Star Wars Celebration Chicago part 1

I have just gotten home from Celebration and it's time to start summarizing it. I will divide it into two parts, and also in order to give a bit more of a feel for what's going on in a Celebration I'm going to post everything I did, even if it was not costume related.

Anyway me, David and and Ingeli arrived in Chicago on Monday afternoon.

Packing just the essentials for a Celebration

This meant that we could spend Tuesday and Wednesday as tourists, while adjusting for the time difference. David went off with another friend on a roadtrip, but me and Ingeli did Chicago. On Tuesday we got guided around by my friend James, who's wife is from Chicago.

The tour included a view from the Hancock building, a boat tour on the river, deep dish pizza and the Bean.

I was really impressed with all the beautiful buildings in so many different architectural styles, so the boat trip was the real highlight of Chicago for me. I'm not as impressed with the pizza (sorry).

Thursday - Day 1 of Star Wars Celebration
Morning - woke up, had breakfast down in the small market in the lobby of the hotel, got dressed, and then went down to the lobby to hang around and see who else was there before the convention stated. We could see online that people had been in line since 6 am, but we were not interested in doing that.

13:00 Start of Celebration. we took the skybridge from the hotel to the convention centre, and we didn't have to stand in line at all before we got in. Once inside it was chaotic though. Thursday was a preview day,and with no panels swallowing some of the audience everyone was in the main exhibit hall trying to get their hands on merchandise.

This is a quarter of the main hall

 The main thing for me on Thursday was to meet up with people from The Force.Net's Jedi Council forums, which has been my internet home for more than 20 years now. As you can see I wore my Vintage Amidala coat together with a pair of pinstriped trousers for Thursday.

Most of the people at the meet-up.

 Then I had found out that there was going to be something called the "Hoojib hop" on Thursday, and  decded to tag along. Hoojibs come from an old Marvel comic in the early 1980's, they look like cute bunnies with an antenna. The hoojib hop was organized by the pod "Skywalking through Neverland".
Me and two of the pople from the JC went there, got our bunny ears with an antenna and then we hopped around the convention. Very dignified.

Me in my beautiful hoojib ears.

 I finish off Thursday by posting some random costumers that I saw on the floor.

For me the most important thing with Celebrations is meeting up with people and hang around with your "Star Wars family". On Thursday evening I hang around with Andrew and we ended up at the Swedish Collectors, since they were staying at the same hotel as us. I might have gotten home a lot later than planned.

Friday - Day two of Celebration
I knew way ahead that this was going to be a really stressful day, and it didn't help that I was tired from the night before.

8 - get up, have breakfast, then back to the hotel rum to get dressed as Enfys Nest.

This is from later in the day. I used a wig to get a better haircolour fo the early day, but I just wasn'happy with what it looked like, so I took it off and used my own hair midday. 

10:00 me and Andrew went to the arena to take our place at the overflow stage for the panel of Star Wars Episode IX. Ingeli also got a place in the overflow stage. After the panel was over, they had revealed the title of the film and showed the trailer twice, it was 12:15

12:20 I had a photo op time together with Erin Kellyman, the acress that portrayed Enfys Nest. I rushed there, and got in just before they stopped the photos. Unfortunatley that meant that I was sweaty, and with everything in disorder. The photo is really ugly, and I'm not going to show it. Erin Kellyman was really nice though, and helped me to at least unload my bags so I could get into the photo. Going way from the photo I also realized that while rushing there I must have collided with someone and one of my tabards, together with the shin blade on that side had been ripped off and were missing.

13:00 back to  the hotel. Get out of the costume, have a bathroom break and eat something for lunch.

14:30 I went to the location where there was going to be a group photo of Enfys Nest and other characters from the film Solo.

15:00 Group photo

Here is a close up of just the Enfys Nests, there was a group photo later on with this group, but I didn't have time to stay for that.

15:30 - The Music of The Phantom Menace with David Collins

I ran from the Solo photo to this panel. It was really interesting to hear him discuss the small details and variations of the music.

16:45 - straight after the panel I went into the line for the Making of Solo. I had thought that you needed to reserve a spot at the panel, but it was enough to just stand in line.

The line

This was one of the guys in the line.

17:30 - The Making of Solo.

19:00 - Back to the hotel, and being exhausted. I took a shower, and then me, David and Andrew simply had dinner at the hotel before I collapsed in bed at around 21:00