SWC17 The Last Jedi panel..Friday 4/14

Does Celebration release any official guidance on what to do if you want to see the most popular panels? i.e. When to get in line to get wristband, tickets, etc? Or do we just have to share best practices here in these forums?

 

Closer to the show, yes, they'll announce the procedure - not necessarily guidance.

 

Thanks. More specifically, if I wasn't on this forum would I know that I might have to be waiting in line at 430am?

 

They'll tell you when you can start lining up. Everything after that is guess work (even on this forum).

We can look at past Celebrations for precedent, but there's different factors (size of Celebration Stage, growing popularity, Friday instead of Thursday, etc) that influences things.

 

Orlando has a no over night policy if I remember correctly so that could throw a wrench into things too.

 

Is that new, because this old article says people started lining up at 11 pm for an 11 am George Lucas panel at the last Celebration in Orlando.

http://www.mtv.com/news/2437296/star-wars-celebration-v-george-lucas-jon-stewart/

 

Yeah I think it's a city ordinance since that night club shooting

 

Ah, yeah. If that's the case and the line up can't start until like 7 am or something, it's going to become basically a lottery to get in if there's more people than capacity when the line starts.

 

But no matter what time the official line is set to begin, there will certainly still be a line just to get into the line. They'll literally have to mark off where the official boundary point is that no line can accumulate past until a certain time, and then pretty much right at that boundary point a line will start to accumulate with the intention that it will simply move into whatever space the official line will be in when that time comes.

I personally hope they don't do wristbands on Thursday. Because I don't doubt that there will be a decent number of people who would be willing to give up spending all or most of Thursday at Celebration in order to wait in line for a wristband for the Last Jedi panel. Especially since nowadays you can pretty much assume and expect to see exclusive footage at any upcoming movie panel that's held at a Celebration. To be honest, I wouldn't mind waiting in line overnight for the panel itself, or to get a wristband for it on Friday morning. But if they hand out the wristbands at the end of the day Thursday, and assuming a decent number of people line up early on for it, I'll probably just skip it, because it giving up even half a day at Celebration to wait in line myself wouldn't be worth it. At that point I'll just to decide to catch it in an overflow room.

 

I don't think people will line up (or be allowed to) during the day Thursday. There will most likely be some panel on the main stage Thursday that people will be in that queue for. The earliest I see the line up starting is Thursday evening after the main hall closes. I don't see any way wristbands are given out until Friday. We'll see though. There's no reason to dwell on it too much until they say how it's going to work.

 

Who said they are handing out wristbands Thursday during the day? Nobody said anything about that. They will not be able to line up on Thursday during the day because LucasFilm/Reedpop will prevent them. Don't be Tarkin and underestimate the ability of people to stand in line and wait for something...

 

Or like me, people will be lining up early to get into the Celebration Store.

 

You couldn't do that at CE II last year. They gave out wristbands for main events (I didn't queue for any since the queuing was at silly hours). However when we got to ExCel each day we all had to line up in an unused part of the facility and go through security and bag checks. This meant you couldn't get into the halls early to line up for stuff like the store. After the first day we quit taking backpacks to eliminate that part of the queue. (I stuffed a shopping bag into a pocket to put purchases and handouts in).

This was taken by my partner on one of the mornings (second one, I think):

 

That's a good idea.

 

Yeah, we thought so as well. Saved quite a bit of time.

Edit - apologies for the quality of the photo - my partner just held his smartphone over his head to take the pic. At 6'3" he's a lot taller than me. Also the pic of the crowd is a bit deceptive - he took it facing the entrance door and there are lines of people behind us as well.

 

Believe me, that's exactly what I'm doing, NOT underestimating people's ability to stand in line and wait for something. I was at Comic Con last summer, it was about 7/8 am Friday morning, the second day, and I was in this long line that stretched way outside just to get into the main exhibit hall, next to that line there was this other line with people camped out, so as I steadily made my way in the line that I was in I talked to some people in the line next to me, and I was amazed to find out that they were actually camped out for the following day's Hall H panels. It's 8 am Friday morning and they are in line, and clearly had been in line for some time already, for panels that won't begin until Saturday mid morning. I asked a few people if they cared about giving up so much time at Comic Con just to see those panels, and they said they knew what they were doing. I just did one of those palms up head tilted to the side gestures and kept on my way.

