Taking a Quick Look at D23 Expo
After last night's rumour that ReedPOP might be out and Disney's own team taking over Celebration 2019 I figured it was time to do a quick look at Disney's own Celebration, the D23 Expo.
Like attending a US Celebration, going to D23 is definitely on my bucket list. I'm a Disney kid at heart, I grew up on their films, I love their parks, I even have another blog dedicated to their musical Aladdin! It's definitely an event I want to go to one day.
Someone who's been to both may correct me on this, but looking at last year's event I'd say D23 falls somewhere between the European and US Celebrations in terms of scale. It's a 3 day event like Europe and the schedule doesn't seem quite as jam packed as Celebration can be, but I'd say the crowds are definitely more towards the US Celebration levels.
Like Celebration the schedule (which you can view here) is a mix of major panels, such as the Animation and Live Action film panels, panels dedicated to current and upcoming shows (such as Duck Tales, Tangled and Once Upon a Time) and more niche interests and anniversary panels. And you can bet I'd have been willing to line up over night for that Alan Menken concert!
Like Celebration you have vendors and exhibitors on the show floor, you could fill your weekend without ever attending a single panel and still not do it all. For Star Wars fans the obvious highlight last year was the Galaxy's Edge model, but the big kid in me would totally have joined the two hour plus line to dive into Scrooge McDuck's money vault!
But lets be honest, content was never really an issue for ReedPOP and isn't want most people are concerned about with this potential change.
Lets talk about organisation.
Firstly, if you've seen the news and are hoping this means an end to the over night queues for the biggest panels then I'm afraid you'll likely be disappointed.
Just like the last few Celebrations, D23 allows over night queues for its biggest panels. The official time for the line up was 10pm the night before for both Friday and Saturday but, just like with Celebration, fans queued up much earlier than this. There's a great thread over the on the Dis Boards that has updates from throughout the weekend, including that the Live Action panel line reached capacity at 4:30am and that, even though there was officially no overnighting allowed for Sunday, some fans chose to sleep outside the convention centre!
The big advantage that D23 had over Celebration last year was that the Anaheim Convention Centre kept the doors open so fans could arrive throughout the night rather than locking the doors at midnight, this meant there wasn't the monstrous Orlando style queue trying to gain entrance first thing in the morning on day one. However, Celebration Anaheim 2015 also had an overnight queue were the doors stayed open all night so this seems to be more about the venue rather than ReedPOP.
Just like ReedPOP, Disney isn't immune to organisational errors. Celebration Orlando had a bad first morning, with people at the front of the queue being put in the wrong place once they had their wristbands so, whilst they had guaranteed seating, they lost their place at the head of the queue. But that's nothing compared to a mix up at D23 where, in an error similar to the 2015 Revenge of the Sith 3D screening, 700-1000 people didn't get in to the Animation panel and were compensated with wristbands for guaranteed access to their choice of either the live action panel or Disney Parks panel.
And then there's the stores. Celebration has the show store. D23 has the Disney Store, the Disney Dream Store and Mickey's of Glendale, all featuring different items and daily exclusives. That's right, if you wanted certain exclusives you had to queue for the store(s) every single day and each store had a queue that rivalled the Celebration store.
Personally I hope Celebration doesn't go down this route. Three stores yes, spread out the crowd and hopefully reduce the wait, but please don't make it so you have to visit all the stores to buy different things, I can't see that helping.
It's not all bad though, like Celebration's Lightspeed Pass you could get one Store Pass per day, giving you a dedicated half hour slot in your chosen store and there were no reports of crazy checkout queues so it seems once you got into the store it was a pretty smooth experience, but if you wanted some of the exclusives you either had to be a Sorcerer (the D23 equivalent of a Jedi Master badge at an eye watering $2250 each) with reserved seating and first access to the show floor or sacrifice the major panels to get to your chosen store as soon as the expo opened. To be fair that's not massively different to some of the Celebration exclusives, but Disney/D23 definitely seem to have a lot more limited edition exclusives than Celebration.
