EVENT Star Wars Celebration Chicago April 11 - 15, 2019

This is dope!!! Having such a blast looking at your pictures! Thank you for covering the event for us!

 

Many thanks, @FN-3263827, for letting those of us stuck at home experience Celebration too!

 

thank you!

aw, thanks Addi! it really was quite magical! : D

it's not much "coverage", but hopefully it's different stuff from what's on twitter. XD

you're welcome!

okay, saturday!

i went wearing my hard-won Celebration shirt and new pins (better picture of those later). yes, i had to buy a fishy-eyed toilet monster pin (there on the right).
my plan was to trade him for a stormtrooper, but two days in i had yet to see anybody who even had a stormtrooper, and hope was waning.


right before the Galaxy's Edge panel began, the crowd sang a rousing round of "Bohemian Rhapsody". it might also amuse @RockyRoadHux and @NinjaRen to know that right before the panels begin, they play Star Wars music and audio of voice clips. right before this panel, Hux was screaming that it was the last day of the Republic, and Kylo Ren followed by saying "I'll show you the dark side" and then the panel began. XD


the giveaway for the Galaxy's Edge panel was a t-shirt with Coca Cola written in Aurebesh. all they had was size x-large, so i will probably just be sleeping in it. XD


saturday was a huge cosplay day (so naturally i took almost zero pictures ~ hahahaha). but seriously, the 'tumes were out in Force!


this is a picture of a squash carved to look like Chewbacca. because apparently Star Wars vegetables is a thing?


and now we pause for a word from our sponsors:


my pictures cannot hope to do this justice, but attendees were collaborating on a massive diorama of Scariff. massive. each section is a square foot and it went on forever! tons of people were hard at work every day painting the little miniatures, constructing AT-ATs, painting tiles, making little palm trees. it was really fun to watch the progress every day.






and i think i mentioned elsewhere that Cameron Monaghan was wandering around on the show floor? well there he is. : D


i spent much of my time people watching on Saturday; i'd been thwarted trying to get into panels by the confusing reservation system and an app that was total garbage XD and literally gave up. it was fine. there was plenty of cosplay to admire. even if i didn't photograph any of it. : o p

my big important purchase for the day included RotJ bubblegum cards and stickers from 1983.
the guy who sold them to me said to me (quite seriously) "don't eat the gum". i just laughed.
also: stormtrooper lollypop because, well, stormtrooper, duh.


also worth mentioning (as it will become relevant later), the place i got the stormtrooper lollypop was handing out these lightsaber lollys for free (you could pick Rey or Kylo Ren and i made the obvious choice). XD


sorry i didn't take more pictures on this day. i was kind of overheated and frustrated by not getting into the panels, not finding a stormtrooper pin, not getting to play Outer Rim, etc. it was a whole day of thwarting. which is not to say i didn't still have a fantastic time, i was just too buggy to take pics.

on sunday i was much more focused, so i have more/better things to share. : D

 

That's awesome!

#PerfectRulers, even Disney knows it!

Thanks for covering the Celebration, FN! You did a great job : D

 

thanks Supreme Leader!

time for sunday's pics? we're almost caught up!

at this point my lanyard was really heavy, so i decided to redistribute some pins to my lapels.
again, i spent all day sunday trying to find a stormtrooper and being rather annoyed by exhibitors selling pins (totally against the rules).
it felt especially unfair given that exhibitors are the first people to encounter the staff, so they were getting them probably before the shows even started.
one wanted $100 for the stormtrooper pin. that's not the spirit of the game.


in case you hadn't heard, it snowed/sleeted all day on sunday; it was crazytown weather! i couldn't get a good picture of the storm, but we got about two inches and it leveled the beautiful daffodils which had just sprung up in my yard!



anyway, on to the show! sunday was Mandalorian day, which i posted about elsewhere, so i won't repeat all that.
i spent some quality time on the showfloor looking at the new toys.
there were huge banners/walls like this all over; hard to get good pictures because of the crowds:

(they sure don't look like they are fighting each other there, do they?) XD

these toys were exclusives and i realize now they are specifically from Galaxy's edge; that's why it's a weird mix.
love the Hondo Ohnaka figure; Pirate's Price was so much fun and one of the only post TLJ EU pieces we've gotten so far.