As far as Celebration goes, keep in mind I said the end of the day Thursday. So if the plan is to give out wristbands at the end of the day or in the evening on Thursday, I don't doubt that a decent number of people would be willing to give up spending all or most of that day at Celebration in order to wait for one. Especially nowadays when you can almost be guaranteed to see exclusive footage of any upcoming movie at that movie's Celebration panel any given year. And even if people are told they can't officially line up somewhere, they will inevitably just start lining up at whatever literal boundary point they are told not to line up past with the intent of just moving that line forward once they are able to.

But lets say that for whatever reason they just plain and simple cannot allow overnight queuing, forcing them to hand out wristbands for the Last Jedi panel in the evening on Thursday. If that is the case, than for safety reasons, they should allow for people to line up early, or at least allow for the scenario I described above where they just can't line up past a certain point, instead of trying to prevent anyone from lining up anywhere prior to the official line being formed in the evening. Otherwise, once those doors close for the day's events at Celebration there is going to be just this mad two to three thousand person dash to get in line for wristbands for that Last Jedi panel. Among fans, the hype and anticipation for this one I think is bigger than TFA.

 

This is so accurate and exactly what I'm expecting. I've seen it done plenty of times and had to do it myself for ROTS 3D screening (which turned out to be a good thing since they underestimated demand and even forgot an entire room of people)

 

The only thing is with that it's not a convention center policy it's a city ordinance. You might get a ticket. I'm really hoping that is the case. That way they say hey you can't be here on the property until 6am or something so we actually get some sleep.


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No, they will not hand out wristbands for the Friday panel on Thursday night I can guarantee you that.

 

I agree 100%. Otherwise, the single day pass holders would have no shot to get in (Friday badge holders couldn't get in Thursday to line up).

 

I looked into this a bit and it looks like exceptions can be made to the city ordinance, so who knows at this point?

https://www.municode.com/library/fl...nances?nodeId=TITIICICO_CH43MIOF_S43.52CAPREX

 

I'm sure RP is doing what they can to let us line up safely inside and once they get final confirmations to what the city will allow them to do they will let us know. They already announced the panels but nothing about line up times like they did with JJ in Anaheim so they must be figuring things out and confirming before saying anything.

 

I don't see how the city can do anything if the lines are formed inside the convention hall.
At previous celebrations lines has been allowed to form inside from around 8pm the evening before.
I was at both Celebration Anaheim 2015 and Celebration London 2016 and I am sure they didn't hand out any wristbands until 6am on the morning of the event, so I don't know why someone would even consider thinking wristbands would be handed out the day before. It would be nice not to have to spend the night in a line, but it's just not gonna happen.

 

We'll see. If the line is outside, it's still possible that they could require that you show either your 4 Day Badge or Friday Badge in order to get a wristband.

Like I said, I think the anticipation for this movie is more than it was for TFA, especially with the almost guarantee of seeing exclusive footage. So I would expect that no matter what time the official line up begins that there will be a decent number of people lining up for it on Thursday regardless.

I remember that. People were soooo pissed. And I can't blame them. I would be too. To have wasted all that time when you thought you surely would get in, and to then be told by some volunteer dip**** that they just forget about you and there's nothing they can do, my heart would have sunk. At that point they should have made exceptions and allowed people to line the sides and back of the room. But its not up to them, its up to the fire commissioner, and he couldn't care less. I think they offered something as compensation, I forget what it was, I think wristbands to another popular panel the next day. But still, that would have been such a damper on my whole experience that weekend.

 

Yeah they got wristbands to the Rebels premiere which hurt other people who waited for Rebels. Mess all around. No matter what happens this time, I hope it's not that bad


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