Hi everybody! Today I’m goign to talk about my
experience as a regular visitor at the Star Wars Celebration London 2016. If
you wanna check out my cosplay report, check out this entry.
We arrived in London on Thursday, so we had time
to see the city before the con started. It was an amazing event full of stuff
to do and there were lots of things we didn’t have time to see, but we had a
great time in those we could attend.
We first went to visit the Madamme Tussauds
museum. I haven’t been to the wax museum in Madrid, but as far as I know,
it has notthing to do with Madamme Tussauds. We mainly wanted to see the Star wars
exhibition but the museum is organized in a way you have to visit all the other
parts before that.
I really liked the celebrities zone, emulating
a luxurious party, and also the “Spirit of London” ride, that explains the
story of the city on rails, passing trough different moments in its story and
presenting important people using amazing figures and sceneries.
The part I didn’t enjoyed that much was the 4D
Avengers movie. It was horrible!!! It was like a medieval torture for me. It
was a 3D short movie (thank god it was short) with special features such as
water and air blasts in our faces depending on the moment in the story. Also,
in the worst case scenario, when Wolverine nails his claws on the bad guys,
something comes out the back of the seats. I actually had a hard time there, I
spent the projection in fetal position waiting for it to finish. Anyway, other
people seemed to enjoy it.
After visiting the singers, sportsmen, world
leaders, a room in which they explained how they make their figures (really
interesting) and the rooms I mentioned before, we made it to the Star Wars
exhibition. It was amazing!! It was full of characters and scenes of the saga
and everything was touchable.
Just like in the rest of exhibitions, the quality and
accuracy of the figures was outstanding and we had the best time taking
pictures there. The only complain I have is that it was full of people that
didn’t respect the line to take
pictures, so we had to wait for the moment with no one in the middle in each
scene. For the last one, with Vader and the Emperor, we had to wait like 15
minutes till we had a chance.
After visiting the museum, we made some turism
arround the city. We alredy had our tickets for a London Eye ride, but the line
was huge and it was late in the evening. Also, call me snobbish, but I thought
that place was more… romantic? There as space for like 20 people inside each
booth and no seats. Pretty uncomfortable for a 40 minute ride. It’s a matter of tastes I guess, I hate agglomerations.
Fnaly the Star Wars Celebration began on
Friday!
First of all, I want to talk about the
wristband system there: for each show at the main stage, you had to make a line
and get a wristband. Each attendant was able to get two wristbands per day, so
it was difficult to choose! Anyway, it was really well organized. We were super
lucky because we overslept, but we got the last wristbands to see the Mark
Hammil panel. Wow!
At about 10:30 they opened the con doors so we had some time to walk around and see what was inside before Mark Hammil’s panel. The stage was overwhelming! It was incredibly big, with capacity for 4.000 atendees and it was full to the top. We got our seats at the back, but it was ok. I only regret I didn’t take my zoom lens with me.
That panel was
amazing! Remember I’m talking as a hick as it was my
first big international convention with celebrities (Yes, I went to Gamescom in
2013, but I was working and I couldn’t see anything). Mark Hammil was amazing,
he just went on stage, talked about stuff, answered lots of questions… It was
super fun and, what can I say, I think he warmed everyone’s hearts. I can’t
find a better way to describe it.
After the show, we run to the hotel room to get
ready for the cosplay contest. As you may already know, I wrote about it here.
We returned to the con at night to watch “A New
Hope” with 4.000 fans there cheering and applauding . I actually spent half of
the screening twitting about the cosplay contest, but I enjoyed the atmosphere.
We were lucky on Saturday too. We overslept
again, but we could catch wristbands for the Anthony Daniels (C3PO) show. I
also enjoyed it very much, hosted by Warwick Davis in a late night style.
Personally, I preferred Mark Hammil’s panel, more personal and emotional. In
this one, Warwick and Antony made a kind of tv show with public participation
and stuff. At the end they did the Q&A round and read the moving story
where C3PO gets his red arm.
We also had
time to attend another panel (a no wristband one) with the creatures and
practical effects creators from Episode VII. It was really interesting: they
showed lots of concept art, sketches and ideas they used for this movie. From
the most insignificant characters to the Vader’s scorched helmet.
The part I enjoyed the most was when they
explained how they managed to put people inside some creatures, making the most of
their space inside and taking in account the possibilities of the human body
inside them to add some nice details. As a costume maker I found it very
inspiring and, once again, they showed that creativity has no limits.
After having lunch, we passed by the autograph
booths and we lined to get a Peter
Mayhew (Chewbacca) autograph and pictures with Anthony Daniels and Ray Park! This
one was taken with Winters, but I could enter the booth, hihihi. They
were awesome! This was my second hick moment. I had always seen
those con pictures with that kind of dreadful retro looking stucco background. And
there we were! In that studio booth. It was worth every penny.
We were a little disappointed with the
organization there. We paid for Mark Hammil’s autograph and, when we got to his
booth, a pretty unpleasant guy gave us the 800 turn and told us we were not
going to make it (they were at number 60 at that moment) in a terrible way. Of
course, they refunded our money, but it was quite a bitter situation for us. I
don’t know why they kept on selling autographs if it was going to be impossible
to make it to Mark.
And the booth guy… he did the same when we
tried to get to Sam Witwer very unpolitely.
We also got a wristband for the EA panel, but
we couldn’t attend the con from Saturday evening to Sunday evening for personal
reasons.
As I told you in my latest entry, I was highly
surprised by the amount of incredible costumes we found around the con. I had
never seen so many and amazing costumes in the same place. I know SWC is a very
special con, with devoted fans. I know, because some friends told me, that the
cosplay level outside Spain is not so different from ours. When Monika Lee and
Riddle came to Winter Freak, a relatively small con, they told me everything
was pretty similar than in the US. And that was very surprising for me as we
always see amazing costumes in their con videos. But, well, reality is there is
all kind of costumes everywhere.
But Star Wars Celebration has seriously
incredible cosplayers. People dress up super accurately and you find
outstanding costumes everywhere. And not only imposing troopers, but droids,
creatures, twi’leks, mandalorians, wookies… Also, the age of the cosplayers was
slightly higher than in other events. I don’t know, SW cosplay seems to be more
mature and it looks like a more serious and beautiful hobby. For the first time
in a long time I felt I fit in, that I was part of something. Maybe I’ll talk
about this feeling someday in other entry.
On Sunday evening we walked around the shopping
and exhibition area. I’ll just put some pictures here because describing
everything would be boring. I’d highlight the Rogue One costumes exhibition and
the droids one too. Regarding to the shops, there was a luxury office stuff one
and another one with movie relics: ship blueprints, droids, costumes,
photography… they even had original ewok hair! Sometimes the only thing that
separates Star Wars from a cult is that its followers know it’s fiction (at
least I hope so).
In summary, SWCE has been an unforgettable con
for us, full of fun stuff and very moving moments. I think we made the most of
it and it has become a personal reference. The organization was really good and
the environment was the best, super civic and nice. It has left the bar really
high for me. In fact, I want to go to more cons like that (such as MCM and so).
And, to begin with, we already booked our tickets, flight and hotel for the
SWCin Orlando next year!! It’s going to
be our very first trip and con in the US and I’m super excited. However, we’ll
be wearing more comfy costumes.
