Arrived at the con just before 8, lined up with Jim, Tom, Bob and some other folks from the Rebelscum contingent. We talked about which exclusives we were after and which ones we'd be trying to get first. The line was probably somewhere between 1-2 thousand when I got into it and by about 10 it had wound around the entire convention center.
The line looking towards the front from our location:
Jim and Tom plan their shopping strategies:
Gen Con, in their infinite wisdom, decided to start another line at the West Hall...so people who were showing up at 11 didn't have to line up behind the pre-existing big line, they got to line up in a new spot and go right in. This was wonderful for everyone who had been waiting already.
Heather showed up, as did Ryan from GT...and we decided to run to the nearest store for a few snacks. I got a roast beef sandwich for us to split, plus a lemonade. It was now around 11:30 and that ended up being my lunch for the day as well. This guy offered me something to eat, but I didn't want it:
Several of the celebrities were arriving trying to go through the doors near where we were waiting. We saw Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Amy Allen and a few others I didn't recognize. Another hour or so later...the doors opened and we made our dash for the exhibit hall.
The StarWarsShop.com booth had already capped their line, so I jumped into the Gentle Giant line. After about 5 or 10 minutes of waiting, they came around and cut us out of that line, saying it too was capped. A picture of the Gentle Giant line chaos:
I decided to hit the Koto booth and after about 10 minutes, I was able to get that exclusive spirit Yoda I had wanted.
Heather and Jim had gotten back into the Gentle Giant line, so I went back there and waited with them. They assured us there were enough of the Yoda and R2 maquettes, but after we waited almost 2 hours in the line, it ended up selling out for the day about 10 people before we got to the front of the line. I picked up my pre-orders and moved on.
The HasbroShop booth was my next stop, but that line was capped. It was around 1:40pm and they suggested we try back at 2:20. We decided to go see some of the convention and walked around the fan hall a little bit. We came back before 2:20 and the Hasbro booth had let another 200 people or so into the line. That was pretty frustrating.
We decided to hit the Lucasfilm archives, which were pretty small. There are about a dozen items in there, but the star was Han Solo's coat from Hoth. Why is this important? For years people have been arguing about whether it's blue or brown. Hasbro even went so far as to do two versions of their toy because some people thought it was brown and some thought it was blue. Well....I have now seen it first hand and it is CLEARLY brown. I once argued on the internet that I thought it was blue, but I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong.
They had a little voting booth and I reluctantly cast my vote for brown. :-)
Then I snuck one in for blue, just for old time's sake. ;-)
Heather and left the archives and hit the C4 store, which surprisingly had no line. Gen Con actually did this really well, because it's HUGE and there are plenty of checkers to cash you out when you've picked what you want. We got everything we wanted and left the Hasbro store within 30 minutes of when we entered it.
Proof:
After that little adventure, we headed back to the Hasbro shop booth, where I was finally able to sneak into the capped line. We bought the McQuarrie Luke figures and then went outside to catch a shuttle back to the hotel.
I sat around with all of the goodies I had purchased during the day.
We waited about 45 minutes, but no shuttle ever came. We finally gave up and decided to lug our 4 bags of action figures, mini busts, souveneir drinking glasses, magnets, t-shirts, posters and other goodies back to the hotel on foot.
On the way home, someone gave us a free t-shirt advertising "The Force Among Us" movie. That was cool.
We took a little rest and then headed to the 501st party. That went until about 40 minutes ago. I'd love to type more, but it's bedtime.
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