#reepop #lucasfilm #disney

ReedPop,

You have given a black eye to Lucasfilm, Disney, Orlando, Star Wars Celebration and Orange County.

I personally experienced this at Star Wars Celebration Orlando. I waited in lines over night on Wednesday and Thursday. I was not able to get into the live stage for either of those panels on Thursday and Friday, 40th Anniversary and The Last Jedi Panel.

On Thursday morning I waited in line 3 hours to get back into the building after returning my folding chair back to my vehicle at the back of the convention center. This was unnecessary. I have gone to many events at this venue over the last 20 years and I have never seen anything as foolish as what was done that Thursday morning. It didn’t have to be that way. I am not sure if someone actually got hurt or if the social media outrage caused it, but it was fixed the next day.

Reedpop did similar for Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim in 2015, though on a smaller more trivial scale. I complained then too as I was in attendance there. When the convention starts for the day the attendees should be allowed in the building. I remember being corralled outside the Anaheim convention center after the con opened back in 2015. Reedpop should have learned then.

What they did with that 3 hour line that was at a mile long was dangerous. It was outside in the hot Florida sun (luckily the weather had been mild. If it had been a hot day I imagine many would have been injured), There were no bathrooms outside, no portable toilets. People were waiting in the night time as well, in dark areas next to forested areas. The situation was harmful to fans. We came to the event to have fun but to have it mismanaged to a dangerous level is unacceptable. The lack of regard for our safety and welfare was unacceptable.

The Orange County Deputies I talked with at event knew this was wrong. I would think that the convention center staff would know that lining people OUTSIDE THE BUILDING was a bad idea. The people I talked to seemed to think that the people running the show were responsible.

The shame of it is that it seems that the size and capacity of the Orange County Convention center was wasted. The main stage, the Galaxy Stage that was in the Valencia ball room seemed to be configured for roughly half of what it could fill. It should be able to seat 6000 people. Failing that the exhibition floor could be configured to hold tens of thousands of seats.

This waste of the venue’s space was value lost for us the attendees. People come from all over the world, use vacation time, pay for hotels and travel and have to SLEEP ON THE FLOOR to get into a panel? The panels should be available to all or most or at least to more than 1/10th of the attendees. I spent the night on Wednesday and Thursday and did not get into either live stage panel. The 3 hour line on Thursday negated my access band for the celebration stage. I barely got into the celebration stage on Friday morning. Tens of thousands of other attendees didn’t even have a chance to enjoy these. That is not right.

What seemed to cause a lot of the line issues was the added security. That first day Reedpop funneled all of us through one entrance and metal detectors. Unfortunately a lot of the time it was security theater. They didn’t really check bags at some points and waved us through, presumably because the lines were too long.

Another chronic issue was that no one checked badges. At least not often. My badge was scrutinized perhaps one time out of 50. Which brings up another issue. The 4 day passes sold out months ago. I was purchased 4 one day passes. It was much more expensive. Why would sell out of 4 day passes when you could not possibly sell out the OCCC? With all the passes pre-sold Reedpop had to have an idea of how large the crowds would be and should have adjusted. As it was the presence of Reedpop staff was not felt. In the overnight lines they disappeared and when the lines began to move in the morning there was chaos because there was not continuity of service. They didn’t know what direction the lines went.

Other issues: The vendor area seemed light. There seemed to be very few mom and pop stores. You would think there would be more light saber vendors. The floor seemed empty.

I didn’t even try the official store. The lines there seemed unreasonable and nightmarish. At Star Wars Celebration 5 the official store was open until late in the evening(11pm , if I remember correctly) and the first few days I hardly seemed to notice any problems there.

I still had a great time despite Redpop’s failures. It was a struggle to get out of the frustration of that first day and get back into fun mode, but I did.

-Attendee