Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2E10: Proactively Planning Panels for Celebration
21 Plays24 days ago
Hey Shorttroopers, don't freak out when my voice is garbled at the beginning of this. I'm doing a test run of my portable podcasting system that I'm bringing to Tokyo! Meanwhile, keep listening and hear my woes scheduling the premium panels. It's a bit of a rant, but you'll enjoy it!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Event Plans
00:00:04
Bob Gerard
Our work celebration was just a couple weeks ago, and we're getting ready. Join us.
00:00:18
Bob Gerard
Hello and welcome back to Short for a Stormtrooper, a 15-minute Star Wars podcast. I am Bob Gerrard. I am your host. And I'm trying something a little bit new today because I am getting ready not just to go to Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, Japan, but also to be bringing you all as close as we can make it daily updates from the show. So it's like a 90% promise. You just never know what technology and things like that, if things are actually going to work, but this is the plan.
00:00:52
Bob Gerard
We'll be right back.
Recording on the Go with Zencastr
00:00:56
Bob Gerard
myself my sister julie and my nephew pete and then on the last day we may even bring in konicco and the little kids to talk about our whole experience at star wars celebration we'll see how that goes but what i'm trying new today is i am literally recording this all on the fly, completely in the Zencastr platform, even with the theme music.
00:01:21
Bob Gerard
I'm checking that out to see how that is going to work because I would love to only have to bring my iPad or maybe even my phone to Japan as opposed to bringing my MacBook and my Big Mike and all of that kind of stuff. I will do that for you all if I have to.
00:01:40
Bob Gerard
but I'm hoping that we can maybe make it a little bit more convenient. So we're giving it a try today with this episode.
Significance of Major Panels
00:01:48
Bob Gerard
So, ah you know, a couple of weeks ago, I started talking about the different panels that were going to be available. And I wanted to come back to that topic. Last week, we kind of had the happy interruption of the Andor trailer coming out. And we had a fun conversation with Dana about that.
00:02:09
Bob Gerard
But we want to get back to talk about Celebration and the panels. And I wanted to share with you all a little bit of a story. so if you remember The main panels, every day at Star Wars Celebration, usually mid-morning or so, there is a a big panel, kind of a marquee panel.
00:02:31
Bob Gerard
And these are where the latest projects are getting spotlighted, where new projects wind up getting announced, You usually have senior executives from Lucasfilm there, stars of the shows.
00:02:45
Bob Gerard
Those are the ones that you really want to make sure that you are at and that you can see. And what they do is they have one room where, you know and by room, I mean a large auditorium.
00:02:58
Bob Gerard
They have one room where You can watch it live, where the room where it actually happens. And then they have a couple other venues, large venues, where they stream it.
00:03:10
Bob Gerard
So, you know, it's kind of like being in an off-site live session. You're seeing it while it happens, but you're watching it on a video screen with a whole bunch of people. Not quite as good, but still reasonably good.
Live Stage and Content Leaks
00:03:23
Bob Gerard
And then sometimes, depending on what it is, they will show the this panel out at the Star Wars show live stage.
00:03:38
Bob Gerard
Now, I'm in a detour there a second. I realize I'm kind of bouncing all over, but bear with me. The star wars tour Star Wars show live stage is one of the highlights of Celebration. It's one of the coolest things.
00:03:51
Bob Gerard
Star Wars show, if you remember, used to be a weekly YouTube-based show that Lucasfilm put together. Really fun, ah hosted by some really, really cool people.
00:04:03
Bob Gerard
And ah they always do live shows at Celebration. So what tends to happen is on the Star Wars show live stage, you know, it's right there on the on the show floor amongst all the vendors and things like that. They've got a big stage and the stars will come out. So they'll go do the big panel, but then they will come out one-on-one or maybe one-on-two and be interviewed. And that is a really cool place to hang out at Star Wars Celebration.
00:04:32
Bob Gerard
Anyway, Sometimes on the screens around that stage, they also stream it. I think a lot of that depends on whether whatever they're going to show you in the big panels, whether they are really afraid that people are going to capture it and post it out on the internet.
