Will officials from Celebration actually read these? Or is this just a place to vent?

 

Does anyone know if a 4 Day Pass has to be used by the same person all 4 Days? Example can my friend use it Thursday, my wife use it Friday, and another friend use it Saturday and Sunday. I don't have anyone that can go all 4 days

 

So parking was kind of an issue for those wanting to wait for the first panel. By 5am convention center parking was full and signs directed people to park at Angels Stadium. But there wasn't anyone at the stadium and apparently parking and shuttle buses wouldn't start until 6am. Oops!


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I'm disappointed that many of the panels are only held once, and at the same time as another panel I want to see. It seems at past celebrations there were multiple opportunities to see each panel.

 

I had a great time with my boy today on opening day! Couldn't of asked for more. Wish I could go all 4 days. Want to try and go back on Sunday. I took my 4 year old to his first Star Wars event! So fun.



A couple other pics... won't clog up the thread with nonsense.





More pics and videos on my Twitter feed... great stuff! Hope if you are in the area, that you all can make it! A really fun time. www.twitter.com/midnighter20c

 

As my first celebrating I went to mr mcdiarmid right when I got in friday. I approached me mcdiarmid and there were two folks ahead dressed as Jedi. As soon as we approached him he went into character and said "disgusting Jedi..you aren't jedi are you?" With the voice and all and was a great guy. Mark hamill seemed very tired and kind of exhausted to be there..not a lot of costumed folks though all were more then happy to take photos a guy wearing new storm trooper armor told me to get lost..was a 501st member so I was a little..shocked by that response. But celebration has been great!.

 

Any word on why they moved from Orlando to Anaheim? This convention center is smaller, and there at least seems to be a bigger crowd. The official store is a mess, I've heard nothing good about it and haven't had the desire to wait in line for two hours to just get in, and then wait another two to check out. I think they have their queueing down pretty well, but I've noticed a handful of people simply cross barriers into earlier sections. The (convention center) staff was pretty bad at giving accurate information, I noticed. People were asking about the Ray Park queue twenty minutes before it started, and the staff was directing them to the Carrie Fisher queue because they were both in the same place. No one told us that the Battlefront panel was filled until we asked what was going on a half hour after it started and we hadn't gotten in yet. The line was making a bit of progress, but I now realize it was most likely from people leaving. I guess maybe they need more crew to tell people what's going on? Personally, I'd rather be told bad news early than find out myself later.

I'm really not looking forward to the crowd on Saturday. I didn't preorder a T-shirt and want to get something exclusive from the store to go with my Orlando exclusives. But it feels like I'm gonna have to get in line at 6am and run to the store to even have a chance of that.

But in the end, it's simply amazing to be here with all these fans. I'll put up with all the queues from hell just so I can bond with those guys I just met about how we cried upon seeing Han.

 

One thing I've found helpful: if they're wearing a green celebration "Crew" shirt, they will likely give you proper directions. The blue shirt convention staff hasn't been giving very good direction. Hell, they opened the doors into the convention lobby yesterday at 10 when they were supposed to be directing everyone to the queue area. The celebration crew people had to get everyone out and back towards the queuing area.

 

I know they aren't selling tickets online anymore... but are they selling them for Sunday only if you happen to walk up to the ticket booth at the door there?

 

Yea I waited over 2 hours for mark hamills autograph and the line setup was painful..I got Ray parks autograph and he was awesome he actually took a photo with me and my wife and we realized the photo came out blurry and he called us back for another autograph. Awesome guy! I also met Clive revill too. Bought some cool action figures and whatnot. A lot of people said this venue was smaller?

The lines on saturday were ridiculous. But I was able to get a thursday badge to collect it along with my other two

 

Nope. Tickets are completely sold out.

 

Overall I thought it was well run. They seemed to handle the lines better than most conventions. I got into everything I lined up for and I never had to wait for over an hour. The location was very convenient to hotels, Disney etc. I parked at the hotel on Thursday morning and never needed to go back to my car until it was time to leave today.

The main negative I experienced was the very poorly set-up store which always had a long line to get in, a long line to make your purchase and not much in stock worth buying. The sight of workers hauling boxes across the convention floor to resupply the store suggests that it was poorly positioned in the building. Why not position it immediately adjacent to its store room or the loading dock?

 

2 stars.

This is my 5th Celebration in the last 10 years (all in the U.S) and I have to say the convention was well oversold. I waited in line for 3 hours on Thursday to buy a couple of shirts from the store and had to leave because I had pre-ordered a photo-op with Billy Dee Williams. I still had at least another two hours to go. I was only able to get into a couple of panels. Every Celebration ahs been poorly organized. At CIV, the store was open for 24 hours and I was able to get into many different panels. This time, I was only able to get into a couple of panels. Orlando seems to be the best site in terms of rooms, hotels, cost, etc. Reed Pop should be fired after this. Disney/Lucasfilm could have made so much more money if they hired somebody who could manage large conventions and knew how to run a store.

 

The only poorly organised things from the 4 days were:
- the Celebration store - not setting a limit on purchases really hurt those who didn't manage to get anything from the store.
- seating for the Rebels season 2 premiere was run very poorly. The here were no event staff organising the seating inside the Digital Stage and the security guys had no idea what they were doing - moving some rows forward and others not, letting in people who had queued for less time with a preference at closer seats, and then allowing people to move into reserved seats.

And this is more a regret than a complaint, but I didn't manage to get into the TFA Exhibit over all 4 days. I had plenty of panels that I wanted to attend and had seen pics of the exhibit online already so prioritised the new experiences over it.

