Suggestions for C4

Howdy all! I met some of you at C3. I defintely recognized a few costumes there that later turned out to be forum regulars.

I have unofficial word that Celebration 4 will take place in Indy in 2007. (Slogan - "C4 is da bomb!" )

I thought it might be worthwhile to send some suggestions to LFL and Gen Con for the next one. Not that it helped much after Celebration 2, but it's worth a shot. I'll bring their attention to this thread. Here's a few of my suggestions:

- Separate the line for any exclusive figures from the rest of the merchandise. Have small stores and street vendors throughout the rest of the event selling the smaller items.

- Bring back Lucas for a longer Q&A! And to possibly avoid long lines, consider assigned seating for the event. Maybe rent out the RCA Dome?

- Give volunteers and members of the 501st that manage large lines some training in crowd control.

- If you have more official parties, include food and exclusive shirts in the price.

- Bring in Weird Al in for a concert!!

- The Fan Club lanyards were, essentially, useless. Everyone had one, so it didn't get any big privelages.

- Can we get Ewan McGregor to show up?

- Find a way so that people can quietly enter and exit talks already in progress instead of shutting the rooms when they're only 1/3 full and preventing people from getting in.

- Set up an area so that fans can take photos with costumed folks where they aren't blocking the hallways. I don't have a problem with people taking photos, but it got really crowded in the halls where they did this.

Any others?

Scott

 

Scott, those are all excellent ideas! I hope Lucasfilm will look at this thread.

The use of the RCA dome would have been great! Maybe have Lucas AND Macullum in there at the same time...50,000 people could fit in there no problem.

Maybe have the store line roped off so people can recognize it better instead of asking which line this is ofr. Man, I heard that a lot!

And the idea of having MANY kiosks around the building is great! I thought of that too. And have one area just for the figure, and the others to buy everything else.

We are on the same page here! Like I said, I hope Lucasfilm is looking at this thread!

 

Suggestions:

Fast Passes. They worked wonderfully for the autograph hall, I think they would have been a godsend for other events too.

Pre ticket option. Like fast passes, only availible at registartion.

Fan Art show. Every other convention has one. Make limited licenses availible or have a 'display only' policy.

Vollenteer. Make your convention experiance truely memorable.

We can't control guests, that's entirely up to them, but if there's a way/need to make it more enticing for them please do so

Pro Art room less out of the way. It was truely remarkable to see.

Larger Archive exhibit Please... I loved seeing some of the items but we all know there's tonnes more. Perhaps multiple rooms - cosutmes, production art, props.

Blooper reel room Ongoing show of outtakes and interviews!

 

The Lucas idea would be nice, but I doubt he'd be up to coming back so soon.

Agreed about the Fan Club benefits, they shouldn't promise anything they can't follow through on.

Keep the store fully staffed as long as it's full (our row of 8 registers had 4 closed and 2 Figure/Star Case only for the last two hours we were in line. That was TWO functioning registers.)

The event staff should have a better idea of what's going on at the events they're assigned to. Case in point: the GenCon employee that tried to cap the line for the ROTS Footage right in front of us saying that the people in front of us were for the event-after-next, and we ended up walking right into the next showing.

How about a non-rainy weekend too?

 

I'd like to see some of the rooms run more like a music festival. i.e just fill up the rooms and let people come and go as they please. If people want to camp out in the Sagamore Ballroom all day then let them! It would get rid of the ridiculous lines that take up valuable convention centre space. Of course, this would have a few caveats: no leaving once a show has started etc. Has anyone been to a convention where they've run it like this?

Other ideas:
Make it so you can purchase the exclusive figures when you pick up your badge, or have them shipped to you for an extra fee.

Have different package options (someone else mentioned this). e.g. Buy 4-day pass + 2 Vader Figures + T-Shirt = $130.

Have someone checking lanyards at the Fan Club lounge!

Hire capable staff, or volunteers to run the store. The temps at C3 just did not care.

And finally, please put in some food stall that knows how to make a proper cup of tea!

 

i think they should have a couple of stores set up. one on one side of the ICC and one on the other.

i think i also recall some suggestions pre-C:3 about pre-ordering your exclusive stuff prior to the con. that would've saved me 5 hours and a lot of others many more hours. only those that pre-register could order their stuff and then perhaps pick it up at the show? or even have it sent to them? i dunno about kinks in that idea since they screwed up the one thing people did order (passes for c:3), but maybe it could be worked out.

 

I have one suggestion. Don't have a C4. This is the last movie being released, this should also be the last major SW event like this. We dont need a 30th anni Celebration. Just my thoughts.

 

I have a suggestion, k3po. If you don't want to go (which you have made very clear here), don't. But if there's a significant interest, and there is, why keep us from having fun and Lucas from a new private jet? It's kind of silly to suggest that they shouldn't hold one just because YOU thought C3 blew and YOU don't want to go to the next one when clearly there are plenty of others who will get something from having another.

 

I'm all for having a convention, just not having it called a celebration. These should be special for the movie releases, not just staples. Just my opinion, no reason to get mad at me. Plus, I never said C3 blew. I had a great time, just thought it could have been ran better.

 

No C4? I suppose you're right that there's nothing to talk about. Who'd want to celebrate the 30th Anniversary? And forget about the live action TV series. I'm sure there won't be anything to talk about there. And screw the Computer Animated show! Who needs it? And I'm sure they won't have any progress on the 3-D versions of the films. Lucas probably won't want to release a complete saga DVD set anywhere near then either. Who wants to talk about the toys, comics, games, or RPG, either?

