The Star Wars Celebration Autograph Debacle! Being Told I’d Have To Wait Three Days! No Refunds! And The Stars Couldn’t Be Nice? Wha?
I know it’s taken me a while to write this up, but I figured it was best to let my temper simmer down a bit.
At Star Wars Celebration, besides the convention floor and panels the other main draw was the autographs.
Now, I was warned that they might be long, and since we weren’t sure that we would be able to go I couldn’t pre-order my tickets.
When we arrived, they were not selling any tickets to Kenny Baker on site. I get it. He’s not doing well health wise, fine. We were disappointed but I get it.
I bought tickets to Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels and Peter Mayhew.
Peter was a doll. So nice, we whipped through his line no problem.
the others, we had to wait until our number was up. I thought this would be fine, come back after lunch and get it taken care of.
Well… I was wrong.
We kept checking back and none of the numbers even moved on the signs. I was like, what the hell?
We went over to the autograph booth where they sold the tickets and they told us to talk to the guy in charge of Mark’s line. Fine.
What did he say? You can’t get in. The line is capped.
I was like, we have tickets we bought this morning. We were the fourth people in line so I know we have earlier numbers, when did these people get their tickets?
His reply… “Thursday.”
So, you had to wait three days to get an autograph? What is this Comic Con? And I have the privilege of paying $125 to do it?
We said, “We’re not here tomorrow.”
The guys reply. “We’re in the business of accommodating, not refunding.”
So, not only did they NOT accommodate people but they wouldn’t refund people either? What the hell, is that a way to treat your fans?
After some hell raising, it was clear we were getting nowhere. Susan was able to get into the Mark Hamill line, but we even got yelled at for trying to give her our posters! Plus, like Susan pointed out, we would have still lost the experience of watching our items get signed, saying a quick hello, etc…
To me, that’s super shitty. One of my friends at the Con said he waited two days to get Carrie Fisher. Come on, this isn’t the first time a convention like this has been put on. You have to be able to get a system in place beforehand.
As it was, everyone running the lines, directed us to someone else, who directed us to someone else, who shrugged and said, “I dunno.” It was like the people running the con had the brain power of a titmouse.
When I did get to meet someone, C-3PO himself Mr. Anthony Daniels, he apologized. Anthony was telling everyone in line, that “I’m very sorry but the people running this said I can’t be nice or write anything extra.”
Ummmm one of the main stars of your convention is being told he can’t be nice? WTF!
I told Anthony Daniels that I would much rather wait an extra few minutes for a great encounter. and he said, “Yes! See. I agree!” And he shook my hand and thanked me for coming.
R2 kept coming around, I think he knew I needed cheering up, but it wasn’t working.
Man, I have to tell you… It was more than disappointing to see how this was run and the major clusterfuck it all was. And the needlessness of it all. To be honest, it didn’t have to be that way. A little organization goes a long way, especially when fans are paying so much to meet their childhood heroes.
Did anyone else have the same issue? I would love to hear what everyone went through.
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I’m so glad someone did an article about the stupid way this whole thing was run. My wife and I waited for two days for Carrie Fisher. Those damn numbers never changed on the board. If they couldn’t get through so many people, don’t sell so many tickets! Morons!
So true, a lot of friends had the same issue. I can’t believe Anthony Daniels was telling people that. SMH
I see this was the 1st Celebration for you guys…lol
I have been to every US Celebration and here is the problem.
They had to stop selling tickets for Mark Hamil once they sold 2400…let that sink in for a moment. 2400 autographs in 4 days!!!
Mark can sign about 2-3 per minute depending on fan interaction.
Thats roughly 125 per hour ahd if he signs 6 hours per day he will get through 700.
The number system works the best. If ut was 1st come 1st serve people woulr line up overnight and that would be a waste of time.
The show offers a drop service for a skall charge so you dont have to wait in line for 3 hours either.
I preorder autograph tickets within a hour of it going live and my number for hamil was still not under 100. I bought those 2 months before the show and not the morning of.
This was my 1st Celebration and, like Daryl, I pre-ordered my autographs. Key word here is Pre-ordered….and I did that for all of the autographs I wanted (which was about 6-7).
Their number system is actually quite simple, fair and well done (and I’ll use Daryl’s example of Mark Hamil). On Day 1, they may start with 000-200 for the first 2-3 hours, then move it to 000-500 over the next few hours, then to 000-700 by the end of Day 1. That’s usually the system for all the BIG stars and they usually have their own ticket and numbers (usually for cheaper ones, though, there are no numbered tickets for them and you aggregate the general $10 tickets for whatever the amount…for example, Billy Dee Williams was $40….4 x $10 tickets, no individually numbered ticket).
