should there be another show, ReedPop will have no role. Heard several rumors that Disney is likely to take over and bring it in house, possibly merging it with a return of Star Wars Weekends.

 

dante144: Wow, score one for us little people. I wonder what circumstances need to be presented in order for them to deem it worthy of a refund.

Grand Admiral Strife: Yea, I don't see ReedPop continuing with SWC. Especially with a company like Disney looming overhead. Although I think it should strictly be kept as an event completely separate from the parks.

What's interesting is that ReedPop does do other events, the biggest of which is New York Comic Con, which from what I've gathered is practically on par with San Diego Comic Con in terms of its popularity on the East Coast. Not far off from that is the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. Both hugely popular and run by ReedPop. I wonder if many of these same debacles happen at those events as well. I don't doubt they happen at some of the smaller and lesser known conventions run by ReedPop around the world. But those first two are in a different league, and I highly doubt they could allow things like that to happen so severely without facing the prospect that they could lose the ability able to run it. These events are money machines, and I'm sure there are other companies who would be chomping at the bit willing to step in and take over if these problems came up.

 

The problem is, that any scenario with tickets for panels being offered in advance, will only result in many of them being picked up by scalpers and sold at elevated prices to the real fans, like it's the case with some of the VIP tickets.

 

Forcing you to pick them up there with an ID would help.

 

Well Reedpop strikes again. People who ordered the full set of badges at the Celebration store are finally receiving them and there's two on the Facebook group in 4 days that received the entire set but it was one badge. So basically, the first one got 15 staff badges instead of one of each and the second got 15 Friday badges. Considering they are, like, $60+ for the set and they had to wait over a month for them, it's ridiculous.
Talk about continuing to mess up this Celebration


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

As far as the time goes, it took them about a month to send it to me when I ordered the set from Anaheim. I really didn't mind it so much, and wouldn't have minded at all if they hadn't told me that I would receive them within a week after Celebration. But they were communicative with me when I asked about it, and when I did finally get them it was the complete set. So all in all no complaints.

But that's really crazy that they would mess up so bad this year by sending out supposedly complete sets but it turns out to all be one badge. Whether that was done on purpose or it was due to incompetence, both are equally bad. I feel bad for the people who ordered them, since it almost doesn't even seem worth the effort to send them back and then wait for the actual set to arrive. And even after doing that, or just being sent the full set on top of what has already been sent, it still really takes away the excitement and the feeling of possessing a really nice item from Celebration.

I didn't order them this year myself. My brother swore up and down he didn't see them being offered at the check out desk, nor was I about to wait two hours in line just to order them when I finally got to the store. Not only that, but as I'm looking right now at a few of the sets for sale on ebay, it's all new characters from Rebels and TFA anyway. They're cool, but I'm not sweating not having them. And now especially with this debacle over them.

I hate that I can't stay up to date on things with Facebook since they no longer allow you to browse group and event pages without being a member. I've maintained a good streak of avoiding social media up until now, and I don't want to sign up just for that. So please continue to share any more news that comes up on there.

 

MotivateR5D4 I'll try to update the boards if anything happens on Facebook. This month has been crazy cause I just got married last week but things are settling back to normal now.

Update from first guy who got the wrong set. He contacted RP and they sent him a full replacement set within 3 days so kudos to them for making it right. Sad that it was an issue in the first place but still. He didn't say anything about sending the others back but they definitely sent him the new ones prior to him doing so


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Congratulations!

 

Padme501st: Congratulations! Thanks for the update, glad to hear you're doing well.

But yea, that's good to hear about ReedPop rectifying the situation. And definitely keep us posted if you can when you see anything come up on Facebook.