Celebration Report the First
Wow, that was a blast. Is it time for Celebration V yet? I'll get to the day-by-day in my next post, with pix, but first a few topical comments.
The locations: LA Convention Center + Westin Bonaventure hotel. I liked both of 'em and would happily see Lucasfilm use them again. The LACC is shockingly large but easy to learn because it's laid out in a line on two floors. Navigationally-challenged me appreciated this, because I had it down pat after two days, as opposed to after several *years* for Indy. There was plenty of space for costumed fans to show off, and plenty of food and sitting-down options. My only small quibble is that the place was so big that it didn't feel filled by Star Wars like Indy did. (Is it my imagination, or were there a lot fewer 501st around this time?) Then again, I wasn't in the halls much on Friday and Saturday, the busiest two days, so maybe it did reach that pleasant Star Wars saturation state.
The Westin Bonaventure is odd but almost perfectly suited for our needs, what with the cheap-food court and the free! free! seating pods floating in the concrete outer atmosphere of Floor 4. It was a good mile from the con -- not the "0.4 mile" promised on its website -- but that was less of a hassle than I expected; I walked down 4 mornings & back 3 evenings (out of 6), often picking up food from an upscale convenience store named Famina along the way. A downside: if those are double beds, they're the smallest darn double beds (in the smallest double rooms) I've ever encountered.
The Celebration store. A triumph. Paula said Steve said they hired a retail consultant, and boy did it show. Never a line, plenty of merchandise, cashiers who were pleasant and competent. Please somebody tell me that fans are praising this online?
The working stiffs who weren't us. Another triumph. What happened to the GenCon staff & volunteers & the people from Focused Attention (celebrity minders)?? In my experience, every single one was helpful and cheerful. And the people who worked for the LACC itself couldn't have been nicer. The chief carpenter of the LACC took half an hour to scout out the best celebrity-schlepping routes with me & Blu. A housekeeper connected me to a security guy who personally walked me to the right special-purpose phone to reach someone so I could get brooms for Ray Park to duel with onstage. The catering people were consistently nice about it when we had to interfere so they wouldn't make noise during a show.