00:04:50
Bob Gerard
They have a little bit more control of that in these you know big rooms, these big auditoriums, not quite so much when you've got thousands of people out on the show floor. I think that's kind of the philosophy.
00:05:02
Bob Gerard
So anyway, That's kind of the layout for how these things happen.
Overview of Key Panels
00:05:07
Bob Gerard
There are three big panels this year. The first one on Friday is about Mandalorian and Grogu, about the new movie.
00:05:16
Bob Gerard
The one on Saturday... is about Andor. And actually I misspoke. There's two on Saturday. One is about Andor season two. One is about Ahsoka, presumably season two.
00:05:30
Bob Gerard
The reason why I only thought of one is because you couldn't sign up for both of them. You had to pick one, one or the other. that you could sign up for. And then the last day is about the next season. I think it's season three of star Wars visions. You know, the, the anime inspired star Wars animation show, which makes sense that we're talking about that because we're in Japan.
Panel Reservation Frustrations
00:05:53
Bob Gerard
So that's the layout. I was hoping to get to the Mandalorian and Grogu. i was hoping to get to Andor. I was gonna pick Andor over Ahsoka because I'm really hoping that we get to see the first episode, maybe even the first two or three episodes of Andor live as part of that panel with a big group.
00:06:15
Bob Gerard
Also, we'll probably get a really cool handout, probably a poster of season two, which I would like to collect. And then hoping to get to the Star Wars Visions panel as well.
00:06:26
Bob Gerard
Well, here is how the panel reservation system works is just this last Tuesday. So just about a week ago, panel reservations opened up and it was set for ah set time. It was 4 p.m. Pacific time.
00:06:46
Bob Gerard
And The way this worked was you logged in so shortly before 4 p.m. Pacific to me at a specific site. You would log in and it would tell you you are waiting in the queue.
00:07:02
Bob Gerard
And then at four o'clock when the queue opens, all the people who are in this waiting room get assigned random positions in a virtual queue.
00:07:13
Bob Gerard
And it goes one by one. And when your turn comes up, it is time for you to make your reservations. Now, here's the freedom and the restriction that you had this year.
00:07:29
Bob Gerard
And all of this is a little bit nuts. The freedom is once you got in there. You could reserve a ticket for each of those panels.
00:07:40
Bob Gerard
So, you know if you were the first one in there, you could pick the Mandalorian and Grogu on Friday. You could take your choice between Andor and Ahsoka on Saturday. And you could pick the Star Wars Visions panel on Sunday. You could go ahead and get three.
00:07:55
Bob Gerard
And you could pick the ah to be in the main room if you were first in line. If you were a little bit later in line, then maybe the live room was sold out, but you could still go ahead and get into one of the streaming rooms. But again, you could go ahead and pick all three until those started selling out.
00:08:13
Bob Gerard
And then your choices were more limited. So that was the freedom is once you got to the top of the queue, you could pick whatever you wanted. The restriction was you couldn't do it for your friends or your family that you were with. You could only do it for yourself.
00:08:31
Bob Gerard
So if it's a married couple going in they would individually need to go through this this process. Maybe one of them got into the main room for Mandalorian and the other one got into a streaming room and they couldn't sit together. Or maybe the other one couldn't get in at all.
00:08:48
Bob Gerard
So people in general are not happy about this. Right. So we're kind of going in a little bit bad. Well, when this process started and you've probably been through a similar experience because most of the people who listen to this podcast, I think, are also the people who try to buy new game consoles like new PS5s, you know, when they're first released or try to get tickets for big concerts or things like that.
00:09:15
Bob Gerard
You know, this deal with the virtual queue And you get the screen. It's got the little running man. He tells you where you are in line. And so, you know, there's 1800 people in front of you. It gives you a time estimate.
00:09:27
Bob Gerard
With this, there was no little running man. It just said you're in the virtual queue. So there was no feedback on where we were. So I'm sitting here.
00:09:38
Bob Gerard
Pete is sitting here. Julie is sitting here. but we're not sitting here. We're all separate. They're back at their homes in Chicago. I'm here in l LA, but we're staying in touch via text and none of us are getting in. Meanwhile, I'm looking at the Facebook ah group for Star Wars Celebration. I'm seeing people start to post, oh, I got into this. I got into that. I got into everything I wanted. Oh, I'm so excited.