 

My wife got into TFA exhibit after waiting for almost 2 hours.....and we got into the convention at around 10:15. So yeah, that was poorly planned out as well. I honestly think they would have been better having that exhibit in one of the Hilton or Marriott rooms. The Behind-the-scenes stage also should have had a larger queuing room. They didn't get their act together on that rooms queue until Saturday when they taped lines on the floor.

The Rebels premiere also stumped me and many people who I spoke with. I don't understand why it wasn't played on the Celebration Stage instead of the Digital Stage. I know they were trying to bill the whole JAT/Hamill panels as some sort of event for Saturday night, but I felt like both of them should have been moved to a different day and the Rebels premiere played during that time.

I did find out why the line was so disorganized for the premiere though: the two people working the line on Sunday told me that they were shorthanded on Saturday night, so things were way messier than they should have been.

The celebration store, as others have said, was a nightmare. What's funny is that the art area, which was right next to the Celebration store, was run extremely well. They were even fast-tracking people in the checkout line who paid cash (at least they were on Thursday).

This was my first celebration, so I can't really give it a fair rating. The problems above were the most frustrating parts for me, but I don't have anything to compare my experiences with. I had a boatload of fun though, and hanging out with a lot of other Star Wars fans was fantastic.

 

The store was a lot worse this time around than the last few Celebrations. A post I read earlier today on the way home reminded me that Celebration IV had a store which was open 24/7 and had a large quantity of every item sold on hand. They even gave volunteers 2500-3000 credit just to get rid of it all after the show was over with. This time around, I couldn't find ANY of the tshirts I wanted in my size, and I wasn't about to take my chances with the huge lines for the checkout. I am HOPING that they do what they did for Celebration VI and reprint some of the tshirts and do a small flash sale for those who never got a chance to get them.

Another pet peeve of mine was the wait for the TFA prop and costume room. I waited for 4 hours to get in there and then had to sit down for a good 20 minutes afterward because my feet were so tired. Would a larger room (thus allowing more people in and less waiting) or a "sitting station" or two along the line have hurt anyone?

Another beef I had was the pushing everybody out of panels after they were done so the the next panel could be seated when there were very clearly not enough people to justify having to boot everybody out. I know, it's all about being fair to those who have to wait, but how fair is it to someone who wants to see the next panel and has to go to the end of a line which may or may not see the next panel?

 

The one thing that really annoyed me was the queue situation for Celebration Stage on Friday and Saturday. I thought it worked for the TFA panel (where we went straight from Hall E and right into the arena). But that system didn't get repeated. For Friday and Saturday, I though it was fine where we all camped out in Hall A, but once it got moved to the area near the doors, it got extremely unfair. I noticed it started with the Daniels panel where we had to line up in those numbered thin strips. Line 1 went in, then line 2 started going in and then that line over by the wall went in at the same time (I think it was numbered 5 or 6). I thought "oh, they're going upstairs to the 300 sections." But once I got in, I saw those people from that line along the wall were actually entering from the other side of the floor. I didn't think about this when I decided to get in line for the JAT/Hamill panel and I should have. Because when they opened the doors for that panel, they moved the line along the wall first, then let line 1 in (I was in the middle of line 2). By the time I got in the arena, the whole floor and front risers were taken. I don't understand why people who got in the line in Hall A hours--and I repeat...hours--after I did were able to get a better seat than me. I mean, I understand how they wanted to take people all the way around to the other floor entrance, but I don't know why they couldn't time the walk better. That was epitome of unfairness and it ruined my experience of this event.

Another minor irritation was that line for the TFA exhibit. I didn't mind waiting it in, but when I crossed from the rails to the queue near the door, I almost got booted because the guy guarding that line didn't believe I came from the rails. And a Staff member in a green shirt had even escorted me over there. But because so many people were walking around in that area, it would be so easy to cut the line.

And I agree about the store. It was really bad on Friday and Saturday. I missed panels I wanted to see because I was stuck in that store for 3 hours on Friday (one hour to get in and then two hours to check out). And it was frustrating to finally get in there and discover so many shirts I wanted weren't there. They should have had a dry erase board saying what was out of stock. I thought it was 'funny' that they only got the checkout booths numbered and megaphone announcers telling you what number to go to so late in the game.

The Los Angeles Times said there was 60,000 people there, but I'm not sure if that was over the entire con or just one day. It certainly felt oversold on Saturday. I couldn't even move in the Exhibit Hall. People seemed more ruthless on Sunday, though (shoving and stealing seats).

 

Am I crazy in thinking that it would have made more sense to have separate morning queues before the show opened? Have one queue for the store, have one queue for the arena, one queue for the digital stage, and so on? Because when they have three million people in that queue hall, they aren't all headed to the same place. I never would have even tried to get to the battlefront panel if I knew how overqueued it was.

Compared to the two in Orlando (my only point of reference), the programming this time was streets ahead, but the smaller venue, more guests, and lack of preparation really hurt. Overall, I'd give it three stars. Five for programming, two for logistics/unavoidable crowd business.

And maybe I'm just stupid, but the exhibit hall was very confusing for me. I would always get lost and find myself turning around. Across four days, I could never get my bearings in there.

I would love to volunteer as crew next time so I can help them set things up instead of just sit here at my keyboard and complain, but it's a big trip for me, driving across the country, so I don't want to lose any "me" time by having to babysit a line. But I would gladly show up two days early and put signs up and lay down tape lines if it would help.

We can all agree that the mobile app was amazing, though, right? First time they ever got it right in the five years I've been going to Reed conventions (Celebrations and C2E2). But I just noticed that there was some social thinger on there. At the top of the menu, "connections" and "cards." I didn't know anything about that until just now. I feel like I could have used that to keep in touch with my new line friends that I'm now never going to speak to again.