(sorry about the blurry pics ~ again! : o p)

there were also tons of cool toy dioramas:




and look, i managed to take a cosplay picture! probably because, you know, stormtrooper!


but there's more! this Luke kneeling by a life-sife replica of Kenner's R2-D2 was great!
this booth also had R5-D4 and Darth Vader with an actual retractable light saber!


here's a picture of the Scariff diorama toward the end ~ you can see the tower and radio dish way in the back:


the rear of the star destroyer that i pictured before:


a guy cosplaying as Ahch-To. love the stormtrooper in the back looking at him like: what the...


i think i have a couple more sunday pics i texted directly to my brother, so i will have to suss those out.
and then there's just monday pics left! : D

 

ok i'm calling it.. this is better than Force Ghost Luke !

brilliant !


i was watching fans making parts of that Scariff thing on the live stream on Sunday (i think). absolutely amazing.

thanks again @FN-3263827 - you really are the best

 

So have been to 8 Celebrations now. This one was the best although it got off to a rocky start. ReedPop was very slow in getting information out to the public. The website should have had a great deal more information a great deal sooner. Sure celebrities wouldnt get out sooner, but basic information like the layout of the rooms, basic schedule information. You know like hall opens at 10:00AM. Celebration stage 1st panel each day will be at 11AM, etc. Even simply finding out the schedule for a day was difficult to find on the site. Amazing that the best way to get the schedule for the day was little booklets you could find at the show. Then late in the game they announce the lottery and describe how it will work. When it actually happens it didnt work the way they said it would.

Like I said on a Facebook post the new tech that was developed for the show just plain didnt work. The app was late and didnt work for the most part. On Thursday when we arrived the app celebration store just didnt work. All day it simply said the line is paused. Late Thursday Celebration sent out a tweet that they were working hard on it. They never did fix it and changed the app so the store part simply was the mobile version of the website where you could only see what was being sold. The virtual queueing never worked. You were supposed to be able to claim a spot in line for other purchases, etc. On Thursday you could see one line to hop in and it always said full. Never say another thing to queue up. You could also claim a QR code for up to 4 panels at the time. This worked somewhat. Yet it had issues. You could claim QR codes for days you werent attending. You could enter a panel and then cancel the reservation and claim another. You could go in and browse panels and some would never be shown. If you went in and out of the list the panels would change. If you did claim a QR code it was nice to get in quickly and not wait in lines so long.

Ok so with how the tech was working on Thursday it was scary to see what would happen later on. Yet and I credit McCormick Place mostly for why this was the most comfortable Celebration. The place has so much space you had minimal queuing in places that caused traffic jams beyond 5 minutes. I have been in Anaheim, Orlando and London where queues were often put into the exhibit hall causing the exhibit hall to become over crowded. The Arena was large and had concessions. So you could go in then grab some food or drink including alcohol if you wanted a beer while watching a panel you could have one. Lines for food were never very long. Even though McCormick Place is huge they layout made it a quick walk from Exhibit hall to panel and back.

Then the content and well the content was great. Everyday we had great panels with all sorts of new exciting news. The only strange thing is that even though we had the best Arena ever for content and movies they never had Star Wars movies scheduled at night in the Arena or Galaxy Stage. They were playing during the day at the Marriott, but never in the Arena and Galaxy Stage. Would have been great to have them playing at night. I just wish that they used the Closing Ceremonies to give us just one more thing and announce stuff in the works without giving detail.

The people. I cant say it enough this was a Celebration and it was so nice that the people focused mostly stayed away or at least participated in the Celebration for once. Only time I heard some commentary was around people trying to use The Mandalorian to create a lifer fans narrative. I saw people super excited about The Mandlorian, The Clone Wars, The Rise of the Skywalker and Resistance. That was great to see. People seemed to consciously come out to say hey Star Wars fandom isnt dominated by negative people. Star Wars fandom is huge and a relative minority can make a huge amount of noise, but the rest of us prefer the joy.

 

What I want to know, @FN-3263827, is whether the porgs were making little porg noises. That would clinch it for me.

