Celebration VI (Thu – Part I)

by Darth Danno
on 2012-09-05, 07:45:53

Got up shortly after 8, got dressed, and waited for everyone else to catch up. Was too excited to eat anything, plus any money spent on food was $$$ that couldn't be spent on exclusive CVI swag. Cris and Ian had left awhile ago to film, so we rode over with Sean and Lisa. They both had the Jedi Knight badges, so they got to go ina different door and got on the floor a half hour earlier than we did. We waited in the large holding area until 10:00 and the first thing I noticed was they didn't give out any swag bags like they did for CV. Upon entering, I immediately headed to Matt Busch's booth to try and get his exclusive “Dark Empire” poster. There were only 200 of them being given away, and only 50 a day. Upon arriving there, I saw the line was already pretty long and opted to try and get it another day.

Cartamundi cards was giving away an exclusive 3D playing card each day of the show. Thursday’s was the 10 of hearts (young Anakin). If you had them all on Sunday and your show guide was marked as such, you were also given the Ace. While in line for the card, the guy in from of me got his,turned around, and it was Steve Sansweet! Holy cow!! It was really cool to meet him right off the bat. So Barry and I picked up our cards, headed over to the Topps booth as they were also giving away an exclusive card each day, and then I got in the line for the “Carbon Freeze Me” experience.

I knew that would run me $100, and I had budgeted for that,but I thought that price included shipping, turns out it didn't, that was an additional $14.95, but what the heck, it was only money. Waited @ 2.5 hours inline to get to do that, then it'll be another 4-6 weeks for it to show up at my doorstep. And of all the lines in all the conventions in all the world, who happens to walk by but Bill Cable himself!!! He gave me a t-shirt, we chatted for a few minutes and finalized plans to hook up for lunch the next day. After I was done there, I got in line to get one of those exclusive “Star Tours”badges w/my name in Aurebesh, that was only $10.00 and would take a mere 20minutes to complete.

Then I headed over to the Gentle Giant booth to see if they had any blue Snaggletooth figures left. There was no line when I got there, so my first thought was “sold out”. But when I asked the lady behind the counter if they had some, she said yes and called into the back to have one brought out. I plunked down my $80.00, grabbed my prize, and was on my way.

Went to the Celebration store with plans of picking up the Mos Eisley patch, the Jabba's palace patch, the Bossk patch, and an exclusive lanyard. But by the time I got there, Mos Eisley patch, the Bossk patch, and the exclusive lanyard were sold out. I grabbed the Jabba's Palace patch as there were only a few left, and opted instead for a Bossk sticker and a Mos Eisley pint glass. While I was doing that, Barry picked up our exclusive programs which we had pre-ordered. Then we grabbed some lunch.

Everything was so expensive! Couldn't find much for under$10.00, and that didn't include chips or a drink. Bought a hot dog for $5.25,then found a place to sit and rest a bit while we enjoyed our meal(s).

Next up was the autograph area. Bought $120.00 worth of tickets, then sought out those I needed to get signatures from. Katie Purvis,Trevor Butterfield, Paul Springer, Jesse and Zac Jensen were all right next to each other. Roger Christian was across the way, and away at lunch when I got there, but showed up @ 10-15 minutes later. So I had my signings done in one fell swoop.

By now it was 3:15, and Ian McDiarmid was supposed to be doing photo ops from 3-4, but when I got to Froggy's photos, they had crossed out 3:00 and written in 3:30, so rather than being 15 minutes late, I was 15minutes early! The guy running the booth remembered me from Wizard World Chicago2011 and since I had helped him out then, he gave me a nice deal on the 8x10and jpeg package here. The line for photos was pretty long, but once the Emperor arrived, it moved along nicely. I got in, stood next to him, told him what a great job he did in “Timon of Athens”. He replied “Oh, did you see that?” I said I did, shook his hand, and was on my way. It would be two hours before the pictures would be ready.

The rest of Thu. was spent walking up and down the aisles,seeing all there was to see and getting my picture taken with many of the static displays that had been set up around the convention floor. Stopped off at the PSWCS and picked up one of the new coins they were selling. I  also retrieved my “Star Tours” pin,then headed over to Froggy's to see if my 8x10 was out. It was and as I set my belongings on a chair to organize everything, I glanced behind a curtain and saw Mark Hamill signing a poster for a fan. I also ran into Jeremy Bulloch and Tem Morrison while standing there. Talk about a trifecta!

7:00 rolled around and we left the convention floor, called Sean and Lisa from the lobby to find out where they were so we could hook up with them for a ride back to the resort. But they said they were sticking around for “An evening with Kevin Smith”. Fortunately we were able to get a hold of Cris who picked us up and took us back. We decided to rest up a bit before heading off to TheForce.Net party, but that's a story for next week!