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July 13, 2007 |
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SANDTROOPERS
INVADE CELEBRATION EUROPE
We started off in the exhibitor’s area looking around some of the stalls. There weren’t quite as many stalls there as people were expecting but its still not a bad variety of stuff available. We both picked up our concept Luke figures from the Toys R Us booth and i grabbed another Commander Bly bust for a fellow trooper. At the Toons Art booth we saw Steve Sansweet again as he was buying the TIE Pilot Acme Character key, i picked one of those up for myself too. The guys selling them didnt have any idea who Steve was at first so that was quite funny. We saw the guys from a Force among Us who, noticing the Sandtroopers T-shirts came over and said Hi and gave our friends and us pin badges.
Afterwards we had to get straight into the queue for a talk that Mark was doing on the Celebrity stage at 5pm because everyone seemed to want to see it and we wanted to be sure we got seats. Master of ceremonies Warwick Davies who did a brilliant job of course hosted the talk and the crowd seemed to love him. Mark seemed very keen to talk about projects that he is working on now rather than star wars. He talked a lot about comics he has worked on and working on shows such as Batman and Family Guy. There were some great clips of Warwick on the set of ROTJ with Mark, Harrison and Carrie, sort of promotional behind the scenes clips which were very funny. At one point Warwick dressed up as Yoda and set about ret raining Luke how to use a lightsaber, which was great. Mark did say how appreciative he was of star wars fans and although he likes to talk about other things he said that he still loves Star Wars and George Lucas. The talk ended with a question and Answer session and people seemed very keen to ask Mark what he thought about all the EU novels and things like that. It was a really good talk, I think Mark did a great job of making it funny as well as informative and after an hour they wrapped it up in time for every to get to the opening ceremonies. We all made our way out of the Excel center to a lawned area at the front where a big screen had been set up. Everyone sat down on the grass and waited for the opening ceremonies to begin. It started with Steve Sansweet welcoming everyone and saying that it was about time they gave us loyal British fans a proper convention. He talked a bit about what things would be going on over the course of the weekend and a cheque was presented to MediCinema from some of the proceeds from the convention. Mark Hamill then came on stage to introduce Ian Mc Diamid. Ian was really good; he talked about what it was like when he got the job of emperor of the galaxy and of his experiences filming ROTJ. An outdoor screening of A New Hope followed the opening ceremony on the giant screen but a lot of people didn’t stay for this as it was already 8pm, we had to make a move or we wouldn’t have got home until midnight.
PHOTO
GALLERY
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At
last the wait was over for the biggest Star Wars event the U.K. has
ever seen. Yesterday morning the build up of excitement had reached
its height and Jamie and I prepared for the madness. We parked our
Dewbacks up outside the convention center at the ungodly hour of
3.50am and I am pleased to say that for the first time ever we were
the first to arrive as the place was completely deserted. Shortly
after arriving we were joined by the same couple we had met
yesterday at the Forbidden Planet event and we were allowed into the
main foyer of the center to being queuing. I began queuing for the
Hyperspace lanyards while Jamie went and got us a place at the front
of the main queue. By the time I joined the main queue it was
getting pretty big everyone having got there early to try to secure
the Mark Hamill Autograph as only 400 were being done that day.
Eventually
at 8am the shutter went up and we were taken into the main entrance
where there was a giant inflatable Death Star. Everyone in the queue
at this time was a hyperspace member so at 9am we were allowed into
the show. I made a mad rush to the Celebration shop with some
friends to get an exclusive Gentle Giant Maquette that was limited
to 300 while Jamie ran over to get our tickets for the Mark Hamill
Autograph. Several muck ups were made with the queues and we has
security guards shout at us a fair bit, Steve Sansweet was hanging
around in the CE shop when it opened but he didn’t seem to try to
sort out the major queuing problems at all. When we met back up we
had our Mark Hamill tickets, he would begin signing at 1pm, and i
had my GG maquette and also the CE Artoo/C3PO concept figures. With
these two things out of the way it was time to kick back a bit and
take a look around.
I
joined the queue for the Mark Hamill Autograph at about 11.30 and
after a long wait I eventually got to see him at about 2.15. I was
really surprised how nice he was, I was expecting him to be a bit
moody but he was really good and let everyone have their photo taken
with him, mind you considering it was $170 for the Autograph you
expect him to be nice! It was an awesome opportunity to meet Mark
and I came away with a great sense of achievement "I met Luke
Skywalker."
I
would say that overall I wasn’t very well prepared for today and
that tomorrow we will need to plan out more what we want to see and
do but as this was my first big con that’s to be expected. I will
definitely take a lot more photos tomorrow. The majority of today
was taken up making sure we got to see Mark Hamill so its a relief
not to have to worry about that anymore. I also don’t have to worry
so much about the exclusives as I got most of what I wanted today.
It was a massive turn out today, I think they said over 60,000 but
tomorrow is set to be busier as the tickets have already all sold
out. I’m to get locked and loaded ready for round 2 in the morning.