I survived Star Wars: Celebration Europe! Many didn’t, those Stormtroopers would as soon shot you as pose for a picture! No, not really – I wasn’t aware of any deaths at this convention. The fun really is going out of these events these days!

Joking aside, it was pretty good fun. If far too packed on the Saturday and Sunday. The number of attendees on Friday felt about right for a venue of that size. On Saturday it was heaving – I seriously doubt they were within fire regulations on that day. If there had been an emergency people would have been trampled to death, I am quite sure. As I said, though, no such excitement for us this year!

Lots of people in various Star Wars costumes, with a big presence (for a European event) of the 501st Legion (occasionally I’d see a group of seven or so Stormtroopers partrolling the interior perimeter). I really must get myself one of those costumes – if only I weren’t a little short for a Stormtrooper! I used to really enjoy getting into the old Doctor Who costumes (notably the Sea Devil and Voc Robot) and menace the general public! Those were the days! I’d love to create a Mk. 1 Tonb Terak costume some day (basically a variation on a Mandalorian body armour with a modified and grey resprayed Biker Scout helmet).

The main events were really happening on the Celebrity Stage, though. There Warwick Davis (Wicket the Ewok) acted as MC for various interviews with cast and crew from the Star Wars films. It mainly concentrated on the original (and best!) trilogy, though the chaps who played Darth Maul’s body (Ray Park) and child Boba Fett (Daniel Logan) were about for a panel each. Mostly it was behind the scenes chaps, though. At least one of those was on three panels, another on at least two. Basically they seemed to be a little short of ‘celebrities’ for this stage, all but the ‘big name’ actors doing double or triple duty to fill in the schedule. That was a bit of a shame, not that these chaps weren’t interesting but a bit more variety would have been good. Some big names I saw included Mark Hamill (very entertaining), Billy Dee Williams (a touch worthy), Anthony Daniels (right up himself) and Rick McCallum (not quite as smarmy as I was expected (but close!)).

Expect a full review in the next Staggering Stories Update (another load of reviews – I promise I’ll write another story shortly. Yes, really! It’s not called Staggering STORIES for nothing!!)

All in all a corporate event (though not particularly well organised) but it wasn’t nearly so money grabbing as I expected. Besides a £6 glossy programme guide, they got not a penny more from me, I’m glad to say! Not a fantastic event but not a bad event either. If they sort out some of their organisational issues it might even be worth attending again next year.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 16th, 2007 at 13:42 and is filed under event, review, Sci-Fi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.