I want to thank everyone who made it out to the Collecting Track events (attending panels, visiting the social area, participating in the patch giveaways, attending author signings, going to the Swap Meet, attending meet and greets, and contributing and seeing the displays. Literally thousands of hours of planning goes into the preparation for the Collecting Track, and this year we attempted to massively increase the scale of the Collecting Track to try new things that will later become a staple at future Celebrations. We added the Social Area, displays of collectibles, patch giveaways, awards, a scavenger hunt, a Collecting Track program, daily update programs, meet and greets with websites/clubs, author signings, and expanded media coverage before/during/after the event. Most of these experiments far exceeded our expectations, so expect that most will be back at future Celebrations.
Although I've run the Collecting Track for all past Star Wars Celebrations (1-6, Europe, Japan), I knew that for the ambitious ideas we wanted to launch at C6 that I could not do it alone and would need to have dedicated chairs for most of the areas. I directly led the presentation/panel program, budget and expenses, badges, and room logistics, but I handed off major portions to other folks such as Tony Damata for the volunteers, Chris Georgoulias for giveaways, Todd Chamberlain for displays, Arnie and Marjorie Carvalho for the Social Area, Martin Thurn for publications, Tommy Garvey for media, Duncan Jenkins for awards, and Chris Fawcett for AV. We also had 19 additional volunteers who each put in 16+ hours during Celebration to make sure things ran smoothly. Most of us have demanding day jobs and other things going on. These folks deserve a tremendous amount of credit for putting on this show. The sheer volume of work and creativity that goes into this is mostly behind the scenes, so I want to express my sincere gratitude for all these people who helped me make the Collecting Track a success.
Since we do Celebration on a shoestring, we have continued to have a bunch of sponsors to fund the giveaways. 20 people sponsored the Star Tots, spending about $60,000 of their own money to allow us to give out free, high-quality collectibles. The Star Wars collecting clubs and websites each did a patch set and the costs of producing those are in the thousands of dollars each. Since we were already over budget, I personally funded the awards at the last minute. We also had a number of artist and designers who spent countless hours on our signs, programs, and giveaways. This is truly a fan-run portion of Celebration (many of the greatest parts of Celebration are), and folks at Lucasfilm are pleased with how we've continued to develop the Collecting Track.
Believe it or not, we've already started working on the Celebration Europe II Collecting Track. We have a bunch of big ideas and got lots of feedback and input from people throughout Celebration. If there's anything new you'd like to see at Collecting Track or have suggestions for making it better, please feel free to contact me.
One more thing... we certainly hear the excitement mixed with frustration about the giveaways (e.g. Star Tots). We will continue doing sponsor-funded giveaways as long as people want them. They create special perks for people attending the collecting events and draw people in who learn more about collecting. We also keep a strict inventory of the Star Tots and after the distribution, the box is sealed to save a bunch for the giveaways of the extras on Sunday afternoon after the panels end. But the giveaways also attract some scalpers who just attend to get the freebie. Why someone would put up with an hour of something they're not interested in for a giveaway is beyond me, but each person is different. Coming up with the rules for the giveaways is tough. In general, the lines seemed orderly and most people who got to panels a little early were able to get in. There were several panels where the line emptied into the room and anyone who showed up just before it started got it. Although there are some annoying people who talked loudly, were distracted playing games, or left early in bulk before the panelists finish, we hope to continue to improve that situation going forward so that people who are interested in the material get to see it and those who only go for the giveaways do not find it worth their time.
The panels have come a long way since Celebration I when we were standing in an open air tent in the mud with an audience of 20 watching us while waiting in line for other nearby events. I'm really excited that we were able to expand the scope at C6 and people are already very enthusiastic about how we'll top this again at CE2.
Gus