On Day 2, they won’t start with number 700 for Hamil…they’ll start with 000-200 again. WHY would they do that?!?! If you bought multiple autograph tickets (especially for the big ones), there is NO WAY you could get them all in one day. Most likely, people with numbers 000-200 for Mark Hamil ALL did not get in line for him on Day 1…maybe MOST but not ALL. If it took him 2 hours to get through 000-200, on Day 2,…..if most of those 000-200 went through on Day 1, Day 2’s numbers will move up faster. Maybe by the end of Day 2, the board will read 000-1500.
If you have multiple tickets (and if you pre-ordered as soon as they went on sale), you’ll usually have lower numbers
To be quite honest, though, it really didn’t matter (for me at least). Out of the 4 days, I spent about 1/2 of each day in line for autographs…..but that’s because I was getting Mayhew, Hamil, Fisher, Daniels, Baker, Billy Dee, Bulloch (and Ray Park and Deep Roy for my kids). There was no way around having to wait in line no matter the system (Day 1’s 000-600 or Day 3’s 000-1500….those lines for the numbered tickets were always packed with whatever new numbers were up).
(As for Baker, there were selling on site for a while but then shut it off. Even in my pre-order online, it said Baker LIMITED. He didn’t show on Day 1….on Day 2, he didn’t show in the AM and, even those of us who had tix thought we might not get one, but he showed and only signed for a few hours….and that’s when they shut down the on-site sales). On Day 3, he was scheduled to appear in the AM and my bro and I got in line since we were in the posted line numbers. People were offering crazy trades….like 1 Hamil ($125) or 2 Daniels (~$130) for 1 Baker ($50).)
I didn’t know about selling 2400 tickets for Mark but I understand there has to be a cap. You might say “Well, just don’t sell as many tickets”. OK….but then you’ll end up paying MORE for an autograph. 2400 x $125 Hamil ticket = $300K. How much do you think they had to pay to get Hamil (and the others) for their appearance (fee, hotel, food, etc)? Sell 2000 tickets and you’d have to charge $150 to keep the same $300K.
I hope this helped for next time (although I think Disney will take the next US one to Florida then back to Anaheim to get traffic in their parks). I’d like to know if the San Diego ComiCon is similar since I’ve never been to that one and don’t know how their autograph sessions work.
So…wait…
1) You waited until literally the last minute to buy your tickets and then got upset that the people who ordered sooner took up the line? How would you feel if you preordered and someone got to go ahead of you simply because “they aren’t back tomorrow”?
2) Then you flip the coin and are also upset that they’re asking AD to limit his interaction as much as possible so they can get as many people through his line as possible…so that other people don’t end up in the same situation with him that you wound up in with Hamill…
And you don’t see the contradiction?
They can either try to get as many people through the line as possible or not. You’re simultaneously complaining that they’re not getting enough people through lines at a time & that they’re taking steps to get as many people through lines at a time.
And if they took your advice about “just selling less tickets”, you’d be complaining that they either weren’t selling autographs on site or that you were in the same position with tickets costing twice as much.
Preorders exist for a reason. Your lack of planning isn’t the fault of OP. For all the Celebrations in recent history, people waited by their computers and snagged the ones they wanted as soon as OP sends out the “Preorders are now live” email. Showing up on the day of wouldn’t put you ahead of them in line, nor should it.
Not to mention that I’m not sure what prevented you from asking when you bought the tickets what number they were on and when you might expect them to hit yours. Or simply checking out the line situation before hitting the autograph ticket booth. Again: your lack of planning isn’t their problem.
And if Susan got into the capped line (not sure how that’s possible if the line was truly “capped”) on the basis of getting X number of autographs and you tried to multiply that exponentially after she was already in the line, I would’ve yelled at you too.
I normally don’t respond to comments on old posts, however…
While I’m not an event planner, but could do a hell of a lot better than Celebration, you’re saying that it’s MY fault that since Celebration sold too many tickets and couldn’t handle the people coming to the convention I should have planned things out better?
Ludicrous.
If you sell tickets on site, you, as a convention planner and promoter, should know how many people can get through a line. If you oversold on pre-orders… Don’t sell tickets on site. Done.
No, instead Celebration kept selling and selling that’s wrong and the fact that they wouldn’t offer refunds is beyond absurd.
They should have limited the amount of of pre-orders or not sold tickets on site at all. 99% of autograph shows and conventions you buy your tickets the morning of and are fine.
I guess I should have realized that the people at celebration are incompetent, and bought tickets a month in advance. I had no idea they were that incompetent, so I guess you live and learn.
I have learned not to deal with celebration.