Yup, nothing to talk about. No point in C4

I'm up for doing a 4th Celebration, mainly because my kids will finally be old enough to take.

 

Great, thank a lot Scott. Now I want a C4. bring it on. Jerks. =P


I want one suggestion then. Love Indy, but lets have a change of scenery. I really want an excuse to visit San Diego.

 

I would suggest ticketing any of the big events so you don't have people at the end being told "You may or may not get into this event." Like for opening ceremonies, they should be free tickets of course, but tickets that you have to pick up so they don't overbook it and leave people in the dark.

 

They did that for C2 and it was a mess.

 

My main suggestion for C4- Destroy all scalpers!!! Prohibit them from selling stuff for double & triple the shelf price. 'So that's why I can't find X RotS figure on the shelves. This S.O.B. bought a dozen of them & is selling them at 3x the normal rate.' Also prohibit them from buying any exclusives & re-selling them right there on the spot.

 

yeah the exihibitors sucked. even if you got in the door immediately for the GG bust, there was still a long line of exhibitors already.

my suggestion, only allow maybe 18,000 4 day passes to be sold and 2,000 daily passes to be sold.

make it longer, there were so many things I wanted to do going on at the same time. I didn't get to do no where near what all I wanted to do.

 

Just a quick question, if there was a C4 like C3, at about what time would they announce the official date of the celebration? I don't remember what the date was when they anounced it for this C3. I wanted to go so badly, but damn college classes held me back. Does anyone know when they would actually release official dates if there was another one?
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Also, I think it would be awesome if there was a C4 to coincide with the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars itself. I mean all these past one's have been about the Prequel Movies, not Star Wars in general. I think C4 should be the last one and that it should be like a huge birthday type thing. That would be cool. I would definitely get over to Indy to go to this. I don't really have any suggestion's for C4 since I wasn't at C3 to actually contribute to better ideas, but I just wanted to put out my reasoning as to why there should be a Celebration 4. ^__^

Also, allow George Lucas to have a longer Q&A panel, if he is interested in going back, of course. Form what I've heard, he wasn't at C3 in his panel very long.

 

Whoa, capping admission to the entire event at 20,000 people isn't going to be beneficial for ANYONE. The convention will miss out on some good revenue and a lot of fans who want to go won't be able to make it in, sure it's going to be crowded, but I don't think that only allowing less people in is worth the trouble it could create.

 

It just sucked I couldn't do everything I wanted to do.

 

You left out the Legacy of the Force book series that was announced at C3. Yes, we want to discuss that too!

There should be a designated area for getting your pictures taken with costumers. I didn't dress up, but I know it got annoying as hell, spending 10 minutes to get through one section of the convention. And I know the costumers were on their way to events as well, constantly getting asked to stop for a picture.

 

Yeah, the thing about setting up a place for costumers to take pictures is that there are some who won't go there. I mean, obviously there are people like Hot Slave Leia and the Asian Amidalas who went TO GET PHOTOGRAPHED and wouldn't mind spending all day in that room, but there are others who just happened to wear cool costumes (I'm thinking PedroTroopers here) but weren't banking on getting their picture taken all the time. You have to have a certain level of ego going before you show up in a designated photo spot and say "TAKE PICTURES OF ME!"

 

San Diego Comic Con is every year, and usually has it's own Star Wars day...so that should be enough of an excuse to go if you want one...besides it's Zoo which is very cool.

The RCA Dome will, in all likely hood be demolished before 2007. The new stadium is scheduled for the 2008 season, but I don't know when the expanded convention center will be scheduled to be open, maybe parts of it before others.

For whatever faults C3 had, there were vast improvements, in my opinion, over C2.

I know some people like to see items before they buy them...all I would have needed for the Store would be a scantron form & a #2 pencil...fill out what I want and hand it to someone at a kiosk and have it shipped to me later.

Anything to increase the size and number of items in the Archive Room is always a good thing.

I had fun at the C@C3 party, but there shouldn't have been a store there...it's a party. Live music will always be hit or miss, but having two distinctly different groups was good imho.

 

I agree. There has to be a certain amount of ego involved when wearing a costume. I had a Jedi costume and while I know I didn't have the absolute best costume, I thought I looked damn good in it. That being said, I saw plenty of costumers who are either clueless when it comes to how they look or just don't care.

But yeah, I room for Costumer pics would be cool. They could have a bunch of different backdrops like the Falcon, Geonosis arena, etc...

 

Put the Lucasfilm Archives in a BIGGER room / ballroom and bring back Anthony Daniels!

Make package rates. Example: Package A will include your 4 day pass, 1 t-shirt, hat, and exclusive figure for $300. That way when you get your pass / package in the mail, you will have everything. Package B will be 4 day pass, 1 figure for $200, etc. It is not rocket science. Make kiosks scattered throughout the convention that sell the smaller tiems like hats and t-shirts... sell items in the line outside waiting to get in... beat the line before it even starts! Maybe even put kiosks in the hotel lobbies next door. Heck, maybe McDonalds at the Hyatt could sell the figure or C3 items. There are options, Genco. Don't be so greedy. Make the fans happy since we pay your bills.

 

Maybe rent out the RCA Dome? - I said the same during CIII.

That way everyone can be accomodated at once, both fan club & non. I cannot understand why they didn't do something like this for CIII.

 

you know what my suggestion is:

Let Scott, Philip, and Josh run the darn thing.