Since I've mentioned Sorcerer's lets stick with that for a moment. Like Celebration's Jedi Masters these badges are like gold dust, giving the wearer reserved seating in Hall D23, Stage 23 and Stage 28. Like Jedi Masters, Sorcerer's get their own entrance to the Expo each morning (though unlike Jedi Masters, this isn't half an hour, it was just first entry, sometimes only by a few minutes), their own lounge and meet and greets with special guests. Like Jedi Masters, they get access to the show stores the night before but in addition to this they also get a pre-Expo tour of the show floor and select exhibits the day before as well. There's a welcome reception the evening before the Expo and a "Fond Farewell" on the final day. On arrival they also receive an exclusive gift pack (presumably including stuff similar to Jedi Master benefits like shirts, prints and show guides) but they also receive a limited edition D23 American Tourister boarding bag and a voucher for an on site massage therapist.
Like with Jedi Master a big appeal is being able to get a good night's sleep knowing you have a dedicated entrance and reserved seating for the panels. But Jedi Master's last year were $700, Sorcerer's were $2250. That's over 3 times as much for an event that's a day shorter. I love Disney and I love Star Wars but yikes! They definitely get some cool benefits but that's way out of my league. One thing I have seen commented on, more after 2015 but a bit after 2017, is that some Sorcerer's are there purely for the exclusive merchandise (some of the early morning/over night fans too). Seeing what it can go for I can't say I'm surprised, if you shopped smart you could actually cover the cost of your Sorcerer ticket and still make it to all the big panels with your reserved seating. At least you could with 2015's merchandise, I know because I bought a few of the exclusives off eBay (R4-D23!!), I didn't really look at it last year.
Autographs. This one is tough because, yes by all accounts it was absolute chaos at Celebration 2017 but it was run by Topps not ReedPOP. And at D23 it seems like it was no better. In fact reading some comments in that Dis Boards thread it was actually worse. It seems like there was a mix of free signings and signings with specially purchased merchandise. Both were extremely limited and it sounds like in some cases (Brad Bird's Incredibles 2 signing being noted as one of them) wristbands were given out completely randomly rather than at a set time and place so some fans walked up and got one whilst others waited hours and didn't. To be honest I imagine the signings and photo ops will be more like they were at Celebrations but maybe with a different company than Topps running things.
And finally, wristbands.
I know this was a big issue for some people at Celebration Orlando and people seem split on whether it was a great time saver that freed up their convention time or the worst thing to happen to Celebration since the overnight queue. Personally I fall into the first category. At Celebration Europe, where it was first introduced, I loved being able to get all my real queuing done before the show floor opened. After that I only needed to queue longer if I wanted a better seat. It freed up so much time to enjoy the show floor and I never had to stand in line for hours wondering if I was even going to get in the room.
D23 does things a little differently. They have StagePasses. These are basically like the old paper FastPass they used to have at Walt Disney World before they switched to the app. For selected panels at the D23 Expo Arena, Stage 28 and the Disney Archives Stage (NOT the D23 Stage where all the main panels were held, for those you had to queue up the old fashioned way) you could visit the StagePass distribution centre in the main hall and select a StagePass for guaranteed seating at that panel. Only one at a time and you'd have to queue at separate times for morning and afternoon panels. They don't fill the panels with StagePasses so there is a general admittance line as well.
It's not a bad system, and it's certainly preferable to having to queue for everything, but I still think I prefer Celebration's method. If I'm queuing overnight for the main panel anyway I'd rather get my other wristband/StagePass at the same time rather than queue again later in the day.
Hopefully this post hasn't seemed too negative. My main aim was to look at D23 in the same light as Celebration, to look at the flaws that people are hoping the move to Disney will fix. It's about setting realistic expectations. At the end of the day both D23 and Star Wars Celebration attract tens of thousands of people. There will be queues and you most likely won't get in to every panel that you want to. To get the most out of these events you have to plan ahead and know what to expect. Hopefully this blog will offer some information to help with that.
Let's end on a real positive. For all that I have posted above the overwhelming consensus is that D23 2017 was a big improvement over 2015. If they can continue that improvement next year and take the best of Celebration and the best of D23 we'll have one incredible event next year!
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