 

the tech was definitely a disaster. i just completely gave it up and winged almost the whole show. Sunday everything was working (sorta), but by then it hardly mattered. and i totally agreed about the movie showings. if they had been in the evenings, i would have totally gone to them! : o O

THEY DID! these were those ones that chirp and flap their wings and the one on his back (sitting on a "rock" outcropping) was, indeed, chirping and flapping. XD

okay monday!

got there early and was finally there at a time to see actual staff people and ask them for pins. the second woman i asked actually had the stormtrooper pin! goodbye fishy-eyed toilet monster, hello stormtrooper! yay!



without a morning panel to go to, i also had a chance to finally sit down and play Outer Rim! I was expecting a LCG like Arkham Horror, but although this has some similar mechanics in terms of the play, it's definitely a lot easier to learn, and much more of an action orientated race-type game. you're competing against others to win "fame" by completing smuggling activities, collecting bounties, buying fancy equipment (ships/weapons, etc.), and winning battles (against any number of types of opponents based on your "reputation" which is a cool piece of play because it dictates how other factions (the Empire, the Republic, the Hutts, etc., interact with you). i got to be Han Solo, which was awesome, and i managed to not only buy my own blaster, but recruited Chewbacca onto my crew. you can see from the board that i had just picked up a job to collect a bounty on Lobot! : o O


i asked about the AI feature of the game (so that you can do single-player play) and they said it works great--the guy showed me the AI cards and said you can theoretically play with as many characters as you want (the game comes with eight). i forgot to ask about future expansions, but i can't imagine they won't add planets and characters if the game is popular enough!

next is a shot of some welded art that one of the tattooists had. there was a whole tattoo alley and people were getting inked! there was also a competition, but i didn't go to that to see the art and who won.


today was the first day that i could get clear pictures in the gallery section. this first one of Han was painted over the course of the weekend, which was awesome to watch happen!


this one is by the artist who painted Han (his name is there in the corner of the image). his work was beautiful!


more gallery images, including the art from the TFA storybook of Rey and Ren clashing sabers:








and then some cool samurai figures of the Emperor and his Royal guards (and Boba Fett over there on the side). XD



one more set of pictures after this! : D

 

That sounds like fun! The AI for single player sounds interesting.

you got your pin @FN-3263827 !!!! <3

 

last bit of monday pictures:

i had a great seat for the Resistance panel. it was awesome to see the cast and hear their stories ~ and even more awesome to actually see the first episode of the new season! and maybe even MORE awesome to feel the love in this room. when people screamed for Opeepit, i knew it was real. : D


they gave us a poster after the show; it's pretty cool. here's something i haven't seen mentioned ~ look who else has joined the FO!!!
yep, that appears to be William Zabke!


on the back of the poster was Opeepit, because contrary to what people think, LFL and the storygroup do pay attention to the fans. : D


also picked up the Galaxy of Adventures poster because cartoon ST characters are delightful!


at the end of the show i went back to the Darth Vader wall to sign it. there wasn't much room left, but i mighta squeezed in a bunch of Cantinero names.
@RockyRoadHux, @NinjaRen, i found you guys a place of honor. XD


i picked up copies of Star Wars Insider on the way out; was going to have the artist sign them, but decided i'd rather maybe just frame them as-is.


and lastly, after the snow, the daffodils rebounded! because i think they might understand Star Wars better than most.




i'm still recovering; it's a bit of a shock to come back to the real world and have to return to the workplace, but the glow lingers! : D

 

made my day !!!

 

Waat? William Zabke was the FO spy all along and he's finally revealed his true colors?!?!

Daffodils know.

 

Woah! Thank you : D <3

 

Your cuteness may fogive the sin of having it on the wrong logo! : P Still, it's sooooo awesome.

 

that's the beauty of it, though. i actually didn't draw the logo, i staked your claim on top of it! ; D

#RuleTheGalaxy

 

So @FN-3263827, can you give us aaaaany little hints about the Resistance season 2 sneak peak?

 

you know if wasn't a sneak peak, right? ~ they gave away the farm. XD
do you really want it all? i can put it in a pm.