00:10:02
Bob Gerard
We're sitting here just completely out. out Don't have anything. Well, ah we found out that everything was sold out except for Saturday, for those two events on Saturday. So Julie said, I'm out because she didn't get a ticket for the conference on Saturday, which was a total bummer.
00:10:24
Bob Gerard
Pete and I were just about to give up. We were literally just about to hang up when all of a sudden it popped up and it turned out that we were both able to get into the same streaming room for and or season two, which is the one I probably wanted the most.
00:10:40
Bob Gerard
So not quite as cool as being in the big room. Happy that we're going to be able to see it and that we're going to be able to see it together. That's great. But here's my editorial comment. This is an open letter to Disney and to Lucasfilm.
00:10:57
Bob Gerard
Every year with Star Wars Celebration, there are snafus like this. The company that you outsource to run these conventions, I feel like they cut corners.
00:11:09
Bob Gerard
They're working on Bargain Basement. software, things like this happen all of the time. And it's not good. It's very frustrating. So you've got a lot of very happy fans. You've got even more really frustrated fans who are spending a lot of money and time to come all the way to Japan for this conference.
00:11:32
Bob Gerard
And they're completely shut out while other people are able to see everything that they want. And it's just luck of the draw.
Critique of Event Management
00:11:39
Bob Gerard
And there's no feedback on how it's happening. It's really frustrating. And I really beg Disney and Lucasfilm, if any of y'all are listening to this, do something about the people who are running your celebrations because it's damaging your brand.
00:11:58
Bob Gerard
It's very frustrating. Now, I usually don't like to swing negative on this show. Sorry that I had to do it, but just wanted to fill you in on what was going on.
00:12:09
Bob Gerard
Here's some other good news, though, is after that day, when we wound up getting the conference that we wanted, we decided to take a look at Hotel reservations. So originally my hotel reservation was for a hotel that was a 30 minute tubebo tube ride away from the convention center.
00:12:29
Bob Gerard
We're like, let's look and see if we can get something closer. Sure enough, we were able to get a room at the hotel that is literally across the street from the convention center.
00:12:42
Bob Gerard
And i think what may have happened is that some fan who wound up getting shut out of all the panels said, I'm not going to bother going then and canceling their hotel reservation.
00:12:55
Bob Gerard
And I was able to snatch it up. I think that's what happened. I have no way to know, but I kind of think that's what happened. So a little bit of happy news there. Anyway,
00:13:06
Bob Gerard
Thank you for listening to me tell the story and the gripe. The good news is I'll be in the Andor room. I'll be able to tell you all about
Positive News and Listener Engagement
00:13:13
Bob Gerard
it. We will, of course, be going to a whole bunch of different panels.
00:13:18
Bob Gerard
Again, if you want to hop onto to our Discord, if you want to send me an email at sfaspod at gmail.com and let me know what are things you're interested in? What are things you would like me to look at?
00:13:32
Bob Gerard
I might even, if there's merch that you really want me to buy, depending on how good of a friend of mine you are, maybe I will go ahead and get that for you. Drop me a note and let me know what you're thinking.
00:13:44
Bob Gerard
Would love to help you with that. So we are coming up on 15 minutes now. So bear with me while I try this. I'm going to go ahead and start.
00:13:56
Bob Gerard
the outro music again. Thank you so much for being part of short for a storm trooper. ah We're also getting ready some cool things. We're getting some stickers made for the podcast. We're getting some t-shirts made.
00:14:12
Bob Gerard
We're going to be giving those out at celebration and we are hoping to maybe be able to make those available to you as well. So again, Make sure that you're liking the podcast. Make sure you're reviewing it. Make sure that you're leaving comments. That helps the algorithm so much.
00:14:29
Bob Gerard
There's the music. She's singing. I didn't time it out very well, but bear with me. Keep plugging in and keep promoting us to all your friends. Love having you here. May the force be with you. We'll see you soon.
00:14:42
Bob Gerard
Bye-bye.
00:14:51
Bob Gerard
Okay, I messed that up. Bye, everybody.