The dealer's room...I was surprised there were as many collectors as there were. I expected at least a few more tables selling SW stuff that wasn't old action figures, posters, or very expensive collectibles. Stuff like plushies, patches, stickers, pins, lunchboxes, socks and underwear with Lando's face on them...cheap girlie novelty stuff, you know. I love that crap. There were your random booths as always...in the middle of the SW dealer room there was the guy selling Godzilla shit and the other dealer selling like, covers that matched the face off the book from Evil Dead.
There were costumers of course...lots of stormtroopers, some really cute R2s and a bitching R5. The R2 was fully remote controlled and moved and screamed at people and everything. It was pretty awesome. The 501st was everywhere...there were a ton of Slave Leias, Hans, a couple of really good Anakins, bunch of Padmes.... Of course some costumes that were very random and very awful but you gotta give them credit for the balls to try it or just do it anyway. In particular a very fat lady in a Salacious Crumb outfit...a Scout Trooper woman with a bottom the size of a minivan...some droopy Leias...a Boss Nass that was just a purple Halloween robe and a cheap mask and the biggest beer belly (or pregnancy) I've ever seen...among others. And your typical con freaks. Hehe.
Went to the SWG Breakfast there--got a T-shirt and a figure from the Battlefronts release. The food wasn't bad but Gorath, Valcyn, and some other server I can't remember had such a pisspoor turnout we were all at the same table while all the other servers got their own tables. Got to meet Zannon there, which was pretty cool. The devs there were Tiggs, Pex....some other ones I don't really remember...maybe Blair. All the panels with 'celebrities,' including the dev panel was Q&A. They set up microphones on each side of the room and just fielded questions. However the Lucas panels were during the breakfast, and apparently buying a ticket to that was also getting a special in for the Lucas panels.
Sooo-oooo, like half the servers were gone in waves. My table went and saw Lucas and it was absolutely fucking hysterical trying to get into the Lucas panel in the first place...we were waiting at this door and it was fucking freezing and raining and half of us were huddled in this doorway that was warm...a security guard came and kicked us out and was a real bitch about it, this SWG player, a German guy in an Imperial officer uniform was making comments the entire fucking time that were hysterical...I literally had tears in my eyes. When we got kicked back out into the cold and rain he said, "Group TEF!" SO FUNNY. GAH. Geeky humor. I can't even begin to go through everything he was saying. Heheheh.
Seeing Lucas was so cool--Jango was the host and that tickled me as it was, because he's all badass and cold onscreen and he was all like, "HIIIII," on stage. Lucas just did the Q&A too...I won't go through some of the questions I heard, but I thought the whole thing was pretty damn neat and exciting. Missed the end of the SWG breakfast because of it but that's okay--once in a lifetime opportunity kind of thing.
The lines were insane...they had lines for everything. The lines to get into the con, the lines to get into things AT the con...the queue for the Lucasfilm Archives was like four hours or something I think, and the line for the Celebration Store was seven hours long. SEVEN HOURS. And it would close like after awhile! Freaking ridiculous. One of those things where I would have liked to just see, but it's not a big deal that I didn't.
I did find an old Action Fleet Snowspeeder (YAY!) and I got a bunch of cool-ass shit....I got some neat neat neat Bust-Ups (like 10 of them) and some little die-cast vehicles....a snowspeeder (of course), an A-Wing, a Jedi starfighter. I got a new roommate....
http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=241644
....who kind of keeps freaking my mom out, but she'll get used to him eventually. Got some more SW miniatures and a game board for them, the T-shirt from the breakfast....ahhh, it was a wonderful merchandising experience.
There was also this party I went to Saturday night--Celebration at Celebration III. It was this thing you had to buy tickets to and like 4000 people did, and they made it like a street carnival but inside one of the giant ballrooms. They had people who were juggling and spitting fire, people on stilts, bar tents, palm readers, a live jazz band that was really good doing normal jazz and jazz versions of SW songs--it was pretty funny--what cracked me up most was Jango Fett coming up on stage and singing a jazz song; he's got a really good voice! He was like doo-wopping and everything.
Then...it was the best thing ever...he sang the My My This Here Anakin Guy song. It was SO AWESOME. Really fun.
Overall I came back exhausted and deleriously happy and loaded with SW crap--I had a blast.
