Some Early Celebration Europe 2023 Advice

 

Over the next few weeks I'm going to start updating this blog with a new 2023 hub and working on new guides for next year. But for those of you who want to get the jump on things I figured I'd do a quick post with the information we do have (and a little on what we can expect to be different from last time Celebration was in London).

Next year Star Wars Celebration is returning to London, and to the ExCeL Center where both Celebration Europe 2007 and 2016 were held.

This will be the first four day Celebration in Europe and will take place over the Easter weekend from Friday, April 7, to Monday, April 10.

Ticket sales haven't been announced yet (hopefully we should see them in the next month or two), so most of this will be focused on hotels and how things ran in 2016.

First quick note - ExCeL is card only for their food court/own vendors, so keep that in mind when deciding how much money to change.

Here are hotels next to ExCeL London:

Whilst the majority of these booked up the day Celebration Europe 2023 was announced, most should have more (and cheaper) rooms available via the official hotel block which is likely to go on sale an hour or so after tickets.

If you do want to book a hotel next to ExCeL right now, the Sunborn Yacht does have availability and it situated right outside the front door. The only catch is, whilst the room is refundable (so you can always cancel it if you get a block hotel), you do have to pay now.

A quick word of warning to anyone looking at hotels now, or through the hotel block when it goes on sale. The ExCeL Center is currently having an expansion built on the east side.

Construction of this expansion began this year and is due to complete in 2024, so it will likely be ongoing during Celebration Europe next year.

For Comic Con last month the east entrance was closed (except for accessibility, essentially a UK version of ADA) and the walkway alongside the center was also closed, so anyone staying in hotels on the east side had to take the rail one stop to the west entrance each day.

Now, there's a good chance that the exterior work may be complete and the entrance and walkway open again by next April, and I'll be paying close attention to October's Comic Con to see what the latest is there, but for convenience I'd say the west side hotels are a safer bet at the moment.

UPDATE - The east entrance remained closed for October's Comic Con.

Of course staying on site isn't the only option. The London underground makes it quick and easy to get to the ExceL Center from throughout the city, so if you can find a decent priced hotel near an underground station have a look and see what your route would be like. In fact, this might be a better option than staying onsite if you're planning on spending some time in the city as well as at Celebration.

The new Elizabeth line opened last month (at least partially, longer hours and Sunday travel are due later this year but in plenty of time for Celebration) and will be perfect for those heading to London for Celebration as it offers a direct underground route from Heathrow Airport to Custom House (ExCeL Center).

Some members of the excellent Celebration Discord group (invite here) found a hotel right outside Paddington underground that has availability for the Celebration weekend and, using the Elizabeth line, is just 30 minutes away from ExCeL. London has plenty of hotels, the only challenge will be finding a cheap rate over the holiday weekend.

UPDATE - According to Transport for London's planned closures page the Elizabeth Line will be closed for the Easter weekend. This is subject to change but for now the DLR is once again the best route if you're travelling in from the city.

Now, flashing back to 2016, here is how they set things up last time:

First thing, ExCeL London is big, but it's not Anaheim Convention Center or McCormick Place big. European Celebrations are, historically, smaller than the US events so the smaller venue hasn't been a factor. With next year being a full four day event it would suggest ReedPOP are expecting, or at least hoping, for a bigger event, so it will be interesting to see how the utilize the space.

In 2016 the main (first) floor housed the main show floor, Live Stage, Galaxy Stage, Behind the Scenes Stage (now Twin Suns), Droid Builders, Show Store, and autograph area. The ground level then housed the Celebration Stage and its queue area.

Will Call was situated in the main queue hall and opened Thursday afternoon (with Celebration being Friday to Sunday). This was the first event after 2015's overnight for The Force Awakens and the introduction of the wristband system so they ran things a little differently. At 8pm on Thursday the queue hall opened and remained open until the show closed on Sunday.

You could arrive at whatever time you wanted each morning. There was a small security checkpoint in the queue hall for those queueing overnight/arriving early in the morning. At some point each morning, when the main crowds started to arrive, this checkpoint closed and everyone entering was directed through a larger security hall (the big blank space in the top left of the map opposite the queue hall) then across the lobby and into the queue hall once through security. I think at this point they closed the east entrance until the queue moved to free flow but I can't be sure.

Once you were in the queue hall everyone was fairly spread out (room for sleeping bags, etc.), there were restrooms at the back of the hall and you were able to go to some of the food venues in the center (one restaurant stayed open all night and I swear they must have made a fortune that first night from the overnight line).

Wristbands were distributed at 6am for panels (you could get 2 Celebration Stage panel wristbands per day as long as they were available) and the Hasbro exclusive figure.

Honestly, you didn't need to queue over night. I'm glad I did it and a I made some fantastic friends and memories, but I know people arrived at 6am and still got Rogue One in the main room. As long as you were there when wristbands were given out you were good. You could also then choose to go back to your room for a shower or a few hours sleep if you wanted.

If you stayed you could then join the main queue for show floor. This line started spaced out but they would compress it as more people arrived and you got closed to show opening. At 10am they let each chute out in order of arrival and people would head to the show floor. Stage queues were only for the best seats as wristbands guaranteed entry (and the first day opened with Mark Hamill, Rogue One was the last panel of the day). The show floor queue split each morning as one hall had the ILMxLAB Trails of Tatooine experience and the other had the Show Store. This was the first year of Lightning Lane for the store but they were paper tickets with return times given out at the store entrance at the start of each day.

Honestly, I fully expect them to continue with the lottery system and online Lightning Lane, so most of the above is just for info on how it was done last time. One change from Chicago/Anaheim that I do expect is for the Celebration Stage to be cleared after each panel due to lower capacity. So I think non-lottery panels for that stage will likely end up with Lightning Lane Reservations similar to Galaxy and Twin Suns Stages this year.

Last one - in 2016 photo ops were done differently to any US Celebration or any other UK convention I've been to as they required each adult in the photo (not sure on children) to have bought a photo op. So if you wanted two adults in the picture you had to purchase two photos. You could then take two photos with the actor/do two poses. I've never seen this before or since so hopefully it won't be an issue next year.