One of the main reasons that you didn't see more fan panels or video rooms is that there really wasn't room in the convention center. Pretty much every single upstairs room was in use, whether for stages, or for the family room or R2 builders room, or the Force Awakens exhibit or as queue rooms for the stages. As the one who organized the bounty hunt, we were very luck that Reed got us a room big enough for our race HQ at the Marriott, but as far as i know, we were the only programmed event that was not in the convention center. i totally agree that they could have probably had more fan panels. but they already had a big track of fan panels, mostly done by the costume groups. At previous celebrations, they did have video rooms where they showed the movies and SW-in-pop-culture and random fan film type stuff, but again here - just no room.

As for fan craft vendors - yeah.... not so much. unless they already had a license from Disney/LFL to create SW crafts, Disney/LFL is not going to allow people to make a buck off their intellectual property. But the cool thing about Celebration's artist alley is that it brings a variety of artists - from well established ones to up and comers.

 

Because of costs? I also know that Disney had a lot of meetings with game developers and such at the Hilton, since there was signage for that outside the meeting rooms, so it is quite possible that they were used, just not for public events.

 

It could also be that some of the hotel space was already booked with other users as well - some related to the convention (such as the 501st party on Friday night in the Marriott, DK's party in the Hilton on Saturday night, and Verizon having a small conference room in the Marriott, possibly connected to their livestream sponsorship) and some not (the dance troupe competition on Sunday in the Marriott).