So I'm back home from what was all in all another great European SW Celebration! I was also present at the first SWCE, back in 2007, which was also in London. However, I was there only for one day. In 2013, as some of you know, I went to Essen, Germany, to attend all three days.
The big difference between Essen '13 and London '16 is that London had a lot more visitors, making it more difficult to see everything one wanted to see. I didn't take as many pictures as i did in Germany, but that's also because I decided to do a cosplay of some sorts. I recently bought an EFX ST helmet and ordered a pristine white business suit. The suit is still on its way, but I happened to have a black suit as a backup:
SWCE01 by
Remco Zwart, on Flickr
I enjoyed my first little steps in cosplay immensely! I got so many awesome reactions to my costume, which isn't the most original one, but I guess as a whole it worked out pretty good. Loved the reactions I got from little children, giving high fives, wanting a picture with me... Just brilliant stuff.
I'll be adding more pictures to this flickr album, as well as pictures taken by my friend and travel companion.
As for news and such, I guess most of you have been following the official feed updates on Rogue One and Rebels S3. I missed out on both and many other panels, all due to the wristband policy. Kind of a bummer, because the queues for the wristbands opened the night before, but the wristbands were handed out starting 6 a.m. the following morning. So by the time we arrived (between 9 and 10 a.m.), the wristbands for that day were already unavailable.
Furthermore, you could only get two wristbands, so you had to choose even though you were planning on seeing more panels.
Luckily you could stand in line at the various stages once the panels had started and you could still get in, because not all seats were filled. Bit of a strange concept for me to experience for the first time, but my buddy Craig from Chicago (who I went to CE2 with and who was also present in London), told me it is what it is and that you guys in the USA have had to deal with this longer.
Anyway, I don't want to sound too negative about all this. Like I said, SWCE3 was a blast. I talked to quite a few fans from many different countries and enjoyed seeing all these great costumes people wore these three days. I attended the costume contest and boy.... the winner.... Wow. Just wow. Grummgar (the humungous Trandoshan like bloke in Maz' castle) was just terrific.
You can see some really cool pics (not mine) of the contest over here:
http://comicsalliance.com/best-cosplay-ever-star-wars-celebration-europe-day-two/I also desperately tried to get another tattoo done at Celebration, but all of the artist were fully booked. I spoke to Shane Turgeon (writer of the Force in the Flesh books) and he told me it's been absolutely crazy since they introduced the tattoo pavillion at SWC events. He told me that as soon as the tattoo experience is announced for an upcoming SWC, they get tons of e-mails asking for appointments. So I guess I'll have to be sharper next time
Also bought volume II of TFITF and had it signes by Shane. Awesome guy to talk to and very happy to have met him.
Two movies were shown this weekend: ANH and TFA. Always wonderful to watch a SW movie with nothing but SW fans in the hall.
Of course I bought some goodies for myself, but also for my daughters. They've become such devoted SW fans and I really didn't push them. All I did last year was having a movie weekend (my girls: yaaaaaaay!), but it had to be the OT (my girls: booooooo!). But ever since the opening scenes of ANH, they've been hooked (me: yaaaaaaaay!)
SW was part of my childhood and it's so great to see it touched new generations just as much. My girls want to go to SWC too now, so I'll definitely try to fit that in next time SWC comes to Europe.
MTFWBY all and I'll work on getting my pics up asap